Nothing in Particular

Using my Windows laptop again at the moment. Made by PCS, it’s great.

Was asked to log in using my fingerprint. This “functionality” has always been sketch. As usual, it didn’t work.

So it invited me to try another finger.

How about the middle one? :slight_smile:

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As I tend to do most of the driving these days, I’ve warned my other half to be nice to me… :rofl:

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My old school for 11-to-16-year-olds in the 1950s still has an old boys’ network. One old boy started a ‘worried about getting old’ thread.

Another old boy started mind exercises using mathematics and set up some simple maths questions. I enjoyed maths at school, but the 1st maths question stumped me.

You can’t use a calculator or paper and pencil – add it up in your mind.

Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30. Add another 1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10. What is the total?

My answer came to 5000, which is wrong! Apparently, most people get it wrong, or maybe only TiKTok users!

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4100 i hope

Correct…

Yup, I got it wrong! But at least I now know why. :roll_eyes:

I got 4,100 too by rapidly calculating as you went along but admit that I had to pause for a few seconds to obtain the final figure.

The above apart, after we got back from our walk today I find myself running out of new posts on here and 2 other forums I inhabit.

Something was on Radio 4 that I wasn’t listening to but my subconscious kept picking up the name David Icke. Of course I recognised it and realised that I hadn’t heard it for a long time. So I dived into Wikipedia and read with increasing incredulity. What a bloody nutter, but I almost got to the end after what seemed like an hour before giving in. But I didn’t log out, merely raced down the last 20 % or so and realised that I could have read on a bit because the last great chunk was not descriptive, simply a very very long list of references.

Somewhat exhausted I returned here to find at least another 5 minutes of interesting reading. :joy:

Might grab myself a suitable small portion of lunch now. :thinking:

4100 - looked at the numbers and could clearly see it’s 4x1000 then 10+20+30+40 which is 100.

Seems that people are tripping up trying to hold the running total in their heads and making 4090+10 equal to 5000.

Except that only works if you have the whole sum written out at the beginning and then follow the maths rules about which operation to do first.

However in order to fool the reader into using the “wrong” method the problem is (deliberately) written as a series of discrete steps like this:

Take 1000 and add 40 to it. 1000 + 40 = 1040

Now add another 1000. 1040 + 1000 = 2040

Now add 30. 2040 + 30 = 2070

Add another 1000. 2070 + 1000 = 3070

Now add 20. 3070 + 20 = 3090

Now add another 1000. 3090 = 4090

Now add 10. 4090 + 10 = 5000.

So I would contend that 5000 is the correct answer, because the problem does not say “read all the steps and process them as a single mathematical equation”, but instead explicitly asks for individual calculations to be done one by one (vide the wording “Now add…”).

But how could 4090 +10 be anything but 4100?

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Is there a number dyslexia? I thought I’d be clever and just add up the 1000s first - so 4000. And then just add up the smaller numbers but somehow the tens morphed into hundreds. :roll_eyes:

I think the writer of the puzzle must have understood that is how some of us would react. I also wonder whether getting to 4000, there then becomes some sort of anticipation the the rest would take us to 5000.

Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhh! :smiley:

Ok I am wronger than a wrong thing that’s factually incorrect.

This is why I like calculators.

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I’m pretty sure there is, and my OH has it. She very regularly mixes up tens with hundreds, hundreds with thousands and just about any number can be a bit of a challenge for her. Now she does it in French, it’s worse. If she’s given a number in French on the phone she has to write it down or repeat it to me verbally.
She used to teach civil engineering but thankfully never practiced :joy:

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Imagine the buildings, and the bridges. :astonished:

I’m pretty sure this fits in here because it covers several subjects.
Some may remember that I reported Jules, my Beauceron, having a minor stroke last week, he had another last night so I got onto the vet and had a rdv this morning. He has been given a different prescription and, in place of 2 little pills with his evening (and only) meal of the day (easy for me), he must now have 1 and a half morning and the same evening. This means I not only have to split the atom (they are very small) I have now to find something enticing for him to eat in the morning too without making him fat.

This was in the next town so quite an expedition and I decided to conquer several birds with one stone (mixed metaphors, moi?) so next went into Intermarche for the elusive Shredded Wheat. Nothing, but in place of the stern drubbing I got at Super U a while ago for the outrageous sin of trying to exit via a cashier without buying anything, at Inter the smiling young lady sweetly wished me bonne journee. :joy:

Next to Lidl which I abhor for reasons way back in the mists of time. Hardly any cereals but what there were were in different places but, in sharp contrast to a previous empty handed exit through the ‘in’ door, there were no sirens and flashing lights this time. Instead another young lady doing her best to match Inter.

Across the road to the Bio Co-op, no idea if Shredded Wheat is bio or not but never mind because they didn’t have any.

Finally, in this quest anyway, the dreaded Super U. No luck and I asked very nicely the lonely cashier at the enormous space for wheelchairs if I could leave by there if I held my arms wide for a pat down. Less stern than the previous encounter but still no, so I went to the gate which said to wait for someone to open it. Nobody there, nobody came, so I pushed it open and left the building.

Next the Notaire, armed with 2 copies of emails I had sent, one in May the other in June. The first referred to a meeting I had had with the pleasant woman assigned to my case, albeit in another office 15 minutes further away from my home. The first was sent the day after the meeting in which, as requested, I gave the names and postal addresses of Fran’s kids. No reply so sent the second a month later asking for a reply to my questions in the first. No reply. The woman in the main office this morning took copies of my emails and said someone will contact me. I am not holding my breath, if only to stop my own post-mortem case not landing in their hands too. :roll_eyes:

On the way with all this I called at the opticians because I am finding it difficult to read writing on the TV. Thought it would be just a case of making a rdv for a test. Silly me. First I have to go to my doctor for an ordonnance (thank goodness I now appear to be ALD), then ring a number in Angouleme to ask for a rdv in Nontron. It might be better to buy a bigger tv. :thinking:

So, all in all, apart from dear Jules and his pills, not a very productive morning, thank goodness the fish lady and the butcher still had some fish and Cantal left in the village.

Now I have to work out how to halve these little pills without them shooting in all directions.

Sorry this has been so long, but you didn’t have to read it all, and it took me alot longer than this to proof read and correct all the misspellings and atrocious grammar. (nearly put grammer there, but at least avoided ‘quiet an exhibition’ :innocent:)

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It’s OK we enjoy your travel documentaries David. :slight_smile:

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Could the pills be softened in something moist and tasty before being split?

Ha ha, just read @_Brian 's comment on another thread regarding sad little lives. :frowning_face: