At Issue In a Massachusetts Town, the Value of Two-Thirds 449
An anonymous reader writes "In Truro, Massachusetts (a town on Cape Cod), a zoning decision came up for vote, where the results were 136 for, 70 against. The vote required 2/3 approval to pass. The Town Clerk and Town Accountant believe that since .66 * 206 is less than 136, the vote passes. However, an 'anonymous caller' noted that a more accurate value of 2/3 would require 137 (or perhaps even 138 votes) for the measure to be considered passed. The MA Secretary of State and State Attorney General are hard at work to resolve this issue." Updated 20100422 23:55 by timothy: Oops! This story is a year old (rounding up), which I didn't spot quickly enough. Hope they've got it all worked out in the meantime.
not quite 2/3 (Score:5, Insightful)
2 / 3 = 0.66666666...
106 / 236 = 0.660194175
Whats the problem here? It didn't pass.
Learn 2 math (Score:1, Insightful)
Significant figures are important. In this case, the 2/3rds rule, being a constant, MUST be taken to at least 3 digits. Otherwise why not just use 0.6 instead of 0.667 - that way all you need is 124 votes.
0.6 * 206 = 123.6
0.66 * 206 = 135.96
0.666 * 206 = 137.196
Mathematics should not be subject to politics. Some idiot legislators want to twist the law to get their stupid agenda passed. Instead they should call for a re-vote if their rules allow it, or ADMIT DEFEAT DAMN IT. This attitude makes a mockery of democracy.
Re:Counting people? Round up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Rounding is not relevent here. They need 2/3 * 206 votes to pass. 137 is less than that value. 138 is more than that value.
137 votes fails to be more than 2/3 of 206. Why would rounding even be a topic for discussion?
Re:Counting people? Round up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, this strikes me as a pretty trivial problem to solve.
If the process requires the approval of 2/3 of the voters or more, then the lowest whole number that satisfies this requirement is the lowest number of votes which can pass the motion.
Fucking duh, Massachusetts.
Political Mathematics (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy, no fractions or decimals needed (Score:5, Insightful)
The ratio of 2/3 to 1/3 is 2:1. In order for a measure to pass by a two-thirds vote, the majority must have more than twice as many as the minority. 136 is less than two times 70, so the vote does not pass.
Re:Learn 2 math (Score:5, Insightful)
You're complicating it.
(206 * 2)/3 = 137.333
Why use 0.66xxxx whatever when you don't have to?
Ask an engineer, a mathematician, a politician (Score:5, Insightful)
The engineer pulls out his calculator, types in the results, and gives the answer.
The mathematician goes to the whiteboard, and writes a proof for the answer.
The politician whispers, "What do you want the answer to be . . . ?"
Is our calculator society showing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? Long division has been lost to the ages?
use integers, damnit! (Score:5, Insightful)
the question: is 136 / 206 >= 2 / 3 ??
is the same as: is 3*136 >= 2 * 206 (multiple each side by 206 * 3)
or: is 408 >= 412
or: DID NOT PASS
Re:Counting people? Round up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Learn 2 math (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh.. how about not expressing an infinitely repeating number as a finite value?
Well, if you know how to count, it doesn't really matter.
How do you determine the area of a circle with a radius of 25.0 units, without "expressing an infinitely repeating number as a finite value"?
You can use 3.14 to get a reasonable degree of accuracy. Using 3 will introduce too much error in your result, and using 3.14159 is just silly because you can only be sure of 3 digits anyway from your measurement of the radius. There's usually a whole course on this [wikipedia.org] when you take any science major.
Re:Counting people? Round up! (Score:2, Insightful)
The scariest part is their accountant is the one who things .66 is 2/3. I'll bet their books are ALL MESSED UP
Re:not quite 2/3 (Score:1, Insightful)
Regardless of personhood status, it's really hard to argue a fetus is voting age.
Re:not quite 2/3 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is our calculator society showing? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not even a long division problem, it's a basic math problem.
It's trivial to multiply 206 by 2/3 on a calculater, and it in no way involves any decimal figure until the result is shown.
206 * 2 = 412. 412/3 = 137.3~, or 137r1 via long division.
It's pretty clear, the law requires a 2/3 majority, and 137 is not even a 2/3 majority, let alone 136. This is maybe third or fourth grade level math here people, and it's kinda sad that there is even any confusion about it. .66 is not 2/3, it's a little less than 2/3 and it does not count if the law says 2/3.
Re:Learn 2 math (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy shit, it's not that complicated!
The law requires a majority of 2/3 or more.
(206*2)/3 = 137 1/3
137 is less than 137 1/3, so 137 is not a 2/3 majority.
138 is greater than 137 1/3, so 138 is a 2/3 majority.
Done. You can keep the 138 figure on hand to remind yourself, but it isn't necessary, just do 206 * 2/3 to get the minimum number of votes needed. It isn't hard.
This story and some of the posts have really been pretty sad, half the people on slashdot are perpetuating the same error the clerk made, they are simply doing it more accurately. The other half have come up with convoluted ways to check whether a number meets the criteria.
Christ, just multiply by 2/3 and be done with it, it's not hard.
Re:Is our calculator society showing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is maybe third or fourth grade level math here people, and it's kinda sad that there is even any confusion about it. .66 is not 2/3, it's a little less than 2/3 and it does not count if the law says 2/3.
You know good and well these assholes were the kids who used to ask "Why will I ever need to know this stuff in real life?" when they were kids.
Well, you stupid asses, this is why.
LK
Re:Counting people? Round up! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they definitely didn't round up, they truncated a number that was never accurate to begin with. 206*2/3 takes a half second longer to punch in than 206*0.66, if that. Why were they ever using 0.66 to begin with?
The law says 2/3, use 2/3. It's not hard.
multiply by 2 then divide by 3 ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... gets 137.333...(repeating). So 137 votes is not even enough. 136 is clearly not.
Re:Is our calculator society showing? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but I have to question the purported lack of math skills involved, and go directly to fraud on the part of ones doing the math. Why truncate .667 to .66? Because it gives you the result you want in a close vote.
If the numbers don't work the first time, work with the math until you get what you want....
Spltting hairs, are we? (Score:5, Insightful)
But I think it's amusing to say the least -- splitting hairs on a vote.
Really, the who notion of voting is severely flawed from a mathematical point of view. One extra vote makes all the difference between whether or not a bill is implemented. What is the intrinsic importance of making it 2/3rds? Why not 3/4ths? 1/2? 5/8ths? What is the significance of 2/3? Seems arbitrary.
But then, that is the difference between law and mathematics, I suppose. 20 years and 364 days old, you're too young to drink, it's illegal, and there are sanctions. 20 years and 365 days -- 21 years old, and it's perfectly legal. But what is the significant difference in a person at 20 years 364 days vs. 20 years 365 days? Is there some sort of "maturity switch" that is magically flipped? Do the gods of time descend upon you and bestow you with something special?
We humans make so much ado over meaningless arbitrary demarcations. Life situations are fuzzy and spread out, not the digital of "on/off". It all seems rather a bit silly! Splitting arbitrary hairs without real meaning.
This article is a year old? (Score:4, Insightful)
Updated 20100422 23:55 by timothy: Oops! This story is a year old (rounding up), which I didn't spot quickly enough. Hope they've got it all worked out in the meantime.
Generating news isn't simple. You have to investigate, contact the sources, write the article, correct it, publish it in a readable way, etc, etc.
Agregating news isn't that hard. All you have to do is check the source, the date and place of the article, if it's serious and still relevant, write a small summary (or cut and past it from the article) and submit. Not that hard at all. Google news does a better job than Slashdot at it. A damn perl script does a better job than 20+ slashdot editors. Even Fark is doing better than slashdot. If you post some old copypasta on the randomness and caos that is /b/, it'll be spotted instantly. The 13 year old kids at /b/ do a better job than slashdot's team of editors.
I usually don't complain about article quality, dups, etc. I believe it's better to just let it go and move on. I say "hey, anyone can make a mistake". But it just gets worse everyday. We trust slashdot. We just spent a lot of our time discussing this issue, and trying to provide meaningful answers. It turned out to be an issue that happened almost a year ago. That is worse than reading slashdot on April 1st (at least you KNOW it's all bullshit on April fools day).
Even taking all the stupid trolls into account, this community is much more valuable than the site that is hosting it. Yes, we can be a bunch of assholes sometimes, but I believe this is still true: Slashdot's community is la creme de la creme of the Internet. Just tell me of any other place where you can get a high profile open source developer, a NASA researcher that has written code for the Shuttle, a guy from Star Trek, a lawyer that understands copyright law, one of the founders of Apple, the Father of quake, an employee from almost every single technology corporation in the world, plus a huge crowd of engineers, coders, technology enthusiasts, writers, philosophers, sysadmins, doctors, lawyers, politicians, and generally smart people. The Slashdot community is amazing. Unique. I can't think of any other place with such diversity and such a high concentration of people that matters. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that /. readers are some kind of superior race. I'm just saying that the distribution of people in /. isn't average. We certainly have less cab drivers and more world changers than any other community out there. What worries me, is that the the site hosting that community is not up to the task. I love Slashdot. I've been in here for a long long time, and I have no intention of leaving. This is an off topic comment, and it'll certainly be flagged as such ... But I just felt like sharing this lines with you. What can we do to improve this place? it is, after all, like a second home to many of us.
Re:Counting people? Round up! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is a symptom of a generation raised with calculators...
It's not that silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Making silly arbitrary decisions is a necessary part of life. Life situations aren't that fuzzy except at the quantum level. Even little things like which hand to use, whether to breath in or out. And even if the Many Worlds Interpretation is correct, it's not that fuzzy in each path of the universe.
Say a car is about to hit you, you could jump either left or right to save yourself. The neurons in your brain are going to have to make a decision. Say you jump right, you think all the neurons participating in the decision wanted to go right? I doubt it, some would have wanted to go left. But you cannot satisfy all of them. You can't go both left and right, unless you wait for the car to split you in two.
Back to your question, there is no magical maturity switch. Some people never even become mature. So what? With our current technology we are not able to practically put you 60% in jail and 40% out of jail at the same time, just because you are actually "60% mature".
And it's costly to put in all the shades of gray for the different percentages of "maturity". Some countries do cater for a few categories: juvenile prisons, probation, etc.
So there are very many arbitrary lines in laws: when it's legal to abort a fetus/baby, when does a child become an adult.
There's definitely much silliness that should perhaps be fixed. For example, in many countries you might be legally considered old enough to sign up as a soldier, but not do other "adult things". This to me is silly. If you are going to be old enough to kill others and risk your own life, you should be considered old enough to do the other adult stuff. Otherwise, you shouldn't be considered old enough to be a soldier (unless the country is in such a bad/desperate state that you might as be allowed to be a soldier).
Re:It's not that silly (Score:3, Insightful)
There are even better reasons to draw sharp, arbitrary lines - to make the outcome of the law predictable. If the line between between old-enough-to-drink and not-old-enough-to-drink was fuzzy, or the court was required to decide if you were mature enough to drink, it would be almost impossible for the individual to determine when it was safe to drink.
Re:Divide 2 by 3 on a financial calculator (Score:5, Insightful)
OR, you could not be retarded and just realize that a 2/3 majority means that the number of yes votes will be double the number of no votes or greater.
All you do is double count the no votes. If the measure still passes, it had a 2/3 majority.
It's not that fucking hard.
Re:Spltting hairs, are we? (Score:1, Insightful)
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