Author Topic: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.  (Read 630841 times)

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Offline bsfeechannel

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #25 on: September 06, 2020, 01:28:59 am »
Engineers, when they forget they are essentially half-assed physicists.
 

Offline basinstreetdesign

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #26 on: September 06, 2020, 02:01:11 am »
People who claim that the century/millennium starts at year XX00 not XX01.  I guess they forget that there was never a year 0000.  :scared:
STAND BACK!  I'm going to try SCIENCE!
 
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Offline AlfBaz

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #27 on: September 06, 2020, 02:03:53 am »
Somebody puts up a post that they discovered a worm hole into another dimension, with a video to prove it and the thread derails into an argument about the wrong ISO settings on the camera :palm:
 
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Offline CirclotronTopic starter

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #28 on: September 06, 2020, 02:42:31 am »
When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #29 on: September 06, 2020, 02:48:28 am »
People who claim that the century/millennium starts at year XX00 not XX01.  I guess they forget that there was never a year 0000.  :scared:
Damned right!  The last year of the Twentieth Century was twenty-hundred, just as the last year of the First Century was one hundred.  Year one through year 100 is 100 years, a century.  When this was defined, the Church used Roman numerals, which do not contain zero.
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #30 on: September 06, 2020, 03:06:40 am »
Ring main when describing socket circuits,its a ring final circuit,or even ring final will do,a ring mains belongs  in the world of high voltage distribution  or is  something to do with water.
 

Offline magic

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #31 on: September 06, 2020, 03:37:19 am »
People who claim that the century/millennium starts at year XX00 not XX01.  I guess they forget that there was never a year 0000.  :scared:
People who came up with there not being a year 0.

People who think all dates are four digits long :)
 

Offline helius

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #32 on: September 06, 2020, 03:49:56 am »
NOOOoooooooooooooo...
Let me guess: it will be 100% of the "x times heavier" = "x times as heavy" meaning

He is correct: 142 times is 14200 percent. Suppose for purposes of discussion that the subject is only 50% heavier than the mass of the Sun. If "50% heavier than" actually means "50% as heavy", we have the curious conclusion that it is both heavier and lighter at the same time.

The multiplicand of the relative amount is always the object of the comparison, and comparative adverbs like "heavier" or "cheaper" always refer to differences (subtraction).

To put it simply, "A is X% [comparative] than B" --> \$ A - B = \frac X {100} \cdot B \$

Taking a popularity contest will not establish correctness, because it's been shown that the majority of people are innumerate.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2020, 05:10:26 am by helius »
 
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Offline bsfeechannel

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #33 on: September 06, 2020, 03:56:24 am »
People who came up with there not being a year 0.

That would be the ancient Romans. They didn't have the number zero. When counting time they considered the present time as 1. So, when you were born you already were in your first year. On your first birthday, you were in your second year and so on. If an ancient Roman told you something would happen in two days, that'd be tomorrow, because the present day would be counted as the first day.
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #34 on: September 06, 2020, 04:53:01 am »
When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.

Did you Xerox your TPS report?
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #35 on: September 06, 2020, 04:54:37 am »
Here we have a headline that reads:
Black hole 142 times heavier than the Sun discovered
and further along in the article we read
GW190521 weighs in at 142 times the mass of our Sun

https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html

Which is of course, plainly contradictory.
If it were 142 times heavier than our sun it would be 143 times the mass of our sun, not 142. This kind of thing seems to be popping up more and more lately.

What other things are there?

AAPL just did a 4:1 split.

A lot of people had no idea how many shares of stock they'd have after the split was complete.
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #36 on: September 06, 2020, 04:56:11 am »
Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."

Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."

I don't get it.
 
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Offline helius

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #37 on: September 06, 2020, 05:28:22 am »
Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."

Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."

I don't get it.
In the 2000s there was a cultural appreciation of poorly translated sentences found in video games from Japan. "All your base are belong to us" from Zero Wing, and the like. A particular feature of these Engrish utterances are a tense shift from present to imperfect ("am wanting"), which I surmise reflects differences of Japanese sentence structure. Many people found it funny, and started using these forms as an attempt at humor; others copied it, without knowing why it was humorous. This is how many language trends develop.
 
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Offline CirclotronTopic starter

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #38 on: September 06, 2020, 05:34:00 am »
It annoys me when shareholders supposedly get paid a dividend.
No they don’t!
They get paid a quotient.
A dividend is the total amount to be divided up.
And the divisor is now many parts it is separated into.
 
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Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #39 on: September 06, 2020, 06:13:51 am »
Somebody puts up a post that they discovered a worm hole into another dimension, with a video to prove it and the thread derails into an argument about the wrong ISO settings on the camera :palm:

Nar, those who video in portrait mode. Firing squad's to good for them.

iratus parum formica
 

Offline eti

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #40 on: September 06, 2020, 06:16:28 am »
Somebody puts up a post that they discovered a worm hole into another dimension, with a video to prove it and the thread derails into an argument about the wrong ISO settings on the camera :palm:

Nar, those who video in portrait mode. Firing squad's to good for them.

I do agree, in the "traditional" sense, but I think you're a little behind the times me old friend - most people watch video on mobile, now, and for the most part, and for *what* they are watching (their friend digging a hole or singing) the portrait mode suffices, and also, it's more comfortable to hold.

Let's be honest - NO ONE SANE watches anything more than that, on a mobile! TV or film HAVE to be on a TV!
 
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Offline eti

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #41 on: September 06, 2020, 06:18:25 am »
When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.

But you DO KNOW what they mean, and calling any old vacuum "Hoover" is decades old... so you DO KNOW, you just choose to be a right old pedant, eh?  :-DD

Lest you forget, not everyone's life revolves around eating, sleeping and being knee-deep in tech - it's pretty easy to forgive!
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #42 on: September 06, 2020, 06:30:01 am »
If "50% heavier than" actually means "50% as heavy"

"x% heavier" is obviously a completely different expression from "x times heavier".

He is wrong, so are you.

There is no mathematical definition for the word "times", so you can't solve this with mathematical logic alone. You need to look at the language.

Quote
Taking a popularity contest will not establish correctness

In language, in long term, it really does.

You can't arbitrarily choose to define the language against the actual usage everybody has followed for centuries.

Further, AFAIK, no "official" language body has ever took your stance. So it's just your internet opinion.

If you were right, expression like "1 times heavier" (or "1 time heavier") would make sense, and would exist. Have you seen that?
« Last Edit: September 06, 2020, 06:34:13 am by Siwastaja »
 
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Offline CirclotronTopic starter

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #43 on: September 06, 2020, 06:32:41 am »
When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.

and calling any old vacuum "Hoover" is decades old...
And when people call a vacuum cleaner a vacuum!!!
« Last Edit: September 06, 2020, 06:52:41 am by Circlotron »
 

Offline magic

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #44 on: September 06, 2020, 06:32:51 am »
He is correct: 142 times is 14200 percent. Suppose for purposes of discussion that the subject is only 50% heavier than the mass of the Sun. If "50% heavier than" actually means "50% as heavy", we have the curious conclusion that it is both heavier and lighter at the same time.
You make an erroneous assumption that "heavier" is continuous. It's not.

It works how you described up to 1x heavier, and for more than 1x heavier it's as simple multiplication.
0.5 heavier = 1.5 heavier = 1.5 the original weight.

Simple :phew:
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #45 on: September 06, 2020, 06:33:38 am »
Hey.

What gets easier to pick up the heavier it gets?

A woman.
iratus parum formica
 
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Offline vk6zgo

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #46 on: September 06, 2020, 12:51:03 pm »
One delight that seems to have become endemic is the following:-
Say a company has a deal where they are selling something for half price, if you buy two.

This often was advertised as "Buy one, get one free!", which is silly in itself, but recently  has been replaced by the totally nonsensical "Buy one, get one!", which makes me want to say, "Well, duhh, If I didn't get one, I'd stop payment!"

 
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Offline MosherIV

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #47 on: September 06, 2020, 09:34:13 pm »
Linux fan boys  :palm:
Such arogant arses. Think they know everthing. Always telling everyone how better linux is better than Windows (fyi I hate all computers and operating systems with equal venom)
Sure linux has good points but it has bad points as well. It is not the best os at everything, Windows has a far better/freindly gui for starters.
Insisting that having to type long command line as part of code development is NOT better, it is complete waste of (my) time. Modern IDEs were developed for a reason - to make life easier!
 
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Offline Refrigerator

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #48 on: September 06, 2020, 09:55:48 pm »
My pet peeve is two wires of opposing polarity touching no matter how hard i try to keep them apart, it's like if i look away then the moment i turn back they've shorted out.
I have a blog at http://brimmingideas.blogspot.com/ . Now less empty than ever before !
An expert of making MOSFETs explode.
 

Offline CirclotronTopic starter

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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #49 on: September 06, 2020, 10:03:35 pm »
Annoys me when you see an ad for something, and they say “limited stock, selling fast! Don’t miss out!” Two things, 1/ if there really is limited stock then somebody is always going to miss out and them advertising it is only going to make things worse in that more people are going to be disappointed. And especially 2/ if whatever they are advertising is selling fast and almost run out then why the need to further advertise it???
 
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