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The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

calvin.sh

401–410 of 578 posts

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This Friday" is the one during the current week, provided it's currently earlier than Friday. If it's Saturday/Sunday already and I want to talk about the Friday that's only 5 days away I would say "this coming Friday" (or just "Friday"). "Next Friday" is always a week+ away. If it's Tuesday and I say "next Friday", I ALWAYS mean the day 10 days away. If someone says "next Friday" to me and they mean the one in a fe…

What if they say “Friday week”?

Native US English speaker here, and this is the first time I have ever heard of this. TIL

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#403
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, there's no need to get upset. Take a breath. Calm down. > This is quite pertinent in this specific case, as well - you can ask the ML-counting thing to count the rectangles instead of the dots, and perhaps save yourself all the clicking in the first place. Are you just dead set on totally missing the point of what the author of this post is doing? You keep leaving comments that suggest you don't understand the…

A good friend+colleague uses that app for counting nests of migratory seabirds in drone imagery for population surveys. It's great. I work in acoustics, myself. :)

> Here's a dead simple question: Have you successfully used the app to do the thing that you're saying that it will do

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...

don't forget: several = 5-10 handful = 10-20 Personally, after having worked in a hardware store, I always confirm. "grab me a couple of those please" - "is two enough, or do you need a few extra?" I'm one of those people for whom a couple is 3-5, but never 2. I would just say "two".

I think it depends on where you grow up.

Still not as amorphous as the word "now" and its various prefixes when it comes to South Africans and time.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#405
post #184

> For all we know, the middle is just air and crumpled-up old newspaper. I think this is the answer. I suspect the exhibit designers had a cool idea for a display, did a rough estimate of the area needed and then commissioned the exhibit builders to make the big metal-framed cube. Either they made an error in their calculation or the innate variability in the size of stacks of used bills threw it off. It's also possi…

> I'm more interested in is "$1M dollars in $100 bills fits in this area" Here's $1,000,000 in $50 notes at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Museum: https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/600x600/2817090_qnRbbX_q...

Reminds me of getting a 20c coin in change with a Kiwi* on the back. My younger self always felt like I had been shortchanged 5c.

* AUD 20c was an identical size and same embossed image of the Queen, but a platypus on the reverse.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure. That doesn't necessarily seem like a weird statement to me. It's more than several, but still a manageable number.

Great! In that case I'll take two handfuls of bowling balls and several wheelbarrows. Maybe I should get a couple (4) more wheelbarrows to be safe, bring it down to under 4 balls per barrow

If you're trying to provoke a "wait, that's not what I meant" response with that sarcasm, you won't get it :)

Use depends on context, like all language, and deliberately choosing a situation that doesn't suit the language will obviously result in confusion.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in your mind, when the Federal Reserve prints a dollar bill - what's happening in accounting terms? I don't think your understanding of the way this works is consistent with the concept of money supply.

To be precise, the treasury prints the bills, not the federal reserve. The federal reserve balances what money is in circulation by selling or buying bonds. When they issue a bond, someone buys it, so money is removed from circulation. When they buy a bond, money is injected into circulation.

It’s the other way around. The treasury issues bonds; the Fed buys (or repos) them in exchange for newly issued USD.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they say “Friday week”?

Native US English speaker here, and this is the first time I have ever heard of this. TIL

Every time I hear it, it befuddles me just like the first time. It seems like a syntax error or something. My mind literally reels, like the idea is a fish and I can nearly feel the fishing line drag but the syntax and grammar isn’t rigidly applied, and so I can’t increase the tension or the line will snap, as it isn’t rated for this hefty and impactful of an idea as when something occurs specifically. I don’t know if that fish story adds anything, but I realized that there was some potential for wordplay that helps explain how it feels perceptually to hear these English words in nonstandard order from someone to whom it is standard. It’s strange.
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