this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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Anything that makes you apply your hand to your face.

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[–] [email protected] 139 points 3 months ago (5 children)

How to explain to Americans: If You remove 3 bullets out of an Gen 4 Glock 26 9mm 12-Round magazine, that's 1/4. If you remove 4 bullets, that's 1/3. The police can shoot one more unarmed black man with 1/3 of the magazine than 1/4.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That... Is a very morbid, yet perfect example.

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[–] [email protected] 120 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Troll gave it away by calling them "signs"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Welcome Ken M energy

[–] [email protected] 74 points 3 months ago (1 children)

i know the guy on discord and he was actually put into a book as well

[–] Jax 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There are 2 individuals in this post

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

A very strange and esoteric language called Dutch.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago (2 children)

"Somehow it's ok for people to chuckle about not being good at math. Yet if I said, 'I never learned to read,' they'd say I was an illiterate dolt." - Neil deGrasse Tyson

It's been this way for a long time now unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Chuckle? Hell I know full grown adults in their fifties who wear their mathematical ignorance as a badge of pride!

It's like they're clinging to their youth so desperately, that they continue on with the high school trope that only nerds who are undeserving of social interaction know math.

Meanwhile, they also tend to continuously moan online how broke they are - inevitably from decades of poor financial decisions that landed them under a mountain of usurious debt with double digit compounding interest.

They also like to get grammatically pedantic on the regular to show off their superior language skills - usually when they've got nothing of value to contribute to the conversation or they know they've been bested, so better point out those autocorrect errors.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Feels like you've a specific person in mind.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

In my eyes, if you don't understand 1/3 > 1/4, then ya might as well be an illiterate dolt. It's one of the first things you learn in school along with reading. Might as well consider your self a primary school dropout.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The American education system (for my old millennial ass)

"Memorize this. No I will not explain how it works or why. Memorize it take the test and leave me alone."

Me who is physically incapable of memorizing seemingly arbitrary stuff and needs to understand for it to stick: I guess fuck me then huh? 1/4 pounder it is!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

no wonder people learn to hate math

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago (18 children)

I once had a mortgage advisor point at a more than sign and go "is that more or less? I never can remember"

Like, why did you get into this job? I ended up not taking his advice.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Except it's not true. That was just the excuse A&W made when going bankrupt. No one else had problems selling 1/3lb burgers in the US.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Yeah, I would think so. No other restaurant had problems selling 1/3lb burgers. Braums and Carls Jr sling them by the truckload. Almost all the small family restaurants here sell their burgers by 1/3lb 2/3lb sizes. And I don't exactly live in an area known for it's high intelligence. So I'm calling shenanigans.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Try to compete with McDonald’s marketing on their brand new 1/4 pounder

Get absolutely destroyed when piggy-backing their marketing strategy fails

Blame the customer for not understanding fractions

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Why has no one introduced a 1/8th pounder and charged more for it?

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The way he lays out his math had me a little confused at first but I blame it on my lack of coffee

When I was in grade school I remember a teacher told me that if you think about the greater and less than signs as alligators eating the bigger numbers... To this day, it's still what I see

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

My teacher put a kid with dwarfism and tall kid side by side in front of the black board and drew a line between the tops of their heads, and then another still downwards but in the opposite horizontal direction. Thus the pointy end always faces the smaller thing, while the open end always faces the larger thing. Doesn't work so well in english, though since it kind of implies people with dwarfism are "less than" people without the condition. In the language it was taught the verbs used for < and > are also used when comparing heights.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's still how I think about them as well

[–] thetreesaysbark 7 points 3 months ago

Huh... I was taught they are 2 lines. There's a bigger gap on the side which is bigger, and a smaller gap on the side that's smaller (so small they touch)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago (6 children)

I used to work on a deli. Someone ordered an eighth pound of meat (which is like nothing and nobody ever did this). My coworker asked me if that meant .8 on the scale.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The hungry alligator eats the bigger number.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That always confused me as a kid. Big side is bigger number - simple and straightforward.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well, the 1/3 also had to compete with the double-quarter (aka, half pound, but two patties), which is bigger and feels significantly more substantial as well.

It doesn't help that any place I saw selling them (let's be real here, this is about McD's) was offering an expensive and fancy 1/3rd burger (deluxe bacon, southwest ranch style, Asian sensation with real gold flake, etc) against the old reliable (cheap) quarter-pounder. Perceived value is everything.

Also, we're bad at math, lol

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (9 children)

A&W had a 1/3lb burger that was cheaper than McDonald's quarter pounder. Nothing fancy about it, just people are bad at math.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (24 children)

It doesn't take a ton of mental capacity, but even though I have a good education in math, I still find myself doing the heuristics of assuming that larger digits means larger number. Using fractions for comparing sizes can flip these heuristics. And I think a lot of people are like me, and also that they won't spend a lot of time reading each item on the menu.

Where I'm from, burger sizes are just given in amount of grams, which makes it a lot easier to compare.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The third burger failed because it was a stupid amount when it came out, iirc it was more expensive than the quarter lber and like a dollar less than a double quarter lber.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Well yeah, that's how math should work. It's more expensive than the thing it's bigger than, and less expensive than the thing it's smaller than.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

My point was almost everyone would rather spend the extra dollar to get more especially because the double quarter lber came with a larger fry iirc.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (4 children)

It failed at more chains than just McDonald's. Lots of places had 1/3 burger patties only and most have switched to 1/4 and didn't even alter the price... More profit and they get less headache about it.

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[–] cheezoid2 8 points 3 months ago (11 children)

Would you rather have a 1/2 ounce bag or a 1/8 bag?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Higher number = growth and better!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Infinite burgers = infinite growth!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Also a single quarter pound patty plus fries is already enough food. Perhaps too much.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Pay attention to your kids' education folks

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

1/3 pounder? More like turd pounder :)

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