That intelligence article is a great article -- it provides some actual science behind what I've observed of philosophers and husbands.

How was Mt. Diablo, megan?

I got the widget one right away. The pond one I was actually gonna do math for and stuff before I said, "Self, you have a migraine. Stop trying to be smart right now and just look at the spoilered answers already."

The ball and bat one stumped me at first -- a lot of the difficulty of those questions is getting locked in on the framing of the elements instead of breaking it down.

Brain the size of a planet, and I'm trying to get a job as a cashier. Maybe I'd be better off parking cars, at least it would be outdoor work....

For the widget one, I pictured five machines making five widgets simultaneously. So, each machine makes one widget, and that takes five minutes. So if X machines make X widgets, it doesn't matter what X is, as each machine is still making one widget, so the answer is still five minutes.

Of course, part of my brain is all, "It's a trick question! The 'obvious' answer is wrong!" so I approached the problem all suspicious-like....

The ball and bat one stumped me at first

Yeah, for that one I figured out the "obvious" answer, determined that was not correct, and tweaked the answer in my brain until it worked.

Of course, you could also use algebra....

I totally used algebra.

I totally used algebra.

In retrospect, I should have tried that first.

It's my first instinct. Which is weird but it generally works, so I guess that's okay.

I used pictures. I imagined bar charts with a dollar difference in the height of the two bars, and for some reason the answer actually came out in numbers. Which makes no sense.