Talk:3248: 182.8 Meters

2026-05-21T23:56:54Z

2600:100C:B026:30F2:793C:84C0:E2D0:8A73: Project Hail Mary seconds

I remember seeing a sign for a university saying it offered “more than 17 programs.” I can’t think of a reason for them to phrase it like that if they had anything other than 18 programs in total. [[User:KelOfTheStars!|KelOfTheStars!]] ([[User talk:KelOfTheStars!|talk]]) 04:16, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:Perhaps the sign was made while a potential 19th program was under consideration or when one of 19 programs was being considered for elimination. Another possibility is that it had small "programs" that were less than full-fledged programs and there was an internal dispute about whether those "programs" should count. My hobby: Thinking about possible excuses petty bureaucrats can use when drafting signs. [[Special:Contributions/150.221.155.241|150.221.155.241]] 04:54, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:: Or it has a variable number of programs, with some only running at certain times, but never less than a core 18 programs. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:28, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Fun fact! There's never been a US President measuring either 186 or 187 cm tall: https://potus.com/presidential-facts/presidential-heights/ [[Special:Contributions/86.23.176.63|86.23.176.63]] 04:34, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

why is it that when i look at the page this shows up:
This is a comic in the "My Hobby" is a series of xkcd comics in which Randall suggests (hopefully fictional) hobbies he has. The hobbies tend to be clever or smart-aleck things to do. They do not always fall under the type of activity that would generally be described as a "hobby", but often are merely things Randall (or Cueball) does when certain situations arise. "My Hobby" comics are not presented regularly, but there have been a number such strip.... (yada yada yada)
but when i actually edit it it shows an really short sentence??? --[[User:Utdtutyabthsc|Utdtutyabthsc]] ([[User talk:Utdtutyabthsc|talk]]) 04:54, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:It's fixed now.[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3248%3A_182.8_Meters&action=historysubmit&type=revision&diff=413210&oldid=413206] [[Special:Contributions/150.221.155.241|150.221.155.241]] 05:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
::gee, thanks! /srs so it was a problem with the category formatting i made... i'll try to avoid in future! --[[User:Utdtutyabthsc|Utdtutyabthsc]] ([[User talk:Utdtutyabthsc|talk]]) 10:55, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

I remember having a book about tabletop games and different sports, which was originally written in the USA. During translation all units got converted to metric, so the book had gems like "the billiards table needs to be 213.36 cm long and 108.68 cm wide". Eventually we reverse engineered it exactly like in the comic. --[[Special:Contributions/2A02:6BF:8009:1404:A0BE:9C5C:1FBA:A96F|2A02:6BF:8009:1404:A0BE:9C5C:1FBA:A96F]] 07:35, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
: I come across this apallingly often in my daily work. I work with patient information sheets for clinical studies. They are supposed to be worded "patient-friendly", so the people who write them convert those nasty mL into much nicer teaspoons and tablespoons. And then you get gems like "During the entire study, a total volume of approximately 31.33 tablespoons of blood will be taken from you." Which is EXTREMELY reader-friendly and easy to grasp, apparently. Recently, I even had a comment trail by previous editors attached to this, where one editor asked "shouldn't we round this to something more usable"? and the other one answered "Nah, you'll only get problems with rounding errors from inconsistently rounding up or down throughout the document, and then someone will complain. Just leave it like it is" --[[Special:Contributions/93.241.210.5|93.241.210.5]] 07:55, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:: A better solution there would seem to be to find an everyday object of about the capacity of the amount to be taken (a coffee mug?), and use that as a comparison. A volume in mL is likely to be just as meaningless as the 31.33 tablespoons. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:39, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:::Yes exactly, and some authors actually do this (using coffee mugs, for example), but others just seem to stupidly follow some guidebook for easy language ("convert mL to teaspoons or tablespoons") out of fear that "someone", either a superior or a client, might complain if they deviate from it, even when they KNOW they are writing bullshit. This is the stuff that ultimately brings down civilizations IMHO. --[[Special:Contributions/93.241.210.5|93.241.210.5]] 10:51, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:::But ml (or mL) is certainly better than tablespoons, as tablespoons are much weirder units (''real'' tablespoons vary in size, shape etc.). [[Special:Contributions/2001:4C4E:1C16:4500:78C5:2A84:7075:E1DB|2001:4C4E:1C16:4500:78C5:2A84:7075:E1DB]] 11:24, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:::: I'm not convinced about 'certainly better'. If it's still meaningless for practical purposes, well meaningless is meaningless - there aren't really degrees of meaninglessness. It doesn't really matter if it's more precisely defined. It's a bit like asking me if I want some set of technical instructions in Mandarin or Sumerian. The Sumerian is likely to require more approximation of words, but that doesn't mean the Mandarin is going to be any more useful to me. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 14:24, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:: I am a translator and I encounter this as well, although not exactly often. I remember a recent book about dinosaurs that listed sizes and weights in both metric and imperial units, and it was very apparent where an overly precise conversion was use. {{unsigned ip|185.180.14.152|09:25, 21 May 2026 (UTC)}}
: In that case, though, it probably is appropriate, (at least to the mm, if not to the 0.1mm) in that the sizes have been specifically defined within the laws of the game, and then translated to metric for use in the modern world, without wanting to change the actual sizes of the tables. A professional player might well notice if the size of the table was 4mm out. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:39, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

This sort of stuff would be unfathomable if we didn't have Randall. --[[Special:Contributions/134.157.254.7|134.157.254.7]] 08:22, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

It always makes me smile when I get my milk delivered by the quaint old traditional milk man in '568mL' glass bottles. Should we have some notable real-world examples on the page? [[User:JeffUK|JeffUK]] ([[User talk:JeffUK|talk]]) 08:46, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:I don't know. There are a lot of times where packets have wierd measurements on them - I've found packets with '168g' on them. [[User:GSLikesCats307|GSLikesCats307]] ([[User talk:GSLikesCats207|talk]]) 10:01, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:: Those were probably previously 180g, but they've sneakily reduced the quantity while charging the same price. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:24, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

This is more of a pet peeve than a hobby. Ugh! [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 08:51, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps inspired the recent Artemis 2 mission in which it was announced the craft would make an "approximately 9.8 feet/sec" burn (3m/s)? {{unsigned ip|82.37.105.250|09:27, 21 May 2026 (UTC)}}
:There was this really funny exchange during one of the press conferences. Some reporter from Reuters went on and on about whether or not the mission was ''really'' going to be the farthest anyone was from the Earth, and cited Apollo 13's stated records v. the Artemis II mission. And after some time, one of the NASA people on the panel calmly replied, "The figures you stated were in ''nautical'' miles." They then moved on to the next question in awkward silence. [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 13:30, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

I love this because one of my “original units” epiphanies was realizing that 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit normal body temperature is a conversion from the accepted 37 degrees Celsius, a convenient whole number. [[User:LouK|LouK]] ([[User talk:LouK|talk]]) 14:15, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
:Normal body temperature is acutally a range, generally from 97 F to 99 F (if measured with an oral thermometer- will be different if using a body surface or rectal thermometer) [[User:BorQhue del Sol|BorQhue del Sol]] ([[User talk:BorQhue del Sol|talk]]) 14:54, 21 May 2026 (UTC)
::Really good example too cause the precision is actively misleading! This is how you get people calling 911 cause they measured 99.1 F on their thermometer and "they saw your temperature should be 98.6 F" [[Special:Contributions/38.15.87.124|38.15.87.124]] 23:27, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Another possibility is that someone had 200m of rope, but needed 17.2m and cut those off, so they could only determine that the remaining length of rope was not enough to reach the seabed and in conclusion the bay must be deeper than 182.8m, coincidentally close to 100 fathoms. The proper way to deal with a unit conversion however isn't to quibble about significant digits but to get a proper measurement, because if the only number you have is fathoms, chances are there's a more recent measurement recorded with a more recent unit. You would probably end up with "deeper than 200m", but again, don't randomly choose the significant digit. {{unsigned ip|94.31.94.181|14:32, 21 May 2026 (UTC)}}
:Along similar(ish) lines, but still fathom-based, I was going to add to the explanation something like "Furthermore, the statement itself is only that "some of" the bay is deeper than the quoted limit, suggesting that a significant (though perhaps not major) proportion dips below the arbitrary limit".
:When conducting the sounding with their (no more than) 100-fathom plumbline, the original survey (probably more concerned about shallows than 'deeps', if for nautical chart use) found parts where they could not reach the bottom. It would be extremely unlikely that whole swathes of these sub-100-fathom areas were wide and perfectly flat areas that didn't even go below 100.1 fathoms (20cm more than they were capable of testing).
:If you are wanting to hedge your bets (perhaps because now you need to know what rating your new survey submersible/UAV must have, to operate correctly) then your assumptions from the existing data may be that there are probably some places that ''are'' significantly deeper than 182.8(8)m, in case you need to prepare for 200m (or 250m, or more, depending upon the 'wides' on the existing chart that may contain such 'deeps'), or whatever suitable tolerance limits are advertised as available when budgeting for the equipment required.
:Or be prepared to establish the 'true' seabed(/lakebed?) profile when getting back on site with your more modern surveying equipment (whatever units and accuracy/precision it is prepared to give you) and make a decision how to deal with any unforssen underwater chasms (skip them until the better prepared followup expedition, or push the hardware beyond the limits once it has done its job nicely everwhere else it could be used safely). [[Special:Contributions/82.132.238.236|82.132.238.236]] 16:34, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

I worked in a warehouse (in the United States) when I was younger and the quickest way to distinguish different shipments was by piece count and weight - only after matching those would you bother looking at the actual 10+ digit reference number. Most weights were precise, but certain types of freight that weren't billed by weight had consistent, weirdly-specific values in intervals of roughly 110 lbs: 220, 330, 441, ... 882, 992 lbs etc. Then one day a light bulb blinked on above my head and I realized 50kg is about 110 lbs... someone had just converted nominal weights in kilograms into pounds. I've enjoyed looking for patterns like this ever since. [[Special:Contributions/2601:603:200:6010:28C2:2006:2304:21A2|2601:603:200:6010:28C2:2006:2304:21A2]] 17:32, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm reminded of Project Hail Mary where Rocky estimates that Eridians sleep between 40000₆ and 220000₆ Eridian seconds. He can do lightning-fast mental arithmetic and converts to base-10 Earth seconds for Grace's benefit, but he doesn't round again, so it comes out as the impossibly precise range of 12,265 to 42,928 seconds. — [[Special:Contributions/2600:100C:B026:30F2:793C:84C0:E2D0:8A73|2600:100C:B026:30F2:793C:84C0:E2D0:8A73]] 23:56, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

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Talk:3248: 182.8 Meters