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  • 18 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: October 24th, 2023
  • Morti@sh.itjust.workstoToday I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation has been less than 3% for the last 12 MonthsEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    I would maybe argue that, when it comes to debt, sure inflation might be good, but only if inflation is higher than the interest rate. This is because the amount owed (initial plus interest) is decreasing in value due to inflation. However, if one doesn’t have debt (besides national debt, I suppose), then this argument is moot.

    Devaluing a currency over time incentivizes it to be spent, which could be argued is a good thing, but there’s a problem. Human necessities exist on a market, so the money has to be spent, anyway, on things like food and housing. Devaluing currency faster than one can save it (inflation is greater than the interest rate given by banks) only serves to make it harder to make large purchases. One can buy their necessities, but struggles to save for a house because money not spent on necessities loses value too fast to be saved for a down payment. Pair this with wage stagnation, and we see that the difference between net income and necessities can become negative: income is no longer enough for necessities, and saving is impossible.

  • Morti@sh.itjust.workstoScience Memes@mander.xyz•Converting numbers is easyEnglish
    15·
    9 months ago

    This is a very fun implicit question!

    First, in decimal, there are 10 symbols: 0-9. When we count from 0 to 9, the next number is 10, not 00 (which is equivalent to 0).

    In base 26, there are 26 symbols (A-Z). If one wanted to use these symbols in the same way, A would be equivalent to 0, so 26 is represented by BA, not AA. However, if AA is not the same as A, then we can represent 26 as AA instead of BA.

    Basically, in our typical numbering system, the leading digit can’t be 0, so there are 9×10 possible two digit numbers, and 10 possible single digit numbers. However, if the first digit can be 0, meaning, for example, if 03 is not the same as 3, there are 10×10 possible two digit numbers. This second approach is what excel and google sheets use. Column A is not the same as column AA. Hence, you start with single digit column numbers (A-Z). Then you move to two digit column numbers (AA-ZZ), of which there are 26². The last column before triple digits is column 26+26²=702. The first triple digit column number is 26+26²+1=703. Neat!

    Comparing this to our system, the first 2 digit number is 10¹=10. The first 3 digit number is 10²=100. The first 4 digit number is 10³=1000.

  • Morti@sh.itjust.workstoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•WTF is a rural town in the USA?
    341·
    11 months ago

    Aight, so, we got cities/metropolitan areas, then we have the outer edge of cities called suburbs (could also be referred to as towns), then we got further out areas, which are rural, which have a lot of agriculture and wilderness.

    “Small” and “rural” are used as qualifying adjectives, and typically compound. Rural: generally far from near by cities, lots of wilderness/agriculture around. Small: not a lot of residents or amenities.

    Village is not a term that is commonly used, at least not where I’m from (midwest).

    Your village is our small rural town: low population density, lots of wilderness/agriculture, not a lot of buildings.