While there is some down time at work, I pulled up a file I created when I started work here which has been breaking down the data of how much I am working and when. By no means am I complaining of the hours I work because the things I have learned so far and people I get to work with have taught me a tremendous amount in a very short time span but I am a math major and we do these types of things so here is a quick snapshot:

Just interesting to note that following the very first month, the time that I can into work got pulled back half an hour and the time I left pushed forward one half. A fantastic start for January so far and we’re barely half way through since I was here unexpectedly until almost 10PM last week which did well to push that average up near record levels although I don’t think (and hope) it won’t sustain during the next two weeks as lots of things are progressing steadily.

The end of December was kind of nice with people going on vacation and not a lot of things on my plate before the year but I still averaged leaving at pretty high 5:21PM leave time given those numbers includes a 1:30PM, 2:00PM and 3:00PM dismissal in consecutive weeks leading up to the new year.

One surprising note was that initially hit me what that Friday HAD to be the day which I worked the longest but the average per day just didn’t show that. It just turns out that if I take away those “early dismissal” prior to long weekends, the Friday average jumps a whole 41 minutes to 10 hours per every Friday which includes a 13+ hour day this past Friday.

With that, I’m off to lunch.

[Edit] So I kind of assumed everything would think order of operations automatically apply but I guess I should have stated that. Yes, assume natural order of operations and not addition before multiplication in this example. [/Edit]

I found this math puzzle from Monroe CC. All you have to do is arrange the digits 1 through 9 in the grid blow so that all six of the equations (3 horizontal and 3 vertical) are all true.

If you are stuck, try solving for just one row and one column and then moving your way forward. I’ll probably post the result in a day or two but feel free to submit your answer if you think you have it.

[Edit] Problem solved, using a SumIF ended up fixing both of my problems. Thanks to Mr. Feraudo. [/Edit]

For you Microsoft Excel experts out there, I have data on the scoring for an individual player and I am trying to figure out the use of a formula or two to calculate the following: I need to calculate the number of goals a person scored at Home (or Away) without individually counting them and then do the same thing for games in which the player’s team Won or Loss.

I thought about using CountIf but I’m not sure how to count items from a range of data based on a criteria that is not necessarily in the range. For example, if I want to count items from the Goals column based upon whether the Location is Home or not. Also, I’m not too familiar with using the Offset formula to calculate a column’s worth of data in a single cell as opposed to repeat it for every cell.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Even if you think you have something that might work but you aren’t too sure, feel free to shoot me an email or talk to me online about it.

I was never a big fan of these types of problems on standardized tests when I was younger but the more you analyze the problems, the better your reasonable skills should eventually become.

Take this problem for example this image below. Can you determine which one is the odd one out?

The answer is after the fold.

The trick into solving this might be figuring out which one is the least special.

If your first guess was going to be the second one because it is the one without a frame, that would be the one reason it is not the odd one one out.

Fair enough but it could be very common for you to say that the green square sticks out as being different but that is its reason for being special — it is the only non-red item in the set.

After that you might say, the third one which is the only circle in the set of 5 images. That again would be the only reason to differentiate it from the rest.

The last incorrect answer would then be the small red square at the end. It is the only one that is not the same size as the four that went before it.

So by process of elimination, it must be therefore be the first one. The answer is not which one is special but rather it is the one that is the least special one selected as the odd one out.

Go ponder on that for a while.

Source: Tanya Khovanova’s Math Blog