{"id":3466,"date":"2009-09-28T20:24:13","date_gmt":"2009-09-28T12:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2009-09-25T15:12:44","modified_gmt":"2009-09-25T07:12:44","slug":"why-are-these-towels-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/learn-math\/why-are-these-towels-cheaper-3466","title":{"rendered":"Why are these towels cheaper?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people struggle with math because they missed some vital concepts along the way. <\/p>\n<p>The following is from <a href=\"http:\/\/notalwaysright.com\/2d-thoughts-for-1d-minds\/2488\">Not Always Right | Funny and Stupid Customer Quotes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>Customer:<\/strong> \u201cHi, why are these towels $4.99, but the others $6.99?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me:<\/strong> \u201cThe $6.99 towels are 6 feet long, and the $4.99 towels aren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Customer:<\/strong> \u201cBut why are they different prices?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Me:<\/strong> \u201cThat\u2019s because one is longer than the other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Customer:<\/strong> \u201cI still don\u2019t understand\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Customer\u2019s Friend:<\/strong> \u201cOne is a bath sheet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Customer:<\/strong> \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Customer\u2019s Friend:<\/strong> \u201cIt\u2019s 6 feet long. The other one is 4 feet long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Customer:<\/strong> \u201cThat doesn\u2019t make any sense!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Funny?<\/strong> Actually, no. This kind of gullible customer would pay the higher price for the smaller towel, blissfully unaware of what is going on. By extension (a long one), it's how the sub-prime mess got so bad. Customers did not understand the math of home loans.<\/p>\n<p><b>Stupid?<\/b> Not fair to say that. Lots of people suffer from conceptual difficulties through no fault of their own. At the extreme end of the scale, <em>dyscalculics<\/em> (those who struggle in math the same way dyslexics struggle in language) have no number sense, which means they have trouble with manipulating numbers in their head. They also struggle with estimating large numbers and measurement. There are physical reasons why they cannot understand why a smaller towel will be cheaper. It sounds hard to believe, but dysclaculis is a reality for a significant proportion of the population (around 5% by some estimates).<\/p>\n<p class=\"alt\"><a href=\"#respond\" id=\"comms\">Be the first to comment<\/a> below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An exasperating customer in a towel store just doesn't get it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}