"130m in inches" works. I'm pretty sure that's the "native" syntax and anything else is fed through some kind of heuristic recogniser which obviously didn't work in this case. Very strange failure mode though!
Yeah, as I said I think that's because "to" is not the right syntax, so it fails the "native" calculator input and has to get translated into the proper syntax by some probabilistic system.
Michael Phelps's height, wingspan, and large hands and feet give him an advantage in swimming. His body also produces less lactic acid than his rivals, which shortens his recovery time. Jan 18, 2024
Beyond the punctuation, it's also arguably the wrong number: it's the maximum payload weight, not the weight of the aircraft itself, that's 144,379 kg for the 777 Freighter (according to the linked page), and e.g. 159,570 kg for the 777-300: https://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acdata_php/acdata_7773_en.php.
Correct, but to avoid confusion, search engines should present infobox results using the locale conventions of the search page (en-US in my example), not the source.
For instance, Google correctly reports Germany's 2022 GDP as $4.082 trillion in en-US and $4,082 Billionen in de-DE.
Sorry, I knew it is a risk that everyone gets different results on Google. For me the "featured snippet" is taken from this page, which was obviously generated by an LLM, and which plainly states that Phelps is 14 feet tall.
To me, it is a signifier that the web is truly dead, and LLMs killed it. The search engines are featuring the LLM outputs now.
Too low quality, I think it's just a crappy content farm and not an LLM (e.g. using "he did' instead of "he was" in the intro and the lactate threshold diagram is wrong)
It looks like a typo? The referenced article has it too:
“Phelps has huge palms that support his paddling ability and is 14 feet tall, which essentially act as flippers (the kind of fingerless arms that seals have).”
I wonder if Googles AI response will be even more confident because of your response. As for whatever reason your Comment appears in the snippet on Google Search
It's all Donald Trump links except for the news section which is a mix of articles that are either specific to Trump or mention Trump.
So what you describe is inaccurate for me and another HN reader who replied to you, and is probably the most inflammatory contribution one could make to this thread. There's nowhere to go with your comment that's likely to lead to fruitful conversation.
Their job is to surface useful search results at the top, and inaccurate or untrustworthy sources at the bottom. They used to be quite good at doing that.
In the intervening 15 minutes the Google featured snippet has changed, it is now the first paragraph of that page, instead of the paragraph that says he is 14 feet tall.
Note that the query is "does michael phelps have gigantic hands" and returns th text "Phelps has huge palms that support his paddling ability and is 14 feet tall, which essentially act as flippers (the kind of fingerless arms that seals have)." in the top response next to a picture showing him 6' 4".
If you search "how tall is michael phelps" you get the answer: 6′ 4″
