March 31, 2011
The FBI remains puzzled by a 12-year-old murder mystery, but they're hoping you can help.
On June 30, 1999, the body of 41-year-old Ricky McCormick was discovered in a field in St. Louis, Missouri. The only clues found at the crime scene were two encrypted notes discovered in the victim's pants pockets. But expert cryptanalysts have failed crack to the killer's code and thus the murder has yet to be solved.
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Photo credit: FBI
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Can you decode the newly-released notes above and help the FBI solve this real-life murder mystery?
> Read more on this story here
March 30, 2011
See what you'd look like as a character made out of clay! Try the Clay Yourself machine
Here's mine . . .
(via Presurfer)
Today we celebrate a good quality Number 2 . . .
March 30 is National Pencil Day!
What did you think I meant?
I'm partial to the mechanical version, but this day honors
Hymen Lipman (that's really his name), who received a patent for his
wooden pencil with an attached eraser on March 30, 1858.
So put your keyboard/smartphone away and grab a sharpened pencil. And maybe a Scantron test sheet or two — oh, how I love those!
Did you know?
- In Middle English the word, spelled pencel, meant "artist's brush." It was borrowed from Old French pincel or peincel, related to Modern French peinture "painting." The French inherited the word from the Latin penicillus, for "little tail."
- In 1795, French chemist Nicholas Jacques Conte received a patent for the modern process for making pencil leads by mixing powdered graphite and clay to form sticks and hardening them in a furnace. The gradient of the pencil (No. 2 versus No. 2.5) is based on the amount of clay initially added to the mixture.
- The emergence of Siberian graphite as the standard led manufacturers to associate pencils with the Orient by using names such as Mongol and Mikado and painting them yellow, a color associated with royalty and respect in China.
- An average-sized tree makes about 170,000 pencils. The average pencil can draw a line 35 miles long, or write about 45,000 words.
> Read more fun facts about pencils
Here's a clip from
The Science Channel's How It's Made that gets right to the point about how pencils are manufactured...
Watch as artist Duane Keiser creatively unpeels a tangerine — using oil paint and a brush.
Hey movie buffs and a math geeks!
Test your film knowledge and math skills on this 3-part quiz, courtesy of Spiked Math. Answers are at the bottom, so scroll to the end and find out how well you did.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
ANSWER KEY
PART ONE
1. The Matrix (1999)
2. Signs (2002)
3. Ball of Fire (1941)
4. Duck Soup (1933)
5. Cross of Iron (1977)
6. The Social Network (2010)
7. Sin City (2005)
8. Heat (1995)
9. Goldeneye (1995)
10. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
PART TWO
1. Snakes on a Plane (2006)
2. Independence Day (1996)
3. Mean Girls (2004)
4. Paths of Glory (1957)
5. 8 Mile (2002)
6. The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
7. Field of Dreams (1989)
8. Alpha and Omega (2010)
9. The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
10. The Sum of All Fears (2002)
PART THREE
1. Manhattan (1979)
2. Joan of Arc (1999)
3. Open Range (2003)
4. Inception (2010)
5. The Odd Couple (1968)
6. In the Loop (2009)
7. Star Wars (1977)
8. The Exorcist (1973)
9. Transformers (2007)
10. Absolute Power (1997)
Here's the solution to last week's
NPR Sunday Puzzle (March 20):
Answer: Scott Simon and nuclear power
NPR Sunday Puzzle for March 27: Take the word "calm" and flip the letters A and L to get "clam." Take the last name of a film director known for using profanity, and flip two pairs of letters in place to get a word used as a substitute for profanity. Who's the director, and what's the word?
Submit your answer to NPR for a chance to be on next week's broadcast and be sure to
visit Jenny's Noodle next Sunday to see the correct answer!
March 21, 2011
Happy 5th Birthday, Twitter!
Five years ago today, the first tweet ("just setting up my twttr") was posted by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. The social media platform has since changed the way we communicate, connecting everyone from celebrities to government leaders — in 140 characters or less. It's estimated that we send 140 million tweets per day, making Twitter an invaluable part of our daily lives.
> Celebrate this momentous occasion by following @JennysNoodle on Twitter!
March 20, 2011
Here's the solution to last week's
NPR Sunday Puzzle (March 13):
Answer: Midge → Mitch
NPR Sunday Puzzle for March 20: Take the phrase "consumer protection laws," and rearrange the letters to name a person in broadcasting and an issue of public debate. Hints: The name of the person in broadcasting has five letters in the first name and five letters in the last name. For the issue of public debate, it's a familiar two-word phrase with seven letters in the first word and five letters in the second. What name and phrase are these?
Submit your answer to NPR for a chance to be on next week's broadcast and be sure to
visit Jenny's Noodle next Sunday to see the correct answer!
March 18, 2011
Reminds me of these Family Guy episodes — "Ah! Ah! He said it! He said it!"
(via The High Definite)
Heading out to the local pub tonight, or perhaps you've already been there since 7am?
Get even more into the
St. Patrick's Day spirit and
annoy entertain your
drunk friends in between Irish Car Bombs and pitchers of green beer — introduce yourself under your new leprechaun alias.
For example:
"Top 'o the evenin' to ya! You can call me Fluffernutter O'Donnell!"
Fun right? It will be...up until someone proceeds to vomit on your shoes.
> Visit the Leprechaun Name Generator
March 15, 2011
Edited by
Ian Albinson, this terrific video montage was produced for the
SXSW “Excellence in Title Design” competition screening.
> For the full index of movie and TV show titles visit ArtOfTheTitle on Vimeo
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| Photo credit: CBS News |
Happy Pi Day!
Every March 14 (aka 3.14), we embrace the *irrational* (see what I did there), by
celebrating the Greek letter Pi (π) — the symbol for the ratio of the
circumference of a circle to its diameter.
Thanks to technology, Pi has been calculated to over 1 trillion digits past the decimal, or:
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280
348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385
211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461...and that's quite enough of that.
The Pi Day Challenge was created by a team of math geeks for those of us who love logic-based puzzles.
> Take the 2011 Pi Day Challenge
March 13, 2011
Here's the solution to last week's
NPR Sunday Puzzle (March 6):
Answer: Stone Age → Stage One
NPR Sunday Puzzle for March 13: Think of a five-letter girl's name that ends in a "J" sound. Change that to a CH sound to get a five-letter boy's name. What names are these?
Submit your answer to NPR for a chance to be on next week's broadcast and be sure to
visit Jenny's Noodle next Sunday to see the correct answer!
March 12, 2011
At 2am on Sunday it will be 3am — I'm tired just thinking about it.
March 10, 2011
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| Photo credit: Fabio Milito |
Universal wrapping paper is a genius idea! Just find the respective occasion — Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Congratulations, etc. — and circle it in the
word search puzzle.
Wish I could *find* this in real life.
(via TheDieLine)
March 9, 2011
Cadbury — makers of those
famous candy Creme Eggs (which frankly I've never tried because I'm somehow convinced that they actually taste like raw egg) — launched
a fun little internet game, just in time for Easter. Simply type any address into the blank field, click to launch the Cad-apult and SPLAT! "Goo" any address on the planet.
> Play the Cadbury Cad-apult
March 8, 2011
It's You vs. the Computer in
this hi-tech game of rock-paper-scissors.
Computers mimic human reasoning by building on simple rules and statistical averages. Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating basic artificial intelligence.
A truly random game of rock-paper-scissors would result in a statistical tie with each player winning, tying and losing one-third of the time. However, people are not truly random and thus can be studied and analyzed. While this computer won't win all rounds, over time it can exploit a person's tendencies and patterns to gain an advantage over its opponent. —The New York Times
I didn't do so well, but then again, I didn't waste much time trying.
Play it here
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| Photo credit: Wikipedia |
Happy Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday/Paczki Day!
What's
a paczki? If you don't live in an area with a large Polish community (Detroit, Boston, Cleveland), you may be wondering. Paczki (pronounced poonch-key) are
doughnut-like pastries, typically filled with jelly or Bavarian cream, and sometimes glazed.
Paczki Day is celebrated on Fat Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday) because the ingredients — lard, sugar, eggs, fruit, etc — were traditionally forbidden from being consumed during Lent.
But beware! As delicious-looking as they are, these Polish treats are
notoriously unhealthy — each paczki is estimated to be a whopping 400 calories and 25 grams of fat! So although they invaded my office this morning, I stayed far away.
March 7, 2011
Carl Frederickson's famous flying house is real! Well almost. A lightweight version of the colorful abode from
Disney/Pixar’s Oscar-winning film Up has been recreated for an upcoming television show.
How Hard Can it Be? will premiere this fall on
National Geographic and feature an episode during which engineers build and fly the
Up house.
Watch as 300 giant 8-foot colored balloons lift the 16' x 18' house high into the air:
(via Inside the Magic)
Grab the
milk carton and pour a bowl of your favorite cereal —
March 7 is National Cereal Day!
The food holiday is meant to celebrate
Dr. John Kellogg, who
served the first bowl of corn flakes on March 7, 1897. Kellogg believed that a strict diet would benefit patients at his sanitarium (a term he coined) in Battle Creek, Michigan. The corn flakes were given to the patients, but at that time the breakfast cereal was sugarless (and nearly tasteless). John's brother, Will, eventually added sugar to the cereal, an act which violated his brother's strict guidelines for a healthy diet — a family feud began. Will eventually won the legal battle and went on to
market the cereal to the masses.
Let us pause now, and remember
these 54 cereals we loved and lost...
March 6, 2011
Here's the solution to last week's
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb. 27):
Answer: Marsha → Martha
NPR Sunday Puzzle for March 6: Think of a two-word phrase that means a time long ago. Move the third, fourth and fifth letters to the end of the phrase, without rearranging those three letters, to get a new two-word phrase that means the beginning. What phrases are these?
Submit your answer to NPR for a chance to be on next week's broadcast and be sure to
visit Jenny's Noodle next Sunday to see the correct answer!
March 4, 2011
What's
your first name? Do you know what it means? Well, today is the day to find out...
March 4 is Learn What Your Name Means Day!
Jennifer is of Welsh origin and means "white wave."
> Find out what your name means here
(via Punchbowl)
March 2, 2011
Who's totally sick of Charlie Sheen? Me! Me! I am! Do we care that he now has an official Twitter account from which he can continue "winning" in his mind only? NO! Ok, so we need a new meme, right? YES!
Hey, y'all! I've discovered a meme we can all enjoy — Paula Deen Riding Things. Does it make any sense? Absolutely not! Do we care? No! Because it's brilliant fun! It's like a stick of butter! I have no idea what that means, but here are just a few gems:
> See many, many more here
In a world of 7 billion people, are you typical? According to
National Geographic, the typical person is a 28-year-old
Han Chinese man. If that's the case, I guess I'm pretty unique! Tell me something I don't know, NatGeo.
(via THD)
March 1, 2011
If you've ever bought a Prad
o purse on
Canal Street, because it's the closest you'll ever get to the real thing, brace yourself. The
Guinness Book of World Records has named the
1001 Nights Diamond Purse the most expensive handbag on the planet.
Ten artisans worked for a period of four months and an incredible 1,100 hours to construct this beauty. Valued at $3.8 million, the
handcrafted heart-shaped purse is encrusted with more than 4,517 diamonds.
A bit extravagant for something that will essentially tote around your keys, lip gloss and a cell phone, no?
(via TODAYshow.com)
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March 31, 2011
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