Inaccurate Maps, Revealing Data, and Systemic Rail Delays

Key Quotes

"all of the maps pretty much all the maps in the world like the digital maps right you know your google maps your apple maps your your whatever they all use this system called wgs 84 which is a system that was made in you're never going to believe this 1984 world geodetic system i believe 84 it is and this is you know just like a system that is able to store and and keep and communicate coordinates of all the different things so it knows that the post office is at this exact set of coordinates and it you know these are how maps work now china does not use this system since 2002 they basically have very tightly controlled the ability to make maps of china only chinese companies can make maps of china and they have to put it through this system called gcj 02 instead of wgs 84 which basically takes in accurate data of where everything is and it randomly adjusts it anywhere between 50 to 500 meters in a kind of random direction just to make the map all be a little bit like skewed in various ways but in random ways that you can't predict"

Adam Chase explains that China uses a proprietary mapping system, GCJ-02, which intentionally skews location data by 50 to 500 meters. This is done to prevent external companies from having precise mapping data of China, citing national security and economic reasons. The effect is that digital maps of China are inherently inaccurate in unpredictable ways.

"i only understand train station what does that phrase specifically mean what would you when would you use that in response um so if someone if you sort of lost the train of thought or you're not following it's kind of like um i'm aware of looking at any other country into this but it's like you say oh that's all a foreign language to me well we would say oh greek to me in english but then different countries say like i think in russia they say it's all arabic to me someone said it's all dutch we've done this on qi so i've completely lost track of who actually uses them in the us we would say greek we would say it's all greek to me"

James Harkin introduces the German idiom "Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof," which translates to "I only understand train station." Harkin explains that this phrase is used in Germany to express a lack of understanding, similar to saying "It's all Greek to me" in English. This highlights how language can develop unique expressions based on cultural contexts.

"deutsche bahn can give and deutsche bahn can take sometimes you'll be able to get on a train much earlier than you thought because you'll be getting on a train that was supposed to leave an hour ago but it's been delayed an hour and other times your train will get hugely delayed and so in a lot of our you know the game we've played most in germany is a tag game where you're chasing after somebody and it's like when you enter deutsche bahn territory i would say that just enter a world of extraordinary variance but it's like it's completely observable like it is the case that deutsche bahn trains are delayed way way more than any of their contemporaries like only about 60 ish percent of the high speed deutsche bahn trains reach their destinations on time which is defined as being within uh five or six minutes"

Adam Chase describes the unpredictable nature of German train travel, specifically with Deutsche Bahn. Chase notes that the trains can be a significant factor in their game, "Jet Lag," due to frequent delays and inconsistencies. He highlights that only about 60% of high-speed trains arrive on time, challenging the stereotype of German efficiency.

"the world record for a woman in high heels the record for someone hula hooping and the record for someone wearing armor now where does the robot finish in that list oh i'm going between straitjacket and you okay i'm going to go between james and person in high heels yeah and i'm going to go faster than the world record just above the hula hoop well dan's right it's basically not quite as fast as me is the is the headline you are faster than all running robots is what i'm taking"

Dan Schreiber discusses the performance of a robot that completed a half marathon, comparing its time to various human records. Schreiber humorously concludes that the robot was not as fast as him, implying that human runners, even with unusual challenges like wearing armor or hula hooping, can still outperform robotic competitors in certain contexts.

"the idea is that you would read these letters while eating your cornflakes in the morning that's really cool i've never come across that before and who were these letters purported to be from about how like the war was going badly um i i don't think that's overly mattered i think it was i think as in some of it might have been just as it were a leaflet talking about propaganda i think in some cases they wrote them as if they were like pen pals from america germans who happened to get away saying i'm sending you a random letter they could have pretended that they were from hitler and hitler's like oh dear mr schmidt i'm i'm writing to tell you that things aren't going quite as well as i imagined and i'm not as strong as you might think i am"

James Harkin explains Operation Cornflakes, a World War II propaganda effort where American bombers dropped forged letters onto German mail trains. Harkin details that the letters were intended to demoralize the German population by portraying the war as going poorly and Hitler as less powerful. The letters were written in various formats, including as if from pen pals or even from Hitler himself.

"the last thing that they did was to drop some cow pat over the exact spot and kit williams was going to do it but bamber gascoigne said no i should be the person to do it because i happen to know the average exact height of a cow's anus and therefore held it at the height and dropped it to give it the realism the accuracy of the splat how did he know that did he know that because that question had come up on university challenge the week earlier i assume so yeah exactly"

Dan Schreiber recounts a detail about the burial of the Masquerade Hair, a golden necklace hidden as part of a treasure hunt. Schreiber explains that Bamber Gascoigne, who helped bury the item, meticulously placed a cow pat over the spot to disguise it. Gascoigne's precise aim, based on knowing the average height of a cow's anus, is humorously attributed to a question he encountered on the quiz show "University Challenge."