• blackbrook@mander.xyzEnglish
    8·
    3 days ago

    What exactly is that last phrase supposed to modify? I find that syntax confusing. Is that ironic or intentional?

    • rustydrd@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      2 days ago

      From Wikipedia:

      John Wilder Tukey (/ˈtuːki/; June 16, 1915 – July 26, 2000) was an American mathematician and statistician, best known for the development of the fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm and the box plot.

      The comic strip was published on June 18 2025, two days after Tukey’s 110th birthday. The last sentence combines a precise but wrong statement (Tukey would be 110,000 years old today) with an imprecise but correct statement (his birthday is some time that week).

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      12·
      3 days ago

      I think the joke is that 110.000 years is very precise, but that precision isn’t very useful when you only identify where that measurement zeroes as vaguely as “sometime this week”.

      • blackbrook@mander.xyzEnglish
        1·
        15 hours ago

        I get and appreciate that joke. I actually meant the last phrase of the quote (the unintended irony of my question’s vagueness now noted!), “which can always be made more precise.”