Random Thoughts Part 4 - Split Thread

[jim hardy]

No idea why I continue to use Outlook mail.

I've been happy with Thunderbird, never use outlook any more. . Took me a good while to learn to use its Filters to delete from server before loading, much less aggravation now.

 

[WWGD]

A good answer for next time a high school kid asks why s/he needs to know Math:
I ordered a pizza at Papa Johns. A large garden is $20 + tax. It has 6 veg toppings.
There was a deal for a large one , 1 topping for $7.80. Each extra topping is $1.50.
So if I got the one for $7.80 with 1 topping + the 5 toppings for $1.50 each, for a total
of $15.30 vs $20. A saving of almost $5. Math ( at least arithmetic) paid off.

 

[Ibix]

If your sales tax is more than about 6% then you save more than $5, in fact.

 

[WWGD]

If your sales tax is more than about 6% then you save more than $5, in fact.

Good point, it is 8.875% , so the savings are around $5.20.

 

[Ibix]

Coming from a country where VAT - our equivalent of sales tax - is included in the price of everything, I always find a visit to the US a challenge for my mental arithmetic. I don't have any quick look-ups in my head for something like "What is 1.08875 times $7.43?"

 

[WWGD]

Coming from a country where VAT - our equivalent of sales tax - is included in the price of everything, I always find a visit to the US a challenge for my mental arithmetic. I don't have any quick look-ups in my head for something like "What is 1.08875 times $7.43?"

I am good at mental arithmetic, but there are some tricks: you can take 1.1 , the 10% and then subtract a bit more than 1% from it, which may not be too hard. Or, if doubling is easier for you, you can double three times , to figure out 8% and then add a bit less than 1%. But you have a good point, it is kind of complicated.

 

[zoobyshoe]

A good answer for next time a high school kid asks why s/he needs to know Math:
I ordered a pizza at Papa Johns. A large garden is $20 + tax. It has 6 veg toppings.
There was a deal for a large one , 1 topping for $7.80. Each extra topping is $1.50.
So if I got the one for $7.80 with 1 topping + the 5 toppings for $1.50 each, for a total
of $15.30 vs $20. A saving of almost $5. Math ( at least arithmetic) paid off.

That's right. But personally, I would scrutinize things even further.

I am almost positive no veggie topping would cost them $1.50 to add, so they make profit there. Additionally, when they add topping #2, I bet they cut back on how much of topping #1 they use (by at least 5%, say). By that logic and procedure, each additional topping allows them to obfuscate how much of each topping they add, such that they make more and more profit per topping the more toppings you order (by topping #6 they are only adding 60% of topping #1, say). So, one topping is the hardest for them to play 3 card monty with, and you get the most mass for the least amount with one veggie only.

It could be I'm wrong and that each topping is pre-measured regardless of the number of toppings, but I would be on the lookout for this tactic

 

[WWGD]

That's right. But personally, I would scrutinize things even further.

I am almost positive no veggie topping would cost them $1.50 to add, so they make profit there. Additionally, when they add topping #2, I bet they cut back on how much of topping #1 they use (by at least 5%, say). By that logic and procedure, each additional topping allows them to obfuscate how much of each topping they add, such that they make more and more profit per topping the more toppings you order (by topping #6 they are only adding 60% of topping #1, say). So, one topping is the hardest for them to play 3 card monty with, and you get the most mass for the least amount with one veggie only.

It could be I'm wrong and that each topping is pre-measured regardless of the number of toppings, but I would be on the lookout for this tactic

It may be hard to implement unless done very carefully. Workers are either Mexicans whoo don't speak English well, or high school kids who
can barely do Math. But if management wants to be cheapskates, they can always figure out a way of doing it I guess. And the pizza is pretty tasty too, so at least it seems I am getting reasonable quality.

 

[WWGD]

It may be hard to implement unless done very carefully. Workers are either Mexicans whoo don't speak English well, or high school kids who
can barely do Math. But if management wants to be cheapskates, they can always figure out a way of doing it I guess. And the pizza is pretty tasty too, so at least it seems I am getting reasonable quality.

EDIT: If anyone in PF is interested, I can do research for them and buy some 10 of each standard large garden and then 10 $7.80 ones with 5 added toppings, then measure the amount of toppings in each --and then eat it. So I am asking for a research grant from anyone out there.

 

[Ibix]

I am good at mental arithmetic, but there are some tricks: you can take 1.1 , the 10% and then subtract a bit more than 1% from it, which may not be too hard. Or, if doubling is easier for you, you can double three times , to figure out 8% and then add a bit less than 1%. But you have a good point, it is kind of complicated.

True - "somewhere between 8 and 9 percent" would probably do for most purposes. And then taking a quarter of the difference between 8 and 9 percent would get me the rest of the way. The problem is that it never even occurs to me to think about it until I'm stood at the till with my $10 item and my $10 bill wondering why they're charging me $10.88.

I used to be treasurer of a student society many years ago. Student societies don't pay VAT, so if the society bought something that included it you needed a "VAT receipt", which shows the amount of VAT paid, and the university could claim it back. The books refused to balance one time, which I eventually tracked down to one VAT receipt (from a well known national chain) that showed that we had paid (for the sake of argument) £10 for something, of which £1.75 was tax. The tax rate at the time was 17.5%...

 

[zoobyshoe]

It may be hard to implement unless done very carefully. Workers are either Mexicans whoo don't speak English well, or high school kids who can barely do Math.

You don't need math. You would just tell them, "When it's only one topping, use about this much, but when it's two, use a little less of each one, and then even less for each new topping."

 

[WWGD]

You don't need math. You would just tell them, "When it's only one topping, use about this much, but when it's two, use a little less of each one, and then even less for each new topping."

Sorry, I need research to verify. Around $400 to buy 10 sets of pizzas from each type, then weigh amount of toppings in each.

 

[WWGD]

True - "somewhere between 8 and 9 percent" would probably do for most purposes. And then taking a quarter of the difference between 8 and 9 percent would get me the rest of the way. The problem is that it never even occurs to me to think about it until I'm stood at the till with my $10 item and my $10 bill wondering why they're charging me $10.88.

I used to be treasurer of a student society many years ago. Student societies don't pay VAT, so if the society bought something that included it you needed a "VAT receipt", which shows the amount of VAT paid, and the university could claim it back. The books refused to balance one time, which I eventually tracked down to one VAT receipt (from a well known national chain) that showed that we had paid (for the sake of argument) £10 for something, of which £1.75 was tax. The tax rate at the time was 17.5%...

Warning: lame joke ahead. A joke that does not work in writting, only if told (and not even half-good then ).

They don't pay Vat (what)?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Sorry, I need research to verify. Around $400 to buy 10 sets of pizzas from each type, then weigh amount of toppings in each.

Social engineering is a cheaper way: make friends with a Papa John's employee.

 

[Ibix]

Or, alternatively, get a grad student to apply for a job at a pizza restaurant and report back? You could even show a profit on your research from the grad student's wages, which you could plough into further pizza. I mean research.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Tonight Mysteries at the Museum told an incendiary story I've never heard before. After WWII American cities had a healthy and popular public transit system: the electric streetcar. However, a conglomerate of US Auto manufacturers conspired to bring it down so that everyone would eventually turn to the private automobile. They bought up all the street car companies all over the country, took the street cars offline little by little and replaced them with crappy, smelly and uncomfortable busses. Now public transit sucked, and people did, indeed, decide to buy their own cars.

 

[dlgoff]

... I have accidentally sent myself mail because of the way Outlook is laid out.

Yep.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Yep.

If Bill Gates had a nickel for every bug in Outlook...

Oh wait, he does...

 

[WWGD]

If Bill Gates had a nickel for every bug in Outlook...

Oh wait, he does...

He has a nickel for every nickel he has not bothered spending in quality control for sure. There is no doubt on who has the real power: marketing and sales and definitely not engineering.

 

[WWGD]

I seem to have an autistic-like disposition at times. There was this store's schedule described as: Friday: from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. And then something in me said: it cannot be, the second 6 a.m will not fall on Friday! It is , of course, clear what they meant, but the very slight ambiguity just bothered me. Had I been further gone towards this disposition, I would have talked to the store's owner about it (pretty sure s/he would have told me to get the $%* out of there, rightfully so).

 

[zoobyshoe]

It is , of course, clear what they meant...

Not to me. What did they mean?

 

[WWGD]

Not to me. What did they mean?

I would say from 6 a.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. If it is an uninterrupted block of time (as displayed), that is the only way in which I can make sense of it. Maybe it is not an autistic thing if others don't see it either.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I would say from 6 a.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. If it is an uninterrupted block of time (as displayed), that is the only way in which I can make sense of it. Maybe it is not an autistic thing if others don't see it either.

It could have meant 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., though. It's my experience that 24 hour blocks are expressed as 12 A.M. to 12 P.M. So, I wouldn't have known what to make of the sign.

 

[WWGD]

It could have meant 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., though. It's my experience that 24 hour blocks are expressed as 12 A.M. to 12 P.M. So, I wouldn't have known what to make of the sign.

You're right, I was assuming it was a special Christmas schedule , and there were two days marked that way, so I thought it was not a mistake, but meant that way.

 

[WWGD]

You're right, I was assuming it was a special Christmas schedule , and there were two days marked that way, so I thought it was not a mistake, but meant that way.

But a genuinely strange thing to do, I would say, is what I see some restaurants do, where they state their schedule as : Monday: 10-6 . Tuesday, 10:6 ,.., Saturday 10-6 , Sunday 10-6 . And then state _the exact same menu_ separately , for lunch and dinner every day, instead of : Open 10-6 daily, menu is ...

 

[zoobyshoe]

But a genuinely strange thing to do, I would say, is what I see some restaurants do, where they state their schedule as : Monday: 10-6 . Tuesday, 10:6 ,.., Saturday 10-6 , Sunday 10-6 . And then state _the exact same menu_ separately , for lunch and dinner every day, instead of : Open 10-6 daily, menu is ...

I think restaurant owners/managers are all more or less insane in that, they are completely deluded about what makes a sign intelligible.

On that note, I would also like to complain that almost no restaurant has their holiday hours posted online. For example, I could not find whether any specific Starbucks was going to be open on Thanksgiving or Christmas, only the generic information that some might possibly be open with abbreviated hours. So, I called a couple, and there was not even a recording: just endless ringing with no answer.

 

[WWGD]

I think restaurant owners/managers are all more or less insane in that, they are completely deluded about what makes a sign intelligible.

On that note, I would also like to complain that almost no restaurant has their holiday hours posted online. For example, I could not find whether any specific Starbucks was going to be open on Thanksgiving or Christmas, only the generic information that some might possibly be open with abbreviated hours. So, I called a couple, and there was not even a recording: just endless ringing with no answer.

I agree with you entirely. I don't know there , but here business owners do not include cross streets in the directions they include in their leaflets. They will say, e.g., 1650 Avenue A , and there is no good way of knowing the cross streets. And ditto for the hours of operation. I do not have a natural disposition for running a business but it seems the first thing you would think of doing is helping the customer know where you are located and your businesses' hours.
But the attitude seems to be: you want something from my business? Look it up, come here and ask me, or else. OK, dude, if I don't patronize your business, I can walk half a block and find another one, maybe a few others. Strange ways. So much for market competition creating lean, mean business practices.

Ditto for business hours during holidays, I completely agree with you. All it would take would be an entry -level employee manning a free website. Go figure, I sure don't get it.

 

[WWGD]

It is too bad that the Churros place closed down , just before Winter began. Perfect to have churros and hot chocolate in winter.

 

[Giant]

I'm thinking I should stop lurking so much and be more active.

 

[WWGD]

I'm thinking I should stop lurking so much and be more active.

Now you brought up the feeling of guilt in me. for doing the same.