Three:

Weigh 4 pennies on each side. One side will be lighter.

Take those 4, weigh 2 on each side. One side will be lighter.

Take those two, weigh 1 on each side. Done.

Ah ha! Excellent. I'm never good at those sorts of things.

Anyone who had the opportunity to hire Plei or Glam and failed to do so is clearly out of their freaking minds, but I still have to put in a kneejerk Not All Departments on behalf of the mothership here.

Thank you, and I'm happy to hear it is not a wide-spread issue. In hindsight, I'm also glad I didn't get the job as we would not have moved to NC and we are so very happy here.

If Cleveland had won the World Series, after winning Basketball and Hockey (AHL) championships this year, that would mean the Browns would have to win the Superbowl, which SURELY mean the world was ending.

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. We may have dodged a bullet there.

Oh, god, Zen, what a nightmare!

I'm really not great at selling myself the way they want people to sell themselves, though.

This is what burns me up about job hunting. Selling myself is NOT ONE OF MY SKILLS which is why I am not looking for work in Marketing or whatever. So don't hold that against me, potential employers! The skills for this job are not that!

t /why I am chronically underemployed part 367

Let's say you have 8 pennies and 1 penny is lighter than the others. If you have a balance scale what is the minimum number of measures do you need to take with it to find the light penny?

Ooh, I can at least come up with an answer for that. I'll say 3. And all credit goes to Car Talk puzzlers. [and upon reading further I see Dana and Jessica together have provided the full answer. As usual, the hivemind is mighty. I would say we should monetize that so none of us have to job hunt any more, but I suspect that would really suck in actuality so let's not.]

The answer is 2 (without having to get lucky).

The answer is 2 (without having to get lucky).

Explanation, please.

Oh, by Gud saying that I think I figured out how to do it in two. Start with three piles of three and weigh two of them. One will be lighter, or the one that is not weighed will be lighter. Repeat with the three pennies in the lighter stack.

Man, my body is really stressing over the layoffs even though my rational brain is not worrying about it. Between the dream and a flare up of my trigeminal neuralgia, my stress systems are in high gear. Which is totally at odds with my current mind set, which is fairly focused and not obsessing about when, who, if, why.

Or maybe it is just internalized stress over the baseball game (fell asleep before it was over) plus the election plus the work layoffs this week and at the end of the month plus generalized work stress. Oh there is also the lower back pain that I've been going to PT for and my last PT session created a bunch of pain in my right hip (could only do .5 of a mile on the treadmill yesterday before the pain was too much).

I guess there is a lot going on. But dang body...I can't control much and I'm doing what I can on the rest. The Cubs won, I've already voted, my kids have voted, and C is getting his Colorado Drivers License so he can vote, work layoffs will happen and if it is me, I should get at least 6 months worth of pay, general work stuff is what it is and I'm plugging away at what I can and finally I'm doing my PT exercises.

If I take a Lorazepam I'm afraid I'd fall asleep and I have work to do. I may crawl in bed once I'm done with work though. Only good spot at the moment - I have a few more days off of school, next class starts Monday.

Minimum means, you got lucky and found it fast, right?

In that case, you can do it with a minimum of ONE: Pick two pennies at random, and weigh them. If the two pennies don't weigh the same, then you got lucky and got it on the first pick.

Ahh -- my team member just asked me if she could be involved with next summer's internship program. Which would likely be a huge burden, but I'm so glad she asked before committing! That's all I need.