Arithmetic that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

Something very like that but possibly simpler. Would a Usanian say it at 122F or 106? I'm thinking the latter.

[Guy]

I have just completed the IT Local Security Officer course, scoring 38 out of a possible 38 in the final test.

My stickyfoot says:

Course Grade: 98.68%

 

[philip]

I have just completed the IT Local Security Officer course, scoring 38 out of a possible 38 in the final test.

My stickyfoot says:

Course Grade: 98.68%

 

Looks like you really scored 37.5, which can be rounded to 38 but also left unrounded as 98.68%.

[Kim]

You're supposed to hack in and fix the results yourself.

[Tim Hall]

I'm just looking at a drawing of a sheet piling layout. It has dimensions on it, for example 6670.052.  The units are millimetres.  This means what ever it is is being measured to the nearest 0.001 mm . That's 1 micron. Human hair is 70 microns. Joe average bacteria are 1-2 microns diameter.  Sheet piles (GBFO lumps of steel) are not manufactured to such tolerances.

[Mr Larrington]

Is it (badly) converted from some other set of units by an idiot?

[rafletcher]

Nah, it’s a CAD drawing and you can be super accurate….  even if the building won’t be closer than half a brick.

[Ashaman42]

Oh yeah, I've had students giving me diagrams of parts to be manufactured where clearance hole positions are specified to 0.001mm.

[Ashaman42]

And lecturers for that matter.

[hatler]

I remember given a helmsman on an RFA tug a heading to half a degree. He laughed. I didn't do that again.

[cygnet]

Nah, it’s a CAD drawing and you can be super accurate….  even if the building won’t be closer than half a brick.

CAD in the wrong hands gives a laughable impression of what is buildable, leading to unrealistic expectations.

[Ashaman42]

That is the other joy I get. Designs that would require spanners/allen keys to phase through solid matter to do fixings up.

[hatler]

Oooof. On two levels.

"We have 8,5000 people dying each year of fuel poverty - that's a hundred people a day," he said.

From here.

[Pickled Onion]

You missed the "during winter" off the end of the quote. So if that zero is the obvious typo, assuming people only die of fuel poverty from December to February, it sort of adds up correctly.

[Pickled Onion]

I have just completed the IT Local Security Officer course, scoring 38 out of a possible 38 in the final test.

My stickyfoot says:

Course Grade: 98.68%

 

Work asked us to "help out" some numeracy charity by completing their test.

"Congratulations, you scored 100%. Click here, here and here to see how you could improve your score"

[hatler]

You missed the "during winter" off the end of the quote. So if that zero is the obvious typo, assuming people only die of fuel poverty from December to February, it sort of adds up correctly.

Fair point. Mis-quoting is something I despise. And if that figure is 8,500 and not 85,000 then it all stacks up.

[fimm]

https://twitter.com/GiveMeSpace3/status/1456622706615586819

Study finds that one in 53 people in the UK has symptomatic virus - down from one in 56 a week before.

[Moleman76]

Nah, it’s a CAD drawing and you can be super accurate….  even if the building won’t be closer than half a brick.

CAD in the wrong hands gives a laughable impression of what is buildable, leading to unrealistic expectations.

From time to time I help out with "constructability reviews" of publicly funded projects (schools, mostly).  The usual focus is "before you release these documents for bidders, can a group of architects and engineers help the design team identify things that won't fit, where drawings show different things, etc., so they can be corrected?"  However, when I see dimensions in x/256", I usually comment that they need to reset the precision or face guffaws from the builders.

[Giraffe]

https://twitter.com/GiveMeSpace3/status/1456622706615586819

Study finds that one in 53 people in the UK has symptomatic virus - down from one in 56 a week before.

I do wish that all these figures were given as percentages - so much simpler.
Then there's the rounding: no, 9,790 is not nearly 10,000. To be generous, I'll give you almost 9,800.

BTW, a scientific site mentioned atmospheric CO2 as 4% - it's actually about 415ppm.

[ian]

I think we'd all be dead if the atmosphere was 4% carbon dioxide (but we shouldn't give industry a target). I presume they meant 0.04%.

I do prefer 1-in-50 people approach rather than relative numbers like percentages. It's a big annoyance in medical papers and reporting when they write that such-and-such is 20% better, tell me how many people the drug will fix. It's become a sleight of hand to fudge minimal effects.

[chrisbainbridge]

I think we'd all be dead if the atmosphere was 4% carbon dioxide (but we shouldn't give industry a target). I presume they meant 0.04%.

I do prefer 1-in-50 people approach rather than relative numbers like percentages. It's a big annoyance in medical papers and reporting when they write that such-and-such is 20% better, tell me how many people the drug will fix. It's become a sleight of hand to fudge minimal effects.

Exactly

[hatler]

Woops.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59119103

An electric scooter that can go 100 kmph (62 mph)? Meet the sleek new machine that's designed to leave the clunky scooters you see buzzing around suburban High Streets, in the dust.

Looks like the sub didn't get to this one in time.

[Giraffe]

That'll beat Elon to Mars!

[Cudzoziemiec]

The abbreviations are a bit clunky perhaps but I don't see anything wrong with the arithmetic. Not that that guarantees there's nothing wrong.

[hatler]

kmph isn't a unit.
The "?" after the "(62mph)?" indicates the poor journo doesn't know/couldn't work out what 100kph is in mph and would have put that there as an appeal to the sub-editor to check and correct if necessary.