[Porsche-O-Phile]

While I agree wholeheartedly that 288 is the correct answer, I disagree with the notion that we can or should trust computers to think for us. After all, the software that runs on them is programmed by (usually) the lowest bid guy. As such, I don't place all THAT much stake in computerized results without verification... The computerized results are there to augment our thinking, not replace it with some programmer's.

Do you really want some low-bid programming contractor out of India (or wherever) doing your thinking for you? I know I don't.

It's nice that Excel validates the correct result but in reality all it means is some Microsoft contractor agrees that the method of calculation used to obtain the 288 result is the same as (some of) us here.