The American education system at work

So Adam Kinzinger posted this to mark the occasion of, you know, that day:

As more than a few people noted, it was in fact 24 years ago, not 25. However, at least one person was unconvinced by that bit of mathematics:

…What?

Judy was indeed battling on multiple fronts by this point, but it was when she said THIS that I, like the idiot I am, joined in the fray:

Note the time stamp. It was nearly 4am here when she said this and I was still awake. I assume that was why I then did something I would normally know better than to do:

I should have known as soon as she invoked AI that I was not up against a intellectual giant here, but being told to use it myself… oof. So I decided to just get rude in response (as you can see, I was irritated enough to use “math” instead of “maths”, which I hate doing otherwise):

Not me at my best, admittedly, but again, lateness of the hour was getting in the way of me being smarter than to do something like this. I was, mind you, smart enough to leave off at this point and finally go to bed, so I didn’t see the twist that followed until this afternoon:

…She’s a COMPUTER PROGRAMMER?

A computer programmer who apparently doesn’t understand where the number zero comes into things?

Look, I used to think I’d been born in 1975, not 1974, and I remember telling Mum this once, because I turned 7 in 1981 (or whatever year it was that this happened), so counting backwards meant I turned 6 in 1980, 5 in 1979, 4 in 1978, 3 in 1977, 2 in 1976, and 1 in 1975. Therefore I was born in 1975 cos, you know, one is the first number. Then Mum patiently explained to me that with these things you actually start at zero, cos you have to become one year old. Which was why I was indeed born in 1974, cos you’re not one year old when you’re born. “Oh, OK,” I probably said (or something like that), and went on with life. Parents know more about these things than you at that age.

I was a child at that time. That’s my excuse. I don’t know what Judy’s excuse is. But the saddest thing is the bit where she says she thought people would believe AI over her. AI. That technology that’s good at fucking things up, sometimes dangerously. Oy. Anyway, I had no more fight left in me:

I should’ve been able to resist the concluding irony of using AI, but I couldn’t.

There is a certain slightly mild irony in me insisting I was counting correctly, cos I was a catastrophe at maths in high school… I was, mind you, always OK at basic calculation like this, it’s only once you start talking in equations and algebra that I lose the plot. Still. Anyway, there’s an insight into what I sometimes get up to online late at night that I probably shouldn’t get up to, letting other people’s vexatiousness make me react in a way that doesn’t make me look that good either… what, me appear smug and self-impressed about my education (such as it was) in an argument? I can’t believer it. I should probably apologise to Adam Kinzinger for participating in that hijack of his thread, cos it was his thread, not mine and even less Judy’s; I just hope he had the sense to mute it like I finally did.