• twice_hatch@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    8 hours ago

    You laugh, but “Professional” news organizations routinely fuck up kilowatts and kilowatt-hours when they talk about electric power.

    We should replace kWh with Joules as harm reduction

  • WolfLink@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    88
    ·
    15 hours ago

    You laugh but if you ever take a college physics class you’ll appreciate having the idea of being overly careful of your units drilled into you.

    • SkyeStarfall
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      10 hours ago

      Or anything else really

      It’s hell to try to understand something someone gave you if they don’t label things properly. It’s like “I can see there is a number here, but what the fuck does the number mean”

      • booly@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        8 hours ago

        In another thread I was laughing about how U.S. utilities charge for electricity by the kilowatt hour, but charge for piped natural gas by the “therm,” which is 100,000 BTUs. BTUs are the energy required to raise 1 pound of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit, like a shitty imperial calorie.

        Confusingly, most gas appliances are marketed as being a certain number of BTUs per hour, but people often omit the implied “per hour” when talking about them, and will talk of their 12,000 BTU stove burner or 30,000 BTU water heater.

        Talking through residential energy use without having a solid command of what unit means what would be confusing.

  • jaybone@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    44
    ·
    14 hours ago

    Considering this kid didn’t learn which side of the number the dollar sign goes on, maybe they shouldn’t be making fun and should pay more attention.

    • stormdelay@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      13 hours ago

      You’re of course correct in English, I just wanted to share that the currency sign goes after the value in many other languages, so it’s an easy mistake for ESL people to make.

      • guy@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        8 hours ago

        This is true for all currencies in my language except for $, €, and £ which goes in front. Maybe ¥ as well but that is rarely seen in text so I don’t know. As for rupies 🤷

  • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    18 hours ago

    My calculus teacher made us write our answers in complete sentences. I regret not putting bees in his car.

    • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      9 hours ago

      I get why they did that. I’ve seen students go through the steps in the algorithm correctly and end up with the right answer, but without any clue what it meant. The answer sentence tells the teacher that the student understood why they applied the algorithm and what the answer meant.

      • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        7 hours ago

        100% this. I can’t tell you how only now, as a middle aged man, do I qualitative understand concepts like continuity and conventions like the complex number plane. No one thought it was important to explain, took the time to do so, or helped me develop the clarity of thought to really understand it.

        Getting the right answers is radically different from understanding a concept.

    • Localhorst86@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      edit-2
      15 hours ago

      The average bee has a volume of 0.15 cm³.
      A 2025 Toyota Corolla has an interior space of 2.05 m³.

      How many bees would fit into the Toyota corolla? Please show your calculation and answer in full sentences.

  • Mr. Zeus@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    17 hours ago

    fucking Christ I hated word problems when I was going to school. This post brought back a lot of bad memories from when I was going to school