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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 03/17/2006 : 16:04:00
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Just something I got in an email and found interesting...
The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your tax money.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.
a.. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
b.. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
c.. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
d.. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
e.. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate the U.S. government is spending it.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2006 : 16:40:11 [Permalink]
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Interesting and evil numbers, there. What sad, sick, sorry sons-of-bitchs, of both parties, we have allowed to take office!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2006 : 18:09:12 [Permalink]
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| What happens to the value of a billion bucks if (when) the rest of the world switches its monetary trade in oil from dollars to euros? |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2006 : 18:49:33 [Permalink]
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| We are already slowly and covertly making the switch, Chippewa. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2006 : 00:49:24 [Permalink]
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Despite its flaws, the email attempts to address the problem identified by Martin Gardener, Carl Sagan and others as "innumerency," an affliction which hits many people.
Years ago, my company was working on a project involving huge amounts of matrix math which were supposed to be done on off-the-shelf computers (back in the days when a 60 MHz processor in a desktop machine was something to crow about). Management wanted to sub-contract the detailed math work out to a local college computer science department, and sent out a request for a proposal on the work. The proposal came back, and I happened to be in my boss' office when it was being examined.
My boss read, in part, "and so the task is demonstrated to be finite, and should take no more than 1030 operations." My boss paused to get reactions, and his boss (the VP of engineering) said something to the effect of, "well that's good to hear." When my boss started to read again I interrupted, and asked for his calculator. He continued to read while I pushed buttons, and then I interrupted again to say that even at a billion operations per second (much more than a top-of-the-line desktop machine was capable of at the time), 1030 operations would take longer than the universe has existed - over 2,000 times the current lifetime of the universe. Nearly 32 trillion years, in fact.
There was dead silence for a moment. I looked at my boss. He looked at me, blinked twice, threw the proposal down on his desk and said, "these assholes don't know what the fuck they're talking about." Lots of angry discussion ensued, and needless to say, the college group didn't get the contract.
But the point is that out of the five people in that office at that time, and the however-many graduate students who worked on that proposal, only one person (it happened to be me) realized on the first reading that what was being proposed was so outlandishly unreasonable it would have meant economic suicide for our company.
Innumeracy runs rampant, folks. And it's just as likely to strike the people you'd think should be immune to it (like engineers and comp-sci grad students) as not. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2006 : 03:12:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
A billion seconds ago it was 1974.
A billion minutes ago it was 104AD.
Thanks, Ricky. I figured somebody would work out the calculations and tell me how wrong it was. I got it in email, so I just assumed most of the figures were off.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2006 : 11:28:37 [Permalink]
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I think it was Illinois Republican Senator Everett Dirksen (1896–1969), who said, "A billion here, a billion there; pretty soon you're talking about real money."
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/18/2006 11:40:23 |
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