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A fake Facebook event disguised as a math problem has been one of its top posts for 6 months

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  • I guess remembering grade school order of operation means you're a guinus now? Bar has gotten pretty low...

    That's the point.

    Set the bar low, but just high enough that tons of people still trip over it.

    Sit back and enjoy the comment wars.

    The people who are confident but wrong are too proud to admit they were wrong even if they realize it, and comment angrily.

    The people who are right and know why, comment for corrections and some to show off how S-M-R-T they are.

    The people who are wrong but willing to accept that just have their realization and probably don't think about it again. So do the people who don't know and/or care.

    But those first two groups will keep the post going in both shares and comments, because "look at all these wrong people"

    It's all designed to boost engagement.

  • Not a genius. But if subtraction is last, why isn't it 9-4?

    Parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction.

    should actually be

    Parenthesis, exponents, (multiplication and division), (addition and subtraction).

    Addition and subtraction are given the same priority, and are done in the same step, from left to right.

    It's not a great system of notation, it could be made far clearer (and parenthesis allow you to make it as clear as you like), but it's essentially the universal standard now and it's what we're stuck with.

  • Please don't include X with the boomers. Since we stepped into the real world and realized it functions completely differently than what we were raised to believe, life's just been a neverending string of "wait, that was wrong too?" We just want to survive another day under the radar.

    Sorry fellow X'rs for publicly acknowledging our existence. Hopefully this post doesn't get any upvotes. *Pulls blanket back over my head.

    As a millennial, I'm starting to relate more and more. The world changes very quickly, and all of the sudden things you knew as fact have different meanings, and there are new words and stuff. It's not all bad change, but it's change, and odds are, I'm finding out something changed the hard way.

  • Learning the actual algebraic laws, instead of an order of operations to mechanically replicate. PEMDAS might get you through a standardised test but does not convey any understanding, it's like knowing that you need to press a button to call the elevator but not understand what elevators are for.

    Though "lazy teachers" might actually be a bit too charitable a take given the literacy rates of US college graduates mastering in English. US maths teachers very well might not understand basic maths themselves, thinking it's all about a set of mechanical operations.

    This guy is the the guy posting the answer and then spending hours fighting the idiots who got it wrong on Facebook.

    Nerd.

  • This guy is the the guy posting the answer and then spending hours fighting the idiots who got it wrong on Facebook.

    Nerd.

    x/0 is the set {+inf,-inf}, fite me IRL.

  • Please don't include X with the boomers. Since we stepped into the real world and realized it functions completely differently than what we were raised to believe, life's just been a neverending string of "wait, that was wrong too?" We just want to survive another day under the radar.

    Sorry fellow X'rs for publicly acknowledging our existence. Hopefully this post doesn't get any upvotes. *Pulls blanket back over my head.

    The average home buyer in the US 17 years ago was born in 1968. Today? 1968. Yeah excuse me but as an elder millennial, Gen X can mostly fuck right off.

  • This post did not contain any content.

    This is the kind of post designed to invoke a reaction. Facebook's and pretty much every other algorithm driven social media is designed to promote posts that have high interaction. So a post that invokes lots of negative reactions gets lots of promotion. Hence the downfall of modern society.

  • Please don't include X with the boomers. Since we stepped into the real world and realized it functions completely differently than what we were raised to believe, life's just been a neverending string of "wait, that was wrong too?" We just want to survive another day under the radar.

    Sorry fellow X'rs for publicly acknowledging our existence. Hopefully this post doesn't get any upvotes. *Pulls blanket back over my head.

    The first rule of gen-x is you don't talk about gen-x!

  • That's the point.

    Set the bar low, but just high enough that tons of people still trip over it.

    Sit back and enjoy the comment wars.

    The people who are confident but wrong are too proud to admit they were wrong even if they realize it, and comment angrily.

    The people who are right and know why, comment for corrections and some to show off how S-M-R-T they are.

    The people who are wrong but willing to accept that just have their realization and probably don't think about it again. So do the people who don't know and/or care.

    But those first two groups will keep the post going in both shares and comments, because "look at all these wrong people"

    It's all designed to boost engagement.

    This right here is exactly why it's been so popular for so long.

  • That's the point.

    Set the bar low, but just high enough that tons of people still trip over it.

    Sit back and enjoy the comment wars.

    The people who are confident but wrong are too proud to admit they were wrong even if they realize it, and comment angrily.

    The people who are right and know why, comment for corrections and some to show off how S-M-R-T they are.

    The people who are wrong but willing to accept that just have their realization and probably don't think about it again. So do the people who don't know and/or care.

    But those first two groups will keep the post going in both shares and comments, because "look at all these wrong people"

    It's all designed to boost engagement.

    I like the version where these problems are made purposefully ambiguous so people will fight over it and raise the level of interaction

  • Who, the people who never had calculators in their pockets growing up? No worries, we can do math better than you.

    lmao

    Knowing basic arithmetic does not mean you know Math, and the fact you so hung up about this trivial aspect says a lot about you. Additionally, you express yourself like a boomer.

  • As a millennial, I'm starting to relate more and more. The world changes very quickly, and all of the sudden things you knew as fact have different meanings, and there are new words and stuff. It's not all bad change, but it's change, and odds are, I'm finding out something changed the hard way.

    Seriously, I was raised with so much propaganda.

    Up until my late twenties I had believed basically everything I was taught in school. I never had reason to question it, as I was basically living in a bubble. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that when the colonists arrived to this country, it wasn't just big empty open spaces that the native Americans gladly shared with us. Funny enough, that's roughly when I gained access to the internet.

  • Learning the actual algebraic laws, instead of an order of operations to mechanically replicate. PEMDAS might get you through a standardised test but does not convey any understanding, it's like knowing that you need to press a button to call the elevator but not understand what elevators are for.

    Though "lazy teachers" might actually be a bit too charitable a take given the literacy rates of US college graduates mastering in English. US maths teachers very well might not understand basic maths themselves, thinking it's all about a set of mechanical operations.

    Is it also lazy to learn Roy G. Biv to know the color spectrum instead of learning all the physics and optical properties behind that?

    Or what about My Very Elderly Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles to know the planets instead of learning orbital dynamics and astrophysics?

    Christ man, it's a mnemonic device for elementary schoolers.

  • I guess remembering grade school order of operation means you're a guinus now? Bar has gotten pretty low...

    G U I N U S.

    I know it's probably a typo, but I'm enjoying it.

  • Is it also lazy to learn Roy G. Biv to know the color spectrum instead of learning all the physics and optical properties behind that?

    Or what about My Very Elderly Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles to know the planets instead of learning orbital dynamics and astrophysics?

    Christ man, it's a mnemonic device for elementary schoolers.

    Those two things are memorisation tasks. Maths is not about memorisation.

    You are not supposed to remember that the area of a triangle is a * h / 2, you're supposed to understand why it's the case. You're supposed to be able to show that any triangle that can possibly exist is half the area of the rectangle it's stuck in: Start with the trivial case (right-angled triangle), then move on to more complicated cases. If you've understood that once, there is no reason to remember anything because you can derive the formula at a moment's notice.

    All maths can be understood and derived like that. The names of the colours, their ordering, the names of the planets and how they're ordered, they're arbitrary, they have no rhyme or reason, they need to be memorised if you want to recall them. Maths doesn't, instead it dies when you apply memorisation.

    Ein Anfänger (der) Gitarre Hat Elan. There, that's the Guitar strings in German. Why do I know that? Because my music theory knowledge sucks. I can't apply it, music is all vibes to me but I still need a way to match the strings to what the tuner is displaying. You should never learn music theory from me, just as you shouldn't learn maths from a teacher who can't prove a * h / 2, or thinks it's unimportant whether you can prove it.

  • This post did not contain any content.

    I was good at math and it was one of my favorite core subjects in school, so I know I'm a weirdo but... I never understood how people couldn't understand basic PEMDAS/BEDMAS/Whatever-the-fuck-your-country-calls-it.

    Obviously these problems are shitty engagement bait because they don't use parentheses, but still, seeing people fuck up the fact that Multiplication AND Division occur at the same time, and then the next step is Addition AND Subtraction just stupefies me.

    Like, did you sleep through 4 years of elementary school to miss that fact??? Even in middle school pre-algebra teachers still did PEMDAS refreshers. I get that once I get out of college I'm probably gonna forget half the pre-calc shit I learned because I won't need it, and I'm not being drilled on it everyday like people in school are, but PEMDAS is a fundamental and basic daily life skill that everyone should know...

    I really wish we gave a fuck about US education.

  • I was good at math and it was one of my favorite core subjects in school, so I know I'm a weirdo but... I never understood how people couldn't understand basic PEMDAS/BEDMAS/Whatever-the-fuck-your-country-calls-it.

    Obviously these problems are shitty engagement bait because they don't use parentheses, but still, seeing people fuck up the fact that Multiplication AND Division occur at the same time, and then the next step is Addition AND Subtraction just stupefies me.

    Like, did you sleep through 4 years of elementary school to miss that fact??? Even in middle school pre-algebra teachers still did PEMDAS refreshers. I get that once I get out of college I'm probably gonna forget half the pre-calc shit I learned because I won't need it, and I'm not being drilled on it everyday like people in school are, but PEMDAS is a fundamental and basic daily life skill that everyone should know...

    I really wish we gave a fuck about US education.

    For me it's the arguments when there is a parentheses but no operator (otherwise known as implied multiplication) in these baits e.g. 15 + 2(4 - 2)

    If you don't know operator orders I have given up long ago, but I have seen a few lengthy discussions about this

  • Those two things are memorisation tasks. Maths is not about memorisation.

    You are not supposed to remember that the area of a triangle is a * h / 2, you're supposed to understand why it's the case. You're supposed to be able to show that any triangle that can possibly exist is half the area of the rectangle it's stuck in: Start with the trivial case (right-angled triangle), then move on to more complicated cases. If you've understood that once, there is no reason to remember anything because you can derive the formula at a moment's notice.

    All maths can be understood and derived like that. The names of the colours, their ordering, the names of the planets and how they're ordered, they're arbitrary, they have no rhyme or reason, they need to be memorised if you want to recall them. Maths doesn't, instead it dies when you apply memorisation.

    Ein Anfänger (der) Gitarre Hat Elan. There, that's the Guitar strings in German. Why do I know that? Because my music theory knowledge sucks. I can't apply it, music is all vibes to me but I still need a way to match the strings to what the tuner is displaying. You should never learn music theory from me, just as you shouldn't learn maths from a teacher who can't prove a * h / 2, or thinks it's unimportant whether you can prove it.

    What fundamental property of the universe says that

    6 + 4 / 2 is 8 instead of 5?

  • What fundamental property of the universe says that

    6 + 4 / 2 is 8 instead of 5?

    Nothing. And that's why people don't write equations like that: You either see

         4
    6 + ---
         2
    

    or

     6 + 4
    -------
       2
    

    If you wrote 6 + 4 / 2 in a paper you'd get reviewers complaining that it's ambiguous, if you want it to be on one line write (6+4) / 2 or 6 + (4/2) or 6 + ⁴⁄₂ or even ½(6 + 4) Working mathematicians never came up with PEMDAS, which disambiguates it without parenthesis, US teachers did. Noone else does it that way because it does not, in the slightest, aid readability.

  • G U I N U S.

    I know it's probably a typo, but I'm enjoying it.

    I would like to say it was on purpose but it was not 😞 I might do math, spelling is not my forte.

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    paraphrand@lemmy.worldP
    Y’all got any of that federation?
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    apfelwoischoppen@lemmy.worldA
    Gobble that AI slop NPR. Reads like sponsored content.
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    Most jokes need to be recognizable as funny? Like if you say the word cucked, ever, I'm going to assume you're serious and an imbecile and I would be right to do that, no?!
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    This is not a typical home or office printer, very specialized.
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    toastedravioli@midwest.socialT
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