Enjoyable questions and problems

  We have many flowering plants like Hibiscus in our balcony. A net prevents pigeons coming into the balcony. We were surprised by small birds that sneak in through the net. They love to suck nectar from the Hibiscus flowers. The most interesting birds are the bulbuls, which are a bit like the North American Mockingbird. In fact, a pair of bulbuls were bold enough to weave a beautiful nest on the branches of our red Hibiscus plant. The nest looked like a basket that could fit into the palm of my hand. The bulbuls must have felt safe in our balcony. It is a quiet place which is empty most of the time. We leave a small plastic plate in the balcony with pieces of fruit for the bulbuls every day. We also leave a plastic plate with water near the food. Bulbuls like only soft and sweet fruits like papayas. They will eat banana if they have no choice. They find Guava hard to eat and will touch them only if nothing else is there. Bulbuls have good eyesight. They sit on tree branches in the...

         Image created at my request by Microsoft Copilot  Sumi’s grandpa is very fussy about his food and drink. Recently he came to visit the family. At breakfast, he would not have coffee but asked for a glass of buttermilk. Sumi asked him if she should add salt to it. He said, “yes, but only 100 milligrams; no more!” Sumi scratched her head and remembered what she had learnt at the chemistry lab. There are a thousand milligrams in a gram. So, what grandpa wanted was one-tenth of a gram of salt. How do you measure it? If you try to weigh small of amounts of salt like that, the scale show zero as the weight! The kitchen scale weighed three grams accurately, but that is thirty times what grandpa wanted. So, Sumi took ninety grams of water in a glass and stirred 3-gram salt into it. It took a bit of time to dissolve completely. Then Sumi took three grams out of the water with salt and add added it to the buttermilk. Here Grandpa! You have a glass of butte...

  This is the self-portrait ChatGPT-5 painted for me Can you solve puzzles as well as ChatGPT-5? I gave it a problem, and he told me he would reword the problem as a puzzle to make it enjoyable. Here is his version of the problem: The Birthday Picnic Mystery   🎂🪁 One sunny afternoon, three siblings — A, the kite ‑ flyer, B, the whistler, and C, the master cake ‑ baker — were helping their parents pack for a picnic. While they worked, their mom smiled and said: I have just noticed something curious. Between the three of you, your total age is 20 years. C, you’re the oldest. You’re 4 years older than A, and 3 years older than B. Can you figure out exactly how old each of you is? The three looked at each other, grinned, and started scribbling in a notebook... 👉 Can you solve the problem before I tell you Chatty's answer on Monday, August 18? You can read the answer here any day after August 15. Srinivasan Ramani 

🌦️ The Bird That Brings the Rain: A Chat with AI Hi kids! Have you ever wanted to talk to a robot? I did—and guess what we talked about? A magical little bird that travels across the world to sing when the rain comes! Let me tell you how it went. AI means Artificial Intelligence.  🤖 Me: Hey AI, is there really a bird that flies from Africa to India just to sing? AI: Yes there is! It’s called the Pied Cuckoo , but some people call it the Rain Bird . It’s like a tiny traveler on a big adventure! 🚀 Me: But Africa is soooo far away! How can a small bird fly that far? AI: Great question! The Pied Cuckoo travels over 5,000 kilometers , crossing oceans and lands— with no pit stops! That’s like flying all the way from Mumbai to Tokyo without ever landing. It’s super hard! 🏋️ Me: Does it lose weight while flying? AI: Yes, it does. The bird only weighs about 65 to 75 grams —like a snack bar! During such a long flight, it gets really tired and can lo...

  People have believed in imaginary Unicorns. They are supposed to be beautiful creatures looking like horses. Unlike horses, they have a single, spiralling horn on their foreheads. Stories tell us that Unicorns are kind, gentle, and very wise. Their horns can cure people who are sick and purify water. Scientists have found buried bones of large creatures resembling horses with a single horn on their foreheads. These bones are 30,000 years old. Can you imagine going camping in a wildlife park and seeing a few unicorns eating grass and playing? Would you like to write a story about this experience? Srinivasan Ramani

Photo Credit: The Hindu, 26-Oct-2020   This Dussehra brought me a surprise. Every year Hindus worship the tools that give them a livelihood. Carpenters, Tailors, Plumbers and Electricians are some of those who decorate their tools with flowers. Car owners and drivers put garlands on their cars. However, many followed an avoidable practice. They used to smash Ash Gourds, also called white pumpkins, in front of their cars. I believe that did this to avoid the effect of “the evil eye”! Some of us consider that a waste of food. We prefer people to donate Ash Gourds to the needy and avoid creating a mess in parking areas inside buildings and streets. Even though dozens of cars are parked here, I did not see even one Ash Gourd smashed on the ground in our housing complex this year.  Another step forward I saw was the goodies we got for the festive season: dry fruit laddus with low sugar, baked nippats (traditionally crispy deep-fried rice crackers), and roasted peanuts without salt....