THE BAD IDEAS THREAD
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@El_Heffe said:
Using Windows Calc to work out (√4 - 2) and getting -1.068281969439142e-19
The Vista calculator does not have a dedicated root button, so I just do [x^y] 0.5
and suddenly
1,0605907030850721689734498566293e-38
It doesn't even matter if I press [=] before subtracting 2.
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@dhromed said:
The Vista calculator
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Your president, whose name is "Goodluck" announces that $20 Billion is missing
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@Lorne Kates said:
Cardboard and corduroy.Being a "Microsoft MVP", and when presented with this bug, tell the user the answer is:
"Run this may be something is corrugated in the core files."
Well, there you have it. Microsoft makes their software out of cardboard. It explains a lot.
I can believe it.
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@Lorne Kates said:
"Run this may be something is corrugated in the core files."
Well, there you have it. Microsoft makes their software out of cardboard. It explains a lot.
It's not necessarily cardboard:
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Including a calculator "app" in Windows 8, even though Windows already has a calculator program.
Unlike the normal Windows calc program which says that <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = </font><font face="courier new,courier">-1.068281969439142e-19</font>, the Windows 8 app says <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = -8.1648465955514287168521180122928e-39 </font>
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@El_Heffe said:
Including a calculator "app" in Windows 8, even though Windows already has a calculator program.
Unlike the normal Windows calc program which says that <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = </font><font face="courier new,courier">-1.068281969439142e-19</font>, the Windows 8 app says <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = -8.1648465955514287168521180122928e-39 </font>
Are you in scientific mode in the normal calculator?
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@Ben L. said:
@El_Heffe said:
Nope. Standard.
Are you in scientific mode in the normal calculator?Including a calculator "app" in Windows 8, even though Windows already has a calculator program.
Unlike the normal Windows calc program which says that <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = </font><font face="courier new,courier">-1.068281969439142e-19</font>, the Windows 8 app says <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = -8.1648465955514287168521180122928e-39 </font>
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@El_Heffe said:
@Ben L. said:
@El_Heffe said:
Nope. Standard.Including a calculator "app" in Windows 8, even though Windows already has a calculator program.
Unlike the normal Windows calc program which says that <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = </font><font face="courier new,courier">-1.068281969439142e-19</font>, the Windows 8 app says <font face="courier new,courier">√4 - 2 = -8.1648465955514287168521180122928e-39 </font>
Are you in scientific mode in the normal calculator?
Try it in scientific mode.
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@Ben L. said:
Try it in scientific mode.
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So, sqrt(4) - 2 has to equal zero because "it always has", and can't ever be anything else, you fucking luddite?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, Microsoft actually did research? Instead of pulling numbers out of their ass?
<br></p>
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@El_Heffe said:
@Ben L. said:
Try it in scientific mode.
See? At least it's consistent between programs...(But not within a single program)
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@Lorne Kates said:
Well it's either that, or they're inconsistent in their precision. I favour the latter explanation.So, sqrt(4) - 2 has to equal zero because "it always has", and can't ever be anything else, you fucking luddite?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, Microsoft actually did research? Instead of pulling numbers out of their ass?
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@PJH said:
@Lorne Kates said:
Well it's either that, or they're inconsistent in their precision. I favour the latter explanation.So, sqrt(4) - 2 has to equal zero because "it always has", and can't ever be anything else, you fucking luddite?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, Microsoft actually did research? Instead of pulling numbers out of their ass?
If it's "a bug with how floating point numbers work", that would mean it would work the same way in any program that uses the FSQRT processor instruction. However, this is clearly not the case.
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The flaw appears for any square root taken, i.e. probably any non-integer power taken.
Try 9^0.5 - 3, 16^0.5 - 4, etc
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@Ben L. said:
@PJH said:
If the square root of a number is not an integer, then obviously you can run into problems. For example, √5 = 2.23606797749979, more or less, depending on what level of precision you want to use.@Lorne Kates said:
If it's "a bug with how floating point numbers work", that would mean it would work the same way in any program that uses the FSQRT processor instruction. However, this is clearly not the case.So, sqrt(4) - 2 has to equal zero because "it always has", and can't ever be anything else, you fucking luddite?
Well it's either that, or they're inconsistent in their precision. I favour the latter explanation.Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, Microsoft actually did research? Instead of pulling numbers out of their ass?
However, √4 = 2. Not 1.9999999999 or 2.000000001, but exactly 2. This is a bug that is being passed off as "well, that's just how floating point numbers work".
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@El_Heffe said:
This is a bug that is being passed off as "well, that's just how floating point numbers work".
Well, that's just how Microsoft works.
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Tattoo that makes you look like you have a gun tucked into your waistband.
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@boomzilla said:
Tattoo that makes you look like you have a gun tucked into your waistband.
I'm don't even care that much about the second amendment and that seems like a police over-reaction to me.
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@joe.edwards said:
@boomzilla said:
Tattoo that makes you look like you have a gun tucked into your waistband.
I'm don't even care that much about the second amendment and that seems like a police over-reaction to me.
What? The only amendment that could possibly cover tattoos is the first amendment.
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@joe.edwards said:
@boomzilla said:
Tattoo that makes you look like you have a gun tucked into your waistband.
I'm don't even care that much about the second amendment and that seems like a police over-reaction to me.Yeah, the police have definitely become over militarized. They probably don't get to use that stuff very often, so I guess the possibility of an angry guy with a gun was just too tempting to resist.
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A programming language that will work on all devices.
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@Nagesh said:
A programming language that will work on all devices.
You know you actually have to put in an address to link to, right?
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@Ben L. said:
@Nagesh said:
A programming language that will work on all devices.
You know you actually have to put in an address to link to, right?
He did, but the syntax doesn't render on Chromebooks.
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@Lorne Kates said:
@Ben L. said:
@Nagesh said:
A programming language that will work on all devices.
You know you actually have to put in an address to link to, right?
He did, but the syntax doesn't render on Chromebooks.
Apparently my Windows 8.1 computer is a Chromebook. Hmm.
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Calling this normal:
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How is my link disappearing?
Here is the link: http://www.red-lang.org/
@Ben L. said:
@Nagesh said:
A programming language that will work on all devices.
You know you actually have to put in an address to link to, right?
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@El_Heffe said:
image of Creamy White Finishing Sauce
OK, I'm assuming that the name on the package is some kind of translation super fail but I'm also having trouble thinking of what could be contained in that bag. What was it?
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@locallunatic said:
OK, I'm assuming that the name on the package is some kind of translation super fail but I'm also having trouble thinking of what could be contained in that bag. What was it?
I was going to post the nutritional analysis of sperm (sodium content, carbohydrates, etc)-- but decided y'know what, I do enough for you guys. And I'm still technically on my 3 month intro probation at work. And I don't 100% know what firewall analytics they use.
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@locallunatic said:
A quick google would suggest not - the company making this stuff appears to be Australian. @locallunatic said:@El_Heffe said:
image of Creamy White Finishing Sauce
OK, I'm assuming that the name on the package is some kind of translation super fail
but I'm also having trouble thinking of what could be contained in that bag. What was it?
After water, the most abundant ingredient is - not surprisingly - cheese.
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@boomzilla said:
RNA and DNA pills.
I don't know, the Youth Tissue Extract sounds pretty scary to me.
A consumer affairs show here looked into chlorophyll supplements (which are apparently a thing because of course people need to have in their system the thing that makes plants green amirite). It's more interesting than it sounds.
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@Douglasac said:
I don't know, the Youth Tissue Extract sounds pretty scary to me.
I'll take my youth tissue extracted over easy, thanks.
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@Douglasac said:
@boomzilla said:
Ben GoldacreRNA and DNA pills.
I don't know, the Youth Tissue Extract sounds pretty scary to me.
A consumer affairs show here looked into chlorophyll supplements (which are apparently a thing because of course people need to have in their system the thing that makes plants green amirite). It's more interesting than it sounds.[...]
Several of you are fans of Ms McKeith, and wrote to express how upset you were that I had childishly attacked her reputation, and not her theories. Well. Let’s pick a quote at random. Chlorophyll is “high in oxygen”. And the darker leaves on plants are good for you, she explains, because they contain “chlorophyll – the ‘blood’ of the plant – which will really oxygenate your blood.” Here we run into a classic Bad Science problem. It may be immediately obvious to you that this is pseudoscientific, made up nonsense (and from the TV personality the Radio Times described as “no nonsense”, no less). If it’s not obvious nonsense to you, then, OK, just this once: the real science. Chlorophyll is a small green molecule that uses the energy from light to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen. Plants then use this sugar energy to make everything else they need, like protein, and you breathe in the oxygen, and maybe you even eat the plants. You also breathe out carbon dioxide. It’s all so beautiful, so gracefully simple, yet so rewardingly complex, so neatly connected, not to mention true, that I can’t imagine why you’d want to invent nonsense to believe instead. But there you go. That’s alternative therapists all over.
It’s very dark in your bowels. There is no light there. Nor are there gills in your bowels. Even fish do not have gills in their bowels. Consequently the chlorophyll will not create oxygen, and even if it did, even if Dr Gillian McKeith PhD stuck a searchlight up your bum to prove a point, you would not absorb any even slightly significant amount of oxygen with your bowel.
[...]
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Advocating gun control to reduce competition for your gun running activities.
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Effective homeopathic remedies.
@TFA said:
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recalled homeopathic remedies made by a company called Terra-Medica because they may contain actual medicine...
It's funny because it's true.
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@PJH said:
Well. Let’s pick a quote at random. Chlorophyll is “high in oxygen”. And the darker leaves on plants are good for you, she explains, because they contain “chlorophyll – the ‘blood’ of the plant – which will really oxygenate your blood.”
Reading this shit makes me angry, and makes me want to oxygenate the world.
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@dhromed said:
@PJH said:
Well. Let’s pick a quote at random. Chlorophyll is “high in oxygen”. And the darker leaves on plants are good for you, she explains, because they contain “chlorophyll – the ‘blood’ of the plant – which will really oxygenate your blood.”
Reading this shit makes me angry, and makes me want to oxygenate the world.
I hate when people do fake "random," too.
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@dhromed said:
Chlorophyll a is about 9.5% (by mass) oxygen; ethanol is 34.7% oxygen. By that reasoning, drinking ethanol should be more than 3.5 times as effective at oxygenating your blood.@PJH said:
Well. Let’s pick a quote at random. Chlorophyll is “high in oxygen”. And the darker leaves on plants are good for you, she explains, because they contain “chlorophyll – the ‘blood’ of the plant – which will really oxygenate your blood.”
Reading this shit makes me angry, and makes me want to oxygenate the world.
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@HardwareGeek said:
@dhromed said:
Chlorophyll a is about 9.5% (by mass) oxygen; ethanol is 34.7% oxygen. By that reasoning, drinking ethanol should be more than 3.5 times as effective at oxygenating your blood.@PJH said:
Well. Let’s pick a quote at random. Chlorophyll is “high in oxygen”. And the darker leaves on plants are good for you, she explains, because they contain “chlorophyll – the ‘blood’ of the plant – which will really oxygenate your blood.”
Reading this shit makes me angry, and makes me want to oxygenate the world.
Oxygen is nearly 100% oxygen!