1053: Ten Thousand
explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
| Ten Thousand |
 Title text: Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time. |
[edit] Explanation
This is certainly a great approach to take with someone that doesn't know something, rather than taking the "idiot" approach. However, I know that there are a lot of people over 30 that haven't yet seen the Diet Coke and Mentos eruption. If you are one of those people, here is a Mythbusters video. There are also excessive eruptions in the music video of Weezer's Pork and Beans.
If you are not familiar with the Yellowstone supervolcano and have missed the scare-tactics articles over the past 4 or so years, here's a great video explanation.
[edit] Transcript
- I try not to make fun of people for admitting they don't know things.
- Because for each thing "everyone" knows by the time they're adults", every day there are, on average, 10,000 people in the US hearing about it for the first time.
- Fraction who have heard of it at birth = 0%
- Fraction who have heard of it by 30 ≈ 100%
- US birth rate ≈ 4,000,000/year
- Number hearing about it for the first time ≈ 10,000/day
- If I make fun of people, I train them not to tell me when they have those moments. And I miss out on the fun.
- Megan: "Diet coke and Mentos thing"? What's that?
- Cueball: Oh man! come on, we're going to the grocery store.
- Megan: Why?
- Cueball: You're one of today's lucky 10,000.
add a comment!Discussion
Regarding: "This also assumes that 10,000 people learn of something every day from the day they are born." That's not accurate. Whatever the any distribution of "age you learn" is, the average will hold. For example, if everybody learns some particular fact on their 21st birthday, it holds simply becuase there are roughly 10,000 people having their 21st birthday each and every day.
