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

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

#561

Post by _carbyau_ »

RajT88 wrote: post #517
tobinfekkes wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I just discovered that we have different beliefs about "this Friday" vs. "Next Friday". I never even knew there was another possibility, so it's cool to see this mentioned here so soon after.

My wife and I have a disagreement about "the other day". I use it to mean, a time up to two years ago. She uses it to mean up to no more than a month. I think the disagreement is because I have a better memory - two years ago does not feel so distant to me. It is a silly and fun thing to argue about, leading to some agreements on terminology: A while ago - 2- 10 years Back in the day - 10+ years ago And just to troll…

Oh no, a whole new bunch of time-wimey words I hadn't even considered! :-)

I'm no authority but to me using "the other day" as a phrase is trying to impart a rough reference to a point in time.

Which means we're talking in "day" timeframes where week or month wouldn't be suitable. I would expect "the other day" to be within a week, but accept no more than a month.

Similarly "some months ago" = probably less than 6 months but definitely no more than a year.

The world is a wonderful place and the ways we humans can confuse communication seemingly knows no bounds. But I don't want a proscriptive definition for each little casual phrase as I think this flexibility in language is why it keeps changing and being alive!

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

#562

Post by beaugunderson »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #358

Back in the late 70s my uncle was at an auto show in Chicago at the McCormick place. There was a VW filled with beer cans of some particular brand. You could submit your name and your guess of the number of cans of beer and whomever was closest to the actual count won the beer (but not the car). My uncle won. How did he guess so well? He was there very early on and he noticed a stack of cardboard trays stacked up in…

back in the day at when I worked at a Seattle company there was a contest where a vase with an oblate spheroid shape was filled with M&Ms was left in the kitchen with some instructions for submitting guesses as to the total.

I created a 3D model of the vase in Blender, used some Python to get the interior area, and then found a figure for the average volume of M&Ms to get a count.

my guess was off by about half, but was very close to many of the other engineers' numbers, to the point where we asked them to recount. the recount revealed I was closest and it turns out they had used a method other than counting for the original number (they weighed them or something... it was way off).

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

#563

Post by _carbyau_ »

Daneel_ wrote: post #371
_carbyau_ wrote: post #349

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".

This is what I love about language. "several" and "handful" have waaay different meanings to me.

In practice my immediate response for "several" would be to use it interchangeably with "few". 3-5.

But all these comments make me think that maybe it should fill my [gap] at "seven-ish". I mean, the "seve" bit does kinda lend itself.

[0] Tangentially, several is from 'Medieval Latin separalis "separable," ' as in '(as in went their several ways)' . So to link it with "seven" would be a weird thing to do but I imagine this kind of thing happens with a living language.

[0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/several

As for "handful"... you and I are worlds apart on that one! :-P Hand has four fingers, five digits. So "handful" is 4-5 for me. But as other comments alluded, if the [thing] is a batch of small something (like sand) then it's simply how much you can grasp.

As I mentioned these words have surprisingly varied definitions between people! One of the wonders of a living language.

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

#564

Post by eru »

Liquix wrote: post #550
acatnamedjoe wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlocking trolleys with a coin is normal in Britain too. I'd never considered that this might be unusual. Is this not a thing in other countries? How do they get people to return their trolleys to the bays?

> How do they get people to return their trolleys to the bays? There is no external force compelling US shoppers to do so. This has led to the (in)famous "shopping cart theory" [0], first posited like this: The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test as to whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate…

It's funny that Germany (and other countries) solved what's a social problem in the US with a simple piece of technology.

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

#565

Post by Bratmon »

rand_r wrote: post #549
RajT88 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is very informative on your chances of carrying off a heist stealing this cube. Conclusion: Low, unless you're willing to take only a fraction of the face value. Thinking through it though - you might be able to get away with spending the cash overseas, where it will take some time indeed for the money to be under scrutiny by banks to see if the serial numbers are out of circulation. There's then problem…

> to see if the serial numbers are out of circulation. Cash cannot be invalidated like this. It would ruin the value of all cash since you could no longer trust cash from anyone. Only damaged notes are taken out and replaced by the government.

Specifically invalidating serial numbers of cash used in a crime is a very common process.

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

#566

Post by rand_r »

Bratmon wrote: post #565
rand_r wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to see if the serial numbers are out of circulation. Cash cannot be invalidated like this. It would ruin the value of all cash since you could no longer trust cash from anyone. Only damaged notes are taken out and replaced by the government.

Specifically invalidating serial numbers of cash used in a crime is a very common process.

This is something you see in movies. Cash is by nature not traceable, so invalidating notes after issue would make it impossible to trust any cash transaction.

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

#567

Post by ninetyninenine »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #490
ninetyninenine wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said anything absolute. Read it again. The remark was that clarity is often mistaken for cynicism, which is often true given the lengths people delude themselves about many things. It's not absolute. I qualified it as "often," which makes it extremely reasonable. See what happened there? A clear statement was made, but obscured because you mistook it for cynicism.

I sense some confusion, let me try to clarify: The absolute I'm talking about in the GP comment, is in reference to the clarity you are referring to in the GGP. You don't actually provide any example of said clarity. And I didn't refer to anything you said directly as cynicism past the point in the chain where you state your preference towards analogizing a museum exhibit to an over-arching pattern about the Fed's ha…

I see what you mean.

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

#568

Post by hakfoo »

thisisauserid wrote: post #265

On the other hand, due to the provenance of the cube, the whole thing would sell for a lot more than $1 million. Jack Binion's sister, Becky Behnen, famously sold million-dollar display of one hundred $10,000 bills in '99 for (a rumored) $4 million to the currency dealer Jay Parrino. (Supposedly) one of those $10,000 bills was posted on eBay for $160,000.

$10,000 notes carry a substantial premium for collectors.

I find it funny they still advertise having a display of a million dollars, but in boring modern notes. Didn't even bother to look for it even though I walked past the place like 15 times on a Vegas trip, and literally went into the building for a cheap breakfast.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing had a similar glass box filled with uncut sheets of $10 notes when I visited in 2016.

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

#569

Post by necovek »

lxgr wrote: post #241
necovek wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be fun, but I am pretty sure they get it electronically into their bank account — as in, no money is ever made for their salaries, just like most white collar workers.

Demand deposits in bank accounts are also money. As a side note: In some countries, central bank employees are the only individuals that can actually hold non-paper M0 (or MB?) money, since they get paid their salaries into a central bank account, which are otherwise only available to commercial banks. This used to be the case in Germany and Austria, but has been phased out at some point, as far as I remember. But ev…

I am not disputing they are money, only that they can "just print their salaries".

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

#570

Post by jjcob »

sebastiennight wrote: post #478
jjcob wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for a lot of things it doesn't matter, so either 10h or 32h are okay (eg. soaking beans, marinating meat). If it says overnight I assume the time doesn't really matter that much.

Unless you're marinating your meat with pineapple, in which case it can end badly... The day I learned that the acidic feel of pineapples comes from it actually digesting you instead of the opposite is the day I stopped using them.

Yeah, I use pear to marinate thinly sliced beef (my variant of bulgogi). I wouldn't let that marinate overnight either. An hour or so is enough. Too much pear for too long and the meat becomes so soft it almost falls apart.
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