[Closed] Why do 'journnos' have such trouble with simple arithmetic?

Why do ‘journnos’ have such trouble with simple arithmetic?

Same reason you spell the odd word incorrectly?

😛

I can't speak for all the journos, but my brain just skims over all the gear percentage stuff. Some of them seem to love all that geeky side of things a bit too much IMO.

mine go up to 511

Some bike journos are shit with basic numeric facts.

They get paid to write good ones about copy and paste cornering you see.

It's because they're generalists. 🙂

Forgive me for the fact I clearly don't know how % gear ratio is worked out but...

E13. 46/9 = 5.1111 or 511.11%
SRAM. 50/10= 5 or 500%
Shimano. 51/10= 5.1 or 510%

So

11% more than SRAM
Or 1% more than shimano?

Or is that not how they work?

11% as a % of 511% is not 11% 😉

both are 'right' or 'wrong' depending how you look at it

30% is 10% more than 20%. But it's also 1.5 times more than 20% so 150% more than 20%

- depending on your reference point

30% is 10% more than 20%. But it’s also 1.5 times more than 20% so 150% more than 20%

Indeed.

I think the issue here is it's measured in %.

If it were in gear inches 511 would be 2% ish more than 500 or 11 inches, but certainly not 11% and the op would be correct.

As its "measured" in % the "journno" is entirely right in using 11% not 2% (which wouldn't be wrong, per se, but would be an odd/confusing way of referring to it given that % in this case is the unit)

Edit: on reflection I think the op is genuinely wrong.
The ratio is a percent(age), meaning divide by 100. Taking a percentage of that would mean (x/100)/100 or x/1000 which isn't a percentage.

I wrote so many press releases based on this edition of a 50s classic.

https://images.app.goo.gl/RDiiDZn5hi3Evz2x5

so if you went into a shop that was offering 20% discounts that weekend, and you managed to negotiate another 5%........ how much would your £100 ticket price item cost you?

Because I can justify an answer of £75, £76, or £79 depending how I interpret the maths.

Just dont try and read the ST rehash of on ones press release about new bikes. Manages to take a list of 18 things that are easy to understand and make it utterly incomprehensible.

I think you could make a case for stating this either way - the problem with using a percentage to talk about the change in a percentage.

If my credit card company changed my apr from 15% to 30% I'd be ranting to my wife about our repayments having increased by 100%. The telesales person would I am sure reassure me the rate had only change by 15%. My wife, being far more sensible than me would probably just say our monthly repayments had just doubled and they are robbing bastards and everyone would know exactly what she meant.

But agreed - the useful figure is the one you would choose to use OP. You are not going to really notice the difference in the gear range of the 3 systems.

That's why percentage points is used

500 to 511 would be 11 percentage points - not 11%

But what is it converted to football pitches? or Olympic sized swimming pools?

But what is it converted to football pitches? or Olympic sized swimming pools

12 pools obviously. But no wing mirrors.

That’s why percentage points is used

500 to 511 would be 11 percentage points – not 11%

That's true for most things but I'm not sure it holds for a ratio where its genuinely in % so a 511 percentage point ratio wouldn't mean anything?

I completely understand where the op is coming from, and he's completely right so long as the ratio is expressed as 511:100 but, once its expressed as a % you wouldn't convert to a percentage again? (even though 1 is equal to the other.)

or £79 depending how I interpret the maths.

I think you'd have some very unhappy customers. In fact, are you in charge of Halford's prices?

To be fair you could cover an area the size of Wales with the amount of newspaper articles that bastardise statistics. STW and gear ratios are hardly the worst offenders

Favourite tricks employed are quoting a number without any context what so ever:

"4,000 Operations cancelled in crumbling NHS" 4,000 out of how many? Is this a lot, how does it compare with similar statistics

Using relative percentages and percentage points interchangeably to make stats sound better or worse.

"Eating bacon increase risk of bowel cancer by 20%" Sounds bad, but if your lifetime risk of developing bowel cancer is say 2% then eating bacon only make this 2.4%. But a .4% increase in absolute terms doesn't make for a great headline

Overall, using the statistics the way a drunk uses a lamp-post; for support rather than illumination

I thought this was going to be about votes for Libdems and independents being a vote to get on with Brexit.

How many council seats are there?

Enough to fit 2000 football pitches or one swimming pool.

Also...why the h*ll is literally (not literally) everything measured in terms of the size of Wales?!!!

[i]N00000[/i]

Surely N00000.02 ?

Also…why the h*ll is literally (not literally) everything measured in terms of the size of Wales?!!!

Because its all things to all men isn't it? "twice the size of Wales" all well and good but no one actually knows how big Wales is and, even if they did, no one ever makes it clear if they're talking about the right Wales or the wrong Wales or any of the other Wales, all you know is that it's twice the size of something the Japanese consider food.

Favourite tricks employed are quoting a number without any context what so ever:

“4,000 Operations cancelled in crumbling NHS” 4,000 out of how many? Is this a lot, how does it compare with similar statistics

This, not bike related, but recently a story was widely reported about a large number of NHS Nurses who have sadly committed suicide. It's a really terrible headline and especially for me as my Wife is an NHS Nurse and whilst they're real people with a massive verity of personalities just like everyone else and not the living embodiment of an Angel as they're often reported (no honestly, some Nurses are real Dicks).

The headline read "300 NHS Nurses commit suicide" which is horrible.

Dig a bit further, over 7 years - which is 43 a year, which whilst still very sad, doesn't seem as sad.

The figure also includes Student Nurses and other staff within the Nursing Team, this was rarely reported, but in the UK there are around 500k Nurses, Clinical Support Staff, Midwives and Students. Which gives a rate of around 0.0086% which is very slightly lower than the UK average.

This used to be a popular thing with pop festivals. Two people died (and two people were born) at <name of big festival here>. I love that "More or Less" programme on Radio 4.