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Author Topic: Random Stuff Part IV  (Read 138899 times)

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Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #375 on: February 06, 2019, 12:53:27 pm »
0

Sorry, I copied this riddle from another source from where I first saw it. I first saw it as an image, which I couldn't copy. In that version, it said "Roll a dice" and I didn't pick up that the second version was different. It does make more sense when it's not a single die, and that may just be the "postman" effect.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #376 on: February 08, 2019, 06:27:28 pm »
0

Man, it's been 2 days, and they haven't posted the answer yet. I am vexed right now.

Okay, I'm stumped on this riddle. Considering that I'm having a hard time finding it on Google, I question how viable it is. It's not a popular one obviously. It may have originated in England, judging from the use of "dice" as singular, but it might not exclusively be an English thing. Any ideas? It sounds vaguely board-game-y.

I am a king but I do not move one space.
Roll the a dice and I start a fast race.
Begin my reign, I make bucks.
My land is not free, it is my crux.

I almost want to say Monopoly, though that game does not have kings. Perhaps it is used figuratively. But everything else could apply to it.
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Asper

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #377 on: February 11, 2019, 04:02:20 am »
0

that may just be the "postman" effect.
What is the postman effect? I tried to read up on it, but all I found was why dogs bark at the postman.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #378 on: February 11, 2019, 08:41:28 am »
+1

that may just be the "postman" effect.
What is the postman effect? I tried to read up on it, but all I found was why dogs bark at the postman.

Well, actually I think I meant post office. Basically where one person repeats another person but interjects some possible inaccuracies.
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Asper

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #379 on: February 11, 2019, 11:26:54 am »
0

that may just be the "postman" effect.
What is the postman effect? I tried to read up on it, but all I found was why dogs bark at the postman.

Well, actually I think I meant post office. Basically where one person repeats another person but interjects some possible inaccuracies.
Ah, now I get it. Thanks.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #380 on: February 11, 2019, 03:09:41 pm »
0

The contentious definition of bi-annual has reared its ugly head again. I tried to politely suggest that due to all the confusion that has formed around that word that we refer to semiannual since at least that word is unambiguous (and I hate it when people refer to bi-annual as twice a year).

And then I get proven wrong by someone saying that semiannual means four times a year. I can't guarantee I kept a good enough poker face at hearing that one. But she looked it up and realized the mistake, but it still flummoxed me that that definition has been going around.

People just suck at prefixes, man.
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Asper

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #381 on: February 12, 2019, 10:08:52 am »
+4

People just suck at prefixes, man.

Prefixes are words in front of other words that, while being part of the same term, are still visually divided by a space. An example would be "counter measure"'s "counter". What you mean are antefixes, units that are part of the very same word,such as "ante" in antefix.

I like to make stuff up on the internet for fun.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #382 on: February 12, 2019, 11:09:21 am »
+1

People just suck at prefixes, man.

Prefixes are words in front of other words that, while being part of the same term, are still visually divided by a space. An example would be "counter measure"'s "counter". What you mean are antefixes, units that are part of the very same word,such as "ante" in antefix.

I like to make stuff up on the internet for fun.

It was very well done too.
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pacovf

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #383 on: February 12, 2019, 12:35:24 pm »
0

People just suck at prefixes, man.

Prefixes are words in front of other words that, while being part of the same term, are still visually divided by a space. An example would be "counter measure"'s "counter". What you mean are antefixes, units that are part of the very same word,such as "ante" in antefix.

I like to make stuff up on the internet for fun.

Man I almost got trolled.
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silverspawn

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #384 on: February 12, 2019, 01:35:46 pm »
+1

An antefix is actually a vertical block that terminates the covering tiles of a tiled roof.

Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #385 on: February 15, 2019, 10:04:01 pm »
+3

Once again I got sucked into another pointless Facebook vortex. I had to caption this.

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silverspawn

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #386 on: February 23, 2019, 07:38:30 am »
+1

I've been playing around with changing my avatar, this is the current leading alternative. What do you think?

markusin

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #387 on: February 23, 2019, 09:04:49 pm »
0

Once again I got sucked into another pointless Facebook vortex. I had to caption this.



Can you blame them?

W + W + W = 30
W + X + X = 20
X + X + Y = 18

What is V + X * Y?

What, you didn't realise that V was W/2? Expected parentheses that could trivially be added to remove all unneeded ambiguity rather than remember BEDMAS? That's exactly what the 90% of people who fail would say.
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Watno

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #388 on: February 24, 2019, 07:57:36 am »
+4

Can you blame them?

W + W + W = 30
W + X + X = 20
X + X + Y = 18

What is V + X * Y?

What, you didn't realise that V was W/2? Expected parentheses that could trivially be added to remove all unneeded ambiguity rather than remember BEDMAS? That's exactly what the 90% of people who fail would say.

What I find funny abot this is that the way these problems are displayed, it makes way more sense for V being sqrt(W), since having 2 variables without anything between them usually means multiplication. 
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Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #389 on: February 24, 2019, 02:23:11 pm »
+3

Can you blame them?

W + W + W = 30
W + X + X = 20
X + X + Y = 18

What is V + X * Y?

What, you didn't realise that V was W/2? Expected parentheses that could trivially be added to remove all unneeded ambiguity rather than remember BEDMAS? That's exactly what the 90% of people who fail would say.

What I find funny abot this is that the way these problems are displayed, it makes way more sense for V being sqrt(W), since having 2 variables without anything between them usually means multiplication. 

Yeah, I like to point out that while they probably are looking for V being W/2, that relationship is not defined, so I use SQRT(W) as an example of why it's important to define terms early.

But speaking of PEDMAS (or BODMAS or any other permutation of that acronym), I never learned it that way. I simply learned that multiplication happens before addition with parentheses redirecting priority as needed. I later learned about exponents, and it just made sense to me that you work those first because you can view expressions as adding together a bunch of groups, and of course you do exponents before multiplication. But superscripts help with that. One may question the intent of writing x^3*y, but the superscript easily differentiates between x3y and x3y. While x^3*y would strictly be equivalent to the former, I would ask for clarification first because I can see where the author could make an unfounded assumption in writing that.

But I feel like the PEDMAS acronym is hurting people in those Facebook math questions. The latest I've seen is 5-5*5+5. People not aware of the order of operations will say 5, but I've seen a lot of people say that the answer is -25. The reason is that you multiply first (5-25+5) and then add next (5-30) and finally subtract (-25). They don't realize that addition and subtraction have the same priority (or that they are in fact the same operation).

Naturally, the commutative property does let you add those in any order, but they think they can add 25 and 5. They don't realize that the term is -25. When people can't remember the actual math, they seem to fall back on the acronym, but they're not using it correctly. I've seen people try to correct them by writing it as PE(DM)(AS) to indicate when priority is equal. I can respect that attempt.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2019, 08:17:57 pm by Kuildeous »
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Tables

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #390 on: February 24, 2019, 03:07:02 pm »
+5

One of the Maths teachers I work with doesn't like teaching BIDMAS (aka PEDMAS) because of exactly that confusion. Instead he mentions that BIDMAS is a way some people remember it but then explains better ways, namely how the more powerful things happen first with brackets forcing priority. Obviously he explains it better than I'm doing in 2 lines of text but whatever. I feel like BIDMAS ends up confusing some people because it feels like an arbitrary rule, few people really have any idea of WHY it's there.
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...spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons.
But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

scott_pilgrim

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #391 on: February 24, 2019, 03:43:18 pm »
+3

When people can't remember the actual math, they seem to fall back on the acronym, but they're not using it correctly. I've seen people try to correct them by writing it as PE(DM)(AS) to indicate when priority is equal. I can respect that attempt.

When I tutored math that's usually how I would explain it. But what's really frustrating to me is when teachers make no distinction between things in math that are just arbitrarily established conventions, versus things that are actually provably true. When a student asks "Why do we go in the PEMDAS order?", it is technically correct to say "Because that's the easiest way to do it", because that is why we do it; it's just some arbitrary convention, and we had to make up some consistent rules, so why not those rules. But if you just leave the answer at that, the student walks away thinking that that's how everything in math works, we just make up rules to follow, and then being "good at math" is just a matter of memorizing and applying those rules.

PEMDAS isn't really a feature of math, it's a feature of language, which just happens to only be relevant when you're talking about something mathematical, in the same way that "four" is a feature of language, but you only ever use it to express a mathematical idea. But the fact that you learn about it in a math class makes your brain lump it together with all other "math", and that makes you more inclined to think that everything else in that category was equally arbitrary.
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sudgy

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #392 on: February 24, 2019, 04:05:26 pm »
0

I've always thought that order of operations is way more simple than people make it out to be.  Multiplication and division are the same thing, and happen before addition and subtraction.  Other than that, it's left to right.  That's all I've ever thought about order of operations.  Exponents, by the way they're written, require them to be resolved first (barring stupid cases like x^3*y), and parentheses are just a universal "resolve this first".
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Check out my logic puzzle blog!

   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

Witherweaver

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #393 on: February 24, 2019, 09:17:23 pm »
0

The correct answer to all those "puzzles" looks to always be undefined.
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blueblimp

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #394 on: February 25, 2019, 01:44:09 am »
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When a student asks "Why do we go in the PEMDAS order?", it is technically correct to say "Because that's the easiest way to do it", because that is why we do it; it's just some arbitrary convention, and we had to make up some consistent rules, so why not those rules.
I don't know the real reason behind the convention, but I suspect it's to let you write polynomials in standard form without parentheses and without the insanity that would result from addition binding tighter than subtraction. ("Why standard form" is that it allows you to easily add and multiply polynomials. "Why polynomials" is that they're pervasive in math.)

That doesn't cover division, but I think that's just imitating the way addition and subtraction work, and, anyway, the division symbol hardly ever gets used.

Edit: Turns out I wrote about the same point on here 7 years ago.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2019, 01:51:32 am by blueblimp »
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Kuildeous

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #395 on: February 25, 2019, 10:15:30 am »
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Edit: Turns out I wrote about the same point on here 7 years ago.

On a thread that I started even. These things just bug me because they're easy to correct, but so many people don't want to learn. It bugs the tutor within me. But then if you're convinced you're right, then it's hard for someone to convince you otherwise. But at least be willing to check yourself. If 20 people all told me that you do addition before multiplication, I'd say they're wrong, but the number is large enough that it would make me double-check that something hasn't changed.

But some people have acknowledged that they have learned something new to them, and that makes it worth it. I just wish there were more of them.

And yeah, I haven't seen the division sign used past elementary school. I get annoyed when I see it pop up on those brain teasers because it's not really standard use. I tend to not discuss those.
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silverspawn

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #396 on: February 28, 2019, 03:45:24 pm »
0

Noble Brigand shoots arrows at people. Then they gain copper.

Explain.

2.71828.....

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #397 on: February 28, 2019, 03:49:48 pm »
+3

Noble Brigand shoots arrows at people. Then they gain copper.

Explain.

He is like Robin Hood. Steals from the rich, gives to the poor. Takes your gold and silver, but if you lack treasure he is generous enough to give you a copper.
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MiX

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #398 on: February 28, 2019, 03:51:12 pm »
0

Noble Brigand shoots arrows at people. Then they gain copper.

Explain.

He doesn't shoot arrows, he's just the Thief but he actually looks at the other person's treasures before taking them: he can only sell silver and gold, so that's all he takes, plus he's merciful: he leaves behind some useless (for him) coppers if the person's poor, because he didn't become a thief to harm, just out of necessity.

Short answer: Thief with a heart of Gold/Silver that needs constant fuel.
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silverspawn

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Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« Reply #399 on: February 28, 2019, 03:54:43 pm »
0

Noble Brigand shoots arrows at people. Then they gain copper.

Explain.

He is like Robin Hood. Steals from the rich, gives to the poor. Takes your gold and silver, but if you lack treasure he is generous enough to give you a copper.

wow now that you say it I guess that was actually intended! I never made that connection before.
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