Difference between revisions of "Talk:2152: Westerns"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 11: Line 11:
  
 
:Hmmm... "A is as long as B" means pretty much the same as "A is as short as B". But "A is 3 times as long as B" is very different from "A is 3 times as short as B". English is weird. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.46|172.68.54.46]] 15:47, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
 
:Hmmm... "A is as long as B" means pretty much the same as "A is as short as B". But "A is 3 times as long as B" is very different from "A is 3 times as short as B". English is weird. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.46|172.68.54.46]] 15:47, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
 +
::That leads onto a personal bugbear. "Lasts three times longer (...than competing product)" logically means 4x the duration ("lasts one time longer..." would be original plus the new claim, or 2x, etc), not triple.  And, in the same (mis)spirit of above there's the closely associated "five times less (...thing that each product tries to banish/destroy/mitigate)". And there are even worse phrases (either badly composed or deliberately weaselish misinforming advertising/etc) that I won't even try to perpetuate by directly quoting. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.206|162.158.34.206]] 00:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
  
 
I'm pretty sure that using the same logic as this page, Trojan War, a 10 years long conflict which started to be depicted in Greek no later in 8th century BC when Illiad was written and continuing to be depicted in poems, literature and movies up to today, would easily win this. There could also be several contestants from Rome - while both Roman Republic and Roman Empire lasted hundreds of years, the time period depicting fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire, starting with First Triumvirate 60BC and ending with Nero's death AD 68, is 128 years heavily depicted in literature and movies since it happened to, again, now. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:32, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
 
I'm pretty sure that using the same logic as this page, Trojan War, a 10 years long conflict which started to be depicted in Greek no later in 8th century BC when Illiad was written and continuing to be depicted in poems, literature and movies up to today, would easily win this. There could also be several contestants from Rome - while both Roman Republic and Roman Empire lasted hundreds of years, the time period depicting fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire, starting with First Triumvirate 60BC and ending with Nero's death AD 68, is 128 years heavily depicted in literature and movies since it happened to, again, now. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:32, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Revision as of 00:03, 23 May 2019


How many times longer than the Regency era (a decade) have Regency romance novels existed? A fair bit more than three, I'd guess! (Perhaps 8.4, if we credit 1935 as the start and the Regency period as ten years) JohnHawkinson (talk) 05:41, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

A similar question has been answered about WW2 by Randall: https://what-if.xkcd.com/100/ Lupo (talk) 08:53, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Trivia about What-if #100: in another example of xkcd-inspired achievements, there now exists a short movie about the Anglo-Zanzibar war (http://www.imdb.com/keyword/anglo-zanzibar-war/). Plot keywords: stupid world record, cell camera, anglo zanzibar war.162.158.154.241 10:14, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

The M*A*S*H TV show lasted more than 3 times the length of the Korean War. Barmar (talk) 14:36, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I would have thought Randall would understand the difference between "longer than" and "as long as". Mattcoz (talk) 14:53, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm... "A is as long as B" means pretty much the same as "A is as short as B". But "A is 3 times as long as B" is very different from "A is 3 times as short as B". English is weird. --172.68.54.46 15:47, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
That leads onto a personal bugbear. "Lasts three times longer (...than competing product)" logically means 4x the duration ("lasts one time longer..." would be original plus the new claim, or 2x, etc), not triple. And, in the same (mis)spirit of above there's the closely associated "five times less (...thing that each product tries to banish/destroy/mitigate)". And there are even worse phrases (either badly composed or deliberately weaselish misinforming advertising/etc) that I won't even try to perpetuate by directly quoting. 162.158.34.206 00:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that using the same logic as this page, Trojan War, a 10 years long conflict which started to be depicted in Greek no later in 8th century BC when Illiad was written and continuing to be depicted in poems, literature and movies up to today, would easily win this. There could also be several contestants from Rome - while both Roman Republic and Roman Empire lasted hundreds of years, the time period depicting fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire, starting with First Triumvirate 60BC and ending with Nero's death AD 68, is 128 years heavily depicted in literature and movies since it happened to, again, now. -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:32, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

This makes me think of how the British TV show Dad's Army lasted for longer than the Second World War. --OliReading (talk) 23:12, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

The famous pony express existed only for 18 months. --162.158.74.9 02:19, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Bill Cody alias Buffalo Bill pulp and shows started around 1870 162.158.93.159 06:32, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I hate ambiguity when dealing with "mathish" language. This is not as irritating as when people say things like "three times as cold" or "twice as small", but it still bugs me. Does "three times longer" mean the same as "three times as long"? Given an initial event time of "t" and the longer time of "x", if "x" was "two years longer" than "t", that would mean "x-t= 2 years". It feels like "three times as long" means "x=3t" while "three times longer" means "x-t=3t" thus "x=4t". J-beda (talk) 12:59, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree, that three times longer than 40 years should be 160 years, not ~120 as in this case --Lupo (talk) 13:55, 21 May 2019 (UTC)