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I can't stand this parenthetical. it's not strange at all! (Strangely, the 20th century is considered to have started Jan. 1, 1901, so there are a handful of o

I can't stand this parenthetical. it's not strange at all! (Strangely, the 20th century is considered to have started Jan. 1, 1901, so there are a handful of other, verified women still alive who were also born in the 19th century.)

quesera 11y ago
Yeah, sloppy. It's sad that 538 has turned into a pop-stats site that runs on volume and snappy headlines.
- hnnewguy 11y ago
  >It's sad that 538 has turned into a pop-stats site that runs on volume and snappy headlines. It's our fault, they're catering to our demands. You can't run a media company any other way. No one wants to read read (although I'd bet on average everyone spends far more time reading). So you get wham-bam, buzzfeed-esque content. Even on HN, long form articles will inevitably be met in the comment section with a "tl;dr?".
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    There's nothing wrong with asking for a tl;dr when you're trying to find out if the long form is worth your time. (Most are not.) In academics, the tl;dr is called the abstract, and it would be silly to think that they should be eliminated because people ought to just read everything.
  - quesera 11y ago
    The real problem seems to be that Nate Silver's (and 538's) brand value exceeded the available payment from NYTimes. So he did the rational thing and tried to capture it in the open market. But Nate's a stats guy, not a marketer. Brand dilution is a thing. I don't begrudge him for selling out. I just wish my domain-based trust filter hadn't been broken in the process. I sure hope they put together some solid election coverage.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > But Nate's a stats guy, not a marketer. Brand dilution is a thing. I don't begrudge him for selling out. Incidentally, Nate didn't sell out when 538 left the NYT, he sold out when 538 was picked up by the NYT.
      - quesera 11y ago
        Monetarily, perhaps -- which if true makes the subsequent devaluing all the more disappointing. But content quality was higher (and volume lower) at NYT than post. I've been a reader since well before the NYT imprint, and I don't think the quality went down significantly at NYT.
scotty79 11y ago
>> (Strangely, the 20th century is considered to have started Jan. 1, 1901 > it's not strange at all! Are you a Lua programmer?
- sp332 11y ago
  There is no Year 0. So the first century was Year 1 - Year 100, the second century was Year 101-200 etc.
  - quesera 11y ago
    "Year 1" was originally conceived as "the first year of our lord", which is one reason why there's no "zeroth year ...". Now we're in the "two thousand and fifteenth year of our lord". Imagine all the off-by-one errors if years were zero-indexed. Also, it wasn't until Fibonacci in 1200 or so before the western world developed a working relationship with zero. But natural counting numbers are always 1-indexed anyway. The second dozen starts at 13. Bakers excepted, of course.
    - derekp7 11y ago
      But measurement of a person's age is 0 indexed. It is a year after you are born that you are 1 year old.
      - quesera 11y ago
        Sure, but while you are 0, you are in your first year of life.
    - Retra 11y ago
      Natural counting isn't 1-indexed. You usually count things after you tally them, not before. (You don't start counting beans by saying "one bean" and then waiting for that bean to arrive.) Besides, it is not all that clear if someone just says "Jan 1 marks year one" whether it marks the end of the first year or the beginning. With dates, it usually marks the beginning. That's why it is 1-indexed. We hardly count anything else that way, so why would you assume it is 'natural counting'?
mcv 11y ago
Yeah, not sure what the "strangely" is doing there.
steego 11y ago
Yes it is. You're confusing what's right with what seems intuitively wrong to people. It's strange because it's inconsistent with most systems which group numbers by significant digits. For example, a person who is 30 years old has entered their 30's. For someone who is clearly perturbed that most people don't know this archaic and inconsistent rule, I'm surprised you're perturbed by a writer who is helping your cause by including a parenthetical. I suspect the writer selected the word "Strangely" to prompt the reader to pay special attention to the rule, because what he's about to say is going to violate many people's intuition and assumptions. If you can't stand that people are unfamiliar with this rule, then this writer should be on your Christmas list.
- jchrisa 11y ago
  One of my favorite things about HN is when people take the time to be extremely clear about something that's almost obvious. Always gives me a chuckle.
- cowsandmilk 11y ago
  > For example, a person who is 30 years old has entered their 30's. This is a different linguistic construct. We have decades like the 1990's, which are like the 30's. Linguistically, we have: 1800's = 1800-1899 19th century = 1801-1900 (since AD started in 1, so the first 100 years, or century were 1-100) One of those forms is linguistically similar to your 30's, the other is not.
  - jameshart 11y ago
    Okay, but you enter your fourth decade on your 30th birthday, so there's less counterintuition involved in the age realm.
- eCa 11y ago
  > inconsistent rule Imho, it is not inconsistent and it is not a rule. It is a fact (as long as one uses the Gregorian calendar where there is no year zero[1]). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28year%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28year%29
alan-crowe 11y ago
This relates to the argument about whether array indexes should start at one or zero. The standard argument for one-indexing is that it is what people do. But do they really do that? The first century is 1 to 100. The second century is 101 to 200. and so on. After a while things get a bit blurry. Eventually the 21st century is 2000 to 2099, as proven by humans holding their big parties on Jan 1st 2000 instead of Jan 1st 2001. Humans start at one, but weary of the strict logic of it. Without acknowledging it and without agreeing which century, humans sneak in a 99 year century so that centuries work as if zero-indexed; 0-99, 100-199,...,1900-1999, 2000-2099. What then of the argument "Array indexes should start at 1 because that is what humans do."? It fails two ways. First, that is not in fact what humans do, (and the parenthetical strangely is evidence of that.) Second, humans weary of strict logic. Having the computer do what humans do is a bad idea.
- mcv 11y ago
  Maybe the big parties were not so much to celebrate the arrival of the 21st century, but the arrival of the magical year 2000 with its flying cars and stuff.
baddox 11y ago
Out of curiosity, what time interval do you think of when you hear the term "the 1900s"?
- eCa 11y ago
  (Not couchand, but) 1900-1999, which is not the same thing as the 20th century.

quesera 11y ago

Yeah, sloppy. It's sad that 538 has turned into a pop-stats site that runs on volume and snappy headlines.

hnnewguy 11y ago
>It's sad that 538 has turned into a pop-stats site that runs on volume and snappy headlines. It's our fault, they're catering to our demands. You can't run a media company any other way. No one wants to read read (although I'd bet on average everyone spends far more time reading). So you get wham-bam, buzzfeed-esque content. Even on HN, long form articles will inevitably be met in the comment section with a "tl;dr?".
- jessriedel 11y ago
  There's nothing wrong with asking for a tl;dr when you're trying to find out if the long form is worth your time. (Most are not.) In academics, the tl;dr is called the abstract, and it would be silly to think that they should be eliminated because people ought to just read everything.
- quesera 11y ago
  The real problem seems to be that Nate Silver's (and 538's) brand value exceeded the available payment from NYTimes. So he did the rational thing and tried to capture it in the open market. But Nate's a stats guy, not a marketer. Brand dilution is a thing. I don't begrudge him for selling out. I just wish my domain-based trust filter hadn't been broken in the process. I sure hope they put together some solid election coverage.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > But Nate's a stats guy, not a marketer. Brand dilution is a thing. I don't begrudge him for selling out. Incidentally, Nate didn't sell out when 538 left the NYT, he sold out when 538 was picked up by the NYT.
    - quesera 11y ago
      Monetarily, perhaps -- which if true makes the subsequent devaluing all the more disappointing. But content quality was higher (and volume lower) at NYT than post. I've been a reader since well before the NYT imprint, and I don't think the quality went down significantly at NYT.

scotty79 11y ago

>> (Strangely, the 20th century is considered to have started Jan. 1, 1901 > it's not strange at all! Are you a Lua programmer?

sp332 11y ago
There is no Year 0. So the first century was Year 1 - Year 100, the second century was Year 101-200 etc.
- quesera 11y ago
  "Year 1" was originally conceived as "the first year of our lord", which is one reason why there's no "zeroth year ...". Now we're in the "two thousand and fifteenth year of our lord". Imagine all the off-by-one errors if years were zero-indexed. Also, it wasn't until Fibonacci in 1200 or so before the western world developed a working relationship with zero. But natural counting numbers are always 1-indexed anyway. The second dozen starts at 13. Bakers excepted, of course.
  - derekp7 11y ago
    But measurement of a person's age is 0 indexed. It is a year after you are born that you are 1 year old.
    - quesera 11y ago
      Sure, but while you are 0, you are in your first year of life.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Natural counting isn't 1-indexed. You usually count things after you tally them, not before. (You don't start counting beans by saying "one bean" and then waiting for that bean to arrive.) Besides, it is not all that clear if someone just says "Jan 1 marks year one" whether it marks the end of the first year or the beginning. With dates, it usually marks the beginning. That's why it is 1-indexed. We hardly count anything else that way, so why would you assume it is 'natural counting'?

mcv 11y ago

Yeah, not sure what the "strangely" is doing there.

steego 11y ago

Yes it is. You're confusing what's right with what seems intuitively wrong to people. It's strange because it's inconsistent with most systems which group numbers by significant digits. For example, a person who is 30 years old has entered their 30's. For someone who is clearly perturbed that most people don't know this archaic and inconsistent rule, I'm surprised you're perturbed by a writer who is helping your cause by including a parenthetical. I suspect the writer selected the word "Strangely" to prompt the reader to pay special attention to the rule, because what he's about to say is going to violate many people's intuition and assumptions. If you can't stand that people are unfamiliar with this rule, then this writer should be on your Christmas list.

jchrisa 11y ago
One of my favorite things about HN is when people take the time to be extremely clear about something that's almost obvious. Always gives me a chuckle.
cowsandmilk 11y ago
> For example, a person who is 30 years old has entered their 30's. This is a different linguistic construct. We have decades like the 1990's, which are like the 30's. Linguistically, we have: 1800's = 1800-1899 19th century = 1801-1900 (since AD started in 1, so the first 100 years, or century were 1-100) One of those forms is linguistically similar to your 30's, the other is not.
- jameshart 11y ago
  Okay, but you enter your fourth decade on your 30th birthday, so there's less counterintuition involved in the age realm.
eCa 11y ago
> inconsistent rule Imho, it is not inconsistent and it is not a rule. It is a fact (as long as one uses the Gregorian calendar where there is no year zero[1]). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28year%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_%28year%29

alan-crowe 11y ago

This relates to the argument about whether array indexes should start at one or zero. The standard argument for one-indexing is that it is what people do. But do they really do that? The first century is 1 to 100. The second century is 101 to 200. and so on. After a while things get a bit blurry. Eventually the 21st century is 2000 to 2099, as proven by humans holding their big parties on Jan 1st 2000 instead of Jan 1st 2001. Humans start at one, but weary of the strict logic of it. Without acknowledging it and without agreeing which century, humans sneak in a 99 year century so that centuries work as if zero-indexed; 0-99, 100-199,...,1900-1999, 2000-2099. What then of the argument "Array indexes should start at 1 because that is what humans do."? It fails two ways. First, that is not in fact what humans do, (and the parenthetical strangely is evidence of that.) Second, humans weary of strict logic. Having the computer do what humans do is a bad idea.

mcv 11y ago
Maybe the big parties were not so much to celebrate the arrival of the 21st century, but the arrival of the magical year 2000 with its flying cars and stuff.

baddox 11y ago

Out of curiosity, what time interval do you think of when you hear the term "the 1900s"?

eCa 11y ago
(Not couchand, but) 1900-1999, which is not the same thing as the 20th century.