Lovefilm, yes or no?

[Lesley Binks]

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 04:14:17PM +0200, Jonathan McKeown wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 April 2010 15:05:51 Peter Edwards wrote:
> 
> > Funniest interview question I heard of recently (not Lovefilm) was:
> > "What's two to the power 14"
> > As in, work out the answer there and then
> 
> 2^10 (1024) is roughly 10^3, so 2^4 x 2^10 is roughly 16 thousand. If you 
> can't remember the power of two nearest to 16,000, you might have to work out 
> 16x24 and add it on - 240 plus 12x12.
> 
Well I was going to point out that 2^10 is 1K (i.e. 1024) and therefore 2^14 is
16K but resisted - until now.

I feel I should also contribute:

16*24 = 16*(25-1) = 4*4*25-16 = 400-16 = 384.

Therefore 2^14 = 16384.  QED

> It's a slightly odd question, i suppose, but not exactly hard. Perhaps i'm an 
> old fart, but I'd expect most programmers to be able to answer that almost 
> without pausing for breath.
> 
> (And I see Nick Clark has already answered while I was typing).
> 
> Jonathan