Facebook Square problem and solution

Time to answer a facebook issue.  Sorry, not a political one, but a mathematical one!

There's a lot going around about how many squares are in this picture:

Now, I've seen a lot of answers, ranging from 21 to 42.  Here's the right answer, but first, lets go over a couple very important rules:

1.  You can only count squares inside this picture, no sides outside of the picture.

2.  All squares must have equal sides (judging by human eyes, none of this "there is no true square" stuff)

Okay, so here's how I counted it (thanks to MS Paint!)

First, the biggest square of all:

Sounds like a lot of people missed this in the count, but its a tricky one.  Next, let's add up the basic squares:

Now, some people may say "hey, some of those aren't really squares, they are L shapes!"  which you would be right, except the way I highlighted these by filling in black doesn't stop the four sides of the square to continue through those little ones.  So with the big one, and these 16 littler ones, we're at 17 total.  Let's check out some more squares here:

Each of these littlest ones add 4 to our count for a total of 25 (17+8).  We're not done there though.

We can't forget the two squares that make up those 8 littlest ones.  So now we're at 27 total squares.  Here's where I think a lot of people miss out on some hidden squares.

There's 3 squares that are 2x2 in the top row...

...three more in the middle row...

...and three more in the bottom row!  That brings our total count to 36!  But wait, there's 4 more here too!

And now you see the final four squares, measuring 3x3!  40 squares is what you get without overlapping.

Feel free to correct me if I forgot some I didn't overlap!

Summer Challenge: Review 1

Well, needless to say, my body hurts something amazing.

I really wasn't thinking clearly when I decided to do gym time to this degree.  Although, I'm sure by the end of summer, I won't feel so bad.  Now let's get on with the movie reviews.

First up is Ghostbusters 2.  We owned this movie on VHS when I was a kid, and it got watched a lot more than the original.  Not sure why, probably because we didn't own the original.

I still enjoy it, and it's got a lot of the humor I've grown to love in movies.  However, it's also lost some luster for me.  Probably because when I was watching this growing up, I wanted to be a Ghostbuster, and nowdays, I just want to play the game.  Kinda sad, really.

Aside from lost childhood dreams, it's still a gem in my book, and I would recommend it to anyone.

The next movie is Cars.  Let's be completely honest here.  Owen Wilson is a great voice actor, and I feel he really portrays the character of Lightning McQueen well.  all the other stars?  For some reason, they just come off sounding like themselves, and it pulls my imagination out of the movie.

It's not my favorite animation, but it's alright.  I probably would watch this movie about once every couple years because someone else wants to pop it in.  Me, I'll once again wave to it as it passes me on the road of life.

Next up for movie watching are two of my favorites, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and The Bourne Ultimatum.

See you next time!

My Summer Challenge

Well, it's summer...or so my sweat glands tell me so.  it's hot out, people are dressing with less and less everyday, and the giant burning ball of death is staying in our sky longer.

So what better way to celebrate than to challenge myself to another movie marathon.

Oh, you didn't hear about the first one?  That's a shame, but I shall retell the tale.

As everyone knows (or should know by now) I am a huge fan of two things.  First, Joss Whedon.  The man has such an awesome touch to everything he does, and his shows are among my favorites.  Second, the Marvel movies that have been coming out the past 10 years.  What can I say, aside from a few bad ones, they are all generally pleasing to my inner geek.

So when The Avengers was scheduled to come out, my lovely wife pointed out that our local theatre was doing an Ultimate Marvel Movie Marathon.  That event entailed Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor in 3D, Captain America in 3D, all leading up to the midnight release of The Avengers in 3D.  In total that's over 14 hours in the theatre.  14 glorious hours of movies and geekery.

So what's a person to do?  I bought two tickets, and took one of my closest friends, who was also available that day.  Neither of us had tried this before, and so we packed appropriately, dressed in layers, hired some street urchins to be our messengers and delivery boys for food, and packed in.

Needless to say, we survived.  It was tough (it's surprising how much sitting takes out of a man) but we made it through all the awesomeness and glory, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

But it left me with a hunger...a hunger for more events like this...

So now we're at the Summer Challenge.  This is my way of enjoying summer, and what a task it is!

Here are the rules I'm setting forth:

1.  Every day I watch a movie, I will spend time at the gym equal to the running time of the movie I will watch.

2.  I will watch them in order, without fast forwarding past boring, scary, confusing, or stupid parts.

3.  I will not buy or rent the DVDs to watch, instead, I must find them on Netflix (or anywhere else on the Internet) or borrow them from friends.

4.  I will review each one after watching it.  Here, on my blog.

5.  I will finish the entire list prior to the first day of Fall, which is September 22nd, 2012.

There you go.  The rules are set, now all I need is the list.  Thanks to Glenn Kenny, one has already been compiled for me.  Here's the list, in order:

50)  Ghostbusters 2
49)  Cars
48)  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
47)  The Bourne Ultimatum
46)  Conan the Barbarian
45)  Gremlins
44)  Friday the 13th
43)  Risky Business
42)  Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
41)  For Your Eyes Only
40)  Minority Report
39)  Ocean's Thirteen
38)  The Bourne Identity
37)  The Fifth Element
36)  You Only Live Twice
35)  Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
34)  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
33)  Toy Story 3
32)  Mission Impossible 2
31)  The Omega Man
30)  Tron
29)  Psycho
28)  The Shining
27)  Trading Places
26)  Predator
25)  War of the Worlds
24)  Mission Impossible
23)  Return of the Jedi
22)  Total Recall
21)  Coming to America
20)  The Road Warrior
19)  Top Gun
18)  Die Hard
17)  The Blues Brothers
16)  Independence Day
15)  Back to the Future
14)  Jurassic Park
13)  Aliens
12)  The Avengers
11)  Ghostbusters
10)  Terminator 2
9)  Animal House
8)  Raiders of the Lost Ark
7)  The Empire Strikes Back
6)  The Dark Knight
5)  Blade Runner
4)  E.T.
3)  Alien
2)  Jaws
1)  Star Wars A New Hope

Now, the only issue with this list is that by the time I get to #12, it will be out of the theatres, but not available on DVD or Blu-Ray before my deadline, but since I've seen it thrice, I think we can call that one watched...

So, dear Readers, will you join me on this indoor movie fest?  Maybe even just the exercise part?