If you are traveling 80 miles an hour, how long does it take to go 80 miles?

"If you are traveling 80 miles an hour, how long does it take to go 80 miles?"

(Thanks, Lew!)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://openid.aliz.es/BB BB

I think it shows poor taste on the part of all 3 parties.

A. It perpetuates the women can’t do math stereotype by taking a lady who has not remembered a smidge of highschool and belittles her.

B. There’s some asshole who claims to be her husband and he’s callously sharing this video of his wife being ignorant. Good job, lady you married a real charmer.

C. BoingBoing not having the common decency to recognize what this is and posting it.

FOR SHAME.
- http://twitter.com/itsphenna reg phenna
  
  I disagree with point A. just because she is struggling doesn’t mean that all women struggle. That might be your perception but not mine
  
  Agree with B. though!
  - http://openid.aliz.es/BB BB
    
    Reg, go and read what Al Pavangkanan, Duke of Dorksville said and you’ll see that point A is true and verified. It is being used to generalize even further.Not the highest point of boingboing culture I must say.
    - Ihavenofuckingname
      
      True and verified? You’re not very good at science.
    - http://www.facebook.com/justinelouisemanning Justine-Louise Manning
      
      If you look at the title, “Woman can’t explain miles-per-hour,” her female-ness and lack of of math ability are clearly on parade here. Point A is correct. I am disappointed that Boing Boing would repost this kind of bullying junk.
      
      Har har! Abusive relationships are funny!
    - RedShirt77
      
      I have heard that nearly50% of people that can’t do math are female.
      
      Also this is clearly gotcha journalism.
- Forkboy
  
  You don’t need to remember high school to parse language. The answer is in the question FFS. This is a question on par with old primary school “riddles” like “What’s heavier, a ton of steel or a ton of feathers ?” This lady is lacking some very basic skills, it’s pretty ridiculous. Reminds me of another video on dutch TV of a blonde being asked how many eggs there are in a dozen to which she replied “That depends on whether you get cartons of 6 or cartons of twelve.”
  - VentcoreFrog
    
    I don’t think anyone is disputing that she is a dumb person. The problem is that we have a dude publicly making fun of his wife on the internet, and that this video is clearly meant to incite a reaction of “LOL cute blondes so dumb”
    - Forkboy
      
      Meh, I’m often subjected to good natured ribbing by my girlfriend when I say something stupid and vice versa. And friends get let into the joke from time to time to maximize embarrassment :-) , which is probably just what the guy’s doing. Of course he didn’t remember that what you put on the internet can go global, so now we can make fun of him for that.
  - guanto
    
    I didn’t know what a “dozen” was for half my life because while there is a corresponding word in my language, nobody ever uses it. I’d hear it every now and then but had no clear handle on what it meant except that is was obviously some number > 1.
    
    Sorry, this is entirely culture-specific and depends on your socioeconomic environment. Not a sign of intelligence or lack thereof.
    - Forkboy
      
      It’s a common word in dutch and as the girl referenced herself eggs are sold in cartons of a dozen or half a dozen eggs. Maybe she got mixed up because the words for dozen (“dozijn”) and box (“doos”, pl. “dozen”) are somewhat similar and she was never inquisitive enough to figure out her mistake. As in this video though the real humor lies in the fact that when the error is pointed out she persists in following her own flawed logic rather than accepting the facts. That’s also the real mark of stupidity as opposed to just being poorly informed or uneducated.
      - guanto
        
        Again, not nearly as important as in English. Really depends on the environment she grew up in. Entirely possible that she only ever heard it in the context of eggs (same for me, i.e. roughly equivalent to what fits in an egg carton). There needn’t be “stupidity” at play here (oh how quick some folks are to judge!), merely a fuzzy concept of what a dozen is.
        
        Edit: some quick research suggests that “dozen” (yes, even in Dutch) is indeed a fuzzy term that today describes a number that hovers around 12, sometimes less or more depending on context.
      - Forkboy
        
        @gunato:disqus No, no, no it’s exactly 12 (in dutch.) Expressed in sayings like “There are 13 in a dozen of (him/her/it)” (it’s insignificant.) It can be used in a fuzzy way because the normal modifier for an aproximate number “tal”, as in “een tiental mensen” (about ten people) isn’t added to the word “dozijn” so you have to infer it from context.
      - guanto
        
        That word has more history than you let on.
        
        Quoth Wikipedia: “Dozijn wordt ook gebruikt om aan te duiden dat er van iets ongeveer 12 stuks zijn.”
        
        And then you have things like “baker’s dozen” (bakkersdozijn, 13) and “decimal dozen” (10) where a dozen isn’t exactly 12.
        
        I hate to be cliché, but: it’s more complicated than that. Most common usage != only usage. Really depends on your environment.
      - Forkboy
        
        @boingboing-64b08c66dfe324e82234564082866900:disqus Like I said it can be also be used to mean “about a dozen” because you don’t say “een dozijntal” like you would say “een vijftal, twintigtal, etc.” There’s NO duch speaker when told “these are a dozen eggs” that would assume it’s about 12 eggs, rather than exactly 12.
      - guanto
        
        (Edit: Doesn’t matter. Word is unfortunately slightly ambiguous and not standardized in many contexts. Peace.)
  - ZikZak
    
    I dunno, I frequently fail riddles by overthinking them. Obviously not ones which hinge on the term “miles per hour”, but it’s a common reaction to a question which seems complicated on the surface: start trying to work out a complicated answer.
    
    In some cases, being willing to roll up your sleeves and work out a reasoned estimate or a common sense answer is an admirable trait. But riddles exploit this tendency and make you feel like a jackass for working hard to solve a problem when the answer was in front of you.
    
    It’s a valuable lesson to learn, but I relate to the experience too much to feel right mocking it.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    Yes, but she’ll be out riding in a Porsche while you and your Mensa buddies are trying to stump each other with GMAT problems.
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  A. That’s your opinion, and I disagree with it.
  B. Yep.
  C. This video is a valuable lesson to parents and students: math is important.
  
  I hope you got a good schoolmarmish rush of dopamine for shaming me. Enjoy it while it lasts!
  - http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
    
    Mark,
    
    Not to be pedantic, but by definition, one enjoys dopamine while it lasts.
    
    Okay, I meant to be pedantic. ;-)
    - ZikZak
      
      Feels good, don’t it?
      - Donald Petersen
        
        Well, it did then.
    - Preston Sturges
      
      I always aspired to be an boorish autodidact, but I screwed it up by going to school and becoming a certified boor.
  - http://rhinocrisy.org/ saurabh
    
    I disagree with your opinion, too. A video of a pretty blonde woman struggling with math – gee, that doesn’t cop to any stereotypes at all, nor does it perpetuate them.
    
    This video isn’t a valuable lesson about anything, other than how some guys are huge douchebags, and other guys think it’s funny to laugh at people. Seriously, you want me to identify with the guy who is giggling into the camera conspiratorially about how dumb his wife is?
    - SomeGuyNamedMark
      
      So it is ok for you to promote a stereotype of men as “…huge douchebags…[who] think it’s funny to laugh at people”?
      - Judas Peckerwood
        
        “…how some guys are huge douchebags…”
        
        Which part of “some” are you willfully misunderstanding?
      - Marktech
        
        @johnbpt:disqus :
        
        Which part of “some” are you willfully misunderstanding?
        
        I think this thread has shown that you don’t have to say “All men/women are $ADJECTIVE” to perpetuate a stereotype. “Some men/women…”, or even “One man/woman…” both seem to do it.
        
        Me, I think some women are huge douchebags, some men are astonishingly bad at maths. Your mileage may vary.
  - bridgham
    
    Mark, you shamed yourself, your publication, your teachers and your family. Defending yourself makes it worse.
  - http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard
    
    The fact that you and the guy who made and posted this both have blind spots about how a video like this could humiliate someone is the most valuable piece of information I’ve gotten from watching it and reading these comments. I really hope someone makes a video of you not getting something elemental and posts it so you can get a feel for what its like to be on the other end of this “lesson.”
    - blueelm
      
      They have. It’s called the comments section here on BoingBoing. Now everyone can see them failing to get something elemental. Hooray!
  - lorq
    
    I hope you got a good douchebaggish rush of dopamine for calling someone else schoolmarmish because they disagreed with you. (Hey, that *does* feel good!)
  - bardfinn
    
    C: the people in question seem to have done “well” in life despite being (among other negatively attributed things) wilfully ignorant, lawbreaking, misogynist, careless, classist, innumerate, and anti-intellectualist.
    
    The message it conveys to children and parents, to me seems to say “school and understanding of math are unimportant to material and societal status, winning the privilege lottery is.”.
    
    Which is important to learn. Modern American society has failed, due to innumeracy, willful ignorance, classism, lawbreaking, anti-intellectualism, misogyny and carelessness. It needs a revolution when a black kid walking home with skittles and soda pop gets shot dead by a police officer, who will likely never be disciplined with anything more than a slap on his pension, but this dude’s driver’s license is still instated.
    
    (edited: charge of racism unfounded)
    - Vnend
      
      Does the fact that the kid was shot dead by a private citizen make it better or worse? I tend to think ‘worse’, but then I ask myself “How would it having been a cop have made it better?” and I have to reconsider.
  - IamInnocent
    
    That guy is making a video about him driving at an excessive speed, tries to go viral with it and then he calls others stupid…
  - Diogenes
    
    You believe he’s petty for “shaming” you. You don’t seem to consider the possibility that C is correct. That’s the shame here.
    
    I visit BoingBoing for the intelligent, the interesting, the esoteric, and the lovable. If I wanted gotcha vids of people who are doing their best and harming no-one, made by snarky future ex-spouses, I’d look somewhere else. Wake up Frauenfelder. That’s junior- high cruel stuff, and not worthy of this site.
    
    What’s next, hidden webcams of college roommates in bed?
  - guanto
    
    I try not to mock people that I deem inferior to me, for there is no benefit to be had and no pleasure to be derived from it. That was Limbaugh’s mistake: you can mock politicians all day long but once you mock and attack ordinary people for no good reason, boom, it’s over. There’s literally nothing you can gain by doing it, ever.
- IronyElemental
  
  Her ignorance is tragic. Her intransigence is hilarious.
  
  There is no shame in laughing.
  - bardfinn
    
    Her intransigence is only hilarious up to the point where it has negative legal implications for you.
- bigorangemachine
  
  Point A:
  I use advanced math maybe once a month. Yes this shit is hard when you don’t use it in a long time. I can see what was going on. She got caught up in running speeds (i.e. I ran an average 10mph today) and she just should have listened to what he was saying (the answer was in the problem). Some people get stuck in a problem solving loop. Granted she sounds like an Air Head.
  
  It doesn’t look like this dude is a scientist even though he claims to use science. I don’t think using everyday ratios really require you to have an advance understanding of mathematics.
  
  Point B:
  I’m willing to admit this shouldn’t be online. Maybe the husband isn’t the one who posted it and maybe sent it to his/her brother. I have a few ‘blonde friends’ who think its funny when they have their moments.
  
  Point C:
  Certainly off topic. I don’t think its worth of being ‘for shame’. The Title isn’t “Bitches don’t know Math”. I think its good to spread awareness of the importance of retaining and understanding knowledge.
  
  [EDIT]
  And dude totally miss leads her when she says ’40′ and traveling faster than a mile a minute. I am sure beforehand he threw a whole bunch of confusion numbers and ratios around when you don’t have a piece of paper to keep track of them all.
  
  They deserve each other :/
  - CH
    
    “I use advanced math maybe once a month. Yes this shit is hard when you don’t use it in a long time.”
    Uuuh… that is not advanced math… not even by any strech of imagination. I asked my 8 yo daughter, and her answer was… and I quote verbatim (well, I translated it)… “Umm… um… 8 hours… no, wait… 1 hour! Was that right?”.
    
    Honestly… that is pretty basic math, and shame on anybody, that has had the privilege of going to school, for not being able to figure it out.
    - bigorangemachine
      
      Yes,
      When you don’t know everything its easier to focus on the little things.
      
      Secondly, you probably didn’t confuse your daughter with comparing how fast you run compared to how fast you drive.
      - CH
        
        No… I didn’t have to confuse my daughter with anything as she figured the answer out in… what… 20 seconds?
        
        “When you don’t know everything its easier to focus on the little things.”
        Ok… seriously… are you trying to tell me this is hard stuff for you? ”Focus on the little things” W… T… F???? The question the guy asked was… ”If you are driving at 80 miles per hour, how long does it take to drive 80 miles?” What is the “little things” in there? You either understand what “miles per hour” means or you don’t. My daughter hasn’t had that in school yet (well, km/h here), as far as I know, so the only thing she knew about it was from us driving the car, but… she was able to use this very novel concept of… wait for it… “figuring it out”. Yeah! Imagine that! _Any_ adult that cannot figure out the answer to that question (assuming they have had even a bit of schooling) is not using their noggin.
    - Diogenes
      
      If she got it wrong would you post a video of her struggling and you smirking at her? Why would you do that to the girl you love, Daddy?
      - CH
        
        It’s mommy, thank you very much… and no I wouldn’t. But that has what to do with my comment?
      - Diogenes
        
        ”But what has that to do with my comment?” — CH
        
        You called for shame. I wondered if you’d feel the same if it was your child struggling.
      - dioptase
        
        If she was high on drugs from the dentist, I would. “Cause that’s ok. Right?
      - CH
        
        “You called for shame.”
        
        Yes… I honestly think it is something to be ashamed of if one isn’t able to figure out the answer (and yes, I do agree with whomever posted later that the woman most probably thought that mph was just… fluffernutter… something you say). Going through school and not having understood that much… yes, it’s something to be ashamed of. I’m going to pull here the “starving kids in Africa”, but many kids around the world would have loved to get her education, and she apparently threw it away.
        
        But what has that to do with posting videos and shaming others?
        
        “I wondered if you’d feel the same if it was your child struggling.”
        If I would feel the same if my 8 yo was strugling with something that she hasn’t had in school yet? Is that what you are asking? If she was 18 and was struggling with that question I would so be pulling every math book out and tutoring her (or getting her a tutor). That is not what I would find an acceptable math skills for somebody entering adulthood. Yes, I would be ashamed for not having noticed earlier that she needs help with math.
        
        (Oh… and I was totally expecting my 8 yo to figure out the answer on her own. She did it faster than I had thought, though… good for her!)
  - DreamboatSkanky
    
    What do scientists look like?
    - bigorangemachine
      
      I hope scientists don’t look like douches.
    - bardfinn
      
      Have a mirror handy?
      - DreamboatSkanky
        
        Damn it all, I look like a douche. There go your hopes, bigorangemachine.
  - EnglebertFlaptyback
    
    The video is posted to the man’s account on Youtube. There are other videos of the same guy singing Mormon gospel songs on that account, so I’m pretty sure it’s him.
- http://twitter.com/nagmay Gabriel Nagmay
  
  A. I disagree – “What does miles per hour mean”? is not a math question. Rather, she is doing calculations without understanding the definition of MPH.
  
  Her answer of 58 minutes shows astounding math skill.
  - Mark Dow
    
    Yes, she’s got some good math skills. And her rule of thumb to “whack it in half” contains wisdom not appreciated by her husband.
    - Diogenes
      
      When she finds that he posted her online, her rule of thumb may be demonstrated to that smarmy little pri*k in a most horrific way.
  - bardfinn
    
    Affirming the consequent is still a fallacy.
- Cowicide
  
  BB, you can’t have it both ways. If (A.) perpetuates a stereotype, then (B.) must do so as well.
  
  So, according to your logic…. this video shows that ALL women can’t do math and ALL men are assholes.
  
  Welcome to Boing Boing, critical thinking skills required for full enjoyment.
  - blueelm
    
    Well that would pretty much *be* a sexist attitude that conforms with negative stereotypes for the sexes as they exist in the world at large.
    
    Men are assholes, and the corollary “Men who aren’t assholes aren’t real men” is I think one of the most damaging sexist ideas in society at large. Everyone suffers because of that one… except for assholes.
    - Cowicide
      
      I personally think many people are seriously over-thinking all of this.
      
      Two baboons end up on YouTube. BOTH the man and woman aren’t the brightest people. She doesn’t grasp an easy concept and he acts like a dick and very stupidly puts the video up for all the world to see.
      
      They do NOT represent all of humanity. They are both dumb. End of story.
      
      Move on, people.
      - MB44
        
        I am tapping my cane in approval of moving on.
      - blueelm
        
        I would feel that way, if I hadn’t been discriminated against a good deal of my life because people sincerely think this kind of stuff is funny because it’s true.
        
        But hey… who cares right?
      - http://twitter.com/axoplasm Paul Souders
        
        Hear hear.
        
        I don’t recall electing this guy to represent my gender, this woman to represent my hair color, or either of them to represent my skin color, nationality, vague religious association, mother language, or any other thing. Any extrapolations, explicit or implicit, from the individual to the general in this case make us all stupider.The woman is confused and unthinking in a way that makes me despair for the human race. Her husband runs the awful up a notch or two. They are unpleasant people for different reasons, in a world that handsomely rewards unpleasant people. With attention. Which we are giving them.
- guanto
  
  I agree, this is pretty bad. Mark, it’s not too late to pretend it never happened.
- blueelm
  
  No no. I understand it and I’m a woman. Since it only takes one woman to prove all women are stupid, it should only take one woman to throw that conclusion out. Yay! Sexism is defeated for ever and ever, right? Right!?
  - jahxman
    
    Right! Now don’t you worry your pretty little head about it anymore!
    ….uhhh… I mean….oops
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Johnny-Rojo/709403697 Johnny Rojo
  
  My first, instantaneous thought was 1 hour. But then I began to wonder: are we talking about connecting two points 80 miles apart in a straight line? Are we talking about 80 miles of tire rolling distance no matter how crooked the path? Do we care if the speedometer is accurate? Have we accounted for the shrinking length of the car as it approaches light speed (or some small fraction thereof, such as 80/60/60/186,000 x 100%? And do we care that we are approximating the speed of light? Or what? So I’m not surprised she doesn’t just leap to an answer. He is an asshole, however, BoingBoing is not far behind that designation and she is probably innumerate.
- Ipo
  
  You sound concerned on all points.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Dude has smug, frat boy douchebag written all over his face.
- http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius
  
  I don’t know what he’s so smug about; he married her.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Yeah, but among his reasons for marrying her he probably does not count arithmetic, or listening skills, or reasoning skills. He may eventually regret that, but not nearly as soon as she will regret marrying him.
    - http://twitter.com/wi_ngo wingo shackleford
      
      Yeah, but also maybe in some weird way they are perfect for each other. The Douchebag and The Ditz. Somebody call Fox, I think we’ve got a sitcom here.
      - TooGoodToCheck
        
        Do we really need another Fox & Friends?
    - bardfinn
      
      Given his behaviour, I’m pretty sure he already regrets it.
http://twitter.com/alvetica Al Pavangkanan

The joy of having a pretty blonde wife
- Brainspore
  
  My pretty blonde wife is a teacher. And she thought the video was hilarious (and kind of terrifying).
VentcoreFrog

I’m hoping this is staged. Otherwise, his wife may be dumb, but he’s a fucking asshole.
- jahxman
  
  This was my first thought – I honestly couldn’t imagine that it was for real. My mind desperately wants to reject the idea that anyone could be this obtuse (and her gender or hair color or attractiveness don’t factor at all for me.) I just don’t want to believe it about anyone apparently adult.
sarahnocal

I can forgive someone for not being able to do basic math, but I can’t forgive someone for being a dick, especially to his wife. And filming it.
This makes me sad and sick.
- Brainspore
  
  He does appear to be a bit of a dick, but it’s not like he was hiding the fact that he was filming her.
  - jahxman
    
    She appears to ask in some surprise at the end “Is that filming?” right after suggesting they empirically time it (now who’s the scientist?) , so he may not have been hiding the fact, but she was not aware of it until the very end of the clip.
http://www.facebook.com/gonzogreg Gonzo Greg

Think he’s still married?
- bigorangemachine
  
  Divorce in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
  - Brainspore
    
    ”7… 3⅓… 28… π… wait. Let me start over.”
mack

I tuned out during the long commercial. Did I miss anything?
octochicken

I expect better from you, bOINGbOING.
- Cowicide
  
  Better math skillz?
  - guanto
    
    Class.
    - Cowicide
      
      Math class?
      - Judas Peckerwood
        
        Try again — I hear the third time’s the charm.
      - Cowicide
        
        Critical Thinking 101?
msbpodcast

We already know there are plenty of creationist, anti-abortionist, republican people out there.

This is just unnecessary.
- Teller
  
  Killer definition of unnecessary. I salute!
kullervo

I have no problem with mocking the folks who thought math was a total waste of time in school. They mocked those of us who thought it was worth the effort. Back atcha.
- Diogenes
  
  That’s quite a jump. She’s busy calculating empirical data and all you can think of is some jerks who teased you, while you push her into that category without knowing her. That’s more than a little creepy.
snagglepuss

Bet her divorce lawyer is better at percentages than he is.
http://www.facebook.com/dreamsofkadath Frank Loonee

If I may get all “special relativity” up in this bitch, the question is actually a little trickier than you would think. Time dilation! The time between two events (departure and arrival) varies depending on the observer’s state of motion relative to, say, the Earth (or whatever you’re using to measure the distance), with an observer in the car measuring a different time than an observer outside the car. In theory, for the passengers in the car, an 80-mile trip at 80 miles per hour would take a tiny fraction of a second less than an hour.

Just being a smartass.
- Cowicide
  
  Oh lawd, you’re right.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jorge-Queiroz/100000787397976 Jorge Queiroz

It’s a bit disappointing to see this kind of posts on BoingBoing.
Robert Holmen

That is every girl in every math class I ever had in high school.

I always wondered if it was an act they did to appear more sexy by not intimidating the boys.
- Joel Phillips
  
  You were in the remedial maths class, right?
- guanto
  
  Funny, you must live in Bizarro World. Here in Reality Land girls perform far better academically than guys, especially in school math classes.
  - Robert Holmen
    
    No, I lived in White Bear Lake, Minnesota in the 70′s where every girl HAD to have Farrah hair and HAD to act clueless in science and math classes.
    
    When ever a teacher asked them a question in class there’d always be this long stretch of “silly girl” giggling before they’d stammer out an answer.
    
    It was preposterous self-dumbness enforced by peer pressure and media images perhaps, but if you weren’t there in White Bear Lake, Minnesota in 1977, don’t tell me it wasn’t obviously happening.
    - guanto
      
      Sounds like Bizarro World to me. Never said it didn’t exist ;-)
    - IronEdithKidd
      
      Interesting. Ten years later, in another corner of the metro area, this girl unapologetically set the curve in every single math and science class she had.
- lknope
  
  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/how_it_works.png
  - Forkboy
    
    Yo dog I see you like pointless generalizations, so I made you this comic about pointless generalizations using a pointless generalization.
    - CH
      
      It’s not a pointless generalization. It’s about stereotypes, and when you see something happening that fits that stereotype it validates the stereotype for you. You seeing something that invalidates the stereotype it generally doesn’t do zilch, because… well… it doesn’t.
      
      So, you see a woman standing next to a car that has crashed into a pole. “Female drivers!!!” You see a man standing next to a car that has crashed into a pole… do you think “Male drivers!!!” or perhaps ”Gosh, maybe the female driver stereotype isn’t as valid as I thought, after all!”? You do? Well, good for you!!!
      - Ipo
        
        No. I think: How can I help?
- MB44
  
  That’s weird, in my high school math classes, I struggled. I had to get help from a girl that was so good at math she could melt things with her brain.
kuanes

Yes, *deity* forbid we should have a small chuckle at the expense of someone else. I mean, what else is the internet for?
Joel Phillips

Given that she goes around the houses to get there, estimating 58 minutes is pretty good. (Here’s a test: how long does it take to drive 128.6km at 35.76 m/s?).
- http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell
  
  I too was surprised by how close her guess was. But was she just lucky? Or is there some savant-type of estimating power underneath all that blathering?
  - bardfinn
    
    Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Affirming the consequent is a fallacy.
  - ideator
    
    I think she was really trying to estimate, but she was throwing around numbers until she found some that felt right. Giving her a lot of benefit of the doubt, if I try to imagine what she was thinking, I come up with this.
    
    She basically said she runs a mile in about 7 mins when she’s in shape, and that is about 10 mph (wrong but close); she knows 80 mph is 8x that, so she multiplied 7 mins x 8 and got 58 mins (wrong, but close, which I chalk up to bad memory of multiplication tables). One mile in 7 min is actually a little slower than 10 mph, so she confirmed her analysis by confirming that 58 min is a little less than an hour.
    
    At least that is what I get when I try to follow what she is saying. Now obviously even this estimating doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because the numbers are combined in all the wrong ways, but at first glance I can imagine it felt right.
    
    It sounds like she is someone who doesn’t really pay attention to details, doesn’t like numbers and blocks them out, can’t follow logic very well, but in the end gets by in life by relating problems to her own experience and guessing from that.
    
    This is a tribute to how scrappy a person can be when faced with a problem they are unequipped to solve. The fact that she stuck with it even when completely out in left field, is also a tribute to her tenaciousness.
    
    (Whew, I was really trying hard here to look at this positively)
- Gtmac
  
  Depends on what precision you’re looking for.
- Ipo
  
  It wasn’t at all a math problem.
  She did remarkably well trying to solve it using math.
  She had a brain fart, a cerebral vapor lock, he could have busted by asking:”You have a bag of cookies. You eat seven per hour. How long does it take you to eat seven cookies?”
johne2

Oh FFS. If the genders were reversed everyone here would be laughing.
bridgham

This is the best you had, Mark? Weak.
jennybean42

Christ, what an asshole (I can’t believe that no one has beat me to this)
OohErMissus

And meanwhile, you useless pillock of a driver, you’re playing with your cell phone taking movies while in the middle of driving. You’re the bastard that plays Pac-Man with the lane lines, drives well under the speed limit in the passing lane, and nearly run people off the road by your careless disregard for the situation around you.

Class move there, you goon.
GertaLives

Yeah, I’m going to go there and call this faked. Randomly “guesstimating” 58 minutes seems a little too pitch-perfect.
joeschwerein

They got you, suckas! That blonde is actually Fox News anchor, and high school valedictorian, Gretchen Carlson.
robdobbs

Sorry, but she’s stupid – or perhaps high.
http://twitter.com/WillieIJ willie imara johnson

It was funny, and a little sad. But she made an honest effort to actually calculate the answer and even came close. Smart isn’t your ability to solve simple puzzles, the IQ test is bull, it’s acquiring and using knowledge in accordance to your environment. She sounds like an athlete.
- uricacid
  
  yeah, the weird insistence to use the “running speed = mile-a-minute” as the framework from which to work out the solution implies that she’s not really paying attention to the question, and is rather visualizing a completely different puzzle.
  
  this isn’t a math failure, it’s a conceptualization failure.
- bardfinn
  
  Affirming the consequent is a fallacy.
  - Diogenes
    
    Say it again!
- Brainspore
  
  Smart isn’t your ability to solve simple puzzles, the IQ test is bull, it’s acquiring and using knowledge in accordance to your environment. She sounds like an athlete.
  
  “So if I’m jogging at an average of four miles an hour and you’re going to meet me at the car four miles away, I’ll see you in about… uh…”
  - Mark Dow
    
    58 minutes
SFSlim

Wow. Really disappointed to see that BB chose to post this.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Johnny-Paul-Coolin/100001053738921 Johnny Paul Coolin

Some rampant sexism in these comments.

My first reaction to the post title was, “well, it’d be easier if it was SIXTY miles”.
TheWiseFool

I for one laughed. Laughed and then shared the video with friends.

I would have done the same be the victim a man or a womyn. The point of the matter is that she even DENIED when he tried to explain that going 80 mph means your going 80 MILES per HOUR.

And to insite more anger, let’s not forget her golden comments:
“I make sense, you do not make sense…” and “You don’t know the answer!”

P.S. Guy is a douche for putting this video up for our enjoyment. Wouldn’t ever do that to my wife.
- nachoproblem
  
  THIS.
causticagnostic

Okay so I guess it is now our duty to try and seduce his wife if we happen to see them in public
- Diogenes
  
  No, your duty is to kick his ass for public spouse abuse. If she sleeps with you for it that’s a bonus.
RaleighSaintClair

This was a funny post until I read all the whiners in the comment section. Shame on you hyper-sensitive blog readers.
- Michael Rosefield
  
  Did this video make me think women were bad at maths? No.
  
  Did this video make me think _that_ woman was bad at maths? Ye s. Maths, logic and verbal comprehension. And also stubbornly defensive of her own lack of understanding.
  
  In short, she was being hilarious dim, and all the people getting upset are getting caught up in their own preconceptions, just as she was.
  - http://rhinocrisy.org/ saurabh
    
    Yes, and the chorus of “haha, now check out this dumb blonde video” in the comments sure doesn’t justify my reaction.
    - Michael Rosefield
      
      The comments here? I count one, maybe two.
    - Alexander Sirkman
      
      As a blonde, I agree that the subject of this video is blonde, showing an apparent lack of cognitive effort (not ability, but commitment to finding an accurate solution), and seems to fit the descriptor of “dumb blonde”
      
      Is that a stereotype? Yup. But stereotypes engaged with as an artificial, unfounded, yet shared cultural experience can be…. you know… involved in jokes and things. I’m also a jew, and I find cheap jew jokes funny. Not because they are accurate, or reflect my experience, but because they draw on a stereotype to present an absurd situation, whose absurdity is further compounded by their lack of relation to reality.
      
      So….. if you don’t think it’s funny, let’s talk about humor. If you think it propagates a misogynistic stereotype, ask yourself whether this is a forum for mature and socially aware discourse where cultural artifacts can be examined, discussed, and occasionally appreciated for what they are, or basically one long-running fart joke.
RussellChaplin

This post was bad and you should feel bad.
StarryGordon

If you are presently traveling 80 miles per hour, you don’t know how long it will take you to travel 80 miles because there is no guarantee that you will continue to travel at that speed for the ensuing hour.
- bardfinn
  
  You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. The cut of your jib is +1′d.
Blaise Pascal

I like my schadenfreude the way I enjoy my coffee, concentrated and dark. This video delivers.
Artificial Kid

Well, you could drop all the political correctness worries and just see this as an example of people confusing themselves. It’s great that she was guesstimating and she showed a lot of thought there but she valued all that personal experience and guesswork too highly. She needed to step back and label all the elements for herself so she could see the simplicity of the question and sidestep any “this is a trick” thoughts. She actually thought wrongly because she was thinking too much. A little mocking of this kind of reasoning might actually be useful.
- bardfinn
  
  “… it’s great that she was guesstimating …”
  No.
http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke

Insufficient information. Obviously minimum travel time would equal MPH, but actual distance traveled would be dependent on you hitting every. bloody. red. light. as well as traffic. And do we have to pull over because someone needs to use the restroom?

This is why I suck at math.
- http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler
  
  If you stop, you’re not going 80 miles per hour. Because stopping is zero miles per hour.
  - novium
    
    Yes, if you’re speaking about the speed you’re traveling at this very minute. But it’s just as likely that someone might talk about average speeds, and then you could be very very wrong about travel time. I had a teacher in grade school who like to trip people up with that one.
Preston Sturges

Julie Brown sings “Cause I’m A Blond”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rNfZxgkH7k

Note the young blonde Jim Carrie in a red tank top
- Diogenes
  
  Substitute a skin color and let’s see if it’s still funny.
bardfinn

Grounds for divorce.
- Brainspore
  
  At first she was going to take half of everything he owned, but after this video went viral she got so mad that she upped her demand to 40 percent.
  - bardfinn
    
    Is there any way I can get this reply off my comment quickly without betraying my cool exterior?
  - Diogenes
    
    And before she’s done with him, something else may get halved.
http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler

Her comments about “well, my tires are flatter than, say, a cop’s tires” sort of has merit… if you consider “going X miles per hour” only refers to a speedometer reading — not an actual speed. But… that’s silly.
- bardfinn
  
  It refers to actual speed. Question did not specify “if your speedometer reads 80 MPH …”.
  - http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler
    
    Yes, but it sounds there for a bit like she was treating it as such.
TooGoodToCheck

I’ve been in sort-of/kind-of her situation. The problem is that you get caught up in the details, or you get attached to a mental model that’s inappropriate to solving the problem.

I her head, she seems to be attempting to run, basically, a physical simulation to get the answer. A real car never travels at exactly 80 miles per hour for any length of time; there are a lot of factors that can affect your speed. The trick to solving this problem is actually to discard both the car and all the rest of physical reality, and reduce it down to
80m / 80(m/h)
But once you’ve started trying to work it out with the first (inappropriate) model, it can actually be kind of tricky to make the transition.

I remember being in an interview once, where they asked about how you would determine if a number was a power of two. I got hung up trying to optimize something involving shifting and bit counting or something. . . it wasn’t good, and I had trouble being led to the correct answer by the interviewers.
Once I made the mental shift, it was actually pretty embarrassing to think about how much time and effort I had spent barking up the wrong tree. But a less-than-ideal mental model can seem so very very promising, until you take a step back and see the obvious thing that you were missing.
- bardfinn
  
  Question did not specify “a real car”.
snagglepuss

I have dycalculia, so I have a certain perspective on recognizing the difference between reasonably intelligent people who still really CAN’T do math, and those who are….Let’s say, less likely to solve ANY kind of problem. And, as a result of that, I’m a bit more discriminating concerning the public humiliation of people who have, for whatever reason, serious problems solving what seem to most people to be “simple” problems.

So, armed with that perspective, let me say this: I see TWO examples of Dunning-Kruger syndrome in that video.
- CH
  
  Hey!!!! I just had to reply… you are the first person that I meet (well, virtually) that even knows what dyscalculia is!!! I diagnosed myself after the umpteenth time getting the wrong news-message (in the stone age, when you had to write the number of the message you wanted to read), and noticing that I constantly read the number wrong by switching the last two numbers around. Suddenly my problems with math in school started to make sense (and all the other nice problems… I read this morning 8:30 as 7:30… again)… I thought I was just lazy when I copied the numbers wrong. Still have to count every problem several times until I get two or three results that are the same. :( But… I love math, thanks to a wonderful math teacher in High School!
  
  Sorry to everybody else for the OT.
http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler

https://twitter.com/#!/travis_chambers

Thank you, MMA world, for perpetuating the next generation of misogynist assholes, and their equally deplorable, visceral, brain-dead sex objects.
- bardfinn
  
  If they are anti-intellectual by choice, that’s deplorable. There are many people who have learning disabilities and disprivilege in their childhoods that cause them to be intellectually handicapped.
  Misogyny is a choice. Intellectual handicaps often aren’t.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Neng-Lee/789890998 Neng Lee

This video is another shameless attempt by Democrats making fun of Republicans. Democrats suck.
- snagglepuss
  
  You want the WND. It’s a few websites and a couple of universes over. Good Luck.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Neng-Lee/789890998 Neng Lee
    
    You disappoint as BB readers. See the lines? Read between them.
    :p
- http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler
  
  That means Chelsea is a Republican and Travis is a Democrat.
jimbuck

I predict this is staged. Nobody is that stupid.

I’m going to ask my 4yo, then later my 7yo, then lastly my 11yo this question … and see who gets it right. If all three of them mess this up (I’ll give the 4yo a pass) it means I can forget about the possibility of college scholarships
- bardfinn
  
  “Nobody is that stupid.”
  
  Simply because you are unable to imagine it exists, does not make it so.
  
  I deduce you are a member of a social class where merit, rather than appearance or the magnitude of a number written in a ledger alongside your name, determines your quality of life.
- snagglepuss
  
  Jimbuck – I used to work under a woman who was absolutely certain that the entire universe re-sets it’s clock twice a year – That the United States was simply following some titanic cosmic timetable, a fact that special smart scientist-type people had figured out years before.
  
  She was in management. Dumb as a fucking stump, but her figures always added up, so upper management ignored her INCREDIBLE stupidity concerning all other earthly-and-otherwise matters.
  
  So, Yes: Some people ARE that stupid.
http://twitter.com/bigbadchang Chang Terhune

Yeah, this guy isn’t married anymore after showing this video to the world, I suspect.
- http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler
  
  The girl has deleted her facebook within the past 5 days. Gee, I wonder why.
  - EnglebertFlaptyback
    
    It was up yesterday….
http://www.AskBryan.com Bryan Davis

I once dated a gal, went on a double date with my best bud and his girl.
Both girls thought the sun and moon were the same object.We were both single the next day.
- Diogenes
  
  Hoping neither of you went into teaching.
waltontx

Agree this is fake. What makes it even worse is that Tosh.O posted this well before this place got it.
- bardfinn
  
  Tosh.O has no standards. That works both ways. Just because Daniel touched on it is significant of nothing else than Daniel felt he could wring a laugh — or a groan — out of it.
Brainspore

Wait, we aren’t allowed to poke fun of people who are really bad at math now? I thought it was hilarious. So did my blonde wife (who happens to be a teacher and would be horrified if any of her young students couldn’t answer this simple question).
- Diogenes
  
  And does she post embarrassing videos of her students on the web?
  - Brainspore
    
    No, and I’d expect she’d be fired if she did.
    
    What does that have to do with this douchebag and his idiot wife (who knew full well that she was being filmed at the time)?
xiandesi

I really think that it’s not that she has trouble with math, it’s that she has no idea how the
concepts relate – the units are meaningless symbols for her. While she knows that speed is discussed in terms of miles per hour, and that more miles per hour is faster than fewer, “milesperhour” is just what you say at the end of the number. I don’t think that it ever occurred to her that it’s actually an expression of how many miles you’d travel if you continued at that speed for an hour. That’s why she trying to relate how long it takes her to run a mile (7 minutes) to her estimated speed (10 mph) as if they’re things that don’t already have a correlation. Replace Mph in her discussion with Fluffernutters or something and her approach makes perfect sense.
jimsilverman

if you’re posting viral videos online about how dumb your girlfriend is, you probably shouldnt be dating.

just saying.
- Preston Sturges
  
  It sounded like they were driving from Logan, Utah to to Boise Idaho, so maybe that’s LDS foreplay.
jimsilverman

dear god. they’re married.
rtresco

I don’t think she’s as dumb as all that – sadly I can even follow her logic. She’s built 60mph as a reference point in her head where 1 mile = 1 minute. Unfortunately, she hasn’t given much thought beyond 60. It’s like she’s learned 60 as a specific degree, like learning that that water freezes at 32, or time travel begins at 88, etc. and at 60 you have achieved a mile a minute, so anything over that is obviously faster.

Her husband is the real idiot of the brainiac bunch.
BlackPanda

Heisenberg is driving down the motorway when he gets pulled over by traffic cops. “Excuse me sir, you you have any idea how fast you were going?” they ask. “No”, he replies, “but I know exactly where I am!”
- gtrjnky
  
  I love that show!
Digilante

This has nothing to do with math, unless you call things like counting how many damn fingers you have as “math”. I have no time for stupid people, blonde, female, male, or whatever. People that ignorant should be taxed more for wasting our time.
pocoTOTO

Some people are innumerate. Numbers will never be truly comprehensible to them. I am married to a brilliant linguist, fluent in four languages, functional in ancient Latin and Greek. She’s Italian, but she can’t for the life of her give you the percentage for 20 out of 100 (per cento in Italian, so it’s not a language thing). Having said all of that, she is a brilliant woman when it comes to anything not quantitative, and I would never post a video trying to humiliate her.
http://twitter.com/Nephlabobo Neal Power

For the people purporting that this shouldn’t be posted, I would say the opposite.

Take a good long look at the education system in America that lets this kind of thing happen. This kind of video is a reminder of exactly why education is important.
I don’t find it funny at all. I find it kind of sad.
SFSlim

Why is this post still up? Seriously — this is the most sad, inappropriate thing I’ve ever seen on BoingBoing. It’s not funny, it’s cruel, abusive, misogynist, and tasteless. Why showcase such a dysfunctional relationship?

This site was long touted as “A directory of wonderful things.” Perhaps Mark would like to explain what’s wonderful about a shallow bastard of a husband purposefully making a public spectacle of his wife’s ignorance?

Sick, sad, and definitely NOT wonderful.
- http://orbitnet.com JIMWICh
  
  Perhaps if you petition the proprietors of this establishment, they’ll responsibly refund your money, sir.
- http://twitter.com/tom_hiles Tom Hiles
  
  Misogynist? How so?
David Conrad

Reminds me of an old girlfriend who, upon being asked, “Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?” insisted it was the lead and could not grasp why that was wrong, even after repeated explanations.
ChickieD

Thought the title of this post should have been “Douchie husband too stupid to know he posted a video of the exact moment his wife decided to divorce”
John Callender

I call shenanigans. This is theater, not journalism. That is, it’s fake. She’s totally aware of what “80 miles per hour” means. This is all just intended to create a video that will elicit the raft of comments above.
Judas Peckerwood

Stupid fratboy shit — why is this on bb?
- guanto
  
  Y’know, times are tough, all media outlets are trying to reach new audiences…
http://www.appliedesoterics.com bfarn

“Replace Mph in her discussion with Fluffernutters”

I think that’s good advice in most situations.
HerkyDerky

I cannot believe how many comments this has generated.
fendwick

My God. Never mind the blonde, look at all the otherwise-reasonable people who believe they get to determine what goes up on someone else’s blog…
Just look at them.
- guanto
  
  You know, I’m kind of tired of the “it’s just a blog” excuse. Kind of like Limbaugh’s “it’s just a radio show, it’s entertainment” line. You can’t have it both ways. BB has real influence with a great many people and with that comes responsibility, like it or not. No, you’re not just some insignificant personal blog, the same way Limbaugh’s show isn’t just innocent banter among friends.
  
  Also, Mike Daisy.
  
  /rant
  
  Edit: ah, I see JIMWICh executed the Limbaugh Defense move with perfect precision above. Smooth!
kartwaffles

Douchebag husband. Idiot wife. They were made for each other. Congrats, you two.
bo1n6bo1n6

My guess is 312 comments before this one blows over.