[libreoffice-users] Re: Avery 8167 label printing

On 2/10/16 1:18 PM, Virgil Arrington wrote:
> Ken Springer wrote
> > I remember years ago when Intel turned out a chip that had an error in
> > it's math calculations.  It was a rare happening, but when they
> > finally admitted it publicly, trying to say it wasn't important do to
> > the rare occurrence, it did not go over well at all!  <G>
>
> About 25 years ago, I was the treasurer of my children's preschool. I
> created a spreadsheet to calculate paychecks, and I found that the
> paycheck was consistently off by .01 (a penny). It drove me nuts. As it
> turned out, one part of the calculation required the division of 28 by
> 7, which every third grader knows is 4. Well, my spreadsheet gave an
> answer of 3.9999999999_. By itself, it wasn't a big problem, but later
> in the chain of operations, the 3.99999_ produced a result that rounded
> *down* to the nearest penny instead of *up*, which it would have done if
> the 28/7 had resulted in 4 instead of 3.9999. I complained to a computer
> friend of mine who tried to explain that the computer's answer was more
> "precise" than my mental math of 28/7=4. I didn't buy it.

I wouldn't buy it either.  I don't care how someone tries to explain it, 
the result is wrong.  Pure and simple.  Just try pulling that response 
on a grade school teacher, and you're going home with an "F".

How something can be more "precise" than the correct answer is beyond me.

I can see the future now...  "Captain Kirk, sorry, we missed the planet 
by 10 million miles.  Our computer divided 28 by 7 and says the answer 
is 3.999999999..."    LOL

Wrong is wrong, I don't care how somebody wishes to justify it.

> I learned a valuable lesson in blindly accepting a computer's
> calculation simply because it was made by a computer.
>
> Virgil


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 44.0
Thunderbird 38.0.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
     and it's gone!"


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