The Mathemagician and Pied Puzzler (PDF, rough table of contents here) is a collection of puzzles created by members of the Gathering 4 Gardner Foundation, in tribute to the man himself (previously). Also freely available at the G4G site is Puzzle Craft (PDF), by Stewart Coffin. (The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections, also by Coffin, is available here.)
posted on Oct 1, 2008 - View this thread

Some are calling it the "Kindle Killer". (Demo launch video at engadget.) Plastic Logic's new e-reader, expected to be out in the first half of 2009, does promise to offer a lot that Kindle and most other other popular e-readers don't, like a larger display, big enough to provide a newspaper or magazine layout; touch-based markup and annotation; the ability to read standard documents and other file types without conversion; (promised) Wi-Fi connectivity (including the ability to transfer documents between readers); and last but not least, a screen display that you can hit with a shoe, and isn't that something we've all been waiting for during these tense times?
posted on Sep 13, 2008 - View this thread

Neil Fraser builds logic gates out of dominoes. (See also this half-adder.) Via Mathpuzzle.
posted on Sep 1, 2008 - View this thread

The Fallacy of Examples, and the problems of extrapolating from media. [Via RConversation]
posted on Jul 7, 2008 - View this thread

Mnemonic Arts of Blessed Raymond LULL
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

Inspired by this earlier post, I thought it was time to formally introduce people to Rocky's Boots.
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

This is a cool game you can download. Here are some rule books for it.
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

A mindbending logic puzzle. A thousand people on the island, 900 brown-eyed and 100 blue-eyed; anyone who learns their own eye color must kill themself the next day; a visitor mentions that there is a blue-eyed person on the island; what happens? Nothing, you say, because they already know that? Wrong. Further details at the Terry Tao post linked above, but don't scroll down below the boxed description unless you want hints and/or spoilers.
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - View this thread

Parmenides. "The pre-Socratic philosopher sparked an intellectual revolution that still echoes today. Yet for philosophy and science to continue to progress in the 21st century, we may need to embark on an entirely new cognitive journey ."
posted on Dec 27, 2007 - View this thread

A virtually unlimited supply of randomly-generated logic puzzles, in a variety of sizes and difficulties: Nonograms. Slither Link. Nurikabe. Bridges. Light Up.
posted on Nov 28, 2007 - View this thread

Let’s Do Lunch. (Previously and previously.)
posted on Nov 22, 2007 - View this thread

Use everyone's logic and vocabulary skills to figure out what the secret word is.
posted on Jul 20, 2007 - View this thread

According to this guy, you’re not ultimately morally responsible for choosing whether to snark or not to snark in response to this FPP. A discussion of the philosophical problems surrounding freewill from British Analytic philosopher Galen Strawson. (Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s throw in this unrelated review of Strawson’s latest work on consciousness, just for an extra splash of color.)
posted on May 23, 2007 - View this thread

A graphical dissertation of Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot". Consider the reasoning, first, of just "I'm hot 'cause I'm fly": Mims is hot because he's fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one's being fly? "You ain't 'cause you not" would seem to clear that up: It would appear that fly and hot are interchangable. If you are one, you are both; if you aren't at least one, you are neither.
posted on Apr 23, 2007 - View this thread

The Einstein Puzzle by Flowix Games is based on an old DOS game called Sherlock, which, in turn, was based on Einstein's (Supposed) Puzzle (Previously). No, it's not Friday yet, and no, it's not Flash. It's a really logical game, and it's really damn hard. I've only won once, and that was within the first few times of playing. If you find it hard to figure out what's going on, read THIS... It helped me to figure out EXACTLY what the hell was going on. The authors are Russian, and the help in the game may only serve to confuse you. ;) It's free, and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I'm hooked on it, Dammit. :D
posted on Mar 22, 2007 - View this thread

Geek Logik is Garth Sundem's book & blog about equations for every day living, including how many cups of coffee you require to be functional, who to vote for, and others.
posted on Nov 7, 2006 - View this thread

Labor Intensive is a new online puzzle extravaganza in the style of the MIT Mystery Hunt and the aforelinked Puzzle Boat. Appease the Gods by performing twelve puzzly labors. Good luck!
posted on Sep 22, 2006 - View this thread

3D Logic Connect the colors on the cube
posted on Jun 2, 2006 - View this thread

"In 1953, while working a hotel switchboard, a college graduate named Shea Zellweger began a journey of wonder and obsession that would eventually lead to the invention of a radically new notation for logic. From a basement in Ohio, guided literally by his dreams and his innate love of pattern, Zellweger developed an extraordinary visual system - called the “Logic Alphabet” - in which a group of specially designed letter-shapes can be manipulated like puzzles to reveal the geometrical patterns underpinning logic."
posted on Apr 17, 2006 - View this thread

Douglas Hofstadter says, "What troubles me is the notion that things that touch me at my deepest core -- pieces of music most of all, which I have always taken as direct soul-to-soul messages -- might be effectively produced by mechanisms thousands if not millions of times simpler than the intricate biological machinery that gives rise to a human soul.". That was prompted by his reception to the output of David Cope's project Experiments in Musical Intelligence.
posted on Apr 11, 2006 - View this thread

Fallacy Files
posted on Feb 11, 2006 - View this thread

Can God make a rock so heavy that he could not lift it?
posted on Jan 13, 2006 - View this thread

Nothing is funnier than an academic or scientist explaining humor.
posted on Dec 11, 2005 - View this thread

Who has the fish? Einstein logic puzzle. If I can do it, you guys can.
posted on Aug 4, 2005 - View this thread

Gödel and the Nature of Mathematical Truth : A Talk with Verena Huber-Dyson
posted on Jul 29, 2005 - View this thread

Godel's theorems have been used to extrapolate a great many "truths" about the world. Torkel Franzen sets the record straight in his new book Godel's Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse. Read the introduction (PDF). If you want, check out his explanation of the theorems.
posted on Jun 29, 2005 - View this thread

The Logic of Diversity "A new book, The Wisdom of Crowds [..:] by The New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, has recently popularized the idea that groups can, in some ways, be smarter than their members, which is superficially similar to Page's results. While Surowiecki gives many examples of what one might call collective cognition, where groups out-perform isolated individuals, he really has only one explanation for this phenomenon, based on one of his examples: jelly beans [...] averaging together many independent, unbiased guesses gives a result that is probably closer to the truth than any one guess. While true — it's the central limit theorem of statistics — it's far from being the only way in which diversity can be beneficial in problem solving." (Three-Toed Sloth)
posted on Jun 20, 2005 - View this thread

“Gödel put logic on the mathematical map.”
An excellent interview with Rebecca Goldstein, biographer of Kurt Godel
posted on Mar 19, 2005 - View this thread

There is an island where all the inhabitants are either knights or knaves. Knights always tell the truth, and knaves always lie [PDF]. Can you tell which is which?
posted on Mar 15, 2005 - View this thread

Arghhhhh!!! Aghhhhhhhh! Arghhhhhhh!!!

Cheats for PuzzleDonkey4 Available here
posted on Dec 1, 2004 - View this thread

Redskins lose. An interesting example of the logical fallacy known as Coincidental Correlation, for the last 71 years the Washington Redskins' last home game before Election Day has correlated with the success of the incumbent president. Boy, it's a good thing in sports no one believes in silly statistics...
posted on Oct 31, 2004 - View this thread

"WARNING!!! The puzzles on this site are very difficult, and most require the use of a good spreadsheet program in order to solve them. It will take many hours, perhaps days, to solve each puzzle..."
posted on Aug 11, 2004 - View this thread

dogblog, bogblog, fogblog, cogblog, logblog, zogblog, jogblog, yogblog, gogblog, wogblog, nogblog, vogblog, hogblog, smogblog, frogblog.
posted on Aug 10, 2004 - View this thread

Japanese Flash logic test
Get the family from one side of the river, to the other. [more inside]
posted on Apr 8, 2004 - View this thread

Conversational Terrorism Protect yourself from responding to or using these rhetorical cheats. (via the lovely boingboing)
posted on Jan 22, 2003 - View this thread

Chicken or Egg? Well .... neither, apparently.

"One little chap thought that you got orange juice from milk, because the milkman delivered orange juice to his door ".

Anyone else have amusingly misguided, yet (slightly) logical assumptions as a kid?.

posted on May 2, 2002 - View this thread

"This Index of Logical Fallacies looks like it should be required reading for anyone who wants to participate in online discussions. (Hello, Metafilterians? I'm looking in your direction...)"

This from someone named Meg Hourihan. . .I found the link useful (very) while finding the linker very condescending, in this case. I guess we can consider ourselves slapped, huh?
posted on May 1, 2002 - View this thread

"They are, it is true, almost laughably simple by comparison with real people and real societies, but that is exactly the point. If even the crudest toy societies take on a life and a logic of their own, then it must be a safe bet that real societies, too, have their own biographies." Things have certainly gotten more interesting in the years since John Conway invented the game of life.
posted on Apr 2, 2002 - View this thread

A few logic puzzles by Raymond Smullyan . Professor of mathmatics, logic, and philosophy, lifelong magician and concert caliber piano player. Even the titles of his books are fun. Anyone familiar with him?
posted on Mar 17, 2002 - View this thread

But it is at times of bewilderment that the weapon of analysis and criticism comes into its own... If western culture is shown to be rich it is because, even before the Enlightenment, it has tried to "dissolve" harmful simplifications through inquiry and the critical mind. Umberto Eco speaks in The Guardian.
posted on Oct 15, 2001 - View this thread

What Color is My Hat? I [heart] these mathematical conundrums -- simple, easy-to-state, seemingly obvious logic problems that have solutions that completely defy common sense. Here's another you can spring on a friend: "You want to fry up three pieces of french toast. You have a frying pan that is just large enough to accomodate two pieces of bread at a time. If it takes you 30 seconds to fry one side of bread, and each piece of must be fried on both sides, how long will it take you to cook up three pieces (assuming that the act of flipping a piece or adding/ removing it to or from the pan takes no time). Think about it. Answer inside.
posted on May 25, 2001 - View this thread

How Culture Molds Habits is a fascinating article. Read this article, tally another point for nurture. I've long thought this was true, but Nisbett's supposedly gathered rather a lot of data proving it is so. The article raises some interesting parts of the study, but I think the ramifications bear some considering. I'd be interested in reading the full study when it's published, but I haven't a clue where to get the Psychological Review. And can you imagine what the advertising execs will do with this stuff? Ads tailored to the way you think. Wheee. It does, of course, raise some fun questions about religion and politics.
posted on Aug 8, 2000 - View this thread

I just posted a pretty weak link on unsound and fallacious arguments. Here's a better one. If you participate in debate on the net, you probably ought to read this, so you know *how* they're snowing you.
posted on Apr 25, 2000 - View this thread