Would a lobotomy help my ADD?

[Xist]

So, I was making some effort to study when a friend posted the first image (4 x 4 + 4 x 4 + 4 - 4 x 4 = ?). I responded "20" and went back to my studies, but she started arguing with me, so I posted the second image, feeding the equation into Google Calculator.

In the end I think that am traumatized from too many women arguing with me.

[Cd]

Win !

[Gealii]

I love these equations and how some people can't do simple math

[MetroMPG]

Nice work.

I've wondered: you know those math "skill testing questions" required to claim a contest prize - do they generally require order of operations?

I remember winning some small prize once, and debating in my head whether the contest designers would have expected the general public to do order of operations.

I took a chance and just performed the calculation as written from L to R ... and got the prize.

[UFO]

A lobotomy would definitely cure the ADD.

[shovel]

I'm tired of those order-of-operations things showing up online. WOOO BIG DEAL you memorized orders of operations.

I use math every day in my job too, but because I know what I'm doing, I also know if an answer is way outta' range so I can go back and correct my mistake before pressing GO.

The "LOOK I KNOW ORDER OF OPERATIONS AND YOU DON'T AND YOU'RE DUMB" things are some self-validation exercise for boring people who don't actually do anything. I was just archiving a bunch of old pictures from the past few years and realized I've built a crapton of random things that I never see anybody else building.. but I don't go posting smarmy "99% of people don't know how to complete this circuit" or "99% of people don't know how much induced lift and anti-dive this suspension design generates in operation" crap all over the internet.

[Piwoslaw]

Arguing too much with women? Maybe you're not the one who needs lobotomy...

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

So, I was making some effort to study when a friend posted the first image (4 x 4 + 4 x 4 + 4 - 4 x 4 = ?). I responded "20" and went back to my studies, but she started arguing with me, so I posted the second image, feeding the equation into Google Calculator.

In the end I think that am traumatized from too many women arguing with me.

Sigh. This reminds me of a dating website I used to be on called okcupid.com. The dating questions are generated by the community, and not only do you answer the question, but you also answer what you expect your partners answer to be, along with how important the question in general is.

One of the multiple choice questions was, "If you start with $1, increase it by 25%, and then decrease it by 25%, how much are you left with".

The vast majority of women answered $1. They also said that they expect their partner to also answer $1, and that the answer to the question is an important consideration to them when selecting a match.

At the time it frustrated me that the majority of women choose not to use math to solve a math problem, and expected their partners to be equally inept or lazy.

I count myself as fortunate for having been passed over, or passed over so many other potential women because I eventually found my soon-to-be fiance on the site.

Originally Posted by shovel

I'm tired of those order-of-operations things showing up online. WOOO BIG DEAL you memorized orders of operations.

The "LOOK I KNOW ORDER OF OPERATIONS AND YOU DON'T AND YOU'RE DUMB" things are some self-validation exercise...

I agree with your point, that it's a means of praising oneself at the expense of ridiculing others. But at the same time, orders of operations are such a fundamental concept to math that the overwhelming majority of people should successfully arrive at the correct answer. Since they aren't, it calls into question what the purpose of all that teaching and studying was in the first place.

The average person doesn't have even an elementary understanding of subjects such as math, economics, philosophy, history... and yet they are voting for political representatives and voting with their pocket books.

The typical answer to fundamental questions such as these are the very reason the US stands zero chance of maintaining economic superiority.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

But at the same time, orders of operations are such a fundamental concept to math that the overwhelming majority of people should successfully arrive at the correct answer. Since they aren't, it calls into question what the purpose of all that teaching and studying was in the first place.

At the same time, it brings up what is one of my... well, not daily annoyances, but fairly frequent irritations: when I have to look at other people's code, and they write expressions that depend on order of operations and don't parenthesize. That is, they write the equivalent of "x = 4 x 4 + 4 x 4 + 4 - 4 x 4;" instead of "x = (4 x 4) + (4 x 4) + 4 - (4 x 4), but with much more complicated expressions, leaving you to wonder if they really did understand order of expressions as implemented in the compiler.

[user removed]

I think adding parenthesees affects the calculation. Looks like 320 to me.
4x4=16
16+4=20
20x4=80
80+4=84
84-4=80
80x4=320
James calculation would give you 20
16+16+4=36
36-16=20

regards
Mech