How was Mt. Diablo, megan?
Stop that right now! I can hear the smacking!
Giles ,'Never Leave Me'
Natter 64: Yes, we still need you
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
-t - Nov 02, 2009 8:03:40 am PST #16564 of 30001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Kiba Rika - Nov 02, 2009 8:05:22 am PST #16565 of 30001
I may have to seize the cat.
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."
Theodosia - Nov 02, 2009 8:07:34 am PST #16566 of 30001
'we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon"
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....
tommyrot - Nov 02, 2009 8:09:01 am PST #16567 of 30001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
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....
tommyrot - Nov 02, 2009 8:10:52 am PST #16568 of 30001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
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....
-t - Nov 02, 2009 8:12:19 am PST #16569 of 30001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
I totally used algebra.
tommyrot - Nov 02, 2009 8:13:36 am PST #16570 of 30001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
I totally used algebra.
In retrospect, I should have tried that first.
-t - Nov 02, 2009 8:17:45 am PST #16571 of 30001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
It's my first instinct. Which is weird but it generally works, so I guess that's okay.
§ ita § - Nov 02, 2009 8:19:50 am PST #16572 of 30001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
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.
Polter-Cow - Nov 02, 2009 8:21:11 am PST #16573 of 30001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
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....
I decided that each machine would make one widget per minute...and just stop, I guess. Which would explain why 100 machines taking 100 minutes to make 100 widgets is dumb. I forgot to take into account that a machine can make more than one widget.
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.
That's what I did too.
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."
I was going to do math and stuff, but when I started thinking about what was actually going on in the problem in order to come up with a method, I realized what the answer was.