Okay, I've got a good one. Now I am going to try and keep my tone not condescending, but if I come off that way at times, give me a pass.
Last night I was sitting at my friends drinking a couple of beers when some kids we knew pulled in downstairs. We went down and someone started talking about saving pennies. I was like, fuck that shit. Then this kid said that if you double a penny a day, after 30 days, you have 5 million dollars. At first I wasn't so sure, but I thought about it for a couple of seconds and realized that 1 * 2^30 very would could be over 500 mil (pennies, remember).
So anyway, they are trying to figure out how to do it. The kid is telling them to double it 30 times. I agreed with him, "Yeah, just keep multiplying by 2." He starts yelling about how you have to add the number that is on the screen to itself, like 1+1, then you have 2+2, and so on. Needless to say, everyone starts chiming in and an argument ensues over "doubling a number" not being "times'ing a number by 2." WTF?!?!?!
I of course stayed quiet this whole time. So this kid is going through all the numbers, with one keeping track of which day they are on, adding them together on his cell phone. It took so fucking long!!! You know, 1234554321 + 1234554321, oops i made a mistake, backspace, blahblahblah. Finally they got above 500 mil so the kid looks like a genius I guess. LOL.
My friend and I were completely flabergasted at the fact that a bunch of grown men didn't know that multiplying by 2 is the same as doubling a number, or adding a number to itself.
Amid groans of, "ughh this is so hard," and, "wtf man this is nuts," it was so hard to suppress my laughter. Needless to say, the kid was right with his original premise. When I got home I plugged in 1 * 2^29 (you don't double the first day) and it is over 500 mil pennies.
WTF is America coming to?
Anyway, LOL.
