are we a bunch of sheep?

in the past week or 2 I've seen 3 separate statements that "a billion seconds ago
it was 1959" including a thread here, and in our local newspaper. As best I can figure
a billion seconds is about 31.7 years. Soooooooo, either my math skills are kaput or
this got posted on some forum and everyone took it as gospel and repeated it, making
it seem even more real by repetition. If so, the ability of the web to spread erroneous
information is really something to behold! Or are we just too lazy to question statistics,
especially if they support out cause?

35634 said:

in the past week or 2 I've seen 3 separate statements that "a billion seconds ago
it was 1959" including a thread here, and in our local newspaper. As best I can figure
a billion seconds is about 31.7 years. Soooooooo, either my math skills are kaput or
this got posted on some forum and everyone took it as gospel and repeated it, making
it seem even more real by repetition. If so, the ability of the web to spread erroneous
information is really something to behold! Or are we just too lazy to question statistics,
especially if they support out cause?

Click to expand...

you know all those obnoxious people that send you dumb forwards?

blame people who do stuff like that.

Baaaaa

I'm a sheep but I've discovered some wolves look like sheep.

The stuff on the 'net is not all true?

You're just caught up in that whole reality based reality thing.

Must be the new dawn.

Baaa

Counting sheep and counting seconds

Time is relative, Mr. Watson

So a billon seconds or a billon sheep, who gives a holy hell?

Flip the page!

Funny story:

When I was about 26, my new wife and I purchased some land which we could barely afford the payment, more less build something on it..

Anyways we had this hair brained idea that we would raise Dorset’s (sheep) on our land and get rich! This is WAY before the days of the internet, but we managed to figure out how much we could make on the wool, lambs per sheep!

So one balmy summer evening in the Colorado foothills My wife and I set around talking about our future, and after consuming a big bottle of Ch?óteau Figeac 1968 setting back on a hill surrounded by choke cherries and nesting hummingbirds buzzing the sky all around us, (where we years later built our first house), we started counting all the money we would make raising 500 sheep on our 35 acres! We were adding up on our fingers, and contemplating the price of wool we would get, and through Cabernet Sauvignon calculations came up with making gross $500,000 on our ewes, which way back when in 1980 after taxes, mortgages living expenses and everything else had us really thinking we hit on a really good way to make a living! Why had not somebody thought of this before?

500 times 100 is NOT 500,000, its 50,000 which would not have begun to carry all the debt we had at that stage in life. We both started laughing at our stupidity, laugh at the number of zeros and how they could affect the big slice of pie... and never bought a sheep.

Years later, we still laugh at the Dorset sheep debacle!

Goes to show you, never count sheep, you bunch of ewes!

redclfco said:

.....
When I was about 26, my new wife and I purchased some land which we could barley afford the payment,

Click to expand...

Do sheep eat barley? I am sorry, but you are a questionable source young man!


Now I have to find that thing and check all the facts. I hate that.

35634 said:

Or are we just too lazy to question statistics,
especially if they support out cause?

Click to expand...

You are aware, of course, that 95.65% of the statistics you hear are wrong.

35634 said:

Or are we just too lazy to question...

Click to expand...

...anything.

It just isn't cool to question anything...and anyone that does, becomes very unpopular.

35634 said:

in the past week or 2 I've seen 3 separate statements that "a billion seconds ago
it was 1959" including a thread here, and in our local newspaper. As best I can figure
a billion seconds is about 31.7 years. Soooooooo, either my math skills are kaput or
this got posted on some forum and everyone took it as gospel and repeated it, making
it seem even more real by repetition. If so, the ability of the web to spread erroneous
information is really something to behold! Or are we just too lazy to question statistics,
especially if they support out cause?

Click to expand...

Maybe Doc Brown got out of the Delorean to make the initial post, and at the time, he was correct.

AKBeemer said:

You are aware, of course, that 95.65% of the statistics you hear are wrong.

Click to expand...

Some are only right by coincidence. Remember that a stopped watch is correct twice a day.

Really, 96.28 % of the statistics you hear are really made up.



















tb

Stats

bullit7801 said:

Some are only right by coincidence. Remember that a stopped watch is correct twice a day.

Really, 96.28 % of the statistics you hear are really made up.

Click to expand...

You made that up right??? How are the books???.....Just kidding

Click to expand...

Questions are not cool

GlobalRider said:

...anything.

It just isn't cool to question anything...and anyone that does, becomes very unpopular.

Click to expand...

Hey man...What are you saying??????

Breeze

the truth

I once heard that "the truth" is anything that you can get someone else to believe. If you belive that then I guess with enough of a following, anything could be "true".

MonteC said:

I once heard that "the truth" is anything that you can get someone else to believe. If you belive that then I guess with enough of a following, anything could be "true".

Click to expand...

yeah, and it seems like the more conviction/confidence a statement is delivered with, the more it will be believed. Tyring to figure out what's real or reliable makes riding a motorcycle look easy!

And here I was, believing everythng I read on the internet.....

A few days ago on the news when they were talking about the satellites colliding, the reporter said it sent debris out at over 600 feet per second, which is over 17,000 miles per hour! Now, being familiar with ballistics and firearms, I thought that's just not right. 600 fps isn't even supersonic, which is somewhere around 750 mph. Maybe with the combined speed of the satellites themselves, perhaps. You'd think ABC could've gotten that little bit just a little more correct.

I do know for an absolute fact that 47.2% of all statistics found on the Internet were made up on the spot.

dmc_ii said:

A few days ago on the news when they were talking about the satellites colliding, the reporter said it sent debris out at over 600 feet per second, which is over 17,000 miles per hour! Now, being familiar with ballistics and firearms, I thought that's just not right. 600 fps isn't even supersonic, which is somewhere around 750 mph. Maybe with the combined speed of the satellites themselves, perhaps. You'd think ABC could've gotten that little bit just a little more correct.

Click to expand...

Well that would be:

600 ft/sec X 60 sec/min X 60 min/hr / 5280 ft/mile = 409.09 miles/hr

Well below sonic. Wow, did they ever blow the math. But higher math is not a requirement for journalism school.

tb