Math Is Fun Forum

JaneFairfax

Member

Registered: 2007-02-23

Posts: 6,868

I hate people who try and cheat me

Today (or rather yesterday because it’s now past midnight in the UK) I bought two bottles of Lucozade for 79p a bottle. The shopkeeper tried to charge me £1.78 for the two bottles. What the blazes did he think he was up to? Did he think I was not a mathematician, or was he just trying to catch me unawares?

I remonstrated with him, he finally charged me the correct price of £1.58.

I have words to say about this odious man – but these words may not be suitable for reading by some of our younger members, so I will refrain from uttering them out of courtesy for our younger members.

MathsIsFun

Administrator

Registered: 2005-01-21

Posts: 7,713

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

Trying to profit 20p? Cheap lies!

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"The physicists defer only to mathematicians, and the mathematicians defer only to God ..."  - Leon M. Lederman

Identity

Member

Registered: 2007-04-18

Posts: 934

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

He picked the wrong person to mess with!

luca-deltodesco

Member

Registered: 2006-05-05

Posts: 1,470

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

Well perhaps for 20p such words could perhaps be a bit unnecesary. So many people are so patheticaly bad with simple addition that he could have quite easily made an honest mistake due to lack of skills.

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The Beginning Of All Things To End.
The End Of All Things To Come.

JaneFairfax

Member

Registered: 2007-02-23

Posts: 6,868

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

Luca, you may be right. He probably didn’t mean any harm; it was all probably just an honest mistake.

I probably shouldn’t have started this thread at all. I was not in a good mood last night (and too much cider didn’t help ). I see that I even made a few replies in some other threads in which I expressed myself rather harshly against things I didn’t like. I have now edited my posts and made them less truculent.

Sorry everyone.

Daniel123

Member

Registered: 2007-05-23

Posts: 663

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

What's putting me in a bad mood is stats revision. urgh.

Last edited by Daniel123 (2008-04-05 00:33:39)

John E. Franklin

Member

Registered: 2005-08-29

Posts: 3,588

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

The scary part is when I started reading this, I doubled 79 and got 178 too because
I was thinking 89 somehow, eleven below 100, and then 22 below 200, or
maybe I saw the 178 on the line below subliminally when I read the top line of
your post Jane.

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igloo myrtilles fourmis

Roraborealis

Member

Registered: 2005-03-17

Posts: 1,594

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

What's putting me in a bad mood is stats revision. urgh.

Same here.....
The really annoying thing is that the formulas they don't give you in the booklet I don't know. And the formulas they do give you in the booklet, I know off by heart...

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School is practice for the future. Practice makes perfect. But - nobody's perfect, so why practice?

Daniel123

Member

Registered: 2007-05-23

Posts: 663

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

Are you doing AS/A level?

Im revising for Stats 1. I can't stand it - 90% of the exam is plugging numbers into formulas, which displays absolutely no mathematical ability at all, and punishes people (like me) who are terribly sloppy when it comes to calculator use. I've had a little look at S2, and it seems much more interesting

Roraborealis

Member

Registered: 2005-03-17

Posts: 1,594

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

I am indeed.
I'm doing Further maths but I only got a B in S1 so I'm re-sitting it. I'm doing C3, C4 and M1 this year and then next year we're doing FP1 FP2 and D1....I think. I don't get why we have to do Stats, when a computer can do it anyway. I asked my teacher what the point was and she said there wasn't one. ???

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School is practice for the future. Practice makes perfect. But - nobody's perfect, so why practice?

Daniel123

Member

Registered: 2007-05-23

Posts: 663

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

Ahh, I'm doing further maths too.

This year I've already sat my M1 exam, and in the summer I'll be doing C1, C2, C3, C4 and S1. Next year (well, more likely I will teach myself in the summer holidays) I'm doing FP1, FP2, FP3, M2, S2 and M3 (at least).

What other subjects do you do?

Last edited by Daniel123 (2008-04-08 04:05:57)

mathsyperson

Moderator

Registered: 2005-06-22

Posts: 4,900

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

I don't get why we have to do Stats, when a computer can do it anyway. I asked my teacher what the point was and she said there wasn't one. ???

There's no reason to do most of the methods by hand in real life, but you still need to understand how the method works so that you can tell a computer to do it. And the easiest way of checking that you understand a method is to make you do it.
I'm guessing that's the logic, anyway.

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Why did the vector cross the road?
It wanted to be normal.

Roraborealis

Member

Registered: 2005-03-17

Posts: 1,594

Re: I hate people who try and cheat me

Geek

I'm also doing Biology and Chemistry. I had a really difficult time deciding what I wanted to do because I wanted to do nearly everything, but then I decided I really wanted to be with sciencey and mathsy stuff. But at heart, I'm not majorly a maths enthusiast. It's Chemistry that gets me. All those protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, atoms, molecules, how they all fit together with everything and trying to imagine they exist. And making stuff react....that is so cool. I didn't think I'd enjoy it, I just took it for background knowledge, but I love it now.

Are there any parts of stats where you have to do it by hand?

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School is practice for the future. Practice makes perfect. But - nobody's perfect, so why practice?