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[MaximumZero]

An open secret regarding off-brand/store-brand food: it's almost all exactly the same, just different packaging. That's not entirely true of everything, but for the most part, it's a lot less work to run x pallets of y then change the labels in the machines, rather than changing out the supplies. It's also a lot cheaper to the distributor buying the supplies.

Source: I worked in a food packaging plant as a temp several times over a few years. Don't eat Beggin' Strips, y'all. The amount of mold left in the machines was literally gag-worthy every day.

[wierd]

well, considering that those are FOR DOGS, I would suggest not eating it regardless.


But yeah, some things come off the exact same canning machine, from the same processed food stock.  Others, not so much. (Potato buds really do taste different than their Kroger or Great Value cousins.)

[MaximumZero]

well, considering that those are FOR DOGS, I would suggest not eating it regardless.

Dude, you would be very surprised at the number of people who look at them, smell them, and say, "Huh, this doesn't seem so bad."

[wierd]

Oh--- I live in deep redneckistan, you don't have to remind me.

The male counterpart to the woman in the fatcart that cant live without her hostess products, is the "Bib overalls" heavy set guy, who would be right at home snacking on those things.

[Frumple]

I've not met many that actually go through with tasting, tho'. They smell pretty edible, but everything else about them... less so. So folks mostly don't.

[methylatedspirit]

I'd like to ask you guys a question. Do the shapes below look like they have the same area? Don't pull out your calculator or whatever, just tell me if they look like they occupy the same amount of 2D space. They're on the same x-y scale; 1 unit of length on one shape is the same unit of length on the other. I'll reveal the answer in... whenever I think I have enough answers.
-snip-

They are the same area.

Here's my count of responses:
Equal: 2 (+ 1?)
Not equal: 2
Indeterminate/Don't know: 2

The chance (from this tiny dataset) of getting the right answer is 43%. That's basically just random chance.

You see, I was motivated by a book I read (Storytelling with Data: a Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals; really good book if you visualize data for whatever reason). On page 61, the author talks about how pie charts "are evil". That is the exact phrasing. Then at page 63, the author then says the following: "The human eye isn’t good at ascribing quantitative value to two‐dimensional space. Said more simply: pie charts are hard for people to read"

That's what sparked my question. I knew of sin(x) and x², and I knew that those were fairly easy to end up with integrals with an area of 1. So I went into my graphing calculator software, and I asked it to calculate the definite integrals (non-math types: areas under the curve) of sin(x) between 0 and pi/2, and x² from 0 to ∛3. That's where the shapes come from.

Mathematically, you can show that both have the same area, but I knew that people are crap at determining (value from) area from that quote. I wanted to know, "how crap?" Maybe I should've asked "which of these shapes have the larger area", but you get the point.

As far as responses go... well.. I mean this in the most affectionate way possible, but y'all are smartasses. That's not a bad thing; questioning the things in front of you is a good skill to have. But, yeah, the straight answers (as opposed to the smartass answers) do pretty much show the point I was trying to make: people are crap at determining area.

Look at this clusterfuck of a before and after chart (credit to the book mentioned at the start; I'm straight plagiarizing it):

Spoiler: Protection from eye-searing (click to show/hide)

It took Rolan 5 seconds to come to their answer. Imagine doing that 5 times. 25 seconds. You're wasting huge amounts of time on processing time, just because you used a pie chart.

Here's a better version of that chart:

Spoiler: More protection from eye-searing (click to show/hide)

See, that's better. Part of the (huge) improvement comes from not making the audience try to gauge areas, because we're terrible at that. Instead, length is being used to illustrate relative difference.

The point I was trying to make was that people are bad at determining just similarities of area. I don't think it's anything profound, necessarily. I think it's a neat thing that can end up becoming profound with the right context. In the case of that book, it's "don't use pie charts". Maybe there's some value in this fact in other fields.

[wierd]

Hey, I gave you my honest response there.

I even illustrated my thought process for it--  Both shapes are clearly less than 50% of the volume of the hypothetical volume maximum. Using an imaginary 50% cutoff, I was better able to mentally gauge the negative space quotient of the remaining space, to better gauge the shape's quotient.


It's mental gymnastics to do that, but it fully explains my statement--

There's a neural predisposition to say the blue figure is smaller, but if you look more earnestly at the area of the rectangle covered, (or rather, NOT covered, by the red figure), they seem pretty equivalent in area.

EG, the area of the remainder of both appeared to be approximately equal.  I also drew attention to a neural bias, where the actual shape of the red figure has a greater "extension", which makes it "Appear" bigger-- which is why I went through the mental gymnastics to constrain it, by diverting attention away from that-- instead focusing on the negative space quotient.

[scriver]

I like pie charts though. They remind me of pie.

[Yoink]

What's your favourite kinda pie?   

[scriver]

Its you, honey pie

[wierd]

Oh my!

Personally, I rather like peach and pear pie.  Hard to find pear pie though. Almost nobody makes it.

[Frumple]

[As far as responses go... well.. I mean this in the most affectionate way possible, but y'all are smartasses. That's not a bad thing; questioning the things in front of you is a good skill to have.

For what it's worth I've had questions like that where the correct answer was black in like... three different classes, iirc. English related with the focus at the time being critical reading, math of some sort I can't recall, and I'm pretty sure something or another related to epistemology or something adjacent to it. Perception or bias or whatever related.

It's applicable to more fields, too -- I could see it used in teaching education as a emphasis question regarding test writing and whatnot, just off the top of my head, 'cause if you had that specific phrasing on something that's not more or less multiple choice, the teacher would be dealing with an issue where they'd have multiple correct answers and might not be expecting it.

[delphonso]

Pecan pie. All other pie can bow to the pecan.

Its you, honey pie

*swoon*

[Iduno]

If I was this question with these two symbols I would I assume they are the same because of the question and the shape of the two symbols not looking alike

At this point, I've seen the illusion so many times, that I just assume any 2 shapes I'm shown are the same size, and any 1 shape I'm shown has both a positive and a negative image.

[bloop_bleep]

I also thought they were the same area. My thought process was more overlaying them on top of one another, and then comparing the sizes of the two set differences. They seemed about right.

Plus I can read that pie chart just fine. It looks like the purple section rotated a bit around the center, which means that mostly children went from "OK" to "Excited" and other sectors stayed roughly the same.