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Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

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Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#61

Post by arcticfox »

specialist wrote: post #48
skarap wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This reminds me of the elevation of Mt Everest as determined in 1856: Or the joke about the museum guide telling visitors the dinosaur skeleton is 100,000,005 years old, because when he started there 5 years ago, an expert told him it was 100 million years old.

I have Creationists in my family. I don't poke the bear. But I've always wanted to ask how the Earth is perpetually 6,000 years old. Another question, if the assorted Creationists can't agree on the true age, then why do they get huffy about science's varying estimates? Oh well.

I think the answer is pretty obvious: at the moment it's rounded to "6,000 years old". Presumably in several hundred years they'll round to 6,500, then 7,000 after that...

Of all things to question a Creationist about, the suspiciously round 6,000 doesn't seem like one to me...

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#62

Post by jgrahamc »

noobie wrote: post #59
jxy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their marketing decision is really odd. I guess the engineer that came up with kg numbers decided to round it in 1000kg, which is reasonable to me. Whoever got the number don't like kg, and converted to lb. Someone else adding the number up actually counts in 100lb, and thinks it's better just to round up. And yeah, the last two zero is fishy, I first tried to do a simple round, and wondered where's the extra 600. It…

Exactly. Too bad two wrongs don't make a right. What language is that?

That's APL

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#63

Post by DonHopkins »

zuck9 wrote: post #45
davideous wrote: post #26

This reminds me of the elevation of Mt Everest as determined in 1856: > Peak XV (measured in feet) was calculated to be exactly 29,000 ft (8,839.2 m) high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 ft (8,839.8 m) in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet (8,839.2 m) was nothing more than a rounded estimate Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest

So, in order to prevent people from assuming it was incorrect, they made it incorrect...

However, not as incorrect as people would have otherwise assumed it was.

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#65

Post by rbritton »

specialist wrote: post #48
skarap wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This reminds me of the elevation of Mt Everest as determined in 1856: Or the joke about the museum guide telling visitors the dinosaur skeleton is 100,000,005 years old, because when he started there 5 years ago, an expert told him it was 100 million years old.

I have Creationists in my family. I don't poke the bear. But I've always wanted to ask how the Earth is perpetually 6,000 years old. Another question, if the assorted Creationists can't agree on the true age, then why do they get huffy about science's varying estimates? Oh well.

I've had sort of a different theory on that. When explaining something from my field to someone without the background and knowledge needed to understand the precise terms, I reduce the explanation to terms and context that they're capable of understanding but still get the general meaning across. I'm not religious by any means, but I've always understood that the Bible is the word of God as interpreted and written by the various disciples. Why couldn't the same apply there? Combined with various translation approximations and differences over the millennia [0], I don't feel it's that far of a reach.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#66

Post by ascorbic »

skarap wrote: post #37
davideous wrote: post #26

This reminds me of the elevation of Mt Everest as determined in 1856: > Peak XV (measured in feet) was calculated to be exactly 29,000 ft (8,839.2 m) high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 ft (8,839.8 m) in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet (8,839.2 m) was nothing more than a rounded estimate Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest

> This reminds me of the elevation of Mt Everest as determined in 1856: Or the joke about the museum guide telling visitors the dinosaur skeleton is 100,000,005 years old, because when he started there 5 years ago, an expert told him it was 100 million years old.

Archaeologists deal with this by defining the "present" in "before present" as 1st Jan 1950. It helps that that's before widespread nuclear testing messed up the radioisotope levels.

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#67

Post by rdiddly »

They forgot to count the 2204# (1000kg) of self-congratulatory PR value extracted. Kind of ruins their bragging rights though, when you realize how much usable material they're recovering on the cheap. They're basically just doing the obvious, efficient and profitable thing. It has taken markets a long time to catch up with how obvious it is, though. As metal prices go up, it will become even more profitable, and they'll be glad they already have the infrastructure in place.

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#68

Post by function_seven »

My rant related to this:

How It's Made[1] often has lines like, "The worker places the assembly in a oven that heats the metal to 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit". Which is an oddly-specfic temperature before you realize they just converted it from 700°C. Since it's highly doubtful the oven maintains precisely 700°C—and since it's not important to the viewer what the exact temperature is anyway—it annoys me that they don't just say "1,300°F" instead.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_It%27s_Made

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#69

Post by milankragujevic »

tathagatadg wrote: post #39

I have a off topic question. How have you reused your old phone? I've seen some typical lists on the web - but nothing impressive given how powerful these small computers are.

I use it as a surveillance camera with a free Android app that streams the picture from the camera as an MJPEG using a built in HTTP server. It's pretty nice, I forwarded the ports on my modem and now I can see what's happening in my home from anywhere in the world :)

Re: Apple's amusingly round reuse figures

#70

Post by plorg »

soneil wrote: post #24
Symbiote wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they've clearly been converted to pounds, then back to kilograms. Lead 19,994 Tin 1,999 Silver 2,999 Gold 1,000

Interesting. For the UK they just say 1 tonne, 2 tonnes, etc - https://www.apple.com/uk/environment/resources/ So everyone’s trying to play this as some conspiracy of fictional numbers. All we’ve actually found is that Apple do localize their site, and possibly some weaknesses in how they do so.

Clearly this is evidence that their environmental report was created in their Irish subsidiary (of Double Irish fame), propagated to the U.S., and then modified for the rest of the world (here, Australia).
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