#zeroth world problems

Guys I’ve forgotten how to write fic, something happened to me between now and Nov 7. Going to Texas? Talking to a lot of cancer patients? Visiting my family and feeling slightly estranged?

I’m having that terrible swirl of thoughts to the effects of “I don’t write as well as I want, I haven’t improved a bit since 2003, what am I even doing with my adult life, no one wants to read my stupid sexual fantasies that are barely sexual, fanfic is a ridiculous past time, everything is pointless” (please no one feel obligated to tell me these are wrong sentiments, I’ve had this weird mindset before and I know it’s not an objective reality, I just hate being beset by this mood).

Rounding numbers up or down-whether that 0.5 is a 0 or a 1-is extremely important.

In the science fiction setting of Warhammer 40K, entire worlds are lost due to rounding errors.

At work in Philip Morris, there was a deep anxiety over how to resolve a difference in rounding between two procedures that were at odds with each other.

I’ve studied a hard science degree (chemistry), and I deal with technical measures everyday, and so I have to round off a lot of numbers (because 0.457914 doesn’t really fit on a technical data sheet, you know?)

And always, always, how to handle a .5 is a source of great concern.

In one of my textbooks, flipping a coin was suggested as a way of resolving this issue.

From 0 to 4? Round down. From 6 to 9? Round up.

5? Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO FUCKING STUPID

There is a simple way to resolve all rounding disputes, that can easily be reached by logic and common sense.

Arabic numerals have ten symbols, 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Divide ten in two and you have five. 

The first five symbols - 0 1 2 3 4 - make you round down. The latter five - 5 6 7 8 9 - make you round up. 

Easy.

I’ve seen people with Doctorate’s and Master’s degrees get tripped up over this stupidity. Why.

Both of these writing modes are essential skills for graduate students to master, but it's hard to get them to even try the "teacher-development" mode, perhaps because it's more difficult. (It's especially important for continental philosophy students to master this, since they will very often be addressing non-CP experts when addressing professional colleagues.)