"Math is hard."

[randomness]

From knell:

This story's been doing the rounds today. I think it's worth it just for the priceless quote:

"I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it.".

Comments

[tfarrell.livejournal.com]

I disown her.

[inthatoneway.livejournal.com]

Or to understand it perfectly well...

[gingicat]

Gevalt.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

*giggle*snicker*BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA*

Oh man, that's awesome.

[drwex]

I find it another example of why one ought to do user testing. It's pretty obvious that the directions are confusing ('temperature' versus 'number'). Regardless of what one thinks of peoples' math skills, if they'd just run a few sample games with random volunteers they would likely have found this problem before it became a major public embarrassment.

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

About a week ago, I encountered a graduate of a top-10-rated US college studying for their GREs. I spent about 15 minutes trying to explain to them why -9-7 was different from -9-(-7). It was horrible. Why oh why is the negative number concept so hard?!?!? I know for a fact that it is covered by about third or fourth grade.