"Half a foot" vs "A half foot"

Right around 8:30 this morning, the new weathergirl on Good Morning America said "about half a foot of snow".

She got it right! "Half a foot" instead of what they always say, "uh half foot".

She's the only one. The rest of em always say it wrong. And not just about the weather. It's "uh half inch" instead of "half an inch". It's "uh half mile" instead of "half a mile". It's everywhere, and all the time -- or "always and everywhere", to use Friedman's phrase. And it is wrong.

THERE IS NO SUCH UNIT OF MEASUREMENT AS THE HALF FOOT.
THERE IS NO SUCH UNIT OF MEASUREMENT AS THE HALF INCH.
THERE IS NO SUCH UNIT OF MEASUREMENT AS THE HALF MILE.

THE UNITS ARE THE FOOT, THE INCH, AND THE MILE.

But ignorance is bliss, and my complaint will no doubt fall on deaf ears.

So I went to Sciencing to get the title right.

I don't usually make scatter plots. But I'm doing one now, and I don't want to mess it up. So I looked it up.

Sounds good. So I went to Sciencing to get the whole story. Specifically, to get the title right.

Too much information, maybe.

I read it twice. Then I made my scatter plot title. Then my forehead wrinkled and the gray matter told me That's not right.

If "plant growth" is the y-axis variable and the proper form is "y-axis variable vs. x-axis variable", then the title would be "Plant Growth vs. Amount of Fertilizer." Not "Amount of Fertilizer vs. Plant Growth."

Now I have to wonder if it's just coincidence Google omitted that last sentence from Sciencing, or if the Google AI is really smarter than I am.

Me v. three

We have three dogs.

In the wee hours, before anyone else is up, I am glad the dogs don't understand the concept of majority rule.

So I typed my message into the "Type here to search" on windows 10 ...

 

 ...and this is what came up:

I had a good laugh, seeing that lots of people have complaints similar to mine.

Then I saw the fucking "download the app" crap there at the bottom -- and "Bing" and the "Microsoft Edge" tab up top, and I stopped laughing. This kind of shit is supply-side economics at its evil best.

DON'T put your fucking advertisements on my computer, and DON'T force me to use a browser I don't want to use. 

Oh, and go fuck yourself, Microsoft.

"Most patients may pay as little as zero dollars for botox"

 (from a TV commercial)

Most, probably *all* of them will pay AS LITTLE AS zero dollars. Many will pay more. Few will pay less.

9 months in, people still don't understand the meaning of the words EXTREMELY CONTAGIOUS

 

That's it for Google Search

Looking for an owner's manual, I did a search this morning for "liftmaster garage door opener". One search (and Google provided all the words after "liftmaster"). Couple hours later, this stuff showed up in a page I was reading at msn:



Bad enough the advertisement showed up twice. It showed up three times more as I scrolled down the page, counting them.

That's it for Google. I switched my default search engine to the double duck.

//

By the way -- The reason I was looking for a manual was that I had some problem with the garage door opener... Do they really think I might want to buy another Liftmaster?????