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notices and features - Date published:
6:30 pm, June 18th, 2015 - 53 comments
Categories: open mike -
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Three Puzzles for you :
[1] The puzzle writer says this problem can be solved by preschoolers in a few minutes, by programmers and highly educated adults in a few hours !
Q: What number goes next to 2581?
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/6/8/1433773168752/1a8fb32e-b81f-4871-9591-80cf1af22652-300×180.png
—————————————
[2] Which animal is the odd one one out and why?
Pig
Cow
Hen
Sheep
—————————————
[3] Pick the odd ones…and why?
Key
English
Joyce
McCully
Smith
Bennett
Bridges
Guy
Barry
Woodhouse
Collins
Goldsmith
—————————————-
[3] Goldsmith because he has not made a pillock of himself lately?
4 (took about 10 secs, so probably wrong)
Hen because…bird…wasn’t in ‘Animal farm’ (i think)…2 legs, not 4 (unrelated to animal farm)… etc.
They’re all bloody odd – and that’s only on a very kind take.
edit – 2581 = 2.
Keep trying your answers. In a way, no answers are always wrong!
I will give my take on them sometime later in the night…..or tomorrow sometime.
1) 7
2) Hen – be two legs (oooh also be only gender specific animal)
3) They’re all odd, and all were picked. Why? That’s what I keep asking myself.
Okay
1. God only knows.
2 Hen because it’s a bird with feathers.
3.English, McCully and Smith were part of the 1990s brat pack. The others didn’t become MPs until after 2000?
3
sheep – because of the 70% mortality rate
Joyce because he was Mr fix it, and if this is how it fixed it – I think I prefer it broken.
The hen is the only one that isn’t a mammal, I think that’s the most straightforward explanation.
Goldsmith and Woodhouse are the only ones who have never won an electorate seat? There must be a million answers to 3 though.
Can’t be bothered with 1, I’ll leave that to the preschoolers.
Gosman?
1. 2
2. hen (only one to lay eggs, or the other reasons already listed)
3. Bennet, Barry, Woodhouse, Goldsmith don’t have a current scandal hanging over them, all the others do.
3. Guy, Smith, and Goldsmith are the only ones not mentioned in DIrty Politics.
Goldsmith comes up in DP pretty prominently IIRC.
I will check the index when I get home.
Edit: If not, he was at least mentioned clearly in one of the raw shark pastebin convos. I recall WO/Lusk/Bhatnagar scheming re: JLR in and various distasteful remarks about other National candidates, of which one was dying (not GS). My recollection is that some choice words were said about Goldsmith.
My list came from searching a digital copy of DP. Just checked again, the only Goldsmith is Zac Goldsmith.
Here are the answers:
[1]
Q: What number goes next to 2581?
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/6/8/1433773168752/1a8fb32e-b81f-4871-9591-80cf1af22652-300×180.png
A : Simply count the shapes of zeros in each number.
For example, 8=2, 88=4, 886=5, 3331=0, 9532=1
So, 2581=2
Well done Bill and Weka!
—————————————
[2] Q: Which animal is the odd one one out and why?
Pig, Cow, Hen, Sheep
A : There is no one correct answer because, as the author says, these kinds of questions are subjective and restrict ‘creativity’. Different answers are possible for different reasons.
You can see his answer here:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2015/jun/08/alex-bellos-puzzle-solution-hong-kong-six-year-olds
——————————————
[3] Q: Pick the odd ones…and why?
Key, English, Joyce, McCully, Smith, Bennett, Bridges, Guy, Barry, Woodhouse, Collins, Goldsmith
A : There is only ONE answer to this question: They are all odd!
Odd for various reasons, such as being dodgy, crooked, lying, bullshitting, poorly behaved, useless and being shockingly inefficient.
However, if you are looking for a mathematical reason, count the number of letters in each of their names :
3, 7, 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, 3, 5, 9, 7 and 9.
Amazingly and quite uncannily, each one is an odd number. Yep, odd people, alright!
————————————-
Here is a bonus puzzle:
KING=1
LANGE=1
PHIL=1
ANDREW=2
DAVID=2
GRANT=2
SAVAGE=2
KEY=?
Key=1
Why?…Your reasoning would be good to read.
King =1
Lange =1
Phil =1
Andrew/drew =2
David/avid =2
Grant/ant =2
Savage/age =2
Key = 1
Interesting that you have the same answer as Bill. Why? What logic did you use?
Andrew, David, Grant and Savage all end in letters spelling an actual word – drew/avid/ant and age. Hence =2. King, Lange, Phil and Key don’t. Hence =1.
I have no idea if that was ianmac’s reasoning.
Wow! That is brilliant and works so well!
Even better than my own made up ‘preschool type’ of criteria which gives the result for KEY as 0 !
My criteria was this:
Count the number of letters that have a curve in it.
KING=1 [G]
LANGE=1 [G]
PHIL=1 [P]
ANDREW=2 [D and R]
DAVID=2 [D and D]
GRANT=2 [G and R]
SAVAGE=2 [S and G]
Therefore, KEY=0 [No letters with a curve]
(though he has often shown himself to be a big spinning curve ball and not quite straight up, of course!)
Thanks and cheers, Anne.
Whoops, the same answer as inamac for this question.
I would like to know your reasoning /logic to get the answer for Key as 1
My own made up criteria which gives the result for KEY as 0 !
My preschool type of criteria was this:
Count the number of letters that have a curve in it.
KING=1 [G]
LANGE=1 [G]
PHIL=1 [P]
ANDREW=2 [D and R]
DAVID=2 [D and D]
GRANT=2 [G and R]
SAVAGE=2 [S and G]
Therefore, KEY=0 [No letters with a curve]
(though he has often shown himself to be a big spinning curve ball and quite not straight up, of course!)
Thanks and cheers, Ian!
Well, I was counting features of the numbers…just not the zeros contained in them, but I’ll take a chocolate fluke? 😉
That is interesting, Bill.
I am not sure what you mean by counting ‘features’.
For example,
8096=5
What features did you count?
Heh, well…in the first instance I got 4 because I didn’t realise there was a table through the link. In that instance (2581) each number was 3 above the other assuming that numbers ran 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,1,2,3…
Then I clicked the link and quickly scanned only a couple of the examples…too fast!…and thought the results were merely the total of odd numbers, hence 2 for 2581.
Then I looked properly and realised that odd numbers had nothing to do with it and that I had no fcking idea what the pattern or key might be. 🙂
I like your thinking !
Nevertheless, you got the answer right!
As Key, the foreign money changing TPP Puller would say, awktully, at the end of the day, you got it right! Thanks and Cheers!
2582
OK, correct…Sort of! That could be the number that follows!
Dr Watson, (the Smart Dicky Watson), would solve it the same simple way, I presume!
I am sure you have seen the joke that follows below:
———–
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson decide to go on a camping trip. After dinner and a bottle of wine, they lay down for the night, and go to sleep.
Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend.
“Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
Watson replied, “I see millions of stars.”
“What does that tell you?”
Watson pondered for a minute.
“Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.”
“Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo.”
“Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.”
“Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant.”
“Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.”
“What does it tell you, Holmes?”
Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke: “Watson, you witnit! Someone has stolen our tent, bro!”
——————–
LOL
No I hadn’t seen it
Spil, spil, spil, spil …
Apparently the Conservative Party executive is going to vote on replacing Colin Craig tomorrow. Pretty brave really as he is their moneybags although they have another significant donor. I wonder if he will call up his loans if he loses, presuming he has lent money to the party.
He is the founder of the party, isn’t he? If so, it is a revolt from the underlings.
He even supposed to have got into a sauna session a few days ago with a news presenter! If that hot sauna has landed him into hot water, that would be sad, unfair and wrong, I think.
http://www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/newsworthy/sauna-session-with-colin-craig-2015060823#axzz3dMuze5CF
Why would they want to replace CC?
May be either Williamson or Collins want to take over as their leader (or joint co- leaders!) That would be cool. Cool bananas. Craig can then tale over ACT or even better, the Nats who are so mired scores of crooked scandals!
This?
Maybe. That’s the Conservatives’ morris dancing moment, but hardly a reason to oust a leader.
they’ve decided he doesn’t have what it takes to make the Conservatives into a full bodied electoral force. And they would be correct.
Which is why we should all be worried with Mcvicar at the helm, promising us a better 1956.
clever
The benevolent firm introduced new work hours for summer interns…
Because why?
Oh, that’s right, their previous practices were killing people.
Seems we still haven’t learned anything over the last few centuries of working people to death to enrich somebody else.
I still havent worked out what all the hurry is about. Dead is dead everyone gets it in the end.
It might be the cost of the insurance claims.
More like the deaths were interfering with their dead peasant insurance racket.
Someone told me recently that some US firms “employ” interns for 2 years now. By employ they mean work for no pay for the experience and the possibility of a full time job at the end…
Russell Norman tweeted this chart today about the increase in NZ’s total coal consumption over the past 5 years (due mostly to farming etc and industry). That’s interesting, but also interesting is to see the huge decrease in the past 25 years in residential use. I assume that coincides with regional councils cleaning up air pollution, the introduction of better solid fuel burners and the shift to heatpumps. I find that interesting because it demonstrates that change is possible. It also suggests that were the will there, it could happen in other sectors too.
https://twitter.com/RusselNorman/status/611357960111960064
Change is possible not because people are using less energy, but because people have gone to heat pumps.
Dairy prices down. GDP down. Current account deficit up. Ministries spending up large. Growth down and growth forecast figures slashed.
All Labour’s fault, I suppose…
http://renegadeinc.com/try-as-he-may-the-chancellor-cannot-eliminate-the-deficit-by-ann-pettifor/
“While you and I can cut our overdrafts by cutting our spending, or by increasing our income – the all-mighty Chancellor cannot do the same. The public sector deficit is not dependent on his actions, or the government’s policies. It is dependent on economic activity in the economy as a whole. If the economic ‘cake’ (that is employment) shrinks, the government deficit will rise. As the ‘cake’ expands, the government deficit will fall.
The OBR puts it well:
The budget deficit is an outcome – of decisions made by both the private and public sectors to expand or contract activity; of the levels of both public and private employment; of the amount collected in tax revenues…”
I don’t know if it is just me but I cannot think of a worse place, other than Antarctica, for sheep farming than dry, barren, 21st century Saudi Arabia.
The pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si, has now been released. In it he writes:
That’s something I can get behind.
The more I hear from this pope the more I like him. He seems to be somebody grounded in reality.
I’ve started retweeting the Pope, which is not something I would have ever predicted.
“He seems to be somebody grounded in reality.”
If it weren’t for his belief in a sky-daddy who watches, and judges you, for engaging in sexual activity with yourself you’d be right.
Well, nobody’s perfect.
lol you and contrarian
So, the gold leaf off the roof of the alcove of the vatican is being peeled off and shared with the poor? The vaults are being opened to cleanse and shine the light once and for all, the Vatican of its sins and its wealth fairly re-distriubuted. Or does he just mean the rest of us?