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I think the author is making an excellent point about needing better math in journalism. An article in the NY Times yesterday about online shopping China had th
by smithbits 13y ago
I think the author is making an excellent point about needing better math in journalism. An article in the NY Times yesterday about online shopping China had this line (pulled from a press release) "Tmall.com, one of Alibaba’s shopping sites, said Chinese bought...two million pairs of underpants, which if linked together would stretch 1,800 miles..." Why should I believe the rest of the article when the author is quoting someone saying that underpants are 57 inches wide?
- BlackJack 13y agoTo cross check your claim about the author, I did: 1800 miles ~ 2000 miles 5280 ft/mile ~ 5000 ft/mile So 10M ft / 2M underpants = 5 ft/underpant. 12*5 = 60 in/underpant, which is close to 57, so I trust your statement :) I think this sort of "back of the envelope" calculation is something that just comes by practice/habit and is not some innate ability. I love this article by Jon Bentley on the topic: http://www.csie.fju.edu.tw/~yeh/research/papers/os-reading-list/bentley-cacm84-envelope.pdf http://www.csie.fju.edu.tw/~yeh/research/papers/os-reading-l...
- sveme 13y agoSorry, but you Americans need to get rid of that imperial system: 1800 miles ~ 2000 km = 2,000,000 m. Each pair is around a metre. Simple, isn't it? Okay, admittedly, 1800 miles is definitely more than 2000 km...