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[anzki4]

Right, but 666 is one of those numbers seen as "unlucky" in many places. I don't know if the ancient Romans saw it that way, but I intend to use it for NaNoWriMo and the fact that it looks really good and is easy to remember when translated to the numerals is icing on the cake.

According to one of my Lit teachers, back in the first century 666 was used refer to Emperor Nero, because of some quirk of Latin where you could convert his initials to letters and add them up or something.  This was a while ago, but this teacher speaks Latin so I'm sure it made sense to him.  Anyway, the Christian stories that started the whole number of the beast thing were apparently literally referring to Nero, because Christians hated him that much.

Neato.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkZqFtYtqaI

[Putnam]

if I were to get any reasonable amount of RAM I would end up with a prime number of RAM

yeah!

(4 GB of RAM would bring the total up to 7 GB, 8 GB to 11 GB)

[Thecard]

if I were to get any reasonable amount of RAM I would end up with a prime number of RAM

yeah!

(4 GB of RAM would bring the total up to 7 GB, 8 GB to 11 GB)

This sounds suspiciously like a word problem...

[RedKing]

In some buildings, they miss out floor 13 because it's 'unlucky'. In asian countries they do that with floor 4, because the word sounds like "death".

Number superstition factoid of the day.

Eh? Really? It's usually the 13th floor that's cut out and not floor 4 here

...Four = Death. Erm, I believe that is derived from a single distinct language given that notion.

Pretty sure it's only Japanese. "Four" in Japanese can either be "Yon" or "Shi". "Shi" is also the word for "Death".

Actually, it's just about all East Asian languages. Definitely major dialects of Chinese, as well as Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese. In Cantonese, 14 and 24 are also unlucky, because they sound like "certain to die" and "easy to die".

[Steelmagic]

4 is just an asshole of a number isn't it?

[Putnam]

I need to watch Ghost in the Shell.

[Tiruin]

In some buildings, they miss out floor 13 because it's 'unlucky'. In asian countries they do that with floor 4, because the word sounds like "death".

Number superstition factoid of the day.

Eh? Really? It's usually the 13th floor that's cut out and not floor 4 here

...Four = Death. Erm, I believe that is derived from a single distinct language given that notion.

Pretty sure it's only Japanese. "Four" in Japanese can either be "Yon" or "Shi". "Shi" is also the word for "Death".

Actually, it's just about all East Asian languages. Definitely major dialects of Chinese, as well as Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese. In Cantonese, 14 and 24 are also unlucky, because they sound like "certain to die" and "easy to die".

...All languages except for Tagalog :S
That makes me happy that all our numerical superstitions are based on english instead! Take that, triskaidekaphobia!

[mastahcheese]

In some buildings, they miss out floor 13 because it's 'unlucky'. In asian countries they do that with floor 4, because the word sounds like "death".

Number superstition factoid of the day.

Eh? Really? It's usually the 13th floor that's cut out and not floor 4 here

...Four = Death. Erm, I believe that is derived from a single distinct language given that notion.

Pretty sure it's only Japanese. "Four" in Japanese can either be "Yon" or "Shi". "Shi" is also the word for "Death".

Actually, it's just about all East Asian languages. Definitely major dialects of Chinese, as well as Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese. In Cantonese, 14 and 24 are also unlucky, because they sound like "certain to die" and "easy to die".

...All languages except for Tagalog :S
That makes me happy that all our numerical superstitions are based on english instead! Take that, triskaidekaphobia!

Yeah, my Chinese teacher told me that where she lived in China they would skip the 4th floor, because of that.

[Bauglir]

My roommate has paid rent, and he did so in cash. It's a trying temptation to not spend the hundo I've got burning a hole in my wallet that I didn't deposit, but I have things to do with it. Nefarious things, even.

Also, re: the book, I think they're starting out with logic because I assume that's how Real Mathematicians talk about things, and I'm therefore going to need this to understand what I'm reading soon. Is this about right, Vector? I am definitely keeping going with this, it's stuff I should have learned before and I am very much on a kick of trying to catch up on the stuff Past Me really ought to have done in order to make Present Me as awesome as he always assumed I'd be. And it's disturbingly fun. Goddamn whoever convinced me that math things were boring and only valuable for practicality*.

Also, I have just realized that Lust's last words in FMA: Brotherhood are "It's coming." Because of course they were. juvenile humor wheeeeeeee >_____________>

*It was Past Me again. That bastard never fails to fuck me over.

[Steelmagic]

My roommate has paid rent, and he did so in cash. It's a trying temptation to not spend the hundo I've got burning a hole in my wallet that I didn't deposit, but I have things to do with it. Nefarious things, even.

Also, re: the book, I think they're starting out with logic because I assume that's how Real Mathematicians talk about things, and I'm therefore going to need this to understand what I'm reading soon. Is this about right, Vector? I am definitely keeping going with this, it's stuff I should have learned before and I am very much on a kick of trying to catch up on the stuff Past Me really ought to have done in order to make Present Me as awesome as he always assumed I'd be. And it's disturbingly fun. Goddamn whoever convinced me that math things were boring and only valuable for practicality*.

Also, I have just realized that Lust's last words in FMA: Brotherhood are "It's coming." Because of course they were. juvenile humor wheeeeeeee >_____________>

*It was Past Me again. That bastard never fails to fuck me over.

Past selves really do seem to love screwing future selves over don't they?

[lue]

My roommate has paid rent, and he did so in cash. It's a trying temptation to not spend the hundo I've got burning a hole in my wallet that I didn't deposit, but I have things to do with it. Nefarious things, even.

Also, re: the book, I think they're starting out with logic because I assume that's how Real Mathematicians talk about things, and I'm therefore going to need this to understand what I'm reading soon. Is this about right, Vector? I am definitely keeping going with this, it's stuff I should have learned before and I am very much on a kick of trying to catch up on the stuff Past Me really ought to have done in order to make Present Me as awesome as he always assumed I'd be. And it's disturbingly fun. Goddamn whoever convinced me that math things were boring and only valuable for practicality*.

Also, I have just realized that Lust's last words in FMA: Brotherhood are "It's coming." Because of course they were. juvenile humor wheeeeeeee >_____________>

*It was Past Me again. That bastard never fails to fuck me over.

Math is always more fun when it's of your own accord. For example, in school I wasn't a fan of statistics (but very much of its counterpart probability). Didn't hate it, but just not fun. And today I found myself playing with standard deviations and confidence intervals when figuring out if some coding I was doing had a clear speed improvement. And that was fun.

So, you definitely have to want to do math to enjoy it. That's true of everything, but the unfortunate way math is taught sometimes makes remembering this point more important.

[mastahcheese]

It was Past Me again. That bastard never fails to fuck me over.

Sigged.

EDIT: Ninja's twice.

[MaximumZero]

Another interview. This time, with the store manager, albeit for a different position than the one I initially applied for.

[Chaoswizkid]

In some buildings, they miss out floor 13 because it's 'unlucky'. In asian countries they do that with floor 4, because the word sounds like "death".

Number superstition factoid of the day.

Eh? Really? It's usually the 13th floor that's cut out and not floor 4 here

...Four = Death. Erm, I believe that is derived from a single distinct language given that notion.

Pretty sure it's only Japanese. "Four" in Japanese can either be "Yon" or "Shi". "Shi" is also the word for "Death".

Actually, it's just about all East Asian languages. Definitely major dialects of Chinese, as well as Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese. In Cantonese, 14 and 24 are also unlucky, because they sound like "certain to die" and "easy to die".

...
Dear East Asian People,

You made up your own languages (or borrowed a bunch from others). Why do you do something like this? You could have, you know, not associated your names for numbers with terrible things.


I can't imagine what it'd be like for our number system.

One, two, three, death, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, cancer, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, suffocation, twenty-five...

[Putnam]

won, too, three, for, five, sex, seven, ate, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, forteen, fifteen, sexteen, seventeen, ateteen, nineteen?