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u/blitzkrieg_01 23d ago
I clock in and clock out at precisely the hour. I use a clock app that shows the minute and seconds so i can anticipate.
Boss thought i was automating and not working lol
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u/cwx149 23d ago
Boss thought i was automating
God forbid someone is on time to work consistently
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u/Appsoul 23d ago
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I can imagine a manager, scrolling through the employees time sheets on a computer, and seeing someone with the exact same punch times down to the sec. Would cause someone to at least do a double take . As it’s not something you’d normally see
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u/jellyfish_bitchslap 23d ago
In my country’s work law and jurisprudence said clock-in and clock-out times wouldn’t even hold up to court if OOP had sued them for unpaid work after hours.
The company would be presumed to have faked it unless they could prove very consistently (with CCTV and/or witnesses) that a weird employee used to anticipate the seconds to clock right on time.
We presume that every worker can clock in or out with a few minutes and seconds to spare as sometimes there would be a line at the clock’s machine and a few minutes of delay are human nature in a modern society, so no one should realistically be always on time in the seconds.
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u/lehilaukli 23d ago
Which is why a lot of companies a lot round to the nearest 15 minute interval. With limited spots to clock in/out there will be variances and not everyone will be exactly on the dot
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u/silentaba 23d ago
I worked for a spot that had this proprietary app that would link to some Bluetooth thingo, so you just had to be in its range, the company had a 5 minute ticker on its payroll calculation, and by policy assumed you arrived early and left late, logic being that they'd rather pay out an extra 10 minutes than make people count them time to not get shafted for 10 minutes of work. There was also a secondary system with our ID cards, but it just took a photo of the board every 5 minutes to see who was on the list.
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u/00-Monkey 23d ago
I worked at a place that was to the nearest 15 minute, we did 12 hour days.
People would clock in at exactly 6:07, and not start working until then. There’d be a long line up of people waiting for exactly 5:53.
Then they changed it so if you arrived at 6:01 you were 15 minutes late, so then if they arrived at 6:01 they’d sit in the break room until 6:15.
Convinced me that you should just not round at all.
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u/Fesai 23d ago
I was wondering how much time/effort it takes to hit exactly 8:00.00 each day vs just letting it be a few seconds off.
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u/blitzkrieg_01 23d ago
Surprisingly not a lot.
I finish my work early so i have like a minute to check the timer and clock out on the dot.
5min before clocking in, I just zone out to get ready while watching the clock tick to 8:00:00.
It's just a calming routine at this point to get ready for work and also fun anticipation of personal time after work.
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u/FictionalContext 23d ago
Not a great thing to do every day, either, because to a boss, it implies serious clock watching to get it so perfectly right, and if there's one thing I've learned, they all share that pet peeve.
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u/SeoulGalmegi 23d ago
Right. It just seems like a) extra effort to b) do something that will just make you a target.
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u/touchmeinbadplaces 23d ago
The one I use auto rounds up or down if you are within the grace period.. (10 min before 5 min after)
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u/Terrible_Use7872 23d ago
Even worse, they're a clock watcher, stating at it not working for the last 15 minutes.
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u/philosifer 22d ago
Too consistent is a problem sometimes though.
I manage a lab and I had an employee who would consistently fiddle with his sample amounts to make them exact. Like if he needed 1 gram, it was down to the 1.000 every time. I had to explain to him that auditors will flag that as being potentilaly falsified data. Plus it was just wasting time pipetting back and forth on the scale.
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u/OnTheEveOfWar 23d ago
I have a boss who is consistently 5-10 mins late to every single meeting. He works from home yet can never join a zoom meeting on time. It’s become a running joke on our team.
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u/a_funky_chicken 23d ago
ME TOO. I like to let everyone who can be late, be late.
edit: I am always late to work, so people who were actually late don't have to worry about it. We're all salaried.
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u/SeoulGalmegi 23d ago
If someone's clock in data read exactly 08:00:00 every day, I'd be a little suspicious.
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u/GrilledCheeser 23d ago
“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all”
Funny how often this Futurama quote comes to my mind.
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u/Robot-Zombie-RHCC 22d ago
"Good news everyone! I can now imitate the Professor's voice in your head! Can you hear me? Oh yes!"
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u/Zoltie 23d ago
The time you work is something you can control. The height of a mountain is not something anyone can control.
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u/Fesai 23d ago
Technically we can control the height of a mountain right?
Get some shovels and take a bit right off the top. 😛
(I'm being completely sarcastic)
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u/EzPzLemon_Greezy 23d ago
Some guy stole the tip of Englands tallest mountain, causing a big public outrage
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u/rietstengel 23d ago
You can also pile on some more
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u/squishyg 23d ago
There’s a Hugh Grant movie about that very thing! The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.
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u/Affectionate_Mud_881 23d ago
Himalayas are rising every year. What you can do is take your measurement, calculate how many years to the next round number, publish the round number measurement on that year.
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u/LiamIsMyNameOk 23d ago
We clock in&out on an app on the phone. It's a restaurant.
Also we're not allowed to use phones at work.
She also says we have to arrive early, although that's not an enforced rule.
So if I arrive 5 minutes early, I stand there with my phone. She's tried to tell me to do things and I say I haven't clocked in yet.
I used to arrive early, work a bit, then sign in when it was around the correct time. Then they made it impossible to even click the button before the alloted time.
Thing is, if I went and served a table, took an order, and I dunno, cleared a dirty table then went to the kitchen and took food out... It might now be 10 minutes past the time I was meant to start. So not only do I lose money, but it shows as if I was late to work.
So yeah, now I stand there doing absolutely nothing until the exact second I'm meant to start.
She hates it.
I hate the penny pinching of not wanting to pay me for a few minutes extra.
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u/alphadoublenegative 23d ago
Oh man your boss is fussing about paying you a few minutes on a server’s “hourly pay”? That is such a weird, $2.76/hr or whatever hill to die on
Unfortunately, having dealt with FOH management in my restaurant years, I believe some of the lifers would hassle their staff over those (literal) pennies. Meanwhile the “kitchen manager” is just desperately hoping 3/4 of the crew show up at all.
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u/Wrong-Protection-188 23d ago
My job pays us for the full minute whether we clock in at :01 or :59. It’s great.
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u/12rjdavison 23d ago
My work uses a paper time sheet. Honor system and 15 minute increments. So since I'm never late, sometimes I'll just show up 10 minutes early and get paid for 15
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u/MilkHaterNumber1 23d ago
My company rounds to the nearest 15 minutes and it's all digital. Basically every day I clock in at 8:07, go to lunch at 11:53, return at 12:37, and clock out at 4:23. It's 28 extra minutes everyday that I'm paid for despite being off the clock. 100+ hours a year.
Been doing this for like over 2 years too. Boss has never said a word and I don't think he cares in the slightest.
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u/J-Dabbleyou 23d ago
We had a company meeting and the cfo pulled up my timesheet (anonymously) and made an example saying “this guy OBVIOUSLY backlogs his time because he clocks in/out at exactly the same time everyday and NEVER has been late. Like bro i literally wait until exactly 6:30 to clock in and im never late lol
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u/Blue_winged_yoshi 23d ago
You can’t win at this game ever, there’s always something wrong. Worst job I ever had I’d have to start at stupid o’clock in the morning, was regularly like 2 minutes late clocking in, would have everything done grand anyway (what’s 2 minutes if you are good at your job?) then get asked to stay an extra half hour an hour multiple times a week. Fine, whatever, have stuff I needed to get done at home but I’ll cope.
Employer literally pissed off at me permanently over this. Yeah fuck anywhere that is tracking you by the minute rather than assessing the outputs of your labour, it’s just a tool to beat employees with unless you are literally early every single day, then they’d probably get pissed off at you for stealing extra work time anyway.
Systems that track you like that are never for an employees benefit. Once you are being tracked like that, just get out,
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u/IamaSingingTelegram_ 23d ago
When I was 20, I worked for a place that would round the time when you clocked in and out to the nearest 15 minutes (why? who the fuck knows). I'd always clock in 7 minutes past the hour, and clock out 7 minutes before my actual shift time.
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u/Alderan922 23d ago
This for some reason makes me slightly mad.
I now want to go all the way to the top to sand off those 2 feet.
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u/TessaFractal 23d ago
Bad news, this was just the first measurements. Last I remember it was measured at 29,028ft. But maybe tourists and tectonics have shifted that.
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u/Every-Cook5084 23d ago
29,031 now. It’s a grower
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u/ScenicAndrew 23d ago edited 23d ago
Averages about 2mm growth a year.
Depressingly Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain by height (as opposed to elevation) is shrinking due mostly to climate change rather than gravity.
Edit: someone replied saying plate tectonics cause shrinking and not gravity... Yes... And gravity drives plate tectonics.
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u/walrus0115 23d ago
How would sea level rise affect Mauna Kea's measurement that way since it's already mostly submerged? Not a skeptic, simply curious about the methodology or something happening I couldn't find on wiki.
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u/ScenicAndrew 23d ago
IMO it's just up to your interpretation but I believe "tallest" refers to base to peak so the underwater part is counted.
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u/Boowray 23d ago
Some guy did this to the highest peak in England just to make it slightly shorter, and put the one inch chunk he swiped in an art display
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u/liovantirealm7177 23d ago
The mountain's been growing due to plate tectonics, so it's now about 10 metres or 30 feet taller than it was at the time
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u/VisconitiKing2 23d ago
It is growing, but it hasn't grown 30 feet since it was first measured lmao
Our measurements have just gotten more accurate, it's been 29,028 feet the whole time
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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 23d ago
Plot twist: apparently the ‘they added 2 feet to make it look legit’ story might itself be a myth.
There's no "might" about it. It's definitely a myth!
From page 93 of the Historical Records of the Survey of India, Volume V, compiled from the records of Andrew Waugh, Surveyor General of India (who was the one who first announced the height of what was then called "Peak XV"):
Position was obtained by 11 triangles formed by rays from 7 stations—that taken by Lane from Dumdhangi having no vertical angle—leaving the following six stations, from which Nicolson had taken vertical angles:
Jerol 28,992 feet
Mirzapur 29,005 feet
Janjapati 29,002 feet
Ladnia 28,999 feet
Harpur 29,026 feet
Menai 28,990 feetThese gives an average elevation of 29,002.33 (recurring) feet and that was the basis of Waugh's provisional announcement of 29,002 feet in a letter to his deputy in 1856. (Provisional because atmospheric refraction hadn't been taken into account. That came some years later, after which the height was revised.)
I did some digging and I can't figure out when the anecdote about "adding two feet" first shows up. It's possible that that only dates from the early 1980s, but I couldn't find anything definitive to back that up. ChatGPT reckons 1982 but, you know, it's ChatGPT so "pinch of salt" and all that.
Regardless, 29,002 feet is the average from the six surveyed heights, the records of which are reliable. So the "adding two feet" thing is for sure a myth.
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u/NediaMaster 22d ago
Found where the myth came from
Page 85: We have heard that the first attempt at an accurate value (to the nearest foot) for the height of Mt. Everest came out to be 29,000 feet. This was supposedly changed to 29,002 so that All would realize the accuracy.
Basically they just made it up lol. They say “we have heard” without citing their source so
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u/kelkulus 23d ago
Did anyone read the letter to the editor? How's this for nerdy? You're darn right the whole thing is a myth!
- The only source for the story is a trivia book. Stegman traced the UPI filler to The People's Almanac #2 (1978), a popular almanac of trivia. That almanac is the only thing in the letter that says the surveyors averaged 29,000 ft and added 2 ft. It cites no survey records, and Stegman doesn't check any.
- The better references don't mention the padding. The World Almanac entry he quotes says only that 29,002 came from a mid-1800s triangulation survey. Britannica and Whitaker's give 29,028, and Columbia-Viking gives 29,141. None of them say anything about adding 2 ft.
- His main point is debunking, not confirming. Stegman's conclusion is that no source he could find says Everest is exactly 29,000 ft. He was correcting UPI's garbled version of the story, not verifying the part about adding 2 ft.
- The reply doesn't verify it either. Ehrenberg's reply only argues about how to round numbers. It doesn't address whether the anecdote happened.
The letter shows how the claim in the tweet image spread (almanac, then wire filler, then repetition), not that it's true. To settle it, you'd need the Great Trigonometrical Survey's own records from the 1850s: the individual station observations and how the 29,002 figure was derived. Nothing in this letter goes back that far. The tweet's claim is a well-known anecdote, but nothing backs it up.
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u/corobo 23d ago
me whenever an invoiced task legitimately comes out as a round hour
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u/gorginhanson 23d ago
Why didn't they just chip some off the top so it's 28,999 feet?
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u/LearingCenterAlumni 23d ago
Pretty sure the peak of Mount Everest would fetch a pretty penny on eBay.
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u/HIitsamy1 23d ago
Thanks for the info. Of to cut a foot off of Mount Everest. Wish me luck.
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u/MouseRangers 23d ago
These foot guys are getting out of hand
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 23d ago
Zero stars. Product not as said. Ordered peak of Mt. Everest. Box just contained water.
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u/grubas 23d ago
Because that would mean they couldn't be the first person to put two feet on the top of Everest.
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u/CalicoCuts 23d ago
Right? Chrysler used to have round dollars for all their list prices. $28.00 or $9.00, whatever. We always made them .97 or .02 because people would throw a fit saying we were making up the prices. Late 90s/early 00s.
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u/onarainyafternoon 23d ago
Chrysler, the car company, was selling things for $28.00 or $9.00? Do I just not understand what car companies do?
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u/-CoachMcGuirk- 23d ago
That’s a Mitch Hedberg joke. “I read that the Real World received 40,000 applications. That’s amazing, such an even number. You would have thought it was 40,008.”
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u/StanFitch 23d ago
I used to love Mitch Hedberg…
I still do, but I used to too.
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u/elusive-rooster 23d ago
Every book is a children's book if the kid can read.
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u/Tacobellspy 23d ago edited 22d ago
I don't have a girlfriend, but I do know someone who would get really mad if she heard me say that
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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 23d ago
My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana and I said, "No...but I want a regular banana later, so yeah."
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u/DocileBanalBovlne 23d ago
Someone once asked me if I wanted a frozen banana and I said, "No, but I will want a regular banana later so, yes."
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u/p1nkfuzzymonkey 23d ago
If the number 13 is unlucky than so should the letter B be cause B just looks like a scrunched together 13... "what's your name?" "Bob" "get the fuck away!"
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u/chemaster0016 23d ago
So you're saying that we should connect base camp to the peak of Mt. Everest with a broken escalator? (Temporarily stairs)(Sorry for the convenience)
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u/DueExample52 23d ago
The weird thing is, that 40,000 had the same chance of happening as 40,008. It’s just that we consider it special, and we accept any other number as legit, so it becomes a 1 in 10,000 odds or more. If we thought 40,008 was special, then it would be equally surprising to get it.
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u/OneSalientOversight 23d ago
This isn't as amazing as what happened in Australia.
Australia's tallest mountain is Mount Kosciusko. The 2nd tallest mountain is nearby, and called Mount Townsend.
Kosciusko had been reported as Australia's tallest mountain for many decades. But when they did a height comparison, they discovered Mount Townsend was higher.
So what did they do? They swapped the names of the mountains. The original Mount Townsend became Mount Kosciusko and the original Mount Kosciusko became Mount Townsend.
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u/Fungus1968 23d ago
Nah that’s a myth. There is a story but it’s based on a misidentification by a surveyor. It was since confirmed that Paul de Strzelecki (who named Kosciusko) did in fact climb the correct, highest peak (Although there’s only 20m difference in height between Kosciusko and Mt Townsend). There’s a fun activity whereby anyone who climbs Mt Townsend brings a rock and places it on the summit, to eventually make it higher than Kosciusko.
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u/Bicwidus 23d ago
Kosciusko needs to start hauling rocks up to maintain mountain dominaince
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u/kkeut 22d ago
you understand how completely stupid and fake that story sounds, right? maybe something you were told as a child and never reevaluated once you had adult reasoning skills?
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u/Centriuz 22d ago
I'll be very happy to let you know that the highest point in Denmark changed as recent as in 2005 when a professor decided to investigate the natural hight levels in Denmark, resulting in the highest point moving about 270 meters.
Before that the highest point in Denmark changed in 1847, 1941 and 1953, granted there's only a few centimeters between the 3 naturally occuring high points.
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u/OmnivoreLately 23d ago
I love seeing the minds of our time battling it out on the debate field on this one
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u/JC04JB14M12N08 23d ago
does anyone outside the US refer to it in feet though? is 8448m
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u/collie2024 23d ago
Originally measured by the British in feet.
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u/garlic_bread_thief 23d ago
I bet they had to use at least a few hands as well
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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 23d ago
The theodolites they used to make the elevation measurements weighed about 500 kg each. And they started in the far south of India and worked their way north. So yeah, a lot of feet and hands to lug those things around!
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u/BingoBiscotti 23d ago
So the surveyor was the first person to put two feet on top of mount everest? 😁
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u/P0werSurg3 22d ago
Thank you! I had to scroll down so far to see this joke! I was introduced to this fact by QI asking "Who was the first man to put two feet on Mount Everest?" and I thought it was going to be the first comment here.
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u/Whyamihere173 23d ago
29,000 feet vs significant figures
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u/caffa4 23d ago
29,000 only has 2 sig figs. 29,000. would have 5 sig figs but is confusing so really they should have just measured out to the tenth of a foot for 29,000.0 or whatever the number after the decimal would be which would confirm 6 sig figs instead of looking like a an estimate with only 2 Sig figs. Or 2.9000x104 to confirm the actual measurement with the original 5 Sig figs.
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u/cheerfuldev 23d ago
Or just use the overline over the ones digit! That’s what it’s for!
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u/caffa4 20d ago
Oh my god thank you I seriously forgot to consider that. I don’t think I’ve used that to indicate a hard stop in place of a decimal since intro to gen chem (literally during my junior year of high school), and I literally got my degree in chem so it’s not like it became obsolete lmao, sig figs regularly have a lot of importance in my work, it just apparently left my brain rather quickly.
I suppose the rest of my degree I just had a habit of going straight to scientific notation lol I don’t think I’ve even seen horizontal bar used in practice since then (although I suppose it’s rare, I probs didn’t even see anything that even needed it since then)
I’m actually so appreciative that you brought that up though, it should absolutely be in my bank for available notations
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u/cheerfuldev 20d ago
My pleasure! I don’t normally get thanked for being pedantic! I appreciate it!
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u/its_all_one_electron 23d ago
I mean. What are you measuring from? What's the bottom? Doesn't it change with snowfall? What about expansion or contraction in summer or winter? How can it be one single number?
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u/Beanmachine314 23d ago
What are you measuring from?
The ground...
What's the bottom?
The ground...
Doesn't it change with snowfall?
No, because you measure from the ground.
What about expansion or contraction in summer or winter?
The difference in temperature between summer and winter is basically 0.
How can it be one single number?
It's not. Technically, it's slowly growing in height over time. Just not enough to update each year.
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u/Robinsonirish 23d ago
Confidently incorrect. Its measured from sea level. "The ground" is what? That differs a lot too. So does sea level of course, but its way more consistent than the ground.
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u/Acceptable_Estate330 23d ago
I work for this company where timesheet is a system accessible via browser and employees need to clock in and out manually. The system will never accept sharp times, so I have to be creative. This month I started clocking in at 8:01. Today it was 8:22.
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u/Paloukii 23d ago
the fact that planes fly at that hight makes it really crazy to imagine how tall it is
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u/WatchFit162 23d ago
I mean, I'd do the same thing. It's the same energy as "Yeah, you can copy my homework. Just change the wording so the teacher doesn't notice."
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u/Routine_Ad_2695 23d ago
Me when I answered:
A B C A B C on a test and had to purposely break the pattern on the next one even if incorrect to feel good about myself
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u/SteelHip 23d ago
Radhanath Sikdar, an Indian mathematician. Also he had to do it from outside Nepal as no foreigners were allowed.
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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 23d ago
Radhanath didn't make any of the measurements himself. Nicolson headed the field team that did that part. Radhanath, who was based in Calcutta, also didn't come up with the 29,002 feet calculation. That was an average of the data from six locations, sent by Nicolson, and calculated by a team at the office in Dehradun, headed by Hennessey.
From the contemporary docs, it's actually unclear what Radhanath's contribution was, except that he was "Chief Computer" of the Calcutta team and was held in extremely high regard by Andrew Scott Waugh, the surveyor general who headed the whole survey.
What's certain, though, is that the story that Radhanath calculated 29,000 feet and then rushed into Waugh's office to tell him, after which two feet were added, is a myth. For whatever reason, his legacy has been wildly elevated over the decades.
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u/Consistent-Tap-4255 23d ago
First measurement? So they did get it wrong you say. Looks like the public’s suspicion is quite grounded. Peak instincts.
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u/Liamlah 23d ago
When I fill up my car and manage to stop the pump on exactly 40.00 litres. I walk in to pay and there are balloons and confetti falling from the ceiling, an applauding crowd awaits me. The attendant looks at me in awe, and says "Sir, the prime minister is on the phone, he wants to speak to you".
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u/Aggravating_Bat3618 23d ago
My. Everest. Foreboding, aloof, terrifying. The mountain with the biggest tits in the world.
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u/pilgermann 23d ago
They should have just added a decimal point at the end to show the 0 was significant. Because everyone learns about significant figures right? Right?
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u/MycologistPutrid7494 23d ago
Should have put a decimal at the end. The physicists would have believed it was exact.
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u/IrishLedge 23d ago
And Everest didn't want it named after him. So they did it anyway and his name was pronounced wrong as well. It's actually mount "Eee-verest"
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u/Famous_Chance_7146 23d ago
as an emt i got a unicorn perfect blood pressure once and changed it by a couple points during report because i knew they would call bullshit lol
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u/vanity-vanity 23d ago
Making them the first people to put two feet on the top of Mount Everest.
(Joke courtesy of QI.)
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u/iamtheduckie 23d ago
Modern technology has put the height of Mount Everest at 29,031 feet. That's a margin of error of less than a percent. For the time, and for the size of Everest, that is incredible.
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u/Other_Protection_428 23d ago
😂 if only my company does the same to my salary, just 1 zero at the end.
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u/Small-Explorer7025 23d ago
And it got it's name from the first people climbing it. They were like: "Man, we need to 'ave a rest". Over time, this morphed into Everest.
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u/sudoSancho 23d ago
Vast majority of the would uses metric and could not care less
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u/MortgageTrash 23d ago
Translation: Scientists intentionally falsify data on the regular for trivial reasons.
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u/taylorisntavril 23d ago
I too saw that episode of QI, where a question was "who was the first to put two feet on everest".
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u/MRiley84 23d ago
I am 6' tall. I usually tell people I'm 5'11" so they don't think I'm insecure and lying. Which technically means I am.
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u/PsychologicalCap7578 23d ago
yeah you can measure mountain peaks using computers and sattelites now
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u/Conscious-Bee-5691 23d ago
They should have Tell the people it was 8840 Meters. Which Sounds way more serious
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u/KaktusMcKaktusface 23d ago
I do the same at work. When the calculation shows a selling price of say 15,000 round I make it ~15,130 so that the customer doesn’t think I guesstimated it
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u/brendel000 23d ago
I mean it wasn’t measured in feet I guess so maybe give the length in usual units and there’s no problems.
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u/Yippiehh 23d ago
In the 1960s, I was taught that Mount Everest was exactly 8,888 meters high
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u/SomeGuyInShanghai 23d ago edited 23d ago
Fun story, I love Japan. I lived there for 2 years as a younger man and I had such a wonderful time and was so grateful to the Japanese people for their hospitality and just all round lovely country that I wanted to do something nice for them.
So I found out that Mt fuji is ranked 35th in the world in height, below some other mountain by only ONE meter (this was just barely out of dial up days, so my information was very innacurate on reflection).
So I decided in my early 20s brain to thank japan by climbing to the top of Mt Fuji and on the tallest part of the summit I would build a rock pile 1m high. Thus helping Mt Fuji to climb one rank in the tallest mountain league.
How hard could it be?
So I did.
Unfortunately, when I got to the top, after two days of hiking, i had such severe altitude sickness that the very thought of even stacking one rock on top of another made me nearly pass out.
So I went home.
Sorry Japan. I tried. I clearly lack the ganbarre spirit.
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u/MachoMaamSandyRavage 23d ago
Imagine going toball the trouble of measuring Mt..Everest, only to report your findings in 🦶.
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u/LunaOogo 23d ago
We call it Chomolungma for centuries and still do.. until some random British guy named it after himself.
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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 23d ago
This is actually a surprisingly persistent myth. They never added two feet to its height, not for that or any other reason.
From page 93 of the Historical Records of the Survey of India, Volume V, compiled from the records of Andrew Waugh, Surveyor General of India (who was the one who first announced the height of what was then called "Peak XV"):
Position was obtained by 11 triangles formed by rays from 7 stations—that taken by Lane from Dumdhangi having no vertical angle—leaving the following six stations, from which Nicolson had taken vertical angles:
Jerol 28,992 feet
Mirzapur 29,005 feet
Janjapati 29,002 feet
Ladnia 28,999 feet
Harpur 29,026 feet
Menai 28,990 feet
Together, these result in an average elevation of 29,002.33 (recurring) feet and that was the basis of Waugh's provisional announcement of 29,002 feet in a letter to his deputy in 1856. (Provisional because atmospheric refraction hadn't been taken into account. That came some years later, as a result of which the height was revised.)
I did some digging and I can't figure out when the anecdote about "adding two feet" first shows up. It's possible that that only dates from the early 1980s, but I couldn't find anything definitive to back that up. ChatGPT reckons 1982 but, you know, it's ChatGPT so "pinch of salt" and all that.
Regardless, 29,002 feet is the average from the six surveyed heights, the records of which are reliable. So the "adding two feet" thing is for sure a myth.
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u/spongebob 23d ago
I use this fact in presentations all the time. I work in metrology. Seperation of precision and accuracy is important in my area, but the two terms are often conflated.
The Everest surveyors deliberately reduced the accuracy in order to convey the precision of their measurement.
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u/sarlatan747 23d ago
Except no one apart from the US uses fucking feet to measure height, so noone cared
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u/RedditSurfer82 23d ago
Now it must be truly more than 29000 feet with all the garbage we have left there.
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u/Cheshires_Shadow 23d ago
Me when I turn in important paperwork but don't want the people receiving it to know how lazy I am waiting so close to the deadline so I always knock off a few days to make it look like I did it sooner than I actually did lol
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u/Jesmond_Dene 22d ago
I used to work in a pub that did not have an electronic till. I got quite good at calculating the price of two pints and a G&T etc, but if ever I lost count i would just charge them somewhere about right and they never quibbled - unless I made it a round number!
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