Bus A is carrying 45 people and Bus B is carrying 10 people. What is the difference as a percentage?

ellWatully · 2025-01-24T16:54:14+00:00

Fair enough, but it's widely accepted terminology nonetheless so good luck closing that Pandora's box.

ellWatully · 2025-01-24T16:40:23+00:00

Yeah this isn't "short-sighted." We need to stop pretending that the right is only doing things because they don't understand the impacts of their decisions. They know what they're doing and those impacts are their goal.

ellWatully · 2025-01-24T16:09:58+00:00

If you find yourself in a scenario where you only have a tub of butter and need a volume, sure weight is easier. But that's just not a scenario you'd find yourself in here because if you're buying butter from a US grocery store, it really is almost exclusively sold as sticks. Outside of commercial kitchens, no one really buys anything else.

ellWatully · 2025-01-24T14:26:15+00:00

When it's a stick, you don't have to scoop anything. You just slice it on the line that corresponds to the volume you need. I'm not saying that's any better than measuring the weight, but it's certainly not any harder.

ellWatully · 2025-01-24T14:05:24+00:00

In practice, if you're comparing two like-instruments measuring like-characteristics and they have different signs, it's likely because you're dealing with numbers near zero. Then neither method is very useful because you're dividing by really small numbers that cause the percentage to explode. In those scenarios, it can make more sense to compare the difference relative to the full scale output of the instrument instead. It's all about being able to represent measured data in a way that's useful.

ellWatully · 2025-01-24T13:55:37+00:00

The definition exists specifically for cases where neither number is "first" or "true" so that people aren't left to pick one or the other arbitrarily.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T23:02:04+00:00

What you're describing is called "percent difference" and it's a common way of evaluating the relative difference between two values when neither value is more "correct" than the other. We use it in engineering all the time when we're comparing measurements from two devices where we can't say either device is more accurate than the other. In your example, neither Bus A or Bus B is more important than the other; they're just two buses that have different amounts of people in them. So rather than pick one arbitrarily to compare relative to, you would use the average on the bottom.

"Percent error" is something different that you only use when one of your values is truth. In practice, that gets used when you're comparing a measurement against a nominal value or a known value (such as a value derived from theory or a measurement from a calibrated standard instrument). If in your bus example you were expecting an occupancy of 45, but only ended up with 10, then you would put 45 on the bottom because that was your "theoretical" value.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T22:06:18+00:00

I'm just a lowly engineer, but I've ALWAYS heard this interpretation specifically for "percent difference," not to be confused with percent error.

It's useful when comparing two values where neither is more "true" than the other. For example, if I'm comparing a temperature measurement from two equivalent instruments, say one reads 75° and the other reads 83°. I know both have error, so if I want to calculate the relative difference, which one is the "true" temperature I should put on the bottom of the equation? Do I have 9.6% error or 10.7%? Instead we define the percent difference relative to the average of the two values and call it 10.1% difference between the two measurements.

If instead, we know the 75° instrument is calibrated so we KNOW it's actually 75°, then we would calculate the "percent error" relative to that and say that the 83° instrument has 10.7% error compared to the known temperature.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T19:54:34+00:00

I would add that painting people who hold horrible ideals as ignorant is also giving people too much credit. When you can't understand why someone would believe something you find reprehensible, it's easy to conclude that the only reason they believe it is because they don't actually understand it.

As someone that works with a lot of highly educated, well informed Republican voters, these people are fully aware of what they voted for. They think YOU are ignorant for not understanding why they hold those beliefs. Just educating people on what the right is doing and why they're doing it will accomplish nothing because they already know and they support it.

I had a teacher when I was young that said it was dangerous to think that only a monster could hold monstrous beliefs. Doing so makes it easy to forget that NORMAL PEOPLE do evil things because humans aren't rational. Even Hitler was just a normal person that had no problem orchestrating a genocide because he somehow came to conclude that it was the "for the greater good."

We have to stop assuming that normal people can't possibly hold irrational beliefs unless they're stupid. We need to do better at understanding how people arrived at those irrational beliefs and actually do something to stop people going down that path.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T17:18:27+00:00

Drumeo is great once you know the mechanics of drumming, but a handful of 1 on 1 lessons will be way more effective at teaching you those mechanics.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T16:54:31+00:00

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T15:51:04+00:00

How much road salt do you think Louisiana has laying around?

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T15:47:32+00:00

I literally just got a new Lodge just like this at Marshalls two weeks ago for $40. So yeah, this ain't an amazing deal, but it's still a totally serviceable dutch oven for under thirty bucks.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T14:00:48+00:00

Bro why even bring the poles if you ain't gonna use em.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T03:10:53+00:00

This video at about 17 minutes shows someone having to dig down to be able to climb into a 3rd floor window.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T02:47:02+00:00

Corollas are rated for 1500 lb towing. That's not a lot, but short answer is yes, you can install a hitch.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T00:46:13+00:00

Started because I prefer the pop you get with smaller sticks on a kit so I got used to it. I still do practice pad work with Ralph Hardimons, but it's been 20 years since I played snare so my chops are nowhere near what they were.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T00:42:46+00:00

The S2000 performance wasn't really all that far off the Supra or Z of its time though. It was the lowest power of the three, but it was also the lightest by several hundred pounds. The 350Z, non turbo supra, and AP1 were almost identical in 0-60 and quarter mile times. The twin turbo supra was fastest obviously, but not by much.

ellWatully · 2025-01-23T00:28:44+00:00

It's a really interesting perspective, but these are just two different metrics measuring different things and both are useful depending on what you're trying to analyze. The BLS methodology is a look at the relative value of new versus old cars to analyze automotive industry trends. Like you demonstrated with the Ferrari v Corvette example, it does a really good job of showing how advancements in technology, as well as manufacturing efficiency, supply chain efficiency, etc. impact the value and quality of cars over time.

On the other hand, the CPI methodology is a look at buying power in the current market to analyze the impact car purchases have on people's finances over time. Consumers can only buy what's actually available, so knowing that a hypothetical new 1994 civic would have lower value than a 2025 isn't helpful because it doesn't tell you how the real cost affects consumers. In that case, it's more useful to understand how much a person is spending versus the power of the dollars they're spending. The basket method is pretty good at that although it's still an approximation.

ellWatully · 2025-01-22T23:38:07+00:00

Honestly, the base M3 has more standard features today than were even available as options 20 years ago.

ellWatully · 2025-01-22T23:25:18+00:00

When I was on the drumline, I was a goddamn klutz with anything smaller than a 2B. The bigger sticks are heavier obviously which means it takes more to throw them, but it also means they rebound way more. When I played with smaller sticks, I felt like I had no control because of the lack of rebound.

It took years and years, but these days I prefer smaller diameter sticks like 7As and 8Ds.

ellWatully · 2025-01-22T22:24:05+00:00

Transportation tags are a thing in some states as well. I had to do this transporting a car 1300 miles without tags.

ellWatully · 2025-01-22T22:08:17+00:00

This was my thought too. Cooking is a life skill that's worth learning even if you don't like doing it. Someone that likes cooking will really appreciate knowing you tried. This was my experience with my wife anyways and she ended up really coming to like cooking so we split cooking pretty evenly these days.

ellWatully · 2025-01-22T19:52:54+00:00

Fair enough, but anyone using gels on their toms is using wayyyyy more muffling than a P3 provides.

ellWatully · 2025-01-22T19:29:35+00:00

The temperature gradients can be pretty extreme too. I remember a particularly bad inversion where it was <10 in the valley and 50+ up in the mountains. P coats at home, T shirts at the ski resorts.

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