I know it depends on timing and stuff as far as their furthest distance from Earth. Is it the "distance travelled" statistic? Like actual mileage flown as opposed to absolute distance from Earth?

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

break the record by 1%, but also “no, they are not”, then which one is it?

let me point you to this part of my message:

meaningful difference

if an athlete breaks a record by 1%, it is noteworthy, because there was probably lot of effort behind that 1%.

if i say "I BROKE A RECORD TODAY, i went on a hike and walked 10 km today!" someone will ask "don't you do 10km every day?" and i will say "yeah, but usually it is 10000 metres, but today, it was 10150!" the person asking will likely fail to see the difference and why i care so much about some minor distinction.

and this mission while cool (i am not antiscience or anything) is hardly historical. it was historical 60 years ago, when they basically expected the astronauts to die and the fact they did not was unexpected surprise. president had speech prepared for that. i am pretty sure that the current one does not have such speech and it is not only because his vocabulary is stuck in elementary school.

that is why it bothers me, it is the inflation of language, where we use it in a way words are losing their meanings and it has long lasting effects on society. it is the same as when you label every political opponent fascist, then when real fascists get into power, you no longer have language to describe the problem.

Like actual mileage flown as opposed to absolute distance from Earth?

it is the straight distance from earth. currently the record is held by apollo 13 as 400,171 km (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13#cite_note-130), reached because the moon was at the phase of orbit where it is almost most distant from earth (the distance during its orbit varies between 360 and 405 kkm)

[–] walden@wetshav.ing 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Thanks for the explanation. It's an odd combination of pedantry and ignoring facts.

Apollo 13 - 400,171 km (248,655 miles)
Artemis 2 - 406,773 km (252,757 miles)

One of those is clearly further.

I tend to agree about language changing, presidents not having speech writers because they can't read anyway, etc., but in the case of "not breaking a record because it's not a high enough margin" I have to completely disagree.

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s an odd combination of pedantry and ignoring facts.

i am not ignoring the facts, you just don't like my interpretation of them and you are twisting meaning of the word (or maybe you are ignorant of the meaning... do you see what i did there? 😂) hoping it will support your argument. so i thank you for so nicely proving my point about the language abuse.

it is an odd pedantry to insist on calling 1,5% difference between two highly imprecise numbers, where one of them does not even exist yet, record breaking and historical, but you do you.

[–] walden@wetshav.ing 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What's your opinion of people dropping capital letters at the beginning of sentences over the years, especially in informal online spaces?

I just noticed one more thing. You confidently say that the current record is held by Apollo 13. In the link you provided earlier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13#cite_note-130), it says they only beat Apollo 10 by 240 km. If 240 km is good enough for you to believe 13 holds the record, then how come you don't want to accept the upcoming record with a difference of 6602 km?