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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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People's Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery
#7628749 - 11/13/07 01:53 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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In England the National Lottery recently introduced a scratch card game called ‘Cool Cash’. In the game you have to scratch off a temperature lower than the temperature a nefarious penguin has. The problem? Sometimes the penguin has a negative number and the general population doesn’t remember from year 6 mathematics that -15 is a lower temperature than -10.
From the article: As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.
But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.
Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme, called Camelot after failing to win with several cards.
The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: “On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won… and so did the woman in the shop. “I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I’m not having it.”
luminiferous-aether.net
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Diploid]
#7628867 - 11/13/07 04:02 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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If they would stick to the kelvin scale, then this wouldn't be a problem.
On a side note, I wonder how many of these folks are members of the Scholars for 9/11 movement.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Seuss]
#7628934 - 11/13/07 05:17 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Diploid]
#7629415 - 11/13/07 08:58 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said:
The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: “On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won… and so did the woman in the shop. “I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I’m not having it.”
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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maggotz


Registered: 06/24/06
Posts: 7,539
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Diploid]
#7629559 - 11/13/07 09:44 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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i wonder how many people actually won and threw the tickets away. 
"damn, -8... almost lower than -7, fuck"
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 2 months, 20 days
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: maggotz]
#7629711 - 11/13/07 10:35 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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> i wonder how many people actually won and threw the tickets away. 
*laugh* A very good question.
I know there is a country that makes you take a simple math test before being allowed to enter contests (or the like). By simple math test, stuff like what is three minus five. Canada, perhaps?
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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trendal
J♠



Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Seuss]
#7629755 - 11/13/07 10:47 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Yep! Canada's the one!
It's to get around a law we have that makes gambling illegal...this way you aren't "gambling", you're "receiving something for the question you answered" 
In effect, it disqualifies anyone with really poor math skills...or at least everyone who doesn't know how to use a calculator.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: trendal]
#7629894 - 11/13/07 11:11 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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The voluntary tax, as paid by the underclass of society. I have no sympathy for these fuckwits!
And that's not maths, that's counting.
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Visionary Tools]
#7630238 - 11/13/07 12:22 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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so I wonder what they think the negative sign is for? How the fuck do they do subtraction? so many questions
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Diploid]
#7630618 - 11/13/07 01:33 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Nice to see not all the stupid people in the world live in America.
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minesstudent
Who knows?



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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Silversoul]
#7631836 - 11/13/07 05:52 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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This was in England.
-------------------- "The universe is the way it is because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to talk about it"
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: minesstudent]
#7632044 - 11/13/07 06:22 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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> This was in England.
Finally, it happens to somebody other than me! 
> Nice to see not all the stupid people in the world live in America.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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wps
Well-PaidScientist


Registered: 09/22/07
Posts: 579
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Diploid]
#7632251 - 11/13/07 07:18 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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if they knew how to do math,
then they probably wouldn't be playing the lottery in the first place.
-------------------- "America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve." - Tom Morello
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: wps]
#7632632 - 11/13/07 08:54 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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good point
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wps
Well-PaidScientist


Registered: 09/22/07
Posts: 579
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: johnm214]
#7635500 - 11/14/07 02:44 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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yeah, I would say my knowledge of mathematical probability is what deters me from playing the lottery.
-------------------- "America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve." - Tom Morello
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RuNE
bomberman


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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: wps]
#7638835 - 11/15/07 09:59 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
wps said: yeah, I would say my knowledge of mathematical probability is what deters me from playing the lottery.
I know someone who's won it twice.  However unprobable, there is still that small chance you can shoot for. I mean in the end, it's really just a game. $2 a week is not much for a chance at financial freedom.
-------------------- ~Happy sailing~
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: RuNE]
#7638900 - 11/15/07 10:15 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Actuarially, it's a horrible investment.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: wps]
#7639349 - 11/15/07 11:39 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
wps said: if they knew how to do math,
then they probably wouldn't be playing the lottery in the first place.
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Newbie
User of semicolons.



Registered: 07/18/04
Posts: 24,710
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Silversoul]
#7639498 - 11/15/07 12:12 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Wow...that's sad. It's definitely funny too, but sad.
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: People's Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Diploid]
#7640664 - 11/15/07 04:43 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Isn't the "number line" covered in 3rd grade math? Sheesh..."Idiocracy" is seeming less like sci-fi and more like a sneak preview.
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automan
blasted chipmunk


Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 8,272
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: RuNE]
#7646915 - 11/17/07 07:28 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
RuNE said:
Quote:
wps said: yeah, I would say my knowledge of mathematical probability is what deters me from playing the lottery.
I know someone who's won it twice.  However unprobable, there is still that small chance you can shoot for. I mean in the end, it's really just a game. $2 a week is not much for a chance at financial freedom.
let's think about that. $2 a week from age 21 to age 65 @ an average of 9% interest (which the stock market has averaged over the last 100 years) Code:
Your monthly deposit for 44 years of $ 8.00 for an interest rate of 9.000 % compounded monthly with an initial amount of $ 0.00:
Year Balance 0 $ 100.06 1 $ 209.51 2 $ 329.22 3 $ 460.17 4 $ 603.39 5 $ 760.06 6 $ 931.42 7 $ 1,118.85 8 $ 1,323.87 9 $ 1,548.11 10 $ 1,793.40 11 $ 2,061.69 12 $ 2,355.15 13 $ 2,676.14 14 $ 3,027.25 15 $ 3,411.28 16 $ 3,831.35 17 $ 4,290.81 18 $ 4,793.38 19 $ 5,343.09 20 $ 5,944.37 21 $ 6,602.06 22 $ 7,321.44 23 $ 8,108.30 24 $ 8,968.98 25 $ 9,910.39 26 $ 10,940.11 27 $ 12,066.43 28 $ 13,298.41 29 $ 14,645.95 30 $ 16,119.90 31 $ 17,732.12 32 $ 19,495.57 33 $ 21,424.45 34 $ 23,534.28 35 $ 25,842.01 36 $ 28,366.23 37 $ 31,127.24 38 $ 34,147.25 39 $ 37,450.56 40 $ 41,063.74 41 $ 45,015.87 42 $ 49,338.73 43 $ 54,067.10
Final Savings Balance: $ 54,067.10
<3 compound interest. that is what your lotto playings are costing you in income potential.
-------------------- No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
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RuNE
bomberman


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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: automan]
#7646958 - 11/17/07 08:11 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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You could say the same for your morning coffee, or paper, or insert item [x] that you don't really need everyday into your equation.
I don't play the lottery as an investment, I do it for fun.
-------------------- ~Happy sailing~
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: RuNE]
#7647141 - 11/17/07 10:12 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
RuNE said: I don't play the lottery as an investment, I do it for fun.
I never really saw the fun in losing money.
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automan
blasted chipmunk


Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 8,272
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Silversoul]
#7647243 - 11/17/07 10:49 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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i see the fun it that little bit of excitement playing the 'what if' game. i'm sure buying a lotto ticket makes the game a bit more real.
-------------------- No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
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DieCommie


Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: automan]
#7647687 - 11/17/07 01:56 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Yea, the excitement comes at the moment of the scratch, not when you hand money over. I think I have the same feeling when I have to program some shit and I compile it 
About the math skills, it is sad.. But many of these people are older and didnt have access to the same education that we do (Im guessing since I dont live in england). I tutor adults in arithmetic and the number line at the community college, and know that some are just as smart as me but have less education. Either they are an immigrant from a shittie country, or they were raised in the poor area here in the US. Especially if they are older and black, they obviously didnt have access to the same eduction that others did. Anyway, Ill never know how many of these people are disadvantaged and how many are lazy idiots
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Zepplin
journeyman



Registered: 12/31/01
Posts: 732
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: DieCommie]
#7647752 - 11/17/07 02:19 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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A couple of dollars a week isn't much for entertainment. If you enjoy it, it's cheap.
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: automan]
#7649644 - 11/18/07 12:10 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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On my 18th birthday, my mom bought me a lotto ticket. I was like, "Alright! Nothing! Just what I always wanted!"(I didn't actually say that, but I thought it).
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RuNE
bomberman


Registered: 09/23/00
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: Silversoul]
#7649923 - 11/18/07 02:32 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Silversoul said:
Quote:
RuNE said: I don't play the lottery as an investment, I do it for fun.
I never really saw the fun in losing money.
I'm sure you were trying to be witty here, but you seem to misunderstand my point.
I'm not retarded. I fully understand that there's a good 99.999% chance i'll lose that $2 that week, and most likely the week after that.. But as it's been said, it's the thrill of playing the 'what if' game.
There's a difference between knowing the facts, and being a complete square.
-------------------- ~Happy sailing~
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automan
blasted chipmunk


Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 8,272
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: RuNE]
#7650289 - 11/18/07 08:50 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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RuNE, you have been here 7 years and don't have 2,000 posts yet. you, sir, kick ass.
-------------------- No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
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RuNE
bomberman


Registered: 09/23/00
Posts: 2,331
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Re: Peoples' Math Skills So Poor They Can't Tell if They Won the Lottery [Re: automan]
#7650564 - 11/18/07 11:13 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Considering that I consider this place my 'home' of the net, I'm mystified myself. 
-------------------- ~Happy sailing~
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