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Peter S Magnusson
Personal blog · petersmagnusson.orgprogrammingculture
Peter S Magnusson's personal blog at petersmagnusson.org covers programming and culture. Since 2020, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 5 times, most often “Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? (2009)”. The last post was in 2016, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
One commenter links this 2009 post explaining why a mile is 5280 feet, citing it for the point that the figure is a historical accident and the Roman mile was 5000 Roman feet.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Thoughts on tech, the tech industry, and other random stuff
Most-linked posts?
- Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? (2009)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-08-27
What Hacker News says?
> The progression increases to generate values like 66, 660, 5280 7920, all values that form the "11" navigational system with a mile of 5280'. Flawed premise: the modern mile being 5280' is more or less an historical accident. The Roman mile was 5000 Roman feet. https://petersmagnusson.org/2009/09/15/why-are-there-5280-fe...
Comment linking /2009/09/15/why-are-there-5280-feet-in-a-mile/
on “What were these Roman objects used for?”Submitted Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? (2009) as a story · 311 points
HN discussionSubmitted Shakuntala Devi – The Human Computer (2016) as a story · 78 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? (2009) as a story · 23 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why are there 5280 feet in a mile? (2009) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion