I think that he has acounted for that too. For example, the mouse-over text says: <i>...The mouseover text has two hundred and forty-two characters.</i><p>It is indeed 242 characters. i.e. he considered the meta data too in the length.(That is why it is called self-descriptive)<p>Related read: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenos_paradoxes#Achilles_and_the_tortoise" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenos_paradoxes#Achilles_and_th...</a>