Over the Christmas/New Years break, my 7-year-old son, Alex, was introduced to an online game called Toontown. He was having a bit of trouble with dropped connections to the server, and I speculated that there might be a more players online than their server can handle.
Later that evening, I was reading an article about the One Laptop Per Child project (olpc.org) and the interviewee stated that fewer than half the children in the world have electricity in the home. I like to encourage the kids to be grateful for what they have, so I called Alex in and presented this statistical nugget with the expectation that his horizons and understanding of world issues would broaden.
He thought for a second or two, got a very serious look on his face and said, “Hey, Dad. You know what this means?” I waited expectantly for the thoughtful insight of my future Nobel price winner. “If only half the kids in the world have electricity, the problem with Toontown can’t be to many people on the server. It would have to be some other reason.”
Oh, well. I hope those tickets to Sweden are refundable! 🙂