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byrnema comments on New Year's Predictions Thread - Less Wrong
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Don't forget "modulo".
Suppose that Nancy meant 0% except for a few special cases that she didn't think should be relevant. Then she could say, '0% modulo some special cases'.
I often use epsilon in the same informal way AdeleneDawner does, though I'm perfectly aware of the formal use. Still, I think the informal use of "modulo" is more defensible - it maps more closely to the mathematical meaning of "ignoring this particular class of ways of being different"
Could you explain this in greater detail? This way of using "modulo" bothers me significantly, and I think it's because I either don't know about one of the ways "modulo" is used in math, or I have an insufficiently deep understanding of the one way I do know that it's used.
In modulo arithmetic, adding or subtracting the base does not change the value. Thus, 12 modulo 9 is the same as 3 modulo 9. Thus, for example, "my iPhone is working great modulo the Wifi connection" implies that if you can subtract the base ("the Wifi connection") you can transform a description of the current state of my iPhone into "working great".
(For your amusement: modulo in the Jargon File. Epsilon is there too.)
Edit: Actually, in this case, you would have to add the base, because my Wifi isn't working, but the statement remains the same.