Monday, October 5, 2009

I Count Numbers, Not Nouns

One the great advances of trade was the invention of money. It allowed the exchange of goods for fixed units of value. The process is quite simple: the vendor nominates a price, and the customer hands over a number of (typically) notes and coins equal to the price.

All that is required from the customer's point of view is to look at the values printed on the currency and do some trivial arithmetic until he reaches the right amount. America uses the dollar currency, which can be subdivided into cents at one hundred per dollar. This being the case, America, I have a quick question: what is the value of this coin?
Posted by at 9:22 AM
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1 comments:

  1. It's a pain for the tourist, true. The locals all know, of course, they're taught it in school (other countries need no such training).

    The way I remember is the nickel and dime store is also sometimes called a 5 and dime. Therefore, nickels ate 5c and dimes are 10c.

    What get's me is they still cling to miles, and desperately cling to fractions on the roads. When was the last time you saw a speedomiter with fractions, not decimals for partial miles/kilimeters.

    Don't get me started on the date format that everyone in the world uses, except the americans, with the sxception of their scientific community, who thanks to cock-ups like the first mars lander have decided to conform.
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