Dark Sun returns

[schpeelah]

We are talking about businessmen representing a large company, not some retards who think 5-digit numbers > 6-digit. Seriously, what the hell kind of idiots are you live among to think like that?

[Titanium Dragon]

We are talking about businessmen representing a large company, not some retards who think 5-digit numbers > 6-digit. Seriously, what the hell kind of idiots are you live among to think like that?

I live in the United States.

The people here elected George W. Bush president at least once, if not twice.

But, to be fair, its probably universally true. People really don't understand large numbers very well at all.

[Zinegata]

Or... you know, they said that because it did sound bigger. I'm not sure that "hundreds of thousands" doesn't sound like more than "over a million". While if you put them side by side, people will say "over a million" is larger, people don't actually do very well with large numbers. People have some vague concept of what a hundred thousand dollars is; a house costs that. A million dollars, however, is a far more vague notion. So when people say "hundreds of thousands", it sounds bigger to them because they have some sense of scale; "That's lots of houses", they think, whereas a million is more difficult to grasp.

This is either outright dishonesty or TD once again demonstrating his complete failure at using and comprehending the English language.

(And this is coming from someone who isn't from a country that has English as its primary language)

"Hundreds of thousands" is NOT "bigger-sounding" than "over a million". Even a bloody ten-year old can tell you that "Hundreds of thousands" can technically be a number between 200,000 to INFINITY.

But the whole point of using the term "Hundreds of thousands" is to define a value that is 200,000 or more but LESS than the next major numerical unit (millions). It's basic English, something lawyers probably mastered or else they wouldn't be lawyers for very long.

[PhoneLobster]

So... if I had a suitcase with "hundreds of thousands" of dollars of cash, and another suitcase with "Over a million" dollars of cash.

And I was going to let you have one of them.

You would pick the "hundreds of thousands" one.

And that same brilliant reasoning leads you to pick 4E.

How surprising.

[Titanium Dragon]

This is either outright dishonesty or TD once again demonstrating his complete failure at using and comprehending the English language.

(And this is coming from someone who isn't from a country that has English as its primary language)

"Hundreds of thousands" is NOT "bigger-sounding" than "over a million". Even a bloody ten-year old can tell you that "Hundreds of thousands" can technically be a number between 200,000 to INFINITY.

But the whole point of using the term "Hundreds of thousands" is to define a value that is 200,000 or more but LESS than the next major numerical unit (millions). It's basic English, something lawyers probably mastered or else they wouldn't be lawyers for very long.

Right. Like a thousand is used instead of hundreds.

Unless, of course, something costs fifteen-hundred bucks.

Oh wait, that's right, people never say anything like that.

Seriously, "hundreds of thousands" can mean anywhere from "over 100,000" to the low millions.

The entire point of the term is to sound large and impressive, not to be precise.

So... if I had a suitcase with "hundreds of thousands" of dollars of cash, and another suitcase with "Over a million" dollars of cash.

And I was going to let you have one of them.

You would pick the "hundreds of thousands" one.

And that same brilliant reasoning leads you to pick 4E.

How surprising.

Ah, illiteracy strikes again. I do believe I specifically stated that when put next to each other, a million is larger, but in a vacuum, hundreds of thousands of dollars sounds like more money.

While if you put them side by side, people will say "over a million" is larger, people don't actually do very well with large numbers.

[Korwin]

We are talking about businessmen representing a large company, not some retards who think 5-digit numbers > 6-digit. Seriously, what the hell kind of idiots are you live among to think like that?

I live in the United States.

The people here elected George W. Bush president at least once, if not twice.

But, to be fair, its probably universally true. People really don't understand large numbers very well at all.

So you are saying your judges are dumb...
And if you really believe that WotC/Hasbro is dumb enough to use the term hundreds of tousands instead of over a million (if they could get away with it)... in a frigging lawsuit... you are dumb as well, wait you are the only one...

[Absentminded_Wizard]

TD: What are you smoking? Everybody knows that a million is an awesomely big number. McDonald's constantly brags about how many million people they've served. If you're a millionaire, you're really rich. If there was any way WotC could have said they had sold anywhere around a million books, they would have. In fact, if they'd sold 900,000+, I guarantee they would have said they'd sold "nearly 1 million."

[PhoneLobster]

Ah, illiteracy strikes again. I do believe I specifically stated that when put next to each other, a million is larger, but in a vacuum, hundreds of thousands of dollars sounds like more money.

Sanity check time!

"When you compare hundreds of thousands to nothing it sounds like more than over a million, which you aren't comparing it to, no shut up I didn't just make a comparison by declaring that, because if you did the over a million would obviously sound like more! SHUTUP! STOP LAUGHING!"

You can't make a comparison between "a lot" and "nothing" and then use that to make a comparative declaration about the value of "a lot" compared to "anything fucking else at all".

Are you FUCKING INSANE? That sort of shit is from a universe where up is down and down is fucking sideways and clockwise is your momma.

Because you just said "Haha, of course if you offered me 100s of thousands of dollars OR over a million dollars I would take over a million as it is obviously bigger"

And I'm all "..."

But then you're all "... but wait I'm not finished. If however you offered me a choice between 100s of thousands of dollars OR nothing, OR over a million dollars OR nothing, I would then choose the 100s of thousands of dollars, which sounds like more than nothing!"

WTF? Your fan boyism seems to be damaging your brain. Have you consulted a doctor?

[Titanium Dragon]

People get far more upset over a politician paying $10,000 for something extravagant than him wasting $10 million for some pork barrel project, because $10,000 is something they can relate to whereas $10 million isn't.

[Kobajagrande]

Serious question to Denners:

How do you manage to respond to this "argument" with a minimum seriousness? I mean, I tried. I'm trying just now to write that during serious conversation when you have to make a very rough estimate on top of your head, you use "hundreds of thousands" for something like 6-8 hundred thousands range. But I can't. Whenever I try... Something in me laughs at the absurdity and idiocy of it all, and it just blocks everything. Hell, even my sarcasm circuit cannot cope with the utter stupidity of this all.

People get far more upset over a politician paying $10,000 for something extravagant than him wasting $10 million for some pork barrel project, because $10,000 is something they can relate to whereas $10 million isn't.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

No.

[Titanium Dragon]

The purpose of the statement was emotional impact, not precision. I'm not really sure why you're having so much trouble getting your head around this, other than simply not wanting to admit that it is a very vague figure and you hate to think that your preconceptions about something you dislike are wrong.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

No.

You have obviously not lived on this planet very long then, or at least not paid much attention to politics.

[Starmaker]

I live in the United States.

The people here elected George W. Bush president at least once, if not twice.

But, to be fair, its probably universally true. People really don't understand large numbers very well at all.

Have you ever seen the price tags at sales?

Only $9.99!

Sale: $39.95

Old price: $1000
New price: $999.99

People who do actual real-life marketing have known how human brain works for at least 100 years. (And no one says "at least 99 years").

Now, admittedly, people can't grasp numbers that pop up in physics and thermodynamics. Hundreds of thousands is a "mundane" number. A googol is "lolwut". A million is crossing into epic, but it's still a number that we can place ("Who wants to be a millionaire"). It's essentially the first epic number, and the only that's usable for "emotional impact" purposes.

That's why, even if the goal was to impress laypeople (it wasn't), "millions" would be a better choice - if only there was at least one million.

[PhoneLobster]

People get far more upset over a politician paying $10,000 for something extravagant than him wasting $10 million for some pork barrel project, because $10,000 is something they can relate to whereas $10million isn't.

OK now you are just being a dishonest little shit. Not only that an incompetent one.

You TRY to set up a dishonest apples vs oranges scenario where you compare outright personal embezzlement with inefficient public expenditure that actually produces stuff (all be it expensive).

But then you screw the pooch because really people don't actually care quite that much. We really do pay our politicians ridiculous amounts of personal money entirely above the board and we don't mind, we want them to take it.

Let's try it in your language again.

Oranges potatoes Albertina are you Utopian sponge biscuit? Marmalade hopscotch into the sunset I say!

[Titanium Dragon]

But then you screw the pooch because really people don't actually care quite that much. We really do pay our politicians ridiculous amounts of personal money entirely above the board and we don't mind, we want them to take it.

People in the UK got riled up over MPs spending a couple thousand pounds to clean out their moats. We actually heard about it OVER HERE they were getting so much shit for it.

[erik]

People really don't understand large numbers very well at all.

Ha ha, I get it! Irony, amirite?

[Fuchs]

TD, how much is WotC paying you to try to spin doctor their blunders?

[Titanium Dragon]

TD, how much is WotC paying you to try to spin doctor their blunders?

Not enough.

[Kobajagrande]

You have obviously not lived on this planet very long then, or at least not paid much attention to politics.

I work in public sector thank you very much, enough to know what you're telling is simply bullshit.

If someone in public sector or a politician shows up with 10,000 he shouldn't have, that's obviously a case of corruption. If someone wastes amount of funds on a failed project, that's a management failure. And if some institution is paying more for something than they reasonably should, you can be pretty sure there's some embezzlement going on.

And even ignoring all those fundamental differences that make comparing such stuff a stupidity, to claim people get more upset because "they comprehend large numbers badly" shows utter lack of thought on your part. People will get angry with the hypothetical politician even if he earned that money with his own work, because it changes politician's image and stuff, and most importantly, because they cannot do that themselves.

[Korwin]

Right. Like a thousand is used instead of hundreds.

Unless, of course, something costs fifteen-hundred bucks.

Oh wait, that's right, people never say anything like that.

With that stupid strawman something you call an argument I could argue English native speaker (outside of the military) are so dumb they cant count above 12.

Where we german speakers can count to 24.

[Zinegata]

People get far more upset over a politician paying $10,000 for something extravagant than him wasting $10 million for some pork barrel project, because $10,000 is something they can relate to whereas $10 million isn't.

You insist that "context matters", and yet here you are again trying to CHANGE the context mid-argument in yet another sleazy attempt to cover up your inability to admit you're wrong.

The CONTEXT of this argument is that the figure cited by WoTC is "hundreds of thousands". Not "millions". Not "over a million". Of all the figures they could have chosen, they chose "hundreds of thousands", in a court of law.

Therefore this is entirely an issue around semantics and legalese. And you do NOT use "hundreds of thousands" when you can say "millions" or "over a million" especially when this litigation involves damages - because you want to maximize the extent of the said damages and thus gain maximum reparations for them.

The outrage over corruption is entirely OUTSIDE of this issue. Trying to shift it over there is yet another sleazy attempt to CHANGE the context of the argument mid-stream.

[tzor]

I live in the United States.

The people here elected George W. Bush president at least once, if not twice.

It was also the same nation that elected James Carter, but thankfully only once, and Barack H. Obama but (crosses fingers) thankfully, hopefully, (good will triumph over evil and all that) only once.

Since we are taking the low road, I simply can't imagine that the company that gave us Gleemax could ever produce anything other than the level of Gleemax ...

[Psychic Robot]

I never quoted that guy's figures, I used him as a link to the court case where WotC said under oath, that their total sales of Core Books were in the hundreds of thousands. As in, more than 100,000, less than 1 million. That is the sales range they gave to the united states legal system.

Depending on the phrasing, that could well mean more than a million.

[...]

Or... you know, they said that because it did sound bigger. I'm not sure that "hundreds of thousands" doesn't sound like more than "over a million". While if you put them side by side, people will say "over a million" is larger, people don't actually do very well with large numbers. People have some vague concept of what a hundred thousand dollars is; a house costs that. A million dollars, however, is a far more vague notion. So when people say "hundreds of thousands", it sounds bigger to them because they have some sense of scale; "That's lots of houses", they think, whereas a million is more difficult to grasp.

While obviously not dollars, it translates better.

I'm quoting this just so that it can't be edited out later.

TD, you have just reached a new low of shilling for WotC. I'm embarrassed for you.

[violence in the media]

I live in the United States.

The people here elected George W. Bush president at least once, if not twice.

It was also the same nation that elected James Carter, but thankfully only once, and Barack H. Obama but (crosses fingers) thankfully, hopefully, (good will triumph over evil and all that) only once.

Despite your political differences, you and TD there share a remarkable ability to provoke "spite one's face" moments.

[Heath Robinson]

People in the UK got riled up over MPs spending a couple thousand pounds to clean out their moats. We actually heard about it OVER HERE they were getting so much shit for it.

They filled secondary domiciles on public expense accounts during a recession. That's not "oh, they lined their pockets" it's "they lined their pockets in order to pay for oppulent things we don't think they need, which they won't use all that often, during a recession". Then they went out and tried to claim that, contrary to the evidence, they weren't being paid enough. "Mrs Beckett, who claimed £72,537 in allowances for her constituency cottage while having no mortgage or rent to pay, said that MPs were left out of pocket by a political career." (The source.)

[Spaghetti Western]

wait, is this discussion seriously going on? Give me a fucking break. While it may be possible in some sort of Clinton-esq fashion that when under oath, when they had no sane motivation to do so, the person testifying for WOTC was trying to convince the court that it had sales in the millions by stating they were in the thousands there is absolutely not one shred of evidence, assumption, prior statement, common usage or corroboration of any fucking kind to support it. Thus any honest person would assume the standard definitions are being used.

TD, just stop this stupidity, admit you made a mistake in haste and move to discussing the meat of the debate.