Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
29 Puzzle!!!
Three people check into a hotel. They pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager finds out that the room rate is $25 and gives $5 to the bellboy to return. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to share among three people so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person.
Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totalling $27. The bellboy has $2, totalling $29.
Where is the remaining dollar?
Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totalling $27. The bellboy has $2, totalling $29.
Where is the remaining dollar?
Puzzle for you!!!
The Two Switches
The warden meets with 23 new prisoners when they arrive. He tells them, “You may meet today and plan a strategy. But after today, you will be in isolated cells and will have no communication with one another.
“In the prison is a switch room, which contains two light switches labeled A and B, each of which can be in either the ‘on’ or the ‘off’ position. I am not telling you their present positions. The switches are not connected to anything.
“After today, from time to time whenever I feel so inclined, I will select one prisoner at random and escort him to the switch room. This prisoner will select one of the two switches and reverse its position. He must move one, but only one of the switches. He can’t move both but he can’t move none either. Then he’ll be led back to his cell.
“No one else will enter the switch room until I lead the next prisoner there, and he’ll be instructed to do the same thing. I’m going to choose prisoners at random. I may choose the same guy three times in a row, or I may jump around and come back.
“But, given enough time, everyone will eventually visit the switch room as many times as everyone else. At any time anyone of you may declare to me, ‘we have all visited the switch room’ and be 100% sure.
“If it is true, then you will all be set free. If it is false, and somebody has not yet visited the switch room, you will be fed to the alligators.”
The warden meets with 23 new prisoners when they arrive. He tells them, “You may meet today and plan a strategy. But after today, you will be in isolated cells and will have no communication with one another.
“In the prison is a switch room, which contains two light switches labeled A and B, each of which can be in either the ‘on’ or the ‘off’ position. I am not telling you their present positions. The switches are not connected to anything.
“After today, from time to time whenever I feel so inclined, I will select one prisoner at random and escort him to the switch room. This prisoner will select one of the two switches and reverse its position. He must move one, but only one of the switches. He can’t move both but he can’t move none either. Then he’ll be led back to his cell.
“No one else will enter the switch room until I lead the next prisoner there, and he’ll be instructed to do the same thing. I’m going to choose prisoners at random. I may choose the same guy three times in a row, or I may jump around and come back.
“But, given enough time, everyone will eventually visit the switch room as many times as everyone else. At any time anyone of you may declare to me, ‘we have all visited the switch room’ and be 100% sure.
“If it is true, then you will all be set free. If it is false, and somebody has not yet visited the switch room, you will be fed to the alligators.”
Monday, July 16, 2007
Thought Process!!!
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth,
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over
the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
- Henry David Thoreau
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over
the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
- Henry David Thoreau
Friday, July 6, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Gates 'knocked off' richest man perch
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world's richest man, worth an estimated $US67.8 billion, after overtaking Microsoft founder Bill Gates, according to a respected tracker of Mexican financial wealth.
A 27 per cent surge in the share price of America Movil, Latin America's largest cell phone operator controlled by Slim, from March to June made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, said Eduardo Garcia in Sentido Comun, the online financial publication he founded.
Garcia estimated that Gates was worth $59.2 billion.
Forbes magazine reported in April that Slim had overtaken billionaire investor Warren Buffett for the No. 2 spot in the world's richest stakes but was still behind Gates.
Mexico has a huge rich-poor divide, with a tiny elite holding most of the country's wealth and around half the population living on less than $5 a day.
Forbes bumped up Slim because gains from his holding company Carso and fixed-line telecom Telmex added to the Mexican's fortune while shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc fell in the same period.
Three months ago, Sentido Comun's Garcia begged to differ with Forbes and calculated Slim's wealth as more than Gates' -- but only by a whisker. Now he says there is no doubt whose fortune is bigger at current share values.
"When I put Slim ahead three months ago Forbes bumped him up to second place (in world rankings) a few days later," Garcia, also the publication's editor-in-chief, said. "Let's see if the same happens again."
Spokespeople at Forbes magazine were not immediately available for comment.
Garcia, who uses Forbes' calculations for U.S. billionaires' wealth, says the 5.7 per cent increase in Microsoft share prices in the second quarter is no match for the sharp rise in valuations of Slim's companies.
Shares of Telmex in the second quarter rose 11 percent and Slim's bank, Inbursa, saw its stock advance 20 percent.
Garcia's Sentido Comun, which translates as "common sense," reckons Slim and his family own a fortune equivalent to 8 per cent of Mexico's gross domestic product.
For Gates to be worth 8 percent of the U.S. economy, his fortune would have to grow to more than $13 trillion, 17 times his current wealth, according to Sentido Comun.
Slim, known for his Midas touch in turning around struggling businesses and turning them into profit-making machines, told Reuters in an interview this year he was not in the habit of calculating his fortune on a regular basis.
Slim and his chief spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub were not immediately available for comment.
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