Is this disturbing?

Mr. Gerald Tuxon sure had some fun today!

That's hilariously pathetic.

(Forgive me if I took a joke seriously. I used to see those kinds of backwards errors all of the time in the classroom -- multiplication done in place of  division, & vice-versa.)

tuxon wrote: But if I divide 100 cents by 100 I would only be left with 1 cent, which is why i hate to pay taxes.    ****************************************** No, you'd be left with 1 DOLLAR! **********************************************   just trolling naturally science.   practicing odd logic.

tuxon wrote: just trolling naturally science.

Boy, you got me good - I was really starting to freak out!

tuxon wrote: Everyone knows that there goes 100 cents in a dollar, so you have to divide by a hundred when you calculate from dollars to cents.   0.002 cents in order to turn cents into dollars you have to make it times 100, so that would make 0.2 dollar (<  That conversion is backwards, Tux -- you are moving the decimal in the wrong direction.) so he should be charged with 751 dollars   correct 100, so when calculating from cents to dollars you have to multiply by 100, else i would be a millionaire. I only have 100.000 cents aproximatly, thats 1000 dollars and not 10 million dollars.

Edited by Peter Rideout - April 12 2007 at 16:52

Why the extra multiplication by 100?

Dimensional analysis:
dollars per kilobyte multiplied by kilobytes gives you dollars.  That's it - that's the answer 0,71 dollars.

Right, now multiply 0.00002 dollars/kilobyte by 35500 kilobyte, and what do you get?

You've got a future at Verizon!

100 cents = 1 dollar
10 cents = 0.1 dollar
1 cents = 0.01 dollar
0.1 cents = 0.001 dollar
0.01 cents = 0.0001 dollar
0.002 cent = 0.00002 dollars

Note:  If you agree with my first equation, all subsequent equations are simply dividing both sides by 10 (except the last one which divides by 5).


Edited by NaturalScience - April 12 2007 at 16:28

tuxon wrote: A little disturbing that such a compagny puts such a conversation on the internet ridiculising an all too honest customer.     Everyone knows that there goes 100 cents in a dollar, so you have to divide by a hundred when you calculate from dollars to cents.   0.002 cents in order to turn cents into dollars you have to make it times 100, so that would make 0.2 dollar, so he should be charged with 751 dollars, but the compagny only charged him with 71 dollar, so i think it's a very honest customer to report the difference.   shame on that compagny.   If I was that customer i would have kept the 680 dollars i payed too little.

The italicized portion is wonderfully ironic considering the story.  0.002 cents does not equal 0.2 dollars.  0.2 dollars is 20 cents.

What had happened was he was quoted a rate of 0.002 cents/kB ($0.00002/kB), and transmitted about 35500 kB, therefore what he should have paid was $0.71 ($0.00002*35500).  However, I think Verizon misread to him what the actual rate is, which is 0.002 dollars/kB, and claimed he should have owed about $71.  It was clear from the phone call that they indeed quoted him the former rate, that these people are horribly bad at math and only do what "the computer" tells them to do.


Edited by NaturalScience - April 12 2007 at 16:13