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Re:Is zero an even number? by droithomme on Sunday December 02, 2012 @03:07PM (#4862317)
The reason the mayor said "an even number or zero" is because if he said "an even number", it's really obvious that many people with zero ending license plates would show up both days claiming zero was neither even nor odd, thinking they had found a loophole and/or that zero plate holders were lucky and special.

Explicitly including zero in the rule is not an assertion zero is not even, it is an attempt to head off the confusion, controversy, lawsuits, fights, and wasted time needed to later modify the rule when the inevitable controversy arises.

Re:Is zero an even number? by PuercoPop on Sunday December 02, 2012 @03:17PM (#4862353)
You could say an even number, which includes zero for that effect.
Re:Is zero an even number? by baddox on Sunday December 02, 2012 @05:03PM (#4862715)
I suspect the mayor's goal was to eliminate driver confusion, not to prevent this article from being written.
Re:Is zero an even number? by PuercoPop on Sunday December 02, 2012 @03:42PM (#4862419)
Why the downvoting? I was just pointing that the OC makes a non argument. If one wants to prevent ambiguity of the text, and one thinks that the evenness of is not clear for the intended audience, one adds a appositive parenthesis reinforcing that fact.
Re:Is zero an even number? by hmrmaxwell on Sunday December 02, 2012 @04:00PM (#4862483)
It looks like you meant "'an even number, which includes zero' for that effect", but on first reading, it appeared to me (and perhaps your downvoters), that you meant "'an even number', which includes zero for that effect", which would be a significantly less productive comment.
Re:Is zero an even number? by mikeash on Sunday December 02, 2012 @03:52PM (#4862452)
And all of those potential confusion, controversy, lawsuits, fights, and wasted time come out of the fact that a lot of people don't think zero is even, which is the whole point they were trying to make.
Re:Is zero an even number? by omni on Sunday December 02, 2012 @04:03PM (#4862495)
Or that people are capable of being intellectually dishonest when it suits them.
Re:Is zero an even number? by anigbrowl on Sunday December 02, 2012 @05:01PM (#4862707)
Bullshit. Most of those people don't give a fuck whether zero is odd or even, they just want to buck the system. It's like those anti-tax nuts who claim their social security # doesn't belong to them, but to some 'straw man' identity, because the name on the social security card is in all caps.