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Hendecadivisibility
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To discover whether a number is divisible by 11, add the digits that appear in odd positions (first, third, and so on), and separately add the digits in even positions. If the difference between these two sums is 0 or a multiple of 11, the original number is divisible by 11. Otherwise it’s not.
For example:
11 × 198249381729 = 2180743199019
Sum of digits in odd positions = 2 8 7 3 9 0 9 = 38
Sum of digits in even positions = 1 0 4 1 9 1 = 16
38 – 16 = 22
22 is a multiple of 11, so 2180743199019 is as well.
Tea Party Tops GOP on Three-Way Generic Ballot
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Running under the Tea Party brand may be better in congressional races than being a Republican.
In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.
Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.
Iranian banknotes uprising
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Anti-government activists are not allowed to express themselves in Iranian media, so theses activists have taken their expressions to another high circulation mass-medium, banknotes. The Central Bank of Iran has tried to take these banknotes out of circulation, but there are just too many of them, and gave up. For the activists’ people it’s a way of saying “We are here, and the green movement is going on”.
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Five AIG execs say may quit over pay
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Five senior executives at American International Group told the bailed-out insurer last week they may quit if their compensation was cut significantly by the U.S. pay czar, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The five senior AIG executives indicated on December 1, in written notices, that they were prepared to leave by year-end, the paper reported, citing unnamed sources. Two of them changed their minds over the weekend, the paper added.
Let me guess – they found out no other bank wanted their sorry asses?
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The TSA makes another stupid move
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When the TSA make mistakes this egregious it really isn’t all that hard to pick on them.
The latest is that their Screening Management Standard Operating Procedure is published on the internet. I actually like that. I don’t think that security through obscurity is a good idea. Of course the document is marked SSI and includes this footnote on every page:
SENSITIVE SECURITY INFORMATION
WARNING: THIS RECORD CONTAINS SENSITIVE SECURITY INFORMATION THAT IS CONTROLLED UNDER 49 CFR PARTS 15 AND 1520. NO PART OF THIS RECORD MAY BE DISCLOSED TO PERSONS WITHOUT A “NEED TO KNOW,” AS DEFINED IN 49 CFR PARTS 15 AND 1520, EXCEPT WITH THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION OR THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION. UNAUTHORIZED RELEASE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL PENALTIES OR OTHER ACTION. FOR U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, PUBLIC DISCLOSURE GOVERNED BY 5 U.S.C. 552 AND 49 CFR PARTS 15 AND 1520.So the decision to publish it on the Internet is probably a questionable one. On top of that, however, is where the real idiocy shines. They chose to publish a redacted version of the document, hiding all the super-important stuff from the public. But they apparently don’t understand how redaction works in the electronic document world. See, rather than actually removing the offending text from the document they just drew a black box on top of it. Turns out that PDF documents don’t really care about the black box like that and the actual content of the document is still in the file.
Yup, their crack legal staff managed to screw this one up pretty badly. Want to know which twelve passports will instantly get you shunted over for secondary screening, simply by showing them to the ID-checking agent? Check out Section 2A-2 (C) (1) (b) (iv). Want to know the procedure for CIA-escorted passengers to be processed through the checkpoint? That’s in the document, too.
The five Dukes of Earl
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The five Dukes of Earl are scheduled to arrive at the royal palace on each of the first five days of May. Duke One is scheduled to arrive on the first day of May, Duke Two on the second, etc. Each Duke, upon arrival, can either kill the king or support the king. If he kills the king, he takes the king’s place, becomes the new king, and awaits the next Duke’s arrival. If he supports the king, all subsequent Dukes cancel their visits. A Duke’s first priority is to remain alive, and his second priority is to become king. Who is king on May 6?
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Nokia shuts up Regent Street shop
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Nokia is to shut the doors on its high-tech store in London’s Regent Street after failing to tempt consumers out of the bustling Apple store across the road with interactive translucent walls and a glitzy lounge area.
[..]
Ben Wood, an analyst with CCS Insight, said: “There was no question that the store was trying to replicate what Apple had done and build up the brand rather than shift devices. The question in why that strategy has worked for one company and not for the other.”
Probably an analyst with a marketing background, as he seems to be unaware that the actual product matters, and he’s only talking about “building up brands”.
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Yay easy divisibility tests for prime factors of 10^k – 1 for small k! (Though I think that this test is actually based on the fact that 11 divides 10^k + 1 for small k, but anyway.)
My favorite divisibility test, though, works for any number q (other than multiples of 2 or 5, obviously): subtract or add to the original number n any multiple of q until the last digit is 0, then chop it off and repeat the process until you get something you already know is or isn’t a multiple. It’s actually just as much work as actually dividing, though. Whoops. But it’s easier to do in your head. For your example:
2180743199019
Add 11, divide by 10: 218074319903
Add 77, divide by 10: 21807431998
Subtract 88, divide by 10: 2180743191
Subtract 11, divide by 10: 218074318
Add 22, divide by 10: 21807434
Add 66, divide by 100: 218075
Subtract 55, divide by 10: 21802
Add 88, divide by 10: 2189
Add 11, divide by 100: 22
We know that’s a multiple of 11, therefore so is the original number. Yeah, that takes much longer, but if you’re trying to check divisibility by something (not a multiple of 2 or 5) without an easily remembered divisibility test (that is, not 3, 9, 11) in your head, this is the way to go about it, since it’s easier than long division (because the desired piece of information is not the quotient but whether the remainder is zero — you get no other information from this method). It’s useful for checking whether the current time is a prime number when you have nothing else to do. ;p