[geeks] Why? i.e. why do people have such poor math & enginee ring skills?

[geeks at sunhelp.org]

~ -----Original Message-----
~ From: David Cantrell [mailto:david at cantrell.org.uk]
~ Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 1:39 PM
~ To: geeks at sunhelp.org
~ Subject: Re: [geeks] Why? i.e. why do people have such poor math &
~ engineering skills?
~ 
~ 
~ On Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 12:35:49PM -0400, Greg A. Woods wrote:
~ > [ On Wednesday, July 31, 2002 at 07:36:46 (-0700), Fogg, 
~ James wrote: ]
~ > > ~ > > "Fogg, James" <JFogg at vicinity.com> wrote:
~ > > ~ > > > 500K-tons
~ > > ~ > Woah, what's this?  A machine that weighs 500 tons 
~ and it walks?
~ > > ~ five hundred THOUSAND tons!
~ > No, not that much -- you're over by at least an order of 
~ magnitude, or
~ > even two (most of the big walkers are only 5,000 tons).
~ 

~ Perhaps the K suffix means something different wherever you are from.

No, I was way off on my guess. Didn't even give the guess much thought, just
reached out for some unfathomable bignum.

The reply was SO pedantic, however, that I was stunned beyond response. I
was highly suspicious that it was flamewar bait, as I suspect that such
grand pedantism (is that a word?) is rare in humans.