Unsure how long to keep giving my cat antibiotics, the vet prescribed them last monday saying give them for a week, so the cat has had the drug 7 times now. Do I give one more dose tomorrow or is the week done?

  • printf("%s", name);@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    (The dates are examples.)

    I just recently had this discussion with a colleague when I was creating a sentencing plan for a person sentenced to probation with six months rehab. I had written January 1st to June 30th and my colleague questioned that. They said it should be July 1st. I explained to them that if I had written July 1st, I would’ve been reprimanded, possibly hanged out on extremist vigilante forums or, in the worst case, fired, since then I would have said that the obligatory rehab should last six months and a day, which it is not. It is six months.

    If you give the medicine from Monday (January 1st above) to Monday (July 1st above), you are giving the medicine for one week and a day.

    Edit: which reminds me of yet another anecdote - or, rather, similar phenomenon? There is a meme that periodically circulates the world wide web. It attempts at intriguing people by contrasting the fact that there are three steps (“numbers”, in the words of the meme) between the numbers 1 to 5, to the fact that there are four numbers between the numbers 5 to 10. It claims that this is mind blowing and mysterious, which it of course isn’t. The reason being - which is also the reason for me being reminded of it - that there are only ten digits to count with: 0 to 9. “10” is the first number/step in the second iteration of those ten digits, and therefore, saying “5 to 10” is the same as saying “0 to 5”, not “1 to 5”.

    Edit edit: if the above meme would’ve actually intended to contribute something meaningful to this world, it would’ve instead urged us to discuss why we ever so often (most of the time?) count from one to ten. My thoughts are that there are several reasons, for instance, the fact that we have ten fingers. Or that counting “zero thing(s)” wasn’t helpful in the earliest stages of humanity: for every physical or metaphysical thing that you count, you usually use one finger, one tally mark and so on. Also, teaching young children to count zero, which is - for them - nothing, is problematic, as they have yet not fully developed their ability to imagine steps as opposed to things to point to and count.

    • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.caEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      The number sets have names that are reflective of that. Whole numbers are positive integers and 0 while natural numbers are only positive integers. You never see 0 cats, and the number of places where the number of cats is 0 is infinite (or approaching the number of places in the universe). Neither of those are really natural (not unlike cats) and are particularly hard to explain to younger people.

        • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.caEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          I’ve seen two, and can describe them. Please do me the pleasure of describing what these 0 cats look like. Perhaps I can recognize them if I come across them.