Author Topic: Arithmetic that makes you cringe  (Read 77851 times)

TheLurker

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #25 on: 29 July, 2016, 09:37:24 pm »
No, TV's Henry Coles, a motorcycle introduced in 1958 is 58 years old.  That, by any stretch of the imagination, is not "nearly 70".
I dunno 58 is nearly 60 which is the same order of magnitude as 70 sooo if you wave your hands enough it is nearly(ish).  :)

Entirely irrelevant aside.  Saw him, that Cole bloke, with his mate Sam this lunchtime at The Plough at Kelmscott.
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #26 on: 30 July, 2016, 08:00:25 am »
2016-1947 = 69.  That makes me cringe.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #27 on: 30 July, 2016, 09:51:18 am »
No, TV's Henry Coles, a motorcycle introduced in 1958 is 58 years old.  That, by any stretch of the imagination, is not "nearly 70".

I too am that age and of that vintage.

I am CERTAINLY NOT 'nearly 70'!
Perhaps fair enough when you're talking about a motorcycle and want to emphasise how amazingly advanced it was.
"Despite being designed 58 years ago, the Norazuki 500 Death Star Red Dwarf is technologically identical to a modern motorcycle, featuring overhead valves, electronic ignition and an early form of antilock braking."
Sounds quite impressive.

"Despite being born 58 years ago, Helen is anatomically identical to a modern human, featuring stereoscopic eyes, opposable thumbs and an early form of bipedal locomotion."
Hmmm...
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Steph

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #28 on: 30 July, 2016, 09:22:08 pm »
I was born in 1958, and am 58. I find that curiously satisfying, and symmetrical
Mae angen arnaf i byw, a fe fydda'i

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #29 on: 31 July, 2016, 08:48:54 am »
So do I!
But
I am not 'nearly 70'.
We have outlived Prince and Michael Jackson born that year.

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #30 on: 31 July, 2016, 09:13:12 am »
Surely BOGOF on shoes, eyebrows and any other obviously pairs are simply an attempt at humour.  I remember the surgeon trying to make the same joke DURING my vasectomy years ago.

To be fair, you don't want actually funny jokes during a vasectomy...
I dunno. During mine, the crool  nurse showed me the first bit of tube they had snipped out, balanced on the tip of her gloved finger.
"Don't touch me" she warned "I'm sterile "

"And I soon will be" I replied, as they moved from left bollock to right.
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Mrs Pingu

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #31 on: 29 August, 2016, 09:46:01 pm »
Quote
Opinions vary on how many children grow up thinking the wrong man is their father, but German studies put the figure at between less than 4% and more than 10%.

So  0-4% or 10-100% then? But definitely not 5-9%  :facepalm:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/29/germany-plan-force-mothers-reveal-childs-biological-father
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #32 on: 29 August, 2016, 11:27:27 pm »
No, between a number less than 4 and a number greater than 10, so definitely including the range 4-10 but maybe not including the ranges 0-4 and 10-100
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Giraffe

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #33 on: 30 August, 2016, 09:16:51 am »
Re. the test of autonomous cars in Singapore: the area is only 2 square kilometres (OK so far) on a side(!)
2x4: thick plank; 4x4: 2 of 'em.

mattc

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #34 on: 30 August, 2016, 12:26:07 pm »
No, between a number less than 4 and a number greater than 10, so definitely including the range 4-10 but maybe not including the ranges 0-4 and 10-100
Well deciphered.



Its almost certain that this one was the work of an innumerate journo (i.e. most of them). But this would have been so easy to fix with the little word "about" (or even "roughly").

Frustrating, but not surprising.
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #35 on: 30 August, 2016, 03:35:14 pm »
No, between a number less than 4 and a number greater than 10, so definitely including the range 4-10 but maybe not including the ranges 0-4 and 10-100
Well deciphered.



Its almost certain that this one was the work of an innumerate journo (i.e. most of them). But this would have been so easy to fix with the little word "about" (or even "roughly").

Frustrating, but not surprising.

I thought it was awkwardly phrased rather than innumerate - and not even that hard to decipher.

But I'd have gone for something like "at least around 1 in 25, but perhaps as many as 1 in 10 ..."

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #36 on: 31 August, 2016, 06:22:05 pm »
No, between a number less than 4 and a number greater than 10, so definitely including the range 4-10 but maybe not including the ranges 0-4 and 10-100

Well I know that, but surely the thing to say would have been between 3 and 11%!
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #37 on: 31 August, 2016, 08:15:17 pm »
I've spent much of the afternoon trying to make sense of someone else's code in relation to units.
The Help File and the Program were inconsistent, and investigation with actual numbers became a maze of twisty passages.

The code can take inputs in a variety of units ( typical oilfield nonsense ), and generates simultaneous outputs in various units which seemed to be incorrectly labelled.  It seemed the code was producing the correct answers, but in orders of magnitude wrong ( ie the units were incorrectly prefixed with K or M )

The decoding of this required a bunch of head-scratching as to what they authors actually meant.
Here are some examples:

hm3. (Hecto-metres) cubed. Not Hecto (Meters cubed). 100m x 100m x100m. 1 hm3=1000000 m^3.

MMBBL. 10^6 ( one Million ) Stock Tank Barrels. A Barrel is BBL. But in Awl Field Talk, a Million is prefixed MM sometimes. Not just M.

Bft3. Billion ( 10^9 ) Standard Cubic Feet.

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #38 on: 31 August, 2016, 08:24:27 pm »
And an Mbbl is 1000 bbls. Bloody confusing until you get used to it.

But then go to world of corrosion where they quote corrosion rates interchangeably as either mpy or mmpy, where mpy is 1/1000 of an inch per year and mmpy is a millimeter per year.   :facepalm:
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #39 on: 31 August, 2016, 10:49:31 pm »
Given the accuracy of corrosion prediction, does that factor of 25(ish) matter?
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Kim

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #40 on: 01 September, 2016, 12:24:22 am »
There's a dedicated circle of hell for this stuff, isn't there?

Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #41 on: 01 September, 2016, 12:30:49 am »
If there isn't, there should be.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #42 on: 01 September, 2016, 08:21:36 am »
If there isn't, there should be.

There is, it's called the EU emissions trading shecme (EUETS) where I'm required to verify operator's emissions in tonnes of CO2, but they use units like those above.

MMscf ffs  :demon:

The biggest issue is things like Feanor's above where folks take in stuff in volume, do stuff to it and try and spit out something else at the end.  Teh problem is that many of them (reservoir engineers in partic) have a very fixed view of the world and use fixed factors in their code that screw things up.

Doing everything in mass is much more sensible as that is conserved throughout, only do mass/vol conversions right at the end and use up to date factors
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #43 on: 01 September, 2016, 12:25:12 pm »
Given the accuracy of corrosion prediction, does that factor of 25(ish) matter?

God alone knows. I try to keep away from the rust department as much as possible.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #44 on: 02 September, 2016, 09:40:03 am »
About 40 thou to a mm, isn't it?
Getting there...

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Arithmetic that makes you despair
« Reply #45 on: 25 January, 2017, 08:42:50 pm »
University nearly kills studes with caffeine...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-38744307

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #46 on: 25 January, 2017, 09:06:57 pm »
I read that one, both humorous and  :o at the same time
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

redshift

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Re: Arithmetic that makes you despair
« Reply #47 on: 25 January, 2017, 09:36:04 pm »
University nearly kills studes with caffeine...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-38744307

Back in the dim and distant past, when I was pretending to be doing a degree in Biochemistry and Chemistry, we were regularly presented with a list of the chemistry we would be using in upcoming labs.  The idea was then to attend the library and consult such fabulous references such as N. Irving Sax's 'The dangerous properties of industrial chemicals' or the Merck Index, or similar works, and write up a complete safety audit for each chemical we were going to use, including what to do if it was spilled or ingested.  Not presenting a safety audit resulted in not doing the lab, and this was in the 80's, long before elfin safety and risk assessments were anything like as prevalent as today.  I remember having to look up caffeine for one experiment, and finding new respect for the fine white crystals that filled the sample tube at the end of the day.  The story reads like there were neither safety audits nor supervision for that experiment - an audit alone should have primed someone to notice that they were out by a factor of 10, based on LD50 alone, surely?
L
:)
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barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #48 on: 25 January, 2017, 09:55:35 pm »
I have a friend who has been a postdoc at a few unis and she says H&S can be shocking in some places. There is limited supervision of younger students and researchers and when stuff goes wrong coverups are massive. Cutting corners only works for so long.

I hope other unis are reading that and thinking "SHIT, we'd better look at ourselves carefully too".

Manotea

  • Where there is doubt...
Re: Arithmetic that makes you cringe
« Reply #49 on: 25 January, 2017, 10:08:51 pm »
True story in (long) post decimal Britain....

Customer: 100 rolls please...

Rolls cost 4p each.

Shop Assistant to friend: What's 4 times 100?