5 ms·

I just want to know why you were even trying to calculate that figure in the first place?

• unalone 17y ago
  I found it on 4chan.
  • profquail 17y ago
    I don't even want to know why it was posted there...
    • unalone 17y ago
      The thing about 4chan is that there's no order. That means not even chaos is an absolute must. Pictures of transsexuals and underage girls and people covered in fecal matter go alongside programming jokes, debates about Obama, and discussions of existentialism. This was closer to the latter. I don't go on 4chan often - once or twice a year at most - but when I do, it's to get that completely random mix of things all at once. Every time, I come away with 3-4 things I didn't know/hadn't thought of before. This was one of the things I found this time.
      • jacquesm 17y ago
        I think I could have done without those mental images, thank you.
        • randallsquared 17y ago
          The ability to ignore and avoid thinking about certain things is essential when visiting 4chan. If you practice, you can read sentences like the above without having mental images of the described event. More advanced filters can prevent you from thinking about it with imagery even after seeing something you wish you hadn't seen. ;)
          • jacquesm 17y ago
            Impressive. I find that extremely hard, it's like things play on an internal monitor that I'm forced to watch and can not ignore no matter how much I want to. I run a webcam site and over the years we've had some pretty weird stuff happening there and I really wished I had not seen any of that.
            • randallsquared 17y ago
              Unfortunately, I cannot tell you exactly how to develop this ability, because I only discovered I had it by trying, but I remember not having the ability to NOT think about a pink elephant, so it can be developed. Somehow. :) Edit: Apparently rms knows how; see his comment.
              • bd 17y ago
                Just imagine you are Searle's "Chinese room" :). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
            • rms 17y ago
              This is probably a good place to start learning that ability. http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english.php http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_eng... When I read those sentences I didn't even come close to thinking about underage girls, girls covered in fecal matter, or underaged girls covered in fecal matter. ;)
              • jacquesm 17y ago
                Hey man, I have a hard enough time getting my head wrapped around learning (in no particular order) django, python and lisp right now :) But I appreciate the pointer and I've filed it for future reference. One thing though, my 'vivid imagination' really comes in to its own while reading books, I literally see the scene in front of me as though completely immersed in it.
            • unalone 17y ago
    • biohacker42 17y ago
      Because it looks cool, when it is in fact an utterly unremarkable case of insufficient precision/float vs double. But if you're not a programmer you don't know a float from a double, and it just looks so neat and funny that google screwed up. And because it's so funny it showed up on 4Chan, then on reddit and now here too.
      • unalone 17y ago
        Yet it's being remarked upon. Perhaps it's not a unique case - icey's link explained the cause, which incidentally I hadn't known before posting this - but it's still one that's perhaps worth a conversation for some people.