Arithmetic that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

kmph shouldn't be a unit but is commonly used and the "?" applies to the whole sentence, as in "[Can you believe/Would you want/etc] An electric scooter that can go 100 kmph (62 mph)?" I'd call it dodgy writing rather than arithmetic.

[Pickled Onion]

Trying to compare fridge freezers on the JL site. Apparently the NEFF one has a capacity of 630.0 litres. But still fits in a space H177.2 x W55.8 x D54.5cm. I wonder if it says "FREE FOR USE OF PUBLIC" on it as well.

[Giraffe]

I see it as kilo-miles-per-hour. 100,000 mph would break the speed limit on most roads.

[Giraffe]

It has negative insulation, so it's bigger on the inside... - oh, I've had an idea for an SF series.

[Pickled Onion]

Negative insulation doesn't sound like a great feature for a fridge 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Depends who's hiding in it. 

[hellymedic]

This story seems unable to count to six reliably.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/young-parents-welcome-200-million-25414422?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mirror_main&fbclid=IwAR0SWrGEhP5426htjZOxdltLx8td7-mAYHCkXegMvZoVQQhsBO4r0Shz5DA

Couple welcome '200m to one' identical triplets and now have 4 kids under two
Ellie Dudfield, 21, and Billy Revell, 20, are adjusting to life as a family of five after welcoming a set of identical triplets - the three boys were born 12 weeks early and had a 40% chance of survival

Young couple have toddler, followed by triplets and are referred to as 'a family of five'…

I think 2 + 1 + 3 = 6...

[Pingu]

I had to do that on my fingers   

[Mr Larrington]

You can’t spell “millennia” either, Grandad, so bugger off.

[hellymedic]

I had to do that on my fingers   

Even if you had to do it on your fingers, methinks you would have been able to count to ten at some stage before your eighth birthday.

What really gets me is how these things are propagated unchecked & uncorrected on social meeja.

[T42]

Oh shit, I've lived in 9. Decades, not centuries.

[Basil]

Oh shit, I've lived in 9. Decades, not centuries.

Me too.

[Tim Hall]

Sign on the back of a minibus today:

Please leave 8 feet (3m) for wheelchair ramp.

You sure about that?

[Feanor]

Sign on the back of a minibus today:

Please leave 8 feet (3m) for wheelchair ramp.

You sure about that?

I think that's OK.
On signage, you don't need or want decimal places; no-one will be using a tape measure.
You just want an integer number of meet or feeters.

So if we say 8 ft, that is 2.4384m.
To round this to integer values, you might choose 2m, but since it's wheelchair access and the value of 8ft might be regarded as a minimum, you might not want to round down.
So rounding up to 3m seems reasonable to me.

[phantasmagoriana]

Sign on the back of a minibus today:

Please leave 8 feet (3m) for wheelchair ramp.

You sure about that?

I think that's OK.
On signage, you don't need or want decimal places; no-one will be using a tape measure.
You just want an integer number of meet or feeters.

So if we say 8 ft, that is 2.4384m.
To round this to integer values, you might choose 2m, but since it's wheelchair access and the value of 8ft might be regarded as a minimum, you might not want to round down.
So rounding up to 3m seems reasonable to me.

But why not just say 10ft?

[hellymedic]

Sign on the back of a minibus today:
Please leave 8 feet (3m) for wheelchair ramp.
You sure about that?

I think that's OK.
On signage, you don't need or want decimal places; no-one will be using a tape measure.
You just want an integer number of meet or feeters.
So if we say 8 ft, that is 2.4384m.
To round this to integer values, you might choose 2m, but since it's wheelchair access and the value of 8ft might be regarded as a minimum, you might not want to round down.
So rounding up to 3m seems reasonable to me.

3 metres is 10 feet in fairly accurate round numbers.

[Feanor]

Sign on the back of a minibus today:

Please leave 8 feet (3m) for wheelchair ramp.

You sure about that?

I think that's OK.
On signage, you don't need or want decimal places; no-one will be using a tape measure.
You just want an integer number of meet or feeters.

So if we say 8 ft, that is 2.4384m.
To round this to integer values, you might choose 2m, but since it's wheelchair access and the value of 8ft might be regarded as a minimum, you might not want to round down.
So rounding up to 3m seems reasonable to me.

But why not just say 10ft?

Because the original value may have been specified in ft.

Yes, you could convert to integer m, then back-calculate a revised ft value.
But that does not really add any value to the procedure.

Leaving 8ft or 3m both satisfy the requirement.
No need to complicate it.

[grams]

Both numbers are likely padded upwards well above the actual minimum to account for misers and chancers.

[barakta]

A wheelchair using friend of mine has a heavily adapted van. Because people will NOT leave the 2m+ she needs to get in and out, she has an inflatable cone on a string which she leaves out behind her parked van to try and deter people from blocking the necessary space.

It's not 100% effective, but it works more often than not. It also proves anyone blocking her has actively chosen to do so as they have to go and move the cone...

[Kim]

I recently found myself in traffic behind a converted van with no less than six (6) variations on the "please leave room for wheelchair access" sign affixed.  Two of which specified (conflicting) distances.  Not that it matters, even if people read them, common sense, politeness and basic human decency all go out the window as soon as car parking becomes involved.

[grams]

The not-at-all macabrely named HumanForest bike sharing app at the end of a ride:


There's no context I'm omitting here - this is the first and only time it's displayed how much this ride and/or parking(?!) might cost.

Also the red christmas decorations on the tree initially made me think this location was crossed out. Thanks zany art department.

[Kim]

The not-at-all macabrely named HumanForest bike sharing app at the end of a ride:

"If you see a negative fee, you're parking for free!" presumably means "Sorry, we're just bad at computers."

(Using a negative number to represent free parking in some database isn't inherently a bad idea, but leaking that representation out to the user is just sloppy.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd have said they just wanted an excuse to use a not particularly good rhyme. Also, your  image isn't showing for me at all in the post (but I saw it by pasting it into my browser).

[grams]

My total guess is that they originally implemented a feature that would charge you an extra fee when you parked in a Forbidden Zone.

At some later date management demanded a feature where if you park in a designated zone (the green circle) you get a discount, and thus the negative parking fee was born, implemented with virtually no code changes. Note how the title and red "fee" would be better suited to telling me off.

I'd have said they just wanted an excuse to use a not particularly good rhyme. Also, your  image isn't showing for me at all in the post (but I saw it by pasting it into my browser).

It's an HTTP image embed in an HTTPS page, which some browsers are fussy about.

[T42]

Dunno whether to put this here on in "Grammar..." since it's neither, but only the Graun (yes, I know) could quote a mass in metric then convert it to kilos and get it wrong:

A meteor that caused an earthshaking boom over suburban Pittsburgh on New Year’s Day exploded in the atmosphere with an energy blast equivalent to an estimated 30 tonnes (27,200kg) of TNT, officials said.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/04/pittsburgh-new-years-day-meteor-explosion-equivalent-to-30-tonnes-of-tnt-says-nasa

You can see how they did it - "oh, we have to write tonnes these days".