Fri, 17 Mar 2017 01:59:16 GMT

The way some people think about numbers bothers me SO MUCH. I am far from a mathematical genius (I got up to fourth form) but the way some people think about probability REALLY bugs me. Today's instance: "Oh, but you don't know for sure, you're making assumptions!" when I prepare myself for something I consider 90% likely to happen - this person thinks that since the 7% and 3% possibilities COULD happen, I should hold off until I hear which outcome has befallen, or else spend equal effort on preparing for each of the three. Almost as if there aren't any probabilities other than 100% or exactly even chances.

My partner also gets on my wick by rounding off excessively loosely before calculating, along the lines of "65cm is about 50cm so three of them will take up about 1.5m", and by paying more attention to how much the price is reduced than to how much something costs. And the way he uses "more than half" and "less than half" - exactly opposite to the way I use them - has caused a few misunderstandings.

Ah well, maybe it's my brain that's the problem.

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