Actual Interview Question

At my work we have this program called The Associates Program (TAP). They work for us for two years and travel all over the world to our different offices working on projects. The recruiters really only go to 6-7 of the top schools to recruit for the position. They look for extremely intelligent people who are good at thinking "outside the box". The recruiters were in Boston recently and asked the following question as part of the written portion of the interview:

You have 8 metal balls in front of you. All appear identical, but one has a manufacturer's defect and weighs slightly more than the other seven. You also have a scale (one of those old school ones that weighs two quantities against each other). Your job is to find the defective ball. You can only use the scale twice. What do you do?

Think you know? Post your answer as a comment.

motorcycles and mothers

moms are funny things...always changing the rules around on you and what not. First it's:
"You're not allowed to buy a motorcycle while you live in my house."
Fair enough, you probably saw this coming anyway...so you move out and go to college. Of course the next time you dare to breach the subject it becomes:
"You're not allowed to buy a motorcycle as long as I'm still paying any of your bills."
That's all fine and good...her money, her rules, right? In the name of speed and coolness, you embrace self-sufficiency. Finally, in the exasperation that only a mother could conjure comes the coup d'etat:
"You're not allowed to buy a motorcycle as long as I'm still your mother."
So you think and you think and you try to come up with some loophole...some way around this wall. And then one day you give up, decide she's outside of her jurisdiction and get one anyway:


Meet my baby. Isn't she beautiful? (I'm talking about the bike boys, not Alexis...we all know she's beautiful...but let's FOCUS here).

So what do you think?

Motorcycles - Thumbs up / Thumbs down?

Oh...and if you don't mind...please don't tell mom.

thus it begins - david jumps on the bandwagon 7 years too late

Well well well...here we are. in typical david keithly fashion i've decided to join the "cutting edge" of internet fads...seven years too late. i like to think that my reticence in joining the blogosphere was due to the fact that i really couldn't think of a way to use the word "reticence" in a sentence. now that i've used it not only once, but TWICE in the same sentence, i feel i'm ready to join your world.
also, i just got back from a two week trip to australia and needed somewhere to post my pictures. now...if only i can figure out how to get them on here...