• James Schend (unregistered)

    AT&T Language is a service that does translations over the phone. It's a poorly worded menu item, but it's not nearly as much of a WTF once you think about it. A lot of medical facilities use it for languages they're not likely to encounter on a daily basis, like Tagalog or Swedish or whatever they don't have any translating employees for.

  • (cs) in reply to Zock
    Zock:
    Someone You Know:
    If 42% of the votes were for Thatcher, she did not receive a majority of the votes. The word you're looking for when you say "a majority of the votes" is plurality.

    Nope. We're talking about Thatcher here, thus the term is "simple majority." ;)

    I'm not British enough to understand that remark.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Where's the option for expanding the death penalty? We always hear about prison overcrowding, but nobody talks about real solutions.

  • Dilbrent (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT

    87% of all people know that.

  • Saemundr (unregistered) in reply to billswift
    billswift:
    5.49 => 5 18.49 => 18 75.49 => 75 ----------- 99.47 => 98

    missed the point much?

  • a professor (unregistered) in reply to Dion

    I recognize that screenshot! By default, that software would give a zero after the first attempt on a true/false question. More generally, for a multiple choice question with N choices, it subtracts 1/(N-1) for each wrong answer. The instructor must have deliberately overridden that setting.

  • s. (unregistered) in reply to billswift
    billswift:
    99.47 => 98

    I'd like to see a bulit-in function capable of rounding 99.47 down to 98.

  • Kyralessa (unregistered)

    As I have my mobile phone through AT&T, I know exactly what AT&T Language is. But I try not to use AT&T Language when my three-year-old is in the room.

  • Joel Spolsky (unregistered)

    AT&T Language is probably referring to AT&T Language Line, now simply called Language Line. It's an awesome service you can call 24x7 and get a professional translator for any of 175 languages on the line instantly. It's well known to medical professionals.

  • d_o123 (unregistered)

    Too bad for the kid with the mastering physics, now he gets like 5 out of like 100 for a stupid mistake.

  • Watson (unregistered)

    $result_bar_width[0] = strlen($poll->question[0]->text); $result_bar_width[1] = $this->getTimeout(); $result_bar_width[2] = $this->getPIN();

  • erisdiscordia (unregistered) in reply to JM

    Suggestions for Moving Groups of Emus

    If you know when you are going to move the birds, you may want to give them Vitamin B-1 (Thiamine) in their water the day before. The calming effect will only last a day and you should not continually dose their water as you don't want them to become accustomed to the higher level as it will quit working. Figure the dosage by package directions. Keep in mind how much water they will drink per day, how many birds are in the pen, etc. If you have an automatic waterer, you will want to turn it off so you can keep up with the dosage.

  • Pawel Dyda (unregistered)

    AT&T language is perhaps something like using DTMF for speaking...

  • JohnFx (unregistered)

    Re: Death Penalty survey.

    So that is the liberal media bias I have been hearing so much about...

  • Lancer383 (unregistered)

    Ok, the real WTF is this comments thread regarding the death penalty survey and the fact that everyone is focused on a tiny WTF:

    Stop focusing so much on the rounding, and instead look at the length of the bars -- the 18% one is huge, while the 75% is tiny. Anyone just looking at the bars would think that those numbers were reversed, hence Tony thinking that the visualization is misleading.

  • (cs) in reply to Lancer383
    Lancer383:
    Anyone just looking at the bars would think that those numbers were reversed
    Using MS Paint and Calc: [image] They're not switched, they're just plain WRONG.
  • Jeremy (unregistered)

    That first picture? I know that RIT's entire Science department uses a very similar system called WebAssign, where you get anywhere from 5 to 20 tries per question, depending on the professor.

    A lot of the questions are either multiple choice (with 5 or less answers), or true/false.

  • (cs) in reply to s.
    billswift:
    99.47 => 98
    TRUE
  • My Cat (unregistered) in reply to Saemundr
    s.:
    billswift:
    99.47 => 98

    I'd like to see a bulit-in function capable of rounding 99.47 down to 98.

    Obviously what he meant is:

     5.49  |  5
 18.49 | 18
+75.49 | 75
------------
 99.47 | 98

    Left column being the original values, right being what they round to. 5 + 18 + 75 = 98, hence, it must have rounded each value before adding them. A bit of a WTF itself.

  • My Cat (unregistered) in reply to My Cat

    And I didn't line up the 5.49 properly but I should hope you can figure out how it should have looked.

  • s. (unregistered) in reply to My Cat
    My Cat:
    Obviously what he meant is: 
     5.49  |  5
 18.49 | 18
+75.49 | 75
------------
 99.47 | 98

    Nope, because the left column (non-rounded) doesn't add up to 100.0. You first normalize the values to floating point 0.0-100.0 scale (and they add up to 100), then round them (and they stop adding up). Unless you, say, round twice. Except if you round it before multiplying by 100, you get only values "0" and "100" as result. If you multiply it later, you don't change a thing from rounding once. And before dividing them by sum they are integers so no rounding, again. This algorithm must have contained at least one surplus step that introduces the error.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Robert Synnott
    Robert Synnott:
    If the comma after 'people' wasn't there, then that would be the case. You can't just randomly go around ignoring commas, though.

    Dude, it was a spoken sketch. Sheesh

  • James (unregistered)

    Looking for a provider or Facility outside of North Carolina? Within the US, Canada or Puerto Rico, click here. Outside the US, click here.

    If I'm Canadian, which one do I click?

    Yes, I realize the first one is likely the right one, however why didn't they just say "Otherwise, click here"

  • darwin (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    42% could be a majority of the votes as the other 58% could be split evenly among 5 other candidates giving them each 11.6%.

    That's called a plurality, not a majority. A majority is strictly over 50%.

  • (cs)

    I'm thoroughly amused at the fact that the first screen shot is from the web quizzes they made us do in Physics 211 in university.

  • no name goes here (unregistered)

    Actually I think AT&T Language refers to some kind of ability to get an operator who speaks a certain language.

    Like the country choice dropdown that included "U.S.S.R", I suspect somebody just copied a list from a source without thinking about what they were doing.

  • caff (unregistered)

    The physics question would get no points because every time you get it wrong it takes off points. And on true false questions it takes off all of them.

  • jgp (unregistered) in reply to Claxon

    I've used that homework system before.

    If you get a multiple-choice answer wrong once, you get no credit for the problem, even if you get it right on your next try. Most of the questions on that homework system have text boxes that accept numerical values or equations.

    It's not as broken as you think, but it does look strange.

  • Aaron (unregistered)

    Though it may display weird things, you still get 0 points for a wrong t/f question in mastering physics

  • Jeremy (unregistered)

    That was a requirement for the Poll. PBS needs to educate people on what to think as a public service.

    Also, when you read your next cellular bill from AT&T, you can understand where BCBS is coming from.

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Claxon

    I believe this is for teletype customers.

  • tharpa (unregistered)

    No one seems to have noticed something else: Is it really believable that only 5% of the respondents support the death penalty as its presently constituted? You can't get 95% of people to agree with anything.

    (I'm opposed to the death penalty by the way; but it's just a very suspect poll, and not because they listed the smallest percentage first.)

    If it really comes from PBS, it means that PBS is full of it.

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