The Guardian posted a story in their science section today: Can you solve the maths question for Singapore schoolkids that went viral? The article generated thousands of comments; glancing at a few of them, people have suggested several different answers. So, I'll post my answer below, along with my explanation. If you want to figure it out on your ( Read more... )

Over on Twitter, someone retweeted a message from @InjusticeFacts: "Social mobility is a myth, those who are born in the top 1% have a 99.87% chance of remaining right there in the top 1 ( Read more... )

Yesterday was the Royal Wedding: some of my friends were very enthusiastic about this, while others did their best to avoid it. That's fine, since everyone is entitled to their own view, and I don't want to get into a discussion about the relative merits of monarchy as an institution. However, I have noticed several misleading claims from the ( Read more... )

Over at the Microsoft Press blog, they've been promoting Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Querying. As well as the blurb about the book itself, they have a logic puzzle:

Two trains race toward each other on a railway segment that’s 100 miles long. The trains are traveling at 100 mph. A mosquito flying at 200 mph flies from one train toward ( Read more... )