Briefly set a new record for tallest human-made structure by getting my knit sweater snagged on the skydiving plane door as I jumped and not noticing until I’d landed.

https://explainxkcd.com/3058/

  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    If an unraveling sweater counts as a “tall structure”, then what about the space tether, where NASA used a 20 km long wire?

    • Successful_Try543@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      The comic lists tall structures existing in this moment. Aside from not starting at ground level, as an experiment, the space tether does not persist until today.

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍
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      2 days ago

      All of needs is a qualifier. “Permanent” or some appropriate synonym would work. Also, “structure” is probably technically true, but not colloquially, common-usage true.

      But: it’s a comic. XKCD’s main failing is that it’s mostly a serious, science-based unless it’s being outright silly, which triggers the pendant in us. Or, in some of us. My defense mechanism is that Randall is far, far more educated about these things, and I immediately fell stupid for being pedantic; like how you might feel when you find yourself criticizing the phrasing of a sentance in “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”.