I found an Apple speech-to-text bug!

[tooki]

In the US, 55 years ago, I was taught that "10 meters square" was 10 m x 10 m= 100 m² = "100 square meters", but since that could be misinterpreted we should say "10 by 10 meters" (or similar) instead to avoid confusion.

"10 by 10 meters" equals 100 meters, hence is a length and not an area at all. 

Oh boy :p

Implicit parentheses are fun, eh?

[Cerebus]

No.  In context, it is a description of a geometric square with dimensions of 10 m by 10 m.

No. In context, it's a description of 10 off ten metre lengths of steel pipe. Except - there is no context, or at least what context there is, is the original post, which itself was contextless. So, in a context of contextlessness there is no context.

Now, who wants to risk using a zebra crossing? 

[TimFox]

In American usage, a “2 by 4” is not an “8”, but rather 1.5 by 3.5 inches.  Similarly, we here only use “by” for multiplication after an explicit “multiply”, as in “multiply 3 by 10”.  Otherwise, we say “3 times 10”.  Idioms are what will save us from the AI apocalypse (sarcasm intended).

[james_s]

Lumber dimensions are something that has always annoyed me. I don't care what size the raw material was going into the planer, that's completely irrelevant. The only dimensions that matter are the actual finished dimensions.

[TimFox]

I'm old enough to remember when my grandfather complained about the change from 1-3/4 by 3-3/4 inch to a measly 1-5/8 by 3-5/8 inch dimension.
This USDA publication has some interesting information, going back to at least 1906:  https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/miscpub_6409.pdf

[james_s]

I'm old enough to remember when my grandfather complained about the change from 1-3/4 by 3-3/4 inch to a measly 1-5/8 by 3-5/8 inch dimension.

The magical shrinking product. I remember when a gallon of ice cream was actually a gallon. Now it's not even close. It's something I find very irritating, I completely understand the necessity of raising prices to keep up with rising costs. What really grinds my gears is when companies think they can fool me by keeping the price the same and shrinking the size of the product. I notice, and frankly it's insulting that they think they can slip this past me.

[TimFox]

"Now, who wants to risk using a zebra crossing?"
I remember the British TV series "Rising Damp", where one of the student lodgers, Philip Smith, claims to be an African prince studying traffic engineering so that he can install zebra crossings in the jungle back home.

[Cerebus]

"Now, who wants to risk using a zebra crossing?"
I remember the British TV series "Rising Damp", where one of the student lodgers, Philip Smith, claims to be an African prince studying traffic engineering so that he can install zebra crossings in the jungle back home.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.