# Tool Talk >  Metric vs. other measurement systems - chart

## Jon

Metric vs. other measurement systems.




Previously:

How pirates stole the metric system from America - photos
English/metric measurement error in the Mars Climate Orbiter

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jimfols (Aug 10, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 17, 2021),

volodar (Aug 25, 2020)

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## Karl_H

But the metric system is too confusing for most of us?

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## Frank S

> But the metric system is too confusing for most of us?



I must have paid better attention in school when I first started learning about the metric system it must have been somewhere around the mid 60's the one thing I figured out right away was metrics followed out monetary counting using the pennies as mm dimes as Cm, dollars as meters and the 1000.00 dollar bill as the kilometer

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## DIYSwede

If I'm not mistaken, the pic shows some Imperial length units and 
their different relative factors (and their multiplicative inverses: 1/x), all 42 of them:
*7/8, 1 (sic!), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 20, 25, 50, 63, 96, 100, 120, 1760 & 6080* 

AFAIK: This subject got pretty much flogged to death two years ago...
*Suggested reading for die-hard masochists with time to spare:*

How pirates stole the metric system from America - photos

-Thanks Jon, for bringing back exactly that, what I've laboriously tried to suppress ever since...  :Lol:

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Tonyg (Aug 11, 2020)

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## hemmjo

The history of measurement is indeed a fascinating one. Reading about the evolution of various measurement systems give us a perspective on the creativity of our ancestors. Knowing the history of measurement helps us understand the reasons for so many different units. I began teaching in the mid 70's when the convert to metric movement was in full swing the USA. Oh what fun that was. My contention then, as now, is that if you truly know HOW to measure, you will choose the unit appropriate what you are measuring and and audience you are measuring it for. 

For your enjoyment..

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Philip Davies (Mar 25, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 11, 2020)

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## jatt

Despite the fact my schooling was done with the metric system, have had to become reasonably familiar with imperial -- dealing with "old people" (ducks a flying spanner). Then theres the fact that a fair bit of the caravan stuff I deal with is still in feet. So I ensure all the tape measures in the shop have both measurements on them. 

Base 10 number system --- dunno how difficult that can be!!

Bought a block in town about 15 years ago -- damn thing was still measured in links (subset of chains apparently). Even my solicitor (well into his 60s back then) had to pull out the conversion tables for that one.

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## IntheGroove

How many fingers is a lid...

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## mklotz

> ...Bought a block in town about 15 years ago -- damn thing was still measured in links (subset of chains apparently). Even my solicitor (well into his 60s back then) had to pull out the conversion tables for that one.



The link is fascinating. The original area measure was an acre, the area of land a man could plow in a day, It was a furlong long, an eighth of a mile, and a chain wide, said chain being 66 feet long. When the need for a unit finer than a chain surfaced, some yokel decided to abandon the much touted inferial superiority of many divisors and divided it into one hundred links. It was a noble effort to introduce decimal simplicity but sadly left us with a link that is a comical 0.66 feet long - not 2/3 of a foot but close enough for folks who like to measure things with antiquated, outdated systems.

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## Unkle Fuzzy

The chain got me to thinking about Rods. I 330ft rolls of cattle fencing and that roll is also listed as 1 Rod turns out that 1 Rod equals 500 Links....

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## mklotz

> The chain got me to thinking about Rods. I 330ft rolls of cattle fencing and that roll is also listed as 1 Rod turns out that 1 Rod equals 500 Links....



Hmm, this quote from Wikipedia seems to contradict that...

The rod or perch or pole (sometimes also lug) is a surveyor's tool[1] and unit of length of various historical definitions, often between 3 and 8 meters. In modern US customary units it is defined as ​16 1⁄2 US survey feet, equal to exactly ​1⁄320 of a surveyor's mile, or a quarter of a surveyor's chain, and is approximately 5.0292 meters.

At 16.5 feet, a rod would be 16.5/0.66 = 25 links, a quarter of a surveyor's chain.

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## Unkle Fuzzy

Ooops, My mistake, a roll of fencing is 20 Rods not 1.

Been a while since I read that label.

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## jatt

Yeah a lot of those old measurements make my head spin a bit. 

Got my metric and as required - imperial.

Should'nt have bought a Seventies pommy tractor - prob Whitworth. So far, so good with my spanner and socket selection.

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## IntheGroove

My Norton 650 Atlas was Whitworth. Snap-On still sells Whitworth tools...

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## Toolmaker51

> Despite the fact my schooling was done with the metric system, have had to become reasonably familiar with imperial -- dealing with "old people" (ducks a flying spanner). Then theres the fact that a fair bit of the caravan stuff I deal with is still in feet. So I ensure all the tape measures in the shop have both measurements on them. 
> 
> Base 10 number system --- dunno how difficult that can be!!
> 
> Bought a block in town about 15 years ago -- damn thing was still measured in links (subset of chains apparently). Even my solicitor (well into his 60s back then) had to pull out the conversion tables for that one.



Aha; term "flying spanner" tells us which direction to aim..... JK of course. 
I've been subject to practice of dual-dimensioning and conversion awhile. Like hemmjo states, there is room and application for either. I do little programming, conversational at that. In most instances, mm entries are [seem] less susceptible to keystroke errors.
I'd say being able to select via touch of a button is best of both worlds.

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## basil3w

As I recall, a lid was 3 fingers of a sandwich baggie...

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Beserkleyboy (Aug 12, 2020),

IntheGroove (Aug 12, 2020),

Karl_H (Aug 12, 2020)

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## Nick79

What ever happened to the "Rule of thumb"?

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## Karl_H

"Rule of Thumb" has falsely been tied to to notion it is OK to beat your wife if your sick is smaller than your thumb, thus most of us don't use the phrase any more.

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## Jon

Teaching children to avoid measurement systems.

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baja (Aug 18, 2020)

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## mklotz

Don't laugh. There's probably a course in teacher's colleges where future teachers are taught how to convert feet to bicycles and pounds to hamburgers.

We're well into the third generation of the dumbing down of the population. Soon folks will have to go to a scribe to have something read to them or written for them. The elite scribes will be able to do simple sums (but no division) for their clients.

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baja (Aug 18, 2020),

rmn678 (Jan 26, 2021),

toeless joe (Aug 17, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 17, 2020)

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## Crusty

And everyone will call it mathematics, when it's arithmetic, because that's what _the_ _hive mind_ believes.


_Arithmetic_ is operations with numbers._Mathematics_ is manipulation of symbols (such as X).

I still know how to find the square root of a number with pencil and paper.

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## Toolmaker51

Incremental weight in beef, turkey, tofu, and/or other vegan substitutes? And height; penny-farthing or tiny clown cycles?

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## mklotz

> ...I still know how to find the square root of a number with pencil and paper.



I was taught that awkward system in grade school. I soon purged it from my memory bank. There's a much simpler way to find roots using Newton's method.

Consider this iterative equation...

x2 = (x1 + N / x1) / 2

where:

N = number whose root is to be found
x1 = initial estimate of root
x2 = improved estimate of root

We make a guess of the root, x1, plug it into this equation and get an improved estimate, x2. If this estimate isn't good enough for out purposes, we set x1 = x2 and repeat the process to get an even better estimate. This iterative procedure is repeated until x2 squared is close enough to N to satisfy our requirements.

An example will demonstrate. Let's find the square root of 6 (for reference, my calculator says 2.44949). Six is between 4 (2 squared) and 9 (3 squared) so a reasonable guess for x1 might be 2.5. Then

x2 = (2.5 + 6/2.5)/2 = 2.45 (squared = 6.00250)

Very close but let's do one more iteration...

x2 = (2.45 + 6/2.45)/2 = 2.44949 (squared = 6.00000026)

which would be good enough for most purposes.

I can hear you saying, "Yeah, but you picked an initial guess that was very close to the actual value!" A valid objection so let's try it with an initial guess that's downright silly, 7. Remember, 7 squared is 49, and that's far enough from 6 that even a schoolkid would know it's not a good choice. In addition, the square root of a number can never be greater than the number so, since 7 is greater than 6, choosing it as a first guess is particularly dumb.

x2 = (7 + 6/7)/2 = 3.9286

x2 = (3.9286 +6/3.9286)/2 = 2.7279

x2 = (2.7279 + 6/2.7279)/2 = 2.4637

x2 = (2.4637 + 6/2.4637)/2 = 2.4495

which, squared, is 6.0002..., close enough for the work I do. So, even with a laughable initial guess we got five significant figures in only four iterations. Clearly, one doesn't need to be a genius mathematician to make useful guesses.

Of course, today most four-banger calculators have square root keys. My question is, why ? The average four-banger user wouldn't know a square root from a rutabaga.

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FEM2008 (Aug 17, 2020)

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## Crusty

That's the fack Jack. 

I cut corners these days too and just look it up to acceptable precision on my slide rule (the batteries have never failed). In nearly all cases you're working with an error band of 10% or more in the source data so solving to analytic precision is usually a pointless exercise. For that matter I still use 22/7 for pi but Newton's method is new to me and I see that it works well.

I'm still pondering over furlongs per fortnight.

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## Toolmaker51

Sad to say, but math and I are still at at odds. But I can whittle a rutabaga into a square root...or cube it.
I'll stop there; never know what will turnip.
My apologies to Marv and Crusty.

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toeless joe (Aug 17, 2020)

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## Crusty

Pi are round - cornbread are squared.

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Karl_H (Aug 17, 2020)

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## DIYSwede

> I'm still pondering over furlongs per fortnight.



Reminds me of the product sheet (attached below) for the Tektronix Oscilloscope 545*AE* (*A*ll-*E*nglish)
(where ist horizontal calibration is precisely scaled in "*fortnights per furlong*"):

"A precision, laboratory oscilloscope, calibrated directly in practical English units of measure, 
has been announced by Tektronix-Guernsey, is claimed to be the first and only oscilloscope using English measure units exclusively." 

_Disclaimer: -This pamphlet is for informative/ recreational purposes only - 
and SHOULD NOT be used instrumentally in health-critial applications._ 

All-English_oscilloscope (2).pdf

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## Frank S

> Reminds me of the product sheet (attached below) for the Tektronix Oscilloscope 545*AE* (*A*ll-*E*nglish)
> (where ist horizontal calibration is precisely scaled in "*fortnights per furlong*"):
> 
> "A precision, laboratory oscilloscope, calibrated directly in practical English units of measure, 
> has been announced by Tektronix-Guernsey, is claimed to be the first and only oscilloscope using English measure units exclusively." 
> 
> _Disclaimer: -This pamphlet is for informative/ recreational purposes only - 
> and SHOULD NOT be used instrumentally in health-critial applications._ 
> 
> All-English_oscilloscope (2).pdf



What no Inch grams? or was it gram inches?

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## mklotz

If you use rational fraction approximations for pi, the Tsu Chi form, 355/113, is far more accurate than 22/7. There are other approximations that are even more accurate as this extract from my notes shows...

==================================================================

APPROXIMATING PI = 3.1415926535898

Biblical approximation: 3 (4.5%)

"And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick...." — First Kings, chapter 7, verses 23 and 26

22 / 7 = 3.142857142857 (0.04 %)

22 / 7.0028 = 3.141600502656 (0.00025 %)

Tsu Chung Chi approximation: 355 / 113 = 3.141592920354 (0.0000085 %)

Euler: 103993 / 33102 = 3.141592653012 (-0.000000018 %)

Ramanujan's improvement to Chi: (355 / 113) * (1 - 0.0003 / 3533) = 3.14159265359 (below calculator range)

Ramanujan's first term in fast series for pi: 9801 / [1103 * sqrt(8)] = 3.141592730013 (0.0000024 %)

Ramanujan: (63 / 25) * [(17 + 15 * sqrt(5)) / (7 + 15 * sqrt(5))] = 3.141592653806 (0.000000007 %)

Fourth root: (2143 / 22)^(1/4) = 3.14159265258 (-0.000000032 %)

==================================================================

Four bangers, despite having a square root key, usually lack the far more useful pi key, so knowing some easy approximations is a good thing.



Newton's technique of iterating to find other roots can easily be generalized. For the nth root of N, the equation is: 

x2 = [(n - 1)*x1 + N/x1^(n-1)]/n

which, for n = 2, reduces to the equation shown in my previous post.

The convergence is at least quadratic in a neighborhood of the zero, which intuitively means that the number of correct digits roughly doubles in every step. For faster convergence, one can use Halley's method which exhibits cubic convergence.

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## FEM2008

@Marv

I learned doing sq.roots the old fashioned way and have since purged it out if my memory as well. However, my son showed me how to do it using Newton's method at age 12. So, they're not all getting dumber! But then, he's a lot smarter than I ever was; has won 35 awards and 2 international tournaments in robotics, 5 science olympiad awards, and was in Forbes magazine by age 13 !!

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## Elizabeth Greene

Americans will do _anything_ to avoid using the metric system.  :Smile:

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## mklotz

> @Marv
> 
> I learned doing sq.roots the old fashioned way and have since purged it out if my memory as well. However, my son showed me how to do it using Newton's method at age 12. So, they're not all getting dumber! But then, he's a lot smarter than I ever was; has won 35 awards and 2 international tournaments in robotics, 5 science olympiad awards, and was in Forbes magazine by age 13 !!



Of course, there will always be exceptions, but mankind depends on the ability of the majority in order to move forward. When the majority can no longer understand the technology in which they live nor have the language and mathematics skills to modify it creatively, the downward slide will engulf the exceptions.

We currently live in a society where the makers of automotive windshield sunshades find it necessary to apply a label that tells the driver to remove it before driving. It's not a slide; it's a lahar and it's overtaking us.

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 18, 2020)

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## mklotz

> Americans will do _anything_ to avoid using the metric system.



They know that, if the USA actually started using the metric system, they would have TWO measurement systems they don't understand.

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## Crusty

They have to add those stupid labels so that they have a positive defense in any lawsuit from opportunists looking for a payout.

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toeless joe (Aug 22, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 18, 2020)

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## mklotz

> They have to add those stupid labels so that they have a positive defense in any lawsuit from opportunists looking for a payout.



The fact that the shade manufacturer can be sued for accidents caused by driving with the shade in place is a clear demonstration of the failed average intelligence. In an educated society, such crap wouldn't be considered; the case would be thrown out of court.

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## Crusty

I don't place the blame for that on people in general, despite their apparent reptilian understanding, but rather on the legal system. The legal system, designed by and for lawyers, was created to entangle people so that they may be fleeced for the benefit of lawyers, and they've made incremental progress over the years using the government to force their system onto potentially everyone. It's all about taking universally understood concepts and spinning them into something which can be exploited for financial gain.

Product liability laws come from this system, where the phrase "reasonable and prudent" is a big money maker. It's a grand scam in which justice is only an occasional by-product.


E.G. "That depends on what your definition of "is" is. WJ Clinton

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 18, 2020)

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## Frank S

> The fact that the shade manufacturer can be sued for accidents caused by driving with the shade in place is a clear demonstration of the failed average intelligence. In an educated society, such crap wouldn't be considered; the case would be thrown out of court.



Why do you think new cars have collision avoidance braking and lane wandering sensors, now days? and automatic parallel parking or controlled trailer backing. Heck people have to have an app on their phone to start their cars, tell them when they might be running low on gas and the phone has to interface with the vehicle at all times so it will know where to go to get a tire aired up or the car itself is a roving wifi connected to the web at all times

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 18, 2020)

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## hemmjo

> I don't place the blame for that on people in general, despite their apparent reptilian understanding, but rather on the legal system. The legal system, designed by and for lawyers, was created to entangle people so that they may be fleeced for the benefit of lawyers, and they've made incremental progress over the years using the government to force their system onto potentially everyone. It's all about taking universally understood concepts and spinning them into something which can be exploited for financial gain.
> 
> Product liability laws come from this system, where the phrase "reasonable and prudent" is a big money maker. It's a grand scam in which justice is only an occasional by-product.
> 
> 
> E.G. "That depends on what your definition of "is" is. WJ Clinton



The REALLY scary things is, the vast majority of our elected officials are lawyers!!!!

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## Crusty

That's why and how they were able force the legal system onto everyone. Like I said, it's a grand scam and it's been going on for many years.

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## Toolmaker51

> The REALLY scary things is, the vast majority of our elected officials are lawyers!!!!



Of course; they have gamed their own system [converting justice and civil law into legal manipulations], so politics is just another avenue straight to Agendaville.

I've said this forever; most [maybe all] the inequities we suffer as citizens are traceable to lawyers, lobbyists and politicians. I don't single out the left broadly, yet far left certainly is the keystone. Added detail, lawyers have only studied the law, attorneys pass bar examinations.

For example; they'll inform you otherwise about that hierarchy; I reply with one or another challenge but favorite is, "how many interpretations are there to _Shall Not Be Infringed..."_. They'll argue meaning of militia, I remind them of Minute Man statue and his pose, in Concord, Mass., even name implies differently then standing army.
Stops them every time.

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## 12L14

> The REALLY scary things is, the vast majority of our elected officials are lawyers!!!!



And now imagine place where most of those officials are engineers(lets say F. W. Taylor type smart scumbags).

Sounds like science fiction?

Think again.

Commie china, east Germany and(to some extension) soviet union are/were "good" examples of such places...

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## jdurand

I've found there's two things people don't understand about computers, 0 and 1.

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## IntheGroove

01010111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00111111

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## DIYSwede

Just a video for your amusement:




PS: Shameless plug at the end, and -Yes, the guy *is* Irish.

Quote from an expat friend of mine:
-"Anger and resentment"? - MY thoughts on THAT?
-Well, I'm Irish. It's our *bloody national sport*!"

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 19, 2020)

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## NortonDommi

This argument will keep raging until the entire world kneel down before statues of Stalin and all sanity has been annihilated.
It does not matter what system you use as long as everybody doing something to work on a project ALL use the same standards. Growing up with Imperial, having the country change to metric at age 9 I had to go through school and sit all exams including Trade exams in both.
Some things are just quicker and faster using Imperial, other times metric is easier. 
As there is a huge amount of old stuff in the world which occasionally has to be worked on is reason enough to be conversant in both. This Irish guy might be of the bog variety, certainly dumbed down by being raised with only metrickery.

Here is some good information that helps explain a few things that you will never be taught in school today: Weights, Measures and Volumes of the Ancient Mediterranean

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 19, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

> This argument will keep raging until the entire world kneel down before statues of Stalin and all sanity has been annihilated.
> It does not matter what system you use as long as everybody doing something to work on a project ALL use the same standards. Growing up with Imperial, having the country change to metric at age 9 I had to go through school and sit all exams including Trade exams in both.
> Some things are just quicker and faster using Imperial, other times metric is easier. 
> As there is *a huge amount of old stuff in the world which occasionally has to be worked on is reason enough to be conversant in both*. This Irish guy might be of the bog variety, certainly dumbed down by being raised with only metrickery.
> 
> Here is some good information that helps explain a few things that you will never be taught in school today: Weights, Measures and Volumes of the Ancient Mediterranean



Hear Hear! Especially with that "old stuff" being stuff we like to work on!

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## Crusty

I don't know this for a fact but in my musings on the origin of the phrase I've come to the opinion that the phrase_ "Hear, Hear!"_ likely is a misquote of the original phrase, _"Hear here!"_ which means to me to call attention to something someone has said and it fits with its common usage in conversation.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

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## mklotz

> I don't know this for a fact but in my musings on the origin of the phrase I've come to the opinion that the phrase_ "Hear, Hear!"_ likely is a misquote of the original phrase, _"Hear here!"_ which means to me to call attention to something someone has said and it fits with its common usage in conversation.



Nope, it's "Hear, hear"; location, as in 'here', has nothing to do with it.

https://whatis.techtarget.com/featur...e-or-hear-hear

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/here-here-vs-hear-hear/

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 19, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

> Nope, it's "Hear, hear"; location, as in 'here', has nothing to do with it.
> 
> https://whatis.techtarget.com/featur...e-or-hear-hear
> 
> https://www.grammarly.com/blog/here-here-vs-hear-hear/



Lol, and why I rarely depend on speech to text. Semi-skilled typist with aversion to typo's.

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## Jon



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Toolmaker51 (Aug 23, 2020)

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## DIYSwede

FWIW: https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...=refridgerator

" A refrigerator keeps items in a state of frige, a word that has yet to be assigned a logical definition. 
A refridgerator keeps items fridged and may continuously refridge this items, a well logical word."

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baja (Aug 25, 2020),

Beserkleyboy (Aug 24, 2020),

MeJasonT (Aug 30, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 23, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

How big is big enough? Ask Nancy P for guidance. She's an expert while remainder of us wonder what's up...https://tinyurl.com/y75dlsjw

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## bruce.desertrat

Lets get real about units! How many Rhode Islands is it in area?

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## IntheGroove

One Rhode Island is the size of the fires in California...

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## Frank S

> Lets get real about units! How many Rhode Islands is it in area?



Heck man we've got ranches in Texas nearly twice the size or Rhode Island 
It would take 264 and nearly a half Rhode Islands to cover the State 350 of them if you went by the 1836 map

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## IntheGroove

Now the California wildfires are as big as the Grand Canyon, however big that is...

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## Frank S

> Now the California wildfires are as big as the Grand Canyon, however big that is...



Or about as large as a couple medium sized ranches in Texas the O'Connor and the Wagner

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## Toolmaker51

So, intent was to say even tiny Rhode island, at 37 miles wide, most wouldn't want to walk that....but this is even better.
https://www.quahog.org/factsfolklore/index.php?id=12

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Frank S (Aug 25, 2020),

IntheGroove (Aug 25, 2020)

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## Caliper Ken

Heck man - Australia's biggest cattle station (ranch in your speak) is 5,850,000 acres.
How many Rhode Islands is that ??

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## bruce.desertrat

> Heck man we've got ranches in Texas nearly twice the size or Rhode Island 
> It would take 264 and nearly a half Rhode Islands to cover the State 350 of them if you went by the 1836 map



Most of the Lower 48 (and almost all of Mexico) are closer to some part of Texas than the farthest points in Texas are from each other:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...itself/360433/ I can attest to this, driving across Texas in a U-Haul that's pretty much limited to 55 MPH is a "You have died of dysentery" 'Oregon Trail' kind of experience. :-) 

(I'll add there were two cats in the cab along with me and my wife....two cats that were _not happy with us_ all the way. And we were towing the car on a dolly so we couldn't back up. Every place we entered had to be reconnoitered on foot to ensure we could get out...)

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## Karl_H

> Heck man - Australia's biggest cattle station (ranch in your speak) is 5,850,000 acres.
> How many Rhode Islands is that ??



Slightly more than a "sh*t ton," though slightly less than a "sh*t tonne."

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## Frank S

> Most of the Lower 48 (and almost all of Mexico) are closer to some part of Texas than the farthest points in Texas are from each other:
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...itself/360433/ I can attest to this, driving across Texas in a U-Haul that's pretty much limited to 55 MPH is a "You have died of dysentery" 'Oregon Trail' kind of experience. :-) 
> 
> (I'll add there were two cats in the cab along with me and my wife....two cats that were _not happy with us_ all the way. And we were towing the car on a dolly so we couldn't back up. Every place we entered had to be reconnoitered on foot to ensure we could get out...)



Yep but remember Texas used to occupy most of New Mexico much of Colorado part of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming making it 1/3 larger than it is now

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MeJasonT (Aug 30, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

> Heck man - Australia's biggest cattle station (ranch in your speak) is 5,850,000 acres.
> How many Rhode Islands is that ??



Easy! Sort of...just substitute known square miles for percentage thereof at https://rigea.org/2013/05/11/how-many-rhode-islands/ 
No need to thank me, we all hand out rabbit holes like they do in Rhode Island...

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## IntheGroove

Now the fires in California are the size of Delaware...

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## Frank S

> Now the fires in California are the size of Delaware...



nature's brush removal

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## Jon

I like this one. Conceptually similar to the small/big refrigerator measurement, but not a meme, a real example. Original tweet from the San Miguel Sheriff twitter account is here: https://twitter.com/sheriffalert/sta...81862244749315

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Philip Davies (Aug 30, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 29, 2020)

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## DIYSwede

*Hybrid units* (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric...s#Hybrid_units):

"Some measurements are reported in units derived from *both customary and metric units*. 
For example:

Heat rate from a power plant: *BTU/kWh.*
Federal automobile exhaust emission standards: *grams per mile.*
Caffeine in beverages: *milligrams per (fluid) ounce.*
A standard method for *sizing tires combines millimeters for overall width and inches for the rim diameter on which they fit*.
In lighting, light bulbs use *eighths of an inch for bulb diameter* and full inches for fluorescent tube lengths, 
while the *socket is always in millimeters* (for example, the standard "medium Edison screw" is E24). 

On recently introduced Christmas lights, however, *millimeters are often used with small globe-shaped bulbs* (G30 and G40), 
and with miniature LED sets, where the standard T1¾ (​7⁄32-inch tube) ones are sometimes called M5 (5 mm miniature; not to be confused with M5 thread).
One among many examples is in Table 8, chapter 9, of the National Electrical Code Handbook (8th ed.), 
where resistance of conductors per unit length is given in *ohms per thousand feet*.

Other units are based on customary units, but use power-of-ten factors and metric prefixes. 
For example, *distance to target for a U.S. submarine is expressed in kiloyards (kyd)*  rather than some combination of miles, yards, and feet. 
Telephone transmission line length and loop distances are measured in *kilofeet*.
In some fields of civil engineering (especially structural engineering), and architecture, large loads and forces 
(such as the weight of a building or the amount of load applied to a column) are measured in *kips 
(kilopounds or 1000 pounds-force - NOT kiloinches/ sec!)* 
instead of short tons-force (2000 pounds-force), which are used in virtually all other non-metric industries in the United States, 
as well as in common usage among the public, when dealing with large values of force."

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FEM2008 (Sep 3, 2020),

MeJasonT (Aug 30, 2020),

Philip Davies (Aug 30, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 29, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

> I like this one. [snipped] Original tweet from the San Miguel Sheriff twitter account is here: https://twitter.com/sheriffalert/sta...81862244749315



East bound lane huh? Clearly even granite knows it's time to beat the exodus from Kalifornia.

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MeJasonT (Aug 30, 2020)

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## IntheGroove

All I want to know is if it bigger than a bread box...

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MeJasonT (Aug 30, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

There are some die hards in the UK who will not relinquish the good old imperial measurements, a pint of milk, a pint of beer, spirits measured in 1/8 gill and a distance of miles at of speed at mph. But be warned don’t try selling a pound of bananas in Newcastle/Sunderland the local authorities will hound you to death 
(Actual case) BBC NEWS | UK | England | Wear | Metric martyr market trader dies.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist - but he suddenly died ? - The lengths countries leaders will go to. You would think we lived in Russia, just saying - no racial implication intended.

What are you guys in the wild west going to do when kids are banned from having cap guns and computer games because they are linked to slavery and racial hatred. They are either shooting pimps and hookers, Germans, zombies, Red Indians and cow boys or calories in the case of candy crush. What is this world coming to? A mega don. 

For F's sake stop this pointless debate keep the inch, stand up like a man and don’t let this Europhile cack eat America as well.
you know what happened in the 60s when a space craft crashed due to a mix up in measurements, everyone was fine using both until someone tried to convert everyone - Strange that very shortly after they put a man on the moon - again just saying (light the blue touch paper).

Just remember that the collection of European nations is the Euronation - I’m thinking they are taking the urine.

We have always been different from each other, if you used a measurement system to build house in the US compared to Africa the measurements would be miles apart literally. Spelt differently for a start - we have managed for millennia to build things in different scale and sell them to each other, what is this ambition of some in the US to go metric (Europhiles). A measurement that is no longer socially acceptable is the use of chains, don’t start that again. Or Bushels, **** the Me2 movement will think you are talking of under their dresses.

These are strange times my friends.

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Toolmaker51 (Aug 30, 2020)

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## DIYSwede

> Im not a conspiracy theorist - but



Thanks for clarifications, and also for the link on the "Metric Martyrs": Truly amazing reading IMHO.
Seems like the advocacy group dissolved 2017, after the Brexit Vote?
WayBack Machine with its Thorburn tributes: 
https://web.archive.org/web/20071224...age.aspx?id=36

I don't consider myself being a conspiracy theorist either, but:
-Could we perhaps after the upcoming New Year assume yet another Iron Curtain being descended across the Continent,
but this time from Unst in the North Sea to Jersey in the English Channel, and around Gibraltar?

Test for UK citizens on what actions to take regarding the new rules: https://www.gov.uk/transition

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MeJasonT (Aug 30, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Aug 30, 2020)

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## Philip Davies

It’s a LARGE boulder for a road, but a SMALL boulder for a mountain!

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FEM2008 (Sep 3, 2020),

MeJasonT (Aug 31, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Classic Euro overreach. What stands out to me; regarding links offered by MeJasonT and DIYSwede, in posts 69 & 70, is the arrogant nature of government. Link states Mr. Thoburn had English and metric scales available, customers were charged accordingly [and equally] to their preference. That higher courts ruled appeals 'inadmissible', epitomizes gall and authoritarian mindset; "No, we'd thought this out with perfect clarity and forethought". Which apparently is quite not the case. 
Somehow identical but opposite is constant re-interpretation we [US] see, regarding "Shall not be infringed". I'd say their, our framers, King's English is perfectly clear.

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## f800

Ummm.... that was 1999.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lat...ml%3f_amp=true

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## MeJasonT

f800

Not again, when will they ever learn.
I forgot about this one

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## MeJasonT

Phil, is it big boulder in little creek without a paddle somewhere near little neck.
Oh i love the old tribal names up state.
There are those among us who like to hunt out American history and absorb it when we are traveling through reservations. Now theres a case for BLM.
You can feel the real spirit of the land in the Catskills and even Mohonk has a real spiritual feel despite the capitalist environment playground for the rich.
My Aunt Audrey used to often get Bears wandering into her garden in Margaretville. Now Audrey was a character, she went over to the states during the Second World War. She worked for naval intelligence and even got to meet Hitler before the war when we were trying to talk him out of invading Poland. She was also involved in the Nuremburg trials after the war. She married a top New York Hairdresser (divorced) and later married a GI. A quintessential English aristocrat at heart, the lady was absolutely fascinating and so was Tony her 2nd husband. In the early days she lived in Flushing NY, thats when my partner Debbie used to visit. She started going over around the time of the first attempt to bring down the Twin Towers, A guy had done a tight rope walk between them at some point as well. Debbie later sold garments in New York as a fashion designer. Happy days.
Give me one good reason to go back to NY and Im on the first available flight. Any takers for an adult apprentice machinist.

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## Jon

Another appliance measurement, but this time not just one.



Original tweet: https://twitter.com/41actionnews/sta...71610876682240

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MeJasonT (Sep 4, 2020)

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## FEM2008

Cleary was written by a male! Six or seven washing machines is about the size of the van next to sinkhole, but the sinkhole is actually the size of a small car 😉 😜

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## bruce.desertrat

Wow, I didn't know there was a standard washing machine. How many scall bananas are they?

(also some wag has started making standardized scale bananas, https://hackaday.com/2014/11/17/sand...e-is-so-metal/ )

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## FEM2008

> ....Mr. Thoburn had English and metric scales available, customers were charged accordingly [and equally] to their preference.



Looking at it from the other side, which scale should the state certify? Keeping both system certifications increases the cost to taxpayers as well. 
Go uncertified one might say.... buyer beware. Wasn't that one of the triggers for french revolution?!

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## trigger

Nah,since when does a male know what a washing machine looks like���� :Wink:

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toeless joe (Sep 3, 2020)

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## Frank S

> Nah,since when does a male know what a washing machine looks like����



Only when we have to work on them when they stop doing what they are supposed to do

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## MeJasonT

We are looking for a mattress for our spare room, its 1 and a half washing machine by 3 and a half washing machine. Or 0.1375 Sq ropes + a scroat
perhaps even a nano doubloon in cost
Im really liking this new measurement system, its making math really easy to understand
E=mc^2 to bucket loads of washing machines, why didnt they say that at school it would have made loads more sense.
I mean I get the Empire State building is 59 London busses long
Thats like 5th avenue  I have seen 50 busses on one street in NYC, I totally get it.

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 4, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

Call me Cindy but i do on occasion visit the washing machine, I know it has one function that cleans my cloths - fast coloureds cleans everything fek knows what the other things do. Must be ME-2 functions.

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## MeJasonT

Bruce
The euro-nation made standard sized bananas law, they had to be straight as well.
you think we are crazy wanting to leave.

It came from one of Yunkers flippent remarks to take the p**s i think, but was he - im not sure he was ever sober to be honest.

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## FEM2008

> I was taught that awkward system in grade school. I soon purged it from my memory bank. There's a much simpler way to find roots using Newton's method.
> 
> Consider this iterative equation...
> 
> x2 = (x1 + N / x1) / 2
> 
> where:
> 
> N = number whose root is to be found
> ...



 
@mklotz
. BTW. I brought this up recently and my son informed me this is Babylonian method, not Newtonian. I looked ut up. This method is also known as Heron's method. His detailed deccription goes back to 60 AD.

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MeJasonT (Sep 11, 2020)

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## mklotz

> @mklotz
> . BTW. I brought this up recently and my son informed me this is Babylonian method, not Newtonian. I looked ut up. This method is also known as Heron's method. His detailed deccription goes back to 60 AD.



The derivation of Newton's method is generally done by using the definition of a derivative. Since Newton (and Leibniz) developed calculus the method probably came to be known by Newton's name. 

The Babylonians and Heron had nothing like calculus so it's not clear how they stumbled upon the iteration. My guess was by trying various numerical methods or by numerically extending something that works without iteration for perfect squares.

Example:

Let 'n' be the square root of 'N'. Then N/n = n and (n + N/n) = 2 * n so:

n = (n + N/n) / 2

It's not a huge intellectual leap to think that, if n is close to the square root, then the result of the above calculation should produce a number closer to the true root, iow an iterator...

n2 = (n1 + N/n1) / 2

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MeJasonT (Sep 11, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Sep 11, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Ancient civilizations may not have had higher mathematics; so stumbling across an accurate solution is very possible...
At the same time, some at least had tremendous grasp of concepts, functions and proofs to recognize calculations that work correctly.
Over time, lots of supposed calculations have been proven incorrect.

Later yes, but my favorite is still Eratosthenes; calculating diameter of earth within ~100 to 800 miles, practically from his own backyard! That to me is monumental beyond calculation alone, with science, observation, reasoning, mathematics working in concert. Likely, any deviation mostly due to the limited accuracy of instruments.
And one more thing; he wasn't first but KNEW earth was spherical.

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Philip Davies (Sep 13, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

I have solution to this argument over our measurement system which i have practiced with great success for many years. If i have to measure somthing and its closer to the inch scale than the metric then i use imperial otherwise i use metric, this theory also extends to CAD drawings and those on fag packets. A famous quote from Sir Isaac Newton " It is a better man who uses the inch than one who can only measure in mm" Or at least he would have said by now if he was still with us - god rest his soul.

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 11, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

holy crap, the worlds round - when were you going to tell me. Next you will say Pluto isnt a planet.

In the famous song title by Jellybean - im just visiting this planet

I missed the Apollo bus coming back from the moon so i had to wait for the next one, nobody said it ws the last bloody bus.

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## mklotz

> Ancient civilizations may not have had higher mathematics; so stumbling across an accurate solution is very possible...
> At the same time, some at least had tremendous grasp of concepts, functions and proofs to recognize calculations that work correctly.
> Over time, lots of supposed calculations have been proven incorrect.
> 
> Later yes, but my favorite is still Eratosthenes; calculating diameter of earth within ~100 to 800 miles, practically from his own backyard! That to me is monumental beyond calculation alone, with science, observation, reasoning, mathematics working in concert. Likely, any deviation mostly due to the limited accuracy of instruments.
> And one more thing; he wasn't first but KNEW earth was spherical.



My ancient Greek math hero is Archimedes. He provided some of the first ingenious methods for calculating, as opposed to measuring, an accurate value of pi.

His geometric work was genius and he knew it was as the inscription on his tomb proves.

Archimedes' tomb had a carving of his favorite mathematical diagram, which was a sphere inside a cylinder of the same height and diameter. Archimedes had proved that the volume and surface area of the sphere would be two thirds that of the cylinder. In 75 BC, 137 years after his death, the Roman orator Cicero visited the tomb in Syracuse which had become overgrown with scrub. Cicero had the tomb cleaned and was able to see the carving and read some of the verses that had been added as an inscription. 

Eratosthenes was indeed another genius deriving a way to measure his planet which he knew to be a sphere. Actually, most Greek intellectuals knew that; they reasoned that the phases of the moon were caused by the earth's shadow and the only form that could always cast a circularly curved shadow was a sphere. Good thing the Catholic church wasn't around then or they would all have been burned at the stake.

----------

MeJasonT (Sep 12, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Sep 11, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

Exactly, Marv. 
Facts, or at least sound reasoning withstand scrutiny far better than _any_ kind of agenda...

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## mklotz

> Exactly, Marv. 
> Facts, or at least sound reasoning withstand scrutiny far better than _any_ kind of agenda...



The churches seem to have figured out that it's impossible to legislate reality. Their creeds no longer include specifications of how planetary systems are organized. Now all we need to do is get government to come to the same realization; I fear that is impossible.

The depressing thing for me is the fact that the majority of folks today cannot understand, much less duplicate, the mathematical ideas of men who lived 2500 years ago.

----------

MeJasonT (Sep 12, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Sep 12, 2020)

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## hemmjo

> The churches seem to have figured out that it's impossible to legislate reality. Their creeds no longer include specifications of how planetary systems are organized. Now all we need to do is get government to come to the same realization; I fear that is impossible.
> 
> The depressing thing for me is the fact that the majority of folks today cannot understand, much less duplicate, the mathematical ideas of men who lived 2500 years ago.



I am retired from teaching 35 years. In college one of the things we learned is that in order for society to thrive, the electorate MUST be WELL EDUCATED. One of the most scary things to me if that over that 35 years, and for the 10 I have been retired, it seems to be that the government is do everything that can to make the electorate LESS educated. All in the name of improving education. 

In the name of kids learning more, they feel the need to test, test, test. When too many students do not reach the "standards" that were set, the test or the standards are modified rather than the instruction. In the district where I taught most of my career, and my daughter now teaches, they are told to "differentiate" instruction to meet the needs of individual students. At the same time, all teachers of the same subject, at the same level, in all buildings, must be giving the same lesson on the same day all year long. In addition to that, students who do not do well on tests, are able to take the test over and over, until they understand the material (OR at least do well on the test, even though they may not really understand the material!!!!!)

From my perspective, government is trying to make the electorate less and less capable of clear thinking and reasoning. As mentioned above, it is indeed depressing that, "...the majority of folks today cannot understand, much less duplicate, the mathematical ideas of men who lived 2500 years ago.", Or come up with good solutions to the new issues we face today.

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 13, 2020)

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## Jon



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Toolmaker51 (Sep 13, 2020)

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## Frank S

> 



Wait ,wait so let me get this straight if a kilogram is going to equal 1 pound does that mean the kilogram will be reduced by weight and volume or will the pound be increased Kilograms have always been tied to liters just ass grams to milliliters likewise the pound tied to ounces like ounces are tied to cups and quarts.
Maybe they should merge the yard and the meter or the mile or the kilometer.
Measurements are set by different standards and can never be changed to be something else so I say either chuck everything and start over from scratch or use one or the other of the existing systems chucking all of the other ways of measuring. Or as I have often heard the statement you do you and I'll do me. Od as I like it I'll do you if that is what you want and I'll do me when it suite me

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 13, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

does this mean that theives instead of half inching somthing have to half mm it. (cockney slang for pinch, steal, rob, librate)
liberate is a forces thing, if you liberate somthing it becomes free. If its free you cant steal it.

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 13, 2020)

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## DIYSwede

-It's just a joke, man!
For all you Kleptomaniacs here (*who take things literally*), some explanation of the joke could be found here:
https://xkcd.wtf/2073/

Now I won't touch this thread with a 3.048 m pole (neither N & S ditto).

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MeJasonT (Sep 14, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

Think of an event in history around 1861 - US civil war perhaps - just as a time line refference

then consider that the standard weights and measures were lost in a fire in 1834 and wasnt until 1855 that the standards were recreated - who know if they were the same as the old ones of not hard to tell exactly as they were destroyed.

1866, the U.S. Congress passed a law that allowed, but did not require, the use of the metric system in trade and commerce

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...yard_and_pound

Around the same time France went metric

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16245391

Followed by the UK in 1962

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric...United_Kingdom

We have to accept that the EU has a huge influence this debate. (Mr DIYSwede will be thinking im having another dig, no my friend thats not the case at all. We like European countries just not the EU central government). So we may be switching to Imperial by Christmas just as the US goes Metric.

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Toolmaker51 (Sep 14, 2020)

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## Frank S

When it comes to drill bits I prefer two size numerations well possibly a 3rd 
Imperial decimal for smaller or critical sizes higher end millimeter grades since those you can buy in tenths of a MM from the tiny through as large as you want, and lastly a fractional set in 64ths You can forget those 1,2,3s and A,B,C sizes I have no use for them although I do have a set of both

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MeJasonT (Sep 14, 2020)

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## mklotz

> ... So we may be switching to Imperial by Christmas just as the US goes Metric.



If the UK is so devoted to antique, overly-complicated systems, why did it decimalize its currency? Now that you're out of the EU, will you be going back to £/s/d ?

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## DIYSwede

> (Mr DIYSwede will be thinking im having another dig, no my friend thats not the case at all. 
> We like European countries just not the EU central government).



AFAIK: The European countries within the EU do not seem overly happy being treated the way your politicians have negotiated your Brexit.
Lately there seems to be "some concern" (in the UK and abroad) for yet another special law of yours efficiently violating International Law, 
i. e. Boris' own suggested Brexit deal, accepted by both the UK and the EU.
Now: UK-proclaimed non-compliance to the Northern Ireland part of the deal (as I understood it). 
Will there now be "The Troubles" 2.0 up there, apart from a darned hard Brexit?

-Well, good luck in your upcoming trade deal negotiations in 2021 with the other countries of the World, 
who've seen the ongoing Brexit show and probably already drawn their own conclusions regarding UK's reliability as a trade partner.

OTOH: I can really understand your tiredness of EU central government:
Seems like you've got your own fair share of government inefficiency and incompetence to be tired of and handle yourselves,
so resist any further urge to export them all to Brussels & Strasbourg, please. 



_Note: I didn't even touch "the Duke of York subject"._

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MeJasonT (Sep 14, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

This is my opinion and may not be totally accurate in everyone’s opinion - probably best this post comment ends here. no point giving a rebuttal as I’m just going to ignore it - its a subject which gets needlessly overheated.

Its always a pleasure my friend to be on the receiving end of your confusion with our mental state (that being the political one). I ask this simple question, why is it so hard for a country who wishes to leave to do so - i thought it was such a friendly union who respected each other. 
The Irish situation, the Good Friday agreement was in 1998 the same year the border was dismantled, Ireland joined the EU in 1973. i wish people would see the wood for the trees. The Irish were still pagering long after they joined the EU. The EU was not the miracle which brought about peace.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irel...exit-1.3769423

The EU Irish border back stop is actually a brilliant thing by the sounds of it for Northern Ireland and North West UK. if the EU wants to keep a zero tariff zone in northern Ireland then surely Northern Ireland gets the best of both worlds - free trade with the UK and free trade with the EU. The North West of the UK is the supply route so basically the dock yard gate.

i can see why out so called leaders don’t want the back stop or at least want to be in charge of deciding when the backstop ends so it can be in charge of its own territory and not have other nations having control over it. The argument being fuelled by the republic actually has nothing to do with us. Their leadership is the EU take your argument up with them. Why because we are leaving must wen be faced with installing a border and controls - its the EU which doesn’t want trade bouncing backwards and forwards over their border not the UK. Emperor Hadrian didn’t get the Scots to build the wall to keep them out and Trump isn’t doing a much of a job to get Mexico to pay for his wall. It could be a fantastic thing if the EU representatives sat back and just thought for a moment, you know what that means we would get free trade access to the UK through the back door. So who is to blame for all the confusion?

Incidentally we are the third country that wanted to leave the UK, The republic of Ireland was the first, Greece was the second. Both were manipulated or dare i say it bullied into staying in. If you really wish to have a relationship with a friend in future you don’t go to the extremes of making sure you attempt to destroy them in the process. Our friends in the US should know very well how it feels to have your country ran by another nation, they might have kicked the crap out of the British and sent them home. And yet they are our closest allies and friends.
We wanted to leave as we were being used as a cash cow to support the EU whilst it took more and more control and attempted to expand its domain into further countries which would be looking for financial help and re-structuring. Our own nation was becoming deprived and thanks in no part to the fact that we are separated by water whilst the rest of Europe enjoys land connection. We were always at disadvantage. Germany and France always over powering any decision in their favour for the so called good of Europe . Throughout history many unions/dynasty’s have been formed and every single one has come to an end. Even in our lifetime e.g. the USSR.

What does the EU want, for us to say ok sorry we are staying – I don’t think we would get an easy ride getting a remain agreement now either. Rock and hard place springs to mind. The best thing that could have happened was for the EU to sort its crap out and said ok how we can manage this separation rather than blaming and hiding. What’s going to happen with the next country that wants to leave. Probably something entirely different – like a well managed and friendly separation.
So you think we are paranoid, its hard to be paranoid when you know people are actually talking about you behind your back.

I fought for my country and try to stay neutral but now im made to feel like a third class citizen, some of which i can directly blame on EU interference and pointless legislation. Their behaviour has only confirmed my decision.

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## Frank S

Germany has been hell bent on domination of Europe for over a century they just found a way to do it without actually fighting this time. for several decades the USA has maintained a huge Military presents in Germany as a deterrent to attack from the old USSR. But once the wall had been toppled and the reunification of the East and West took place Germany again was or could have been an all powerful entity, but its economy was in shambles once the USA began downsizing the number of military bases there this caused another reduction of much needed money. the USA with its huge Military and civilian presents there brought in huge sums of cash. The formulation of something called the EU in my opinion only, was or is nothing more and nothing less than a way for Germany to dominate Europe. France has always been week in the knees allowing itself to be swayed in any direction the political winds happened to blow from other more domineering countries.
I don't know how Italy is now since it has been a long time since I've been there but it used to be quite strong at one time with a thriving economy of its own.
Poor little Spain and also Greece became whipping boys of the Eu from the very beginning as are most of the other smaller countries in the EU or they just go along to be going along hoping everything will be roses in the end. But little to they realize that Germany is becoming a dominatrix dressed in leather with whips chains and things to shove in their orifices.
I view Brexit as a good thing I only hope that Ireland Scotland Wales and others will be able to see it that way as well.

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MeJasonT (Sep 14, 2020)

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## MeJasonT

Its very interesting where this thread has gone. It seems the link to Metric system has dragged us into the EU debate, i wonder how that happened. 
Im very mindful of not hijacking a thread - Jon will be itching to hit the big red button and delete our arses.

With regards the Duke id swap him for Anne Sacoolas, both are answerable.
I read yesterday that Jonny Rotten of the sex pistols had been banned from being on the BBC as he called Jimmy Savile a paedophile, ten years before any suspicion was raised regarding Savile

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## hemmjo

> snip.... You can forget those 1,2,3s and A,B,C sizes I have no use for them although I do have a set of both



I think we need to be careful here. I have no use for lots of things that others find useful, but that is no reason to forget them or dismiss their usefulness for others. 

It is the, "I have no use for ....." mentality that makes some people (especially legislators) think that "if I don't need it, no one needs it". 

I would have hoped that this discussion would have help us be more open with our thoughts.

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## MeJasonT

Hemmjo, agreed
I find it degusting how so much of our redundant machinery and tooling end up scrapped or shipped abroad.
This can only lead to a skills shortage and a further lack of services. Company owners on the whole are only interested in maximising profit and preventing any competition from new startups. In reality it is the opposite of what they envisage. 

Take a small machine shop which sets up, gets bigger, changes machines for cnc, prices go up. Smaller customers drop by the way and if there is no smaller companies buying up their old equipment and picking up the slack then some products/repairs just don’t get done. If the big company reaches out a bit too far and needs a smaller shop to offer backup, its not there. The whole human/social aspect of work needs to be seriously addressed. Google and Microsoft already control our lives and our governments are insisting on everything going online and necessitating the need for IT in every home. To me PC = work, when im not working i want it the hell out of my life.

So back on point, i have a workshop full of useful items i purchased for projects which have now expired, their true value is a dollar on ebay. I have been listening to Jon Saunders and John Grimsmos business of machining pod cast https://www.nyccnc.com/business-machining-podcast/ In one post Jon Saunders discusses the hoarding of old pipe threading tools. He states his business does not require Pipe threading at this time and does not see any need for it in the future, however his grandfather handed the tools down to him so he is now stuck with a dilemma.

My workshop is a 1/3rd the size of a typical US garage or at least my Uncle Tony's was upstate NYC.
Do i really need the electronic Piano i never learnt to use, 2 old Allen Bradley plcs or the telescope. Not to mention the miss match of screwdrivers and spanners going back to childhood. There are 8 x mt3 dead centres and just other stuff. does JT Engineering have a need of such stuff in its future - no.
Do i have the time to put it on ebay, is ebay straight forward and stress free no. The toss up between skip and ebay is a very fine line, Lettered and numbered drills have no place in my life but when i started out i would have been immensely grateful for them. I never imagined i would own an imperial set of tap and dies and yet i do and use/need them fairly regularly. No machine or tools should ever go in a skip or for scrap and if you care about your countries future development consider handing down your old equipment. Developing countries need our help but to what extent do we risk our own development. 

If the great Victorian inventors lived in Africa then we would now be the developing country looking to the rich nation of Africa. The creation and invention wasn’t free, it took time to develop and it takes an organised state to nurture that development. We get a huge amount of blame for the condition and way of life of developing countries but perhaps the need encouragement or just good old grit to succeed. Its easy looking at someone else’s success and wanting it yourself but putting your head against the grind stone and aiming for that ability/knowledge can only come from hard work and effort.

----------

Drew1966 (Sep 19, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Sep 17, 2020)

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## Toolmaker51

re MeJasonT and post 106. 
That might be the best short essay on such affairs I can recall, and find myself in total agreement.

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## Jon

A little profane, but still very funny. Red Solo cups are American-manufactured, and a classic piece of Americana.

----------

baja (Sep 20, 2020),

Drew1966 (Sep 19, 2020),

high-side (Sep 21, 2020),

Philip Davies (Sep 20, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Sep 19, 2020)

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## mklotz

Some of these ridiculous sizings (they're not measurements) may arise because average adults and their children can't read a ruler or a tape measure. The dumbing down is well into the third generation.

----------

baja (Sep 20, 2020),

high-side (Sep 21, 2020),

toeless joe (Sep 19, 2020)

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## Jon



----------

bruce.desertrat (Dec 18, 2020),

freddo4 (Dec 19, 2020),

homey_g (Dec 20, 2020),

jimfols (Dec 18, 2020),

Karl_H (Dec 18, 2020),

NeiljohnUK (Dec 21, 2020),

nova_robotics (Dec 18, 2020),

rgsparber (Dec 19, 2020),

saguaro (Dec 18, 2020),

Tonyg (Dec 19, 2020)

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## hemmjo

Why is it that most to the "Metric" countries sell "pints" in the pubs?

*"A pint glass is a form of drinkware made to hold either a British ("imperial") pint of 20 imperial fluid ounces (568 ml) or an American pint of 16 US fluid ounces (473 ml). Other definitions also exist, see below. These glasses are typically used to serve beer, and also often for cider."*

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## IntheGroove

True...

----------


## mklotz

and exceeds the volume of three Olympic swimming pools.

----------


## Karl_H

And weighs more than 12 jumbo jets!

----------


## metric_taper

I'll never understand why the USA is still stuck in the old system. I was trained to be bi-lingual with SAE and SI in all my engineering and physics classes in the early 80s. But work did everything in Imperial, and put unit dimensions in parenthesis for metric. 
And the worlds pilots are still using altitude in feet, barometric pressure in inches of Hg, and airspeed in knots. At least unit temperature operating ranges was in Celsius.
All the POTUS Jimmy Carter signs are gone from the roadways. And my latest auto does not have the dual speedometer range of earlier, only in MPH (and it's a Japanese design made in Mexico). If you live in states that incorporated as section road use of land, the mile will be stuck with us forever. As every mile, the state owns a 60 foot right of way, even across federal lands.
My only issue with the metric system is the size of the mm is wrong. Arbitrary. It should have been based on human factors of what the unaided eye can see, and be marked on a steel rule *. But like every other mistake, they become permanent errors that are supported forever.
.
.
* I'm not aware of any quantum length that could set an absolute standard. Human factor is why water is used for a temperature scale, metric weight used that as well. And it's only an issue when correct dimension analysis is not done.
At least my newer lathe has both scales, and a mix of Imperial and metric feed screws. It has change gears for metric and SAE thread, but I can't disengage the half nuts during metric, and that makes me razzle frazzle, and cuss.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Dec 21, 2020)

----------


## bruce.desertrat

> All the POTUS Jimmy Carter signs are gone from the roadways.



Not entirely. Interstate 19 (which runs south from Interstate 10 where it makes that turn east at the southwest corner of Tucson) is labeled in mph for speed, but km for distance, still. I think it's the last one left.

----------


## TheElderBrother

Let's make a list of all worthwhile inventions that come from France. 

I'll wait.

----------


## IntheGroove

Fries
Toast
Dips
Windows
Doors
and of course, Kiss...

----------

blkadder (Dec 24, 2020)

----------


## bruce.desertrat

Pasteurization
Canned food 
The rabies vaccine
The germ theory of disease
The monoplane
The bunsen burner (developed in Pasteur's laboratory)
Lets not forget the _Razor of Democracy_ itself, Dr Guillotine's invention...

that's just off the top of my head...

----------

blkadder (Dec 24, 2020)

----------


## IntheGroove

...also Democracy and Existentialism...

----------

blkadder (Dec 24, 2020)

----------


## bruce.desertrat

Can't believe I forgot this..

The Jaquard Loom, which is arguably the foundational concept of modern CNC manufacturing.

----------


## metric_taper

> Let's make a list of all worthwhile inventions that come from France. 
> 
> I'll wait.



The 1751 machine is what became the modern lathe.

----------


## hemmjo

https://interestingengineering.com/4...ns-of-all-time

Jus' sayin'

----------


## mklotz

> Let's make a list of all worthwhile inventions that come from France. 
> 
> I'll wait.



Your contribution to this thread could easily be interpreted as an insult to the French people and culture. I'd like to think that it wasn't meant that way but you might want to think about offering some clarification of what you meant.

Anyway, on to a response to your request...

France has given us some of the most influential mathematicians who have provided much of the analytic framework on which modern developments are based. Here is a partial list...

Blaise Pascal - projective geometry, mechanical calculator, Pascal's law, Pascal's triangle

Pierre Fermat - difference quotient (precursor to differential calculus), Fermat's last theorem, Fermat's principle

Jean-Baptiste Fourier - Fourier series, Fourier transform, greenhouse effect

René Descartes - analytical geometry, Cartesian coordinates, rationalism

Pierre-Simon Laplace - Laplace's equation, Laplace transform

The work of many of these mathematicians extends into the scientific world. In addition, there are many key French scientists as this list shows...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_scientists

----------

Jon (Dec 20, 2020),

metric_taper (Dec 20, 2020),

Moby Duck (Dec 22, 2020),

Toolmaker51 (Dec 21, 2020)

----------


## acmerocket

Remember it was not a metric country that put a man on the moon,but I have to admit the metric system makes sense.I will continue to use both.

----------


## mklotz

> Remember it was not a metric country that put a man on the moon,but I have to admit the metric system makes sense.I will continue to use both.



And it was a metric country that put the first satellite into earth orbit. So what?

----------


## Jon

Fun fact: US measurement standards are actually defined in metric units. 8:51 video from a visit to the National Institute of Standards and Technology:

----------

Christophe Mineau (Dec 22, 2020),

FEM2008 (Dec 26, 2020),

jimfols (Dec 21, 2020),

Moby Duck (Dec 22, 2020)

----------


## DIYSwede

Suggested reading:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass)#Current_use

just my 2 cents

Johan

----------

Moby Duck (Dec 22, 2020)

----------


## IntheGroove

And then you've this: The stone or stone weight (abbreviation: st.) is an English and imperial unit of mass now equal to 14 pounds (approximately 6.35 kg). The stone continues in customary use in Britain and Ireland for body weight, but was prohibited for commercial use in the United Kingdom by the Weights and Measures Act of 1985.

----------


## Jon

Social distancing chart, with distance specified in pizzas.

----------


## jdurand

looks to me like the pizzas are coming from the guy on the left and attacking the guy on the right.

----------


## IntheGroove

And in Florida...

----------


## mklotz

Measuring distances in football fields, pizzas or alligators is fine but what do you do when you need to express a pure number out of range of the 1-2-many counting types? Walmart has solved that problem...

----------


## IntheGroove

Asteroid bigger than the Statue of Liberty will fly past Earth on Christmas Day, NASA says...

----------


## clavius

> Measuring distances in football fields, pizzas or alligators is fine but what do you do when you need to express a pure number out of range of the 1-2-many counting types? Walmart has solved that problem...




I know that I am probably giving far too much credit here, but for the sake of humanity I hope that is just an Walmart's attempt at ironic humor.

----------


## mklotz

> I know that I am probably giving far too much credit here, but for the sake of humanity I hope that is just an Walmart's attempt at ironic humor.



Allow me to introduce you to the Walmartians, the species who shop there...

https://www.sadanduseless.com/people...lmart-gallery/

Scroll through that site; think those folks could count all the way up to fifteen?

----------

clavius (Dec 25, 2020)

----------


## mklotz

> Asteroid bigger than the Statue of Liberty will fly past Earth on Christmas Day, NASA says...



This article...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/mass...arth-1.5244153

says in its very first sentence...

"TORONTO -- A massive asteroid that may be bigger than the length of two football fields is set to fly past Earth on Christmas Day, according to NASA."

so fortunately we need not convert odd dimensions like Statues-of-Liberty into the universal standard of football fields. I can't express how reassuring that is :-) Even the folks in the great white North measure in football fields.

----------


## clavius

> Allow me to introduce you to the Walmartians, the species who shop there...
> 
> https://www.sadanduseless.com/people...lmart-gallery/
> 
> Scroll through that site; think those folks could count all the way up to fifteen?



HA! 

Like many, I had chuckled at the "people of walmart" stuff that you see on the web. I always just figured these characters were distant outliers. Then 7 or 8 years ago my job had me working in Florida and the principle worksite just happened to be nextdoor to a large Walmart where we would go to stock up on groceries for the extended stay place I was staying at, or when we were desperate and hungry enough, a late night sandwich because nothing else was open. 

I learned pretty quickly that it was quite effortless to find "People of Walmart" caliber people, most any time of the day or night. It was an eyeopener.

----------


## clavius

> Asteroid bigger than the Statue of Liberty will fly past Earth on Christmas Day, NASA says...




This reminds me of an article about those kids that were trapped in the underwater cave a couple of years back. I think it was in Thailand. One of the UK newspapers had an infographic showing a cross section of the rescue path to illustrate how difficult the rescue was going to be. They described the narrowest part of the passage as being "The width of four Mars candy bars"...

----------


## hemmjo

Quickly reading the article points out a much more CRITICAL deficiency in the understanding of measurement by MOST people, no matter what units you use.

The article clearly states, "....has a diameter between 92 and 210 metres. This means it could range from the size of the Statue of Liberty to the length of two NFL-size football fields..."

Even if you have no idea what a meter is, if you truly understand measurement, and simple math you can easily see the asteroid is from "this big" to over "twice this big". However when writers start to mix units, it becomes foolish. Why not simply say, "the size can be between one to two Statues of Liberty". Or between "one and two Football fields".

It is so unfortunate that we get so much of our information from Journalists who no longer study how to clearly communicate information. Instead they study how keep the consumers "attention" long enough to air the commercials. It does not matter if what they say is true or not, as no one will call them on it anyway.

One of my favorite lines came from a reporter covering the city's preparations for the upcoming winter season. She pointed to a single axle truck stating, "this truck is ready to go with 20,000 TONS of salt". It happens all the time.

Merry Christmas Walmart shoppers!!!

----------


## hemmjo

> This reminds me of an article about those kids that were trapped in the underwater cave a couple of years back. I think it was in Thailand. One of the UK newspapers had an infographic showing a cross section of the rescue path to illustrate how difficult the rescue was going to be. They described the narrowest part of the passage as being "The width of four Mars candy bars"...



 Would than be the "Fun Size" (19.7 g) the "Snack Time" (36.5 g), the regular sized single 58 g bar OR the "king-size" 84 g bar? 

All we can do is smile and do our best!!!!

----------


## mklotz

Which raises the question, what is the accepted length of a football field?

In Usonian football, the playing area is 100 yards (300 feet) long but there are two 10 yard endzones so the total field length is 120 yards (360 feet).

Then there's the matter of what "football" means. In many countries, it's soccer, and I believe the dimensions of soccer fields can vary.

Thankfully, I'm ignorant of all the other forms of the game played throughout the world. It seems that "football field" is as rubber a measurement as "barrel" or "bushel".

----------

Jon (Dec 26, 2020)

----------


## Jon

That's ironic; even a football field is not the standard measurement length of a football field.

This one was easy to make, even with my limited graphic skills:

----------

will52100 (Dec 26, 2020)

----------


## mklotz

Even more ironic...

Since its length is unspecified, it's logical to average 100 yards and 120 yards to get 110 yards, which is almost exactly 100 METERS.

[I secretly enjoy manufacturing these fictitious joins between the two systems to confound the stupid. In college, I had a liberal arts major gal convinced that the frequent use of the dozen in the inferial system was due to widespread polydactylism among the Quaker colonists.]

----------

baja (Dec 27, 2020)

----------


## FEM2008

> Even more ironic...
> 
> Since its length is unspecified, it's logical to average 100 yards and 120 yards to get 110 yards, which is almost exactly 100 METERS.
> 
> [I secretly enjoy manufacturing these fictitious joins between the two systems to confound the stupid. In college, I had a liberal arts major gal convinced that the frequent use of the dozen in the inferial system was due to widespread polydactylism among the Quaker colonists.]



That was mean!  :Bow:  :Bow:  :Lol:

----------


## hemmjo

Had to look up Polydactyly or polydactylism ... (from Greek πολύς (polys) 'many', and δάκτυλος (daktylos) 'finger'), also known as hyperdactyly, is an anomaly in humans and animals resulting in supernumerary fingers and/or toes. Polydactyly is the opposite of oligodactyly (fewer fingers or toes).

I can go back to bed now I learned my "something new" for today!!!

----------

bigtrev8xl (Dec 27, 2020)

----------


## mklotz

> That was mean!



Not as mean as the ingénue I convinced that my senior thesis was the equations of motion that demonstrated why meteorites always land in craters.

----------


## hemmjo

> Not as mean as the ingénue I convinced that my senior thesis was the equations of motion that demonstrated why meteorites always land in craters.



Oh Marv, That is too easy!!! It is for the same reason that you always find lost items in the last place you look!!!  :Smile:

----------


## Nick79

When I taught Physics years ago we used metric - almost exclusively. Occasionally I needed to explain a concept using the "other" system to help a few students understand what was happening. I enjoyed challenging my students and once- tongue-in-cheek told them America was going to shift to "metric TIME" they didn't know what to do after that suggestion....

----------


## jatt

> metric TIME" they didn't know what to do after that suggestion....



Or even decimal time!

----------


## mklotz

> When I taught Physics years ago we used metric - almost exclusively. Occasionally I needed to explain a concept using the "other" system to help a few students understand what was happening. I enjoyed challenging my students and once- tongue-in-cheek told them America was going to shift to "metric TIME" they didn't know what to do after that suggestion....



"Metric Time" is a misnomer. The unit of time in the metric system of measurement has always been the conventional second - 1/86400 of the rotational period of the earth.

However, during the French revolution, the French. in excessive eagerness to rid themselves of everything associated with the monarchy, introduced the concept of "Decimal Time". The day was to be divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 minutes and each minute into 100 seconds. This scheme was popularized briefly at the time of the revolution but never caught on outside France. Later, other schemes were tried including dividing the day into 100 hours with decimal divisions into minutes and seconds.

A more detailed description can be found in Wikipedia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

Decimal Time did last long enough for the clockmakers to make clocks that displayed it. This image from the above article shows one...



If you ever run across one in a garage sale, buy it no matter the price; they're worth a small fortune in the antique market due to their extreme rarity.

----------

FEM2008 (Dec 28, 2020),

Tonyg (Dec 29, 2020)

----------


## hemmjo

Let us not forget about the gradian, also known as the gon. 1/400 of a turn, 9/10 of a degree, or pi/200.

----------


## TheElderBrother

The Canadian "government", such as it is, actually distributed a metric clock to each household in Canada at one point, presumably so collectors would have something to ignore at flea markets. 

I have an app on my phone that sounds bells according to ship's clock time. Really annoys my wife when she asks me what time I want to have dinner I tell her about midway through Second Dog Watch.

She smartened up, though. She went online and learned it so she could play back at me. "We have to leave the house no later than seven bells into Forenoon Watch."

----------


## mklotz

> Let us not forget about the gradian, also known as the gon. 1/400 of a turn, 9/10 of a degree, or pi/200.



Fortunately, it never became part of SI though. I've never seen it used here in the USA.

Worse are the machinists who term a thousandth of an inch a "mil".

One has to be careful with "mil" since it's one of the common terms for milliradians. an SI unit...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliradian

Also the artillery setters use it as an angular measure. However, to maintain the spirit of inferial confusion, they've "rounded" the 6283... milliradians in a circle to 6400. I suppose the (admittedly slight) error so induced is compensated with more explosive shells.

----------


## Jon

Nice Simpsons bit on metric time.



Your browser does not support the video tag.

----------


## rgsparber

Why is it that we cling to such an awful system of time? I guess it doesn't help that a year is not an integer number of days and a day is a variable number of hours, minutes, and seconds. We have been stuck with grouping 7 days together and calling it a week for many millennium. When we have colonies living outside of the earth, this system is going to make even less sense.

I have heard discussion of doing away with time zones. Now, wouldn't that be interesting.

I bought this watch a few years ago:



I was surprised how quickly I got used to it. However, switching between having one hand and two drove me nuts. 

Rick

----------

Little Rabbit (Jan 10, 2021)

----------


## Karl_H

> I have heard discussion of doing away with time zones. Now, wouldn't that be interesting.
> Rick



From my perspective, we don't really need them.
I have lunch time, nap time, dinner time and bed time!
And Marv, if I didn't lose a finger to the table saw, I would have to come up with another time!

(Just kidding - I still have all 10.)

----------


## DIYSwede

Scored one of these odd looking things in a flea market in Moscow 1992:



Raketa #2623 , 24h "Submariner's watch" with major time zone cities marked on a rotatable inner ring.
Haven't used it since the nineties, as the glass cracked and I've not yet gotten around switching it...
Guess Marv would call it a "Tetravigesimal" watch? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaugel_language:)

Always fun to show people asking for the time... *It is 9:41:33 a.m.*

----------


## mklotz

> Why is it that we cling to such an awful system of time? I guess it doesn't help that a year is not an integer number of days and a day is a variable number of hours, minutes, and seconds. We have been stuck with grouping 7 days together and calling it a week for many millennium. When we have colonies living outside of the earth, this system is going to make even less sense.
> 
> I have heard discussion of doing away with time zones. Now, wouldn't that be interesting.



Why do we cling to outdated, over-complicated systems?

The major reason seems to be the Old-Fart Factor (OFF). OFFs are resistant to any change, often mysteriously claiming it's an intrusion on their freedom. This coupled with the old-stuff-is-always-better-than-new-stuff idea that is a product of change resistance seems to develop with age so society never loses its collection of OFFs. There will always be a cadre of OFFs shaking their fingers at any suggested change.

Sometimes the OFFs can be overcome. When Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right in the 60s, some 80% of the people voted to not do it, yet it was accomplished in one day - a mind-boggling logistical effort. The British finally decimalized their impossibly complicated currency (though, despite pretending to be metric, they continue to measure distances in miles and beer in pints).

Beyond the OFFs, there is the dumbing-down factor (DDF ?). A population that can't read a ruler to better than inch precision is going to go into neural paralysis if faced with a 24 hour clock. Even time zones are a mystery to many people. When a large segment of the population believes in angels, devils, ghosts, aliens and a flat earth, convincing them to make logical changes doesn't stand a chance.

----------

FEM2008 (Dec 29, 2020)

----------


## mklotz

> ...
> Guess Marv would call it a "Tetravigesimal" watch? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaugel_language:)
> ...



Tetravigesimal doesn't have quite the ring I'd like.

I'd love to see a redneck trying to get his mouth around Octoquadragesimal. (Sounds like a eight-armed alien.)

OTOH, Quinquagesimal reminds me of Queequeg, Ahab's harpooner.

Heck, if you're going to pick a dumb base, it might as well sound cool. ;-)

----------


## DIYSwede

Aw - I wouldn't mind personally going the full nine yards for metric time, as I've already adopted the YY-MM-DD and the 24h time notation:

"_This property also makes it straightforward to represent a timestamp as a fractional day, so that 2020-12-29.54321 can be interpreted as five decimal hours and 43 decimal minutes and 21 decimal seconds after the start of that day, or a fraction of 0.54321 (54.321%) through that day (which is shortly after traditional 13:00). It also adjusts well to digital time representation using epochs, in that the internal time representation can be used directly both for computation and for user-facing display._"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time:

Written 2020-12-29.*87500 Metric UTC*
-Decimal year, month and/ or date - Anyone?
-Come out, all ye secret users of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

*-Heck, we all know that 9 p m is exactly 87.5% of a day!*

Cheers
Johan (non OFF)

----------


## mklotz

A useful property of the 2020-12-29.54321 notation is that pictures using that as a filename will temporally self-organize when stored in a computer file.

----------


## TheElderBrother

I wonder if oligodactyly is limited to naturally occuring birth defects, or if you have it once you've had a toe amputated...

----------


## Jon



----------

baja (Jan 7, 2021),

bruce.desertrat (Jan 6, 2021),

FEM2008 (Jan 6, 2021),

jimfols (Jan 6, 2021),

Karl_H (Jan 6, 2021),

mklotz (Jan 6, 2021),

nova_robotics (Jan 9, 2021),

Tonyg (Jan 8, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 6, 2021),

Tule (Jan 10, 2021)

----------


## mklotz

I love it. Now to find a way to weave the Latin for drunken lobsters...

_ebrios nephropidae_

into my descriptions of inferial idiocy.

----------

baja (Jan 7, 2021),

Little Rabbit (Jan 10, 2021),

rgsparber (Jan 6, 2021),

Tule (Jan 10, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

Drunken lobsters? Highly suspect.
Now, misoriented crabs, here is visual proof.


vid here. 
copy paste 
Underworld Water of Jacques Custard: The Forward Walking Crab
c'mon, whats 3 minutes?

----------

FEM2008 (Jan 6, 2021)

----------


## FEM2008

> Drunken lobsters? Highly suspect.
> Now, misoriented crabs, here is visual proof.
> 
> 
> vid here. 
> copy paste 
> Underworld Water of Jacques Custard: The Forward Walking Crab
> c'mon, whats 3 minutes?



Because 3 minutes of Benny Hill endsup being more like 30 minutes of binging!

----------


## Toolmaker51

> Because 3 minutes of Benny Hill endsup being more like 30 minutes of binging!



Lol, the problem is......?
I marvel how certain older comedy lives on, while current examples we can't even finish viewing. Thanks for the reply.

----------


## Jon

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...t_fullsize.jpg

----------

mklotz (Jan 10, 2021)

----------


## mklotz

Rats, another blasted batch of inferial constants to memorize

440 zambonis to the mile.

25 zambonis to a football field

302.5 square zambonis = 1 acre

Regardless, "zamboni" has a ring to it; it sounds just zany enough to qualify as an inferial unit.

----------

baja (Jan 12, 2021),

bruce.desertrat (Jan 10, 2021),

lowracer (Jan 11, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 10, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

You do know, Paramount Ice Rink and Zamboni each put the other on the map. Like so many other SoCal creations. 
The originals were VW powered

----------


## Jon



----------

bigtrev8xl (Jan 17, 2021),

mwmkravchenko (Jan 16, 2021),

rlm98253 (Jan 16, 2021),

Tonyg (Jan 17, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

and this means what??? nothing at all. the unit could be the width of a wall nut. and that would work just fine as long as it was a std nut size.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jan 17, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

"Earth's circumference has been used to define fundamental units of measurement of length: the nautical mile in the seventeenth century and the metre in the eighteenth"...

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jan 17, 2021)

----------


## mwmkravchenko

> 



OK
quit making sense. The Americans will have none of it. If it makes sense I mean!

----------

bigtrev8xl (Jan 17, 2021),

Harvey Melvin Richards (Jan 16, 2021),

Moby Duck (Jan 18, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

you can take a stick and use it for mesurement just as well as a metrick or inch ruler.just watch some of the vids posted hear. I rest my case.

----------


## Toolmaker51

> "Earth's circumference has been used to define fundamental units of measurement of length: the nautical mile in the seventeenth century and the metre in the eighteenth"...



re nautical mile; Actual length is not regarded so often as it's rounded-off figure; to simplify mental calculations, ship handling poses many variables minute by minute. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_mile 

"Historically, it was defined as one minute (1/60 of a degree) of latitude along any line of longitude. Today the international nautical mile is defined as exactly 1852 metres (6076 ft; 1.151 mi). The derived unit of speed is the knot, one nautical mile per hour."

----------


## marksbug

my dad tried to teach me them knots. knot times knot is....then he threw in the fighttem's.....fightem knot is knot fighttem too is 10..or some sort of crap I was screwed up till my senior year in highschool when one school day laying on the beach I figured it all out. and he was a engineer....

----------


## rgsparber

> you can take a stick and use it for mesurement just as well as a metrick or inch ruler.just watch some of the vids posted hear. I rest my case.



I agree that the base distance is not important. It is all about the multipliers to get to larger and smaller distances. The choice is, for example, 5280 versus 1000. 

Quick, how many feet in 3.5 miles?

OK, how many meters in 3.5 KM? 

Rick

----------

Moby Duck (Jan 18, 2021),

mwmkravchenko (Jan 18, 2021)

----------


## Paul Alciatore

The English units were made with the NEEDS and CARES of the people in mind. 

That picture makes fun of the divisions of various English units. But, to give just a few examples, and please keep in mind that there were NO COMPUTERS or POCKET CACULATORS or CELL PHONES with APPS in the days when BOTH of these systems were invented. 

A FOOT is divided into 12 inches. Now 12 can be evenly divided by 2, 3, 4, and 6. A meter is usually divided by 10, 100, or 1000 and the prime factors of those numbers are only 2 and 5. The factors of the foot are much more useful when dividing things in every day life. 

The YARD is three feet or 36 inches and it continues the easy division into MORE sizes than the meter does. 

The Pound is 16 ounces and that is divisible by 2, 4, and 8. The KiloGram, like the meter, only has factors of 2 and 5. Again, when dividing things up in everyday life, the pound wins hands down. 

Etc. for almost every English unit. All of the metric units are divided up or combined upwards by factors of 10 which only has factors of 2 and 5. Division by a number as small as 3 is not easily done. In fact, it yields an infinite decimal. Many will say that the math is easier with metric numbers, but there are many instances where that is true of the English system instead. 

While no number is divisible by every smaller number, the multipliers chosen for English units will almost always have a larger number of small numbers that yield EVEN divisions. English units were made to be more useful in every day life and commerce. Metric units were invented by scientists, by intellectuals who saw no problems with using a higher level of elementary arithmetic than the everyday man. The metric system is aligned with our use of numbers of base 10. This itself is due to the accident of nature that produced our bodies with 10 fingers. If we had 8 or 12 fingers, there would be NO metric (based on 10s) system and anyone proposing a system based on number of base 10 would be laughed at just as heartily as someone today who proposed that we change over to a number and measurement systems based on, let me say, numbers of base 7. 

Today, with the common availability of the computational aids that I mentioned above, there is stronger support for the metric system than existed in days past. 

I, myself am one of those scientist/intellectuals but I am not arguing for either system. I am just pointing out one of the real reasons behind their respective creations, actual HUMAN needs and considerations.

----------


## IntheGroove

Ten fingers. Metric...

----------


## Moby Duck

> and this means what??? nothing at all. the unit could be the width of a wall nut. and that would work just fine as long as it was a std nut size.



Except when you try to screw your base wall nut nut to the international space station, it’s not going to fit. They have already tried that, and failed.
For those in doubt, BSW is not British Standard Wall-Nut.

----------


## Moby Duck

Pity the chart comparison didnt include imperial gallons/ American gallons, another abomination.

----------


## rgsparber

> The English units were made with the NEEDS and CARES of the people in mind. 
> 
> That picture makes fun of the divisions of various English units. But, to give just a few examples, and please keep in mind that there were NO COMPUTERS or POCKET CACULATORS or CELL PHONES with APPS in the days when BOTH of these systems were invented. 
> 
> A FOOT is divided into 12 inches. Now 12 can be evenly divided by 2, 3, 4, and 6. A meter is usually divided by 10, 100, or 1000 and the prime factors of those numbers are only 2 and 5. The factors of the foot are much more useful when dividing things in every day life. 
> 
> The YARD is three feet or 36 inches and it continues the easy division into MORE sizes than the meter does. 
> 
> The Pound is 16 ounces and that is divisible by 2, 4, and 8. The KiloGram, like the meter, only has factors of 2 and 5. Again, when dividing things up in everyday life, the pound wins hands down. 
> ...



I can't argue with your math but do you have any historical references to support your claims? I could find any.

Rick

----------


## Hoosiersmoker

Vive la difference! How else to occupy our time??? Try this one... Caribbean. GO!

----------


## marksbug

I use them both on a daily basis with no issues. I suppose week minded people may have issue with them.or they think they do. both systems are quite eazy ans work finer than frogs hair. personaly i think we have 2 systems due to the tool company's cumming up with a way to double, tipple&quadruple those prophets.... and more. the more you have the more you can loose and just have to replace....and while im hear...I want that too!!! sneekey tool company's at work. it also seems to work for carbide inserts too :Rimshot:

----------


## mklotz

The integerial divisibility of the inferial system may have made sense IN ITS TIME. 

But, as the world evolves, there is no need to keep using an awkward, antiquated system just because it's traditional. It's conceivable that the old English money system once made sense but even the English eventually realized that a decimal system made more sense and fewer mistakes and thus, despite protests from the traditionalists, changed over. If the traditionalists were to have their way, we would still be using Roman numerals and Egyptian fractions.

----------


## mklotz

> The English units were made with the NEEDS and CARES of the people in mind. 
> 
> That picture makes fun of the divisions of various English units. But, to give just a few examples, and please keep in mind that there were NO COMPUTERS or POCKET CACULATORS or CELL PHONES with APPS in the days when BOTH of these systems were invented. 
> 
> A FOOT is divided into 12 inches. Now 12 can be evenly divided by 2, 3, 4, and 6. A meter is usually divided by 10, 100, or 1000 and the prime factors of those numbers are only 2 and 5. The factors of the foot are much more useful when dividing things in every day life. 
> 
> The YARD is three feet or 36 inches and it continues the easy division into MORE sizes than the meter does. 
> 
> The Pound is 16 ounces and that is divisible by 2, 4, and 8. The KiloGram, like the meter, only has factors of 2 and 5. Again, when dividing things up in everyday life, the pound wins hands down. 
> ...



If they wanted lots of integer divisibility, why not use a sexagesimal system? It was good enough for the ancient Sumerians that their Babylonian conquerors adopted it. Hell, it was good enough that WE use it - time and angle.

Incidentally, the abacus dates back to the Babylonians which makes it about 5000 years old. So they did have "pocket calculators". Their lack of cell phones is probably the reason they were so inventive and mathematically sophisticated :-).

----------


## marksbug

like...how long you can keep the angle of the dangle from dangling. so..what if the father of math,metrick math had lost 2 fingers? :Head Scratch:

----------


## Karl_H

> l...how long you can keep the angle of the dangle from dangling.



All depends on the cube of the tube!

----------

marksbug (Jan 18, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

> so..what if the father of math,metrick math had lost 2 fingers?



He would have been able to only count to nine...

----------


## mwmkravchenko

> I agree that the base distance is not important. It is all about the multipliers to get to larger and smaller distances. The choice is, for example, 5280 versus 1000. 
> 
> Quick, how many feet in 3.5 miles?
> 
> OK, how many meters in 3.5 KM? 
> 
> Rick



Bingo.

The greatest facility Metric gives you is ease of calculation.

Good old dividers were used in times past hence we have 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 and dividers are getting kind of useless.

But it worked for what it was meant for.

I use both. Grew up with both.

There are 3 countries officially inches in the world. America is the largest. Lest I say more.

----------

NortonDommi (Feb 13, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 19, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

Good News. 
Divider use, not common as the in past, still depended on in navigation, sheetmetal work [including rivet fans], all kinds of layout geometry, even pipeliners use a version suited to drawing on the curve of pipe.

----------

mwmkravchenko (Jan 26, 2021),

NortonDommi (Feb 13, 2021)

----------


## Jon



----------

baja (Jan 26, 2021),

Karl_H (Jan 25, 2021),

mklotz (Jan 25, 2021),

mwmkravchenko (Jan 26, 2021),

NortonDommi (Feb 13, 2021),

Tonyg (Jan 26, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

so..how many cubic millimeaters is road island?? :Head Scratch: 
I wasent aware that inches is the official american mesurement...how can that be??so why are my american cars metrick?I alsent aware that i have to stop deviding metric...I thought 16 mm divided by 2 was 8 mm...I must be missing something... I think that it may just be a week brain that cant seem to make either or both work. do i have to get permission from the math gods to replace the tiny metric lifters in my ac vw engine with big jessell 7/8" roller lifters?? will the earth spin off it's axsess??? is the earth flat when measured with the metric system?? what about the moon?? it is cheddar in inches and swiss cheezze in the metrick system??**** I better go back to school, this new math is really centrifuging me. sorry for the spelling part it is is now in metric. :Clapping:

----------

baja (Jan 26, 2021),

hemmjo (Jan 25, 2021)

----------


## jdurand

a milimeater is a White Castle burger

----------

baja (Jan 26, 2021),

bruce.desertrat (Jan 26, 2021),

Karl_H (Jan 26, 2021),

marksbug (Jan 26, 2021),

toeless joe (Jan 25, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

Here's a measurement many have used...

----------

baja (Jan 26, 2021),

marksbug (Jan 26, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 25, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

> Here's a measurement many have used...



All too often proceeded by heavily labor intensive sessions via filing on a lathe.

----------

IntheGroove (Jan 26, 2021),

marksbug (Jan 26, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

I worked at a aero space& prototype shop....after a few months you realize just how stupid some engineers are...and yes some tolerances can be hard o obtain..you need a neek to do it most of the time.

----------


## Jon

Asteroid that is "twice the size of Taj Mahal". This one slightly redeems itself by accompanying it with actual measurements.

----------


## Toolmaker51

> Asteroid that is "twice the size of Taj Mahal". This one slightly redeems itself by accompanying it with actual measurements.



So, where do we get the mysterious catalog of comparative measurements? I'd first want to see its method of indexing. Can't get my head around knowing the size of something, then figuring what it equals, or how many needed. 
Meanwhile, yours truly is indexing his library, oh yes I am! So far, it's 4 pages thick.......in excel.

----------


## mklotz

According to Wikipedia, the Taj is 240' high (height being the only dimension given)

480' = 146+ meters

which is very close to 175 for large values of 146

Given that its mass is the relevant figure in evaluating an impact, it would make more sense to estimate its volume...

V = (4/3)*pi*(175/2)^3 / 2500 (m^3 per olympic swimming pool) = 1122+ olympic swimming pools

There, that's better, now it's expressed in a way the social ecology majors can comprehend.

----------

bob_3000 (Feb 12, 2021),

marksbug (Feb 12, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Feb 12, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

as in today today?? I dont see it :Head Scratch:

----------


## Toolmaker51

1122 Olympic pools?
I want that pump station contract.

----------


## FEM2008

> I worked at a aero space& prototype shop....after a few months you realize just how stupid some engineers are...and yes some tolerances can be hard o obtain..you need a neek to do it most of the time.



If it takes a neek to successfully machine the tight tolerances, then I would call that a compliment.

I am an engineer, twice over. I worked on a variety of positions and projects, for everything from the air-force to designing products used by the largest primary metals companies in the world. Tight tolerances are sometimes truly required.
What I have often encountered foundries and shops that cannot meet even very generous industry standard tolerances that have been established decades ago. Some shops could not even meet their own tolerances. 

It goes both ways!!!

----------


## NortonDommi

> so..how many cubic millimeaters is road island??
> I wasent aware that inches is the official american mesurement...how can that be??so why are my american cars metrick?I alsent aware that i have to stop deviding metric...I thought 16 mm divided by 2 was 8 mm...I must be missing something... I think that it may just be a week brain that cant seem to make either or both work. do i have to get permission from the math gods to replace the tiny metric lifters in my ac vw engine with big jessell 7/8" roller lifters?? will the earth spin off it's axsess??? is the earth flat when measured with the metric system?? what about the moon?? it is cheddar in inches and swiss cheezze in the metrick system??**** I better go back to school, this new math is really centrifuging me. sorry for the spelling part it is is now in metric.



By Hoki Marksbug DO NOT delve into decimal vs fractions of an inch or the differences between British and and American Imperial measurements will you?

----------

marksbug (Mar 8, 2021)

----------


## NortonDommi

Fun fact for anyone interested. Old Massey Ferguson tractors use decimal inches for all the chassis and running gear measurements. Threw me for a loop making some ROPS for a friend who collects them. I am used to swapping between Imperial fractions and Metrickery in anything over an inch but had forgotten about decimal inches and had to go and consult a beer to figure out what these weird measurements I was getting were.

----------


## bruce.desertrat

Lol. Many years ago I picked up a 50' cloth rule for a buck at a yard sale.It was just the rule, no housing or winder. Never looked at it too closely, it got stuck in the back of the toolbox for times when my normal 25' tape rule wasn't big enough. Fast forward a few years, we buy a house and start measuring rooms, switching between the metal tape rule and the longer cloth rule, again, without closely examining it.

We couldn't understand why measurements kept coming up weird until I looked more closely at the cloth rule....it was graduated in tenths of a foot, not inches...

----------

marksbug (Mar 8, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Feb 13, 2021)

----------


## mwmkravchenko

> Lol. Many years ago I picked up a 50' cloth rule for a buck at a yard sale.It was just the rule, no housing or winder. Never looked at it too closely, it got stuck in the back of the toolbox for times when my normal 25' tape rule wasn't big enough. Fast forward a few years, we buy a house and start measuring rooms, switching between the metal tape rule and the longer cloth rule, again, without closely examining it.
> 
> We couldn't understand why measurements kept coming up weird until I looked more closely at the cloth rule....it was graduated in tenths of a foot, not inches...



Probably for surveying.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Feb 13, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

1/10th scales are rare in one way, at say the local hardware, with all graduated fractional or metric. As mwmkravchenko states, and bruce.desertrat observe, they are not extinct. Surveyors and various engineers use them. I have a little 33-272 Stanley graduated in tenths and narrow. Ideal for checks inside tube or through the chuck on barstock in the lathe, handy facing off by relating directly to graduations on the machine. Or buy a loooooong hook rule at 5x the price......maybe 7x
The really small 10 footers, 1/4" wide tapes, in 1/16th's and mm are worth scrounging for. Some converting is needed, but the graduations aren't so fine to make correct measurements difficult. It's additionally helpful fractions and metric divisions don't coincide, pick closest at each instance. Using a straight edge [ie 6" scale] makes an ideal 'pointer' across end of the work, like when threads or chamfers interrupt that plane.
A casual representation of items mentioned;


And speaking of cloth tapes, get one. They are commonly sold among notions for seamstresses; 6'-8' long, dual graduations, unbeatable when measuring circumferences and arcs, in box maybe not a roll-up case, and not expensive.

----------


## Jon

Another social distancing gem, requiring 17 of the chosen unit to comprise two meters.

----------

jimfols (Mar 8, 2021),

marksbug (Mar 8, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

oh I sea...and I was thinking about the 2 harbinger of fright $3.00 meters.... :Smash:

----------


## marksbug

Im pretty good at all of it, but the celseaus and the bars just dont work so well for me...keylows sometimes work as well as my spelling. I used to know the metrick speedos vs mph pretty good after growing up in japan but....that was long ago and seems to of faded away. the liters...2 liter is a diet soda. do they make metrick messuring cups?? and if they do what are they called ??or are cups already metrick? :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

----------


## Toolmaker51

Yes, measuring vessels are available in metric divisions. Labware is pretty much exclusive to it, cookware is dual marked, as are other items. Seems to depend on the end-user market.

----------


## marksbug

what about time...is there a metrick time that I have missed :Head Scratch:  nano hours? nano happy hours!!! sorry you missed it!! :ROFL:

----------


## hemmjo

OK, so which came first, the cup, or the cup? 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cup

----------


## marksbug

the a cup, the b cup, the c cup ,the tea cup.the hiccup.the sippy cup....then came the winston cup, the riders cup....there will never be a end to the cups.

----------

baja (Mar 9, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Mar 8, 2021)

----------


## jimfols

The America's Cup starts Thursday.

----------

marksbug (Mar 8, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

great Ill have to get a CUP-O- SOUP to eat while I watching!!! I heard stanley has a cup to, possibly for measuring oil or saw dust...or water for his steamers.

----------


## IntheGroove

Largest asteroid of 2021 that's twice the size of the Eiffel Tower will zip past Earth next week...

----------

marksbug (Mar 12, 2021)

----------


## bruce.desertrat

> what about time...is there a metrick time that I have missed nano hours? nano happy hours!!! sorry you missed it!!



There is Decimal Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time but metric time is actually a thing; but it's essentially just counting seconds and adding milli, deci, kilo- etc to the front to mean 0.001, 10, 1000 seconds, etc. It's most widely used in computing; on unix systems time is given as the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970. That lead to the Y2038 problem where Time would stop and start over in 2038 because the 32-bit unsigned integer would roll back over to 0, kind of like the Mayan Calendar in 2012 (which was never *actually* 'the end of the world' to the mayans, but 'time to carve a new calendar!'). Fortunately we use a 64-bit integer, which put off solving the problem until later..._MUCH_ later:

_"At 15:30:08 UTC on Sunday, 4 December 292277026596, 64-bit versions of the Unix time stamp cease to work, as it will overflow the largest value that can be held in a signed 64-bit number. This is nearly 22 times the estimated current age of the universe, which is 1.37×1010 years (13.7 billion)."_

Now THAT'S how you kick the can down the road...

----------

FEM2008 (Mar 12, 2021),

jimfols (Mar 12, 2021),

NortonDommi (Mar 12, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Mar 12, 2021)

----------


## mklotz

Decimal time...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

----------


## Toolmaker51

> Largest asteroid of 2021 that's twice the size of the Eiffel Tower will zip past Earth next week...



Fortunately, as the asteroid won't pass nearly as closely in 2021; it will remain 44 times more distant than the moon, or 10,471,577 miles. credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech). Just as fortunate, Eiffel Tower [1063'] is not 52013101185.8 X taller or it could be hit!
Without a sample maple syrup jug [post 211], and calculate spacing, cannot predict that measurement, instead; roughly equivalent 165869779680 WD-40 spray tubes laid end to end.

----------

bruce.desertrat (Mar 12, 2021),

MeJasonT (Mar 12, 2021)

----------


## MeJasonT

marksbug The celcius thing is easy, minus 32 then half it for fathom height lol and double it and add 32 for celcimus, very crude but works. The difference will never be seen from an Alaskan tramway.

so 10 deg C = 20 + 32 = 52 deg F or 60 deg F = 60-32 = 28/2 =14 deg C

It always been a best gestimate for me.

----------

marksbug (Mar 12, 2021)

----------


## MeJasonT

oh what a shame it took out the Eiffel Tower

----------

Toolmaker51 (Mar 12, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

where will it be??

----------


## marksbug

I better get some hemorrhoid cream just incase it stops hear. :Idea:  :Head Scratch:

----------


## mansworld

Or the length of 222 (9mm) most popular caliber in the US.

----------


## MeJasonT

Riding shotgun takes on a whole new meaning

----------


## NortonDommi

> marksbug The celcius thing is easy, minus 32 then half it for fathom height lol and double it and add 32 for celcimus, very crude but works. The difference will never be seen from an Alaskan tramway.
> 
> so 10 deg C = 20 + 32 = 52 deg F or 60 deg F = 60-32 = 28/2 =14 deg C
> 
> It always been a best gestimate for me.



Close enough for a barn door I'd say. C=(F-32)*5/9, F=(C*9/5)+32, C=F*1.8+32, F=(C-32)/1.8

This brought back memories of walking home from school in 1969 working out the conversions as we had just changed to metrickery. The Metric system is far easier to use that's for sure. Water boils at 100 degrees and freezes at 0 degrees in most circumstances.

----------


## FEM2008

If you are not keen on doing division or multiplication in your head, another quick trick for C to F conversion is by adding 18F degrees for every 10C. Zero starts at 32. So for 10 degrees C, its 32+18 = 50F. 30C = 32+18+18+18 = 86F, etc. I always remember that 20C is 68F because that's the temperature in my office most of winter! Its just as essay to remember that for every 5C, you add 9F and for every 3C you add 5F (5.4 actual) and every 1C you add 2F (1.8 actual). You can quickly and easily arrive at an accurate estimate of temperature. Converting back to C is just the opposite.

----------

jimfols (Mar 13, 2021)

----------


## MeJasonT

Now you see i dont find either equation all that easy
C=(F-32)*5/9, F=(C*9/5)+32, C=F*1.8+32, F=(C-32)/1.8 or for every 10C. Zero starts at 32. So for 10 degrees C, its 32+18 etc
they are nasty nasty numbers lol.

Metric is ok but i couldnt eat a whole one, i pretend i know both but its probably more like mix and match (on the same drawing).
ive taken up machining and still struggle with the 2 thou thing when its im mm its no better, i mean what is 0.0508 try looking at that on a dial gauge - at least 2 thou sits on the increment tick mark. Im actuall just aiming for it as opposed to being precise. I was always confused by Imaginary numbers, i mean what is that all about - next we will be doing math with non existant numbers. My maths teacher did try to convince me that algebra was just like using ohms law or any other electronics formule. Naaa didnt see that. substitution, i got that but seeing as 2x + (3x-7y) in a real world senario. Just when you got a grasp of it, you went into an exam and the bloody maths questions were in words. if Jack has 2 oranges but the oranges are cut into segments of 3 in one orange and 7 in the other orange calculate Jacks orange. I couldnt give 2 hoots about Jacks orange. He's got 2 frigging oranges. I have never in my life written out an equation in a paragraph of words. A key of constants/variables etc yes but never a page of blurb. Feeds and Speeds is my current obsession. I love it when people try to show their years of wisdom on forums and tell the poor sod asking the question to just enter the values into the formulas. Funny thing about math, if you dont have all the facts/variables equations are bloody impossible to solve. Chip load - unless you know chipload for a tool you wont get the feedrate and without the feedrate you cant find the chipload. so if you buy a cutter off Ebay the chances of getting the toothload is impossible. There is a frig granted but that isnt in the official taught /published formulas. The moto is cut twice measure once lol.

True wizards are those who own imperial machines but work in metric

----------


## mklotz

> Now you see i dont find either equation all that easy
> [COLOR=#333333]
> ... I was always confused by Imaginary numbers, i mean what is that all about - next we will be doing math with non existant numbers. ... Just when you got a grasp of it, you went into an exam and the bloody maths questions were in words. ...



Given your discomfort with math, here's a bit that should raise your hackles...

It's a proof of Euler's equation using no words at all. It's a proof that an irrational number raised to an imaginary, irrational number can equal a negative integer.

And before you rant about it being a useless result, ask an electrical engineer.

----------

FEM2008 (Mar 13, 2021),

rgsparber (Mar 13, 2021)

----------


## rgsparber

Marv,

Yes, but us EEs use “j”. :-))

Rick

----------


## mklotz

> Marv,
> 
> Yes, but us EEs use “j”. :-))
> 
> Rick



Yeah, I'm familiar with that abomination. If you lot had termed it "flow", Ohm's law could have been V = FR. But it's all good; mathematicians don't use 'j' much except for indices.

----------


## FEM2008

> Marv,
> 
> Yes, but us EEs use “j”. :-))
> 
> Rick



...and programmers use i for indices!

----------


## Karl_H

But what are 'j" and "i" in metric?
And how many olympic pools are they tall?

----------


## Jon

Found in the wild. A football field measurement used for one of Google's largest data centers. I like how they specify "American" football fields, which are slightly different in length from soccer fields. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_data_centers

----------


## marksbug

so it's 600 yards long..hy 400 feet wide .so whats rong with that? 4 story or 8? and whats the score!!! witch end is home plate on?? are the bats also bigger? what about the cricketts?? how high is the net?? more info please!!

----------


## DIYSwede

From CNN yesterday:

----------

Jon (Mar 25, 2021)

----------


## mklotz

> From CNN yesterday:
> 
> Attachment 38958



Certainly, it being the Suez and all, they should have quoted the length in Great Pyramids. After all, in the realm of goofy inferial measurements, it's well known that...

1 Empire State building = 3.2 Great Pyramids

----------

Karl_H (Mar 25, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Mar 25, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

While not exactly in realm of measurement, I relate what terminology we use EVERY day, that our PC's and Mac's are completely illiterate. The very same vocabulary 100% responsible getting their products manufactured and distributed. Mobile phones, even worse.

re: Great Pyramids...is 3.2 one of each, or compared to a certain example x 3.2?

----------


## marksbug

it's on cnn...must be a dingy.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Mar 25, 2021)

----------


## Philip Davies

Cubits. Thats what we should be using. Yes, indeed.

----------


## IntheGroove

What's a cubit? How long can you tread water...

----------

Karl_H (Mar 25, 2021),

toeless joe (Mar 25, 2021)

----------


## mklotz

> While not exactly in realm of measurement, I relate what terminology we use EVERY day, that our PC's and Mac's are completely illiterate. The very same vocabulary 100% responsible getting their products manufactured and distributed. Mobile phones, even worse.
> 
> re: Great Pyramids...is 3.2 one of each, or compared to a certain example x 3.2?



The Great Pyramid (singular) normally refers to Khufu's pyramid, the largest of the three at Giza. It was the tallest man-made structure on earth until the erection of the Eiffel Tower.

----------


## marksbug

my wifes way of mesure ment is eazer for me around the house......it's about this long.....

----------


## Toolmaker51

> The Great Pyramid (singular) normally refers to Khufu's pyramid, the largest of the three at Giza. It was the tallest man-made structure on earth until the erection of the Eiffel Tower.



Soon as method contrived to stack them up. 
I wonder, two base to base, one apex, maybe three apex to base?
Remaining .2 up to configuring party.

----------


## Toolmaker51

> my wifes way of mesure ment is eazer for me around the house......it's about this long.....



Can't resist. 
Classic reference to the question 'how long has it been?' 
"Well, it's been different lengths at different times!' 
Hint, Henry McGee and Fred Scuttle

----------

marksbug (Mar 26, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

Well it's not that long but it sure is short...

----------


## mklotz

> What's a cubit?



In the inferial spirit...four and a half hands, give or take a finger.

----------


## Philip Davies

> What's a cubit? How long can you tread water...



Roughly, from forefinger to elbow. Most encounter the word in the Bible (KJV) Its before the walking on water bit.

----------

jimfols (Mar 26, 2021)

----------


## jdurand

> From CNN yesterday:
> 
> Attachment 38958



somebody watches CNN?

----------


## lowracer

> somebody watches CNN?



it was a google ad.

----------


## mklotz

> Roughly, from forefinger to elbow. Most encounter the word in the Bible (KJV) It’s before the walking on water bit.



Also in the famous Christian proof that pi is equal to three...

"And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick...." — First Kings, chapter 7, verses 23 and 26

----------


## Karl_H

> Also in the famous Christian proof that pi is equal to three...
> First Kings, chapter 7, verses 23 and 26



and a footnote:

----------

bruce.desertrat (Mar 26, 2021)

----------


## bruce.desertrat

Well it could be three in that case, just need some dude whose arm is _just a bit longer_ than Hirams...

----------


## katy

"The size of 2 American football fields, with cooling towers four stories high."

I for one haven't a clue as to how long an "American football field" is, or any other football field either.
Then again how high is a "storie"? Is that like in a house? An apartment building? a skyscraper building? Or?

It sure bugs me when they throw in these ambiguous measurements that they expect everybody to know perxactly what they mean.

----------


## mklotz

> "The size of 2 American football fields, with cooling towers four stories high."
> 
> I for one haven't a clue as to how long an "American football field" is, or any other football field either.
> Then again how high is a "storie"? Is that like in a house? An apartment building? a skyscraper building? Or?
> 
> It sure bugs me when they throw in these ambiguous measurements that they expect everybody to know perxactly what they mean.



A Usonian football field is 777... jugs of maple syrup long.

A story is about the height of 36 jugs of maple syrup.

----------


## marksbug

long enough to egt the job done and done well....well possibly not so well as I have to do it over and over. a never ending task that never gets old...but I do.

----------


## Philip Davies

> Also in the famous Christian proof that pi is equal to three...
> 
> "And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick...." — First Kings, chapter 7, verses 23 and 26



Yes, but, you see they had cubits for radii and longer cubits for circumference.

----------


## mklotz

> Yes, but, you see they had cubits for radii and longer cubits for circumference.



Their god gave them a fairly exacting description of the box he wanted built...

It is to be 2-1/2 cubits in length, 1-1/2 in breadth, and 1-1/2 in height.

Given their freewheeling with the length of a cubit when building basins, they stood a good chance of botching the job and seeing a big finger pointing out of the sky and a booming voice, "You clumsy bastards, can't you get anything right?"

What is the "molten sea" mentioned in the biblical quote? Was "sea" an ancient name for a basin or is this just another mistranslation like the "horns" on Moses' head?

----------


## bruce.desertrat

I think I've found the defiinitive set of measurments of the ship stuck in the Suez:

"_The vessel, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, is one of the biggest in the world: as long as four football fields, as wide as the wingspan of a Boeing 747, and, thanks to the 200,000 tons of containers stacked on board, as tall as a 12-story building._"

Why I'll bet the original blueprints used just those measurements :-) Lead Engineer _"That diagonal there, it needs to be ⅓ football field by wingtip to the second engine."_

From https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021...he-suez-canal/

----------

jimfols (Mar 27, 2021),

rgsparber (Mar 27, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Mar 27, 2021)

----------


## Karl_H

> I think I've found the defiinitive set of measurments of the ship stuck in the Suez:
> 
> "_The vessel, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, is one of the biggest in the world: as long as four football fields, as wide as the wingspan of a Boeing 747, and, thanks to the 200,000 tons of containers stacked on board, as tall as a 12-story building._"
> 
> Why I'll bet the original blueprints used just those measurements :-) Lead Engineer [I]"That diagonal there, it needs to be ⅓ football field by wingtip to the second engine.



Problem is that the builder was just a Cessna hair off when measured!

----------


## marksbug

and the wheelhouse needs to be a baseball diamond. 2 ping pong table sized radars. partridge in a pare tree sized radio antenna.

----------


## Philip Davies

> Their god gave them a fairly exacting description of the box he wanted built...
> 
> It is to be 2-1/2 cubits in length, 1-1/2 in breadth, and 1-1/2 in height.
> 
> Given their freewheeling with the length of a cubit when building basins, they stood a good chance of botching the job and seeing a big finger pointing out of the sky and a booming voice, "You clumsy bastards, can't you get anything right?"
> 
> What is the "molten sea" mentioned in the biblical quote? Was "sea" an ancient name for a basin or is this just another mistranslation like the "horns" on Moses' head?



Your comments upset me a bit, but since you ask, I’ll tell you.
The molten sea simply refers to the fact that it was cast from bronze. The Israelite women gave up their “brazen” mirrors. It was five cubits high and its capacity was 19,386 gallons. It was used for ritual cleansing. It was only filled two-thirds.
The horn is a symbol of authority.
The common Egyptian cubit, 6 palms of 4 digits each, is 6 to 7 of the Royal cubit, which Newton called “profane”. The sacred cubit, measured in the Jerusalem temple, measures 2.0736 feet and is in 6 to 5 ratio with the Royal, ie 30 digits. The Athenian foot is half a sacred cubit. (Source: John Neal)

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hemmjo (Apr 10, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

> I think I've found the defiinitive set of measurments of the ship stuck in the Suez:
> 
> "_The vessel, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, is one of the biggest in the world: as long as four football fields, as wide as the wingspan of a Boeing 747, and, thanks to the 200,000 tons of containers stacked on board, as tall as a 12-story building._"
> 
> Why I'll bet the original blueprints used just those measurements :-) Lead Engineer _"That diagonal there, it needs to be ⅓ football field by wingtip to the second engine."_
> 
> From https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021...he-suez-canal/



Actually, they'd halve those measurements; aircraft drawings are almost exclusively left hand [port] side only. The right side is basically viewed 'through' the print to envision their form more clearly. Non symmetric items of course, have designated drawings.

----------


## Toolmaker51

Proof positive superiorty of metrics compatability with imperial system
.

Just my ~.02 worth.

----------

bruce.desertrat (Mar 30, 2021),

marksbug (Mar 30, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

A huge asteroid three times the size of a London bus will zip between Earth and the moon tomorrow at a distance of just 159,000 miles, NASA has revealed...

----------

FEM2008 (Apr 9, 2021)

----------


## FEM2008

> A huge asteroid three times the size of a London bus will zip between Earth and the moon tomorrow at a distance of just 159,000 miles, NASA has revealed...



Or 2/3 the height of Arc De Triomphe, or ...

----------

Jon (Apr 9, 2021)

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## marksbug

159,000 miles...so...how many taxi's is that?? :Head Scratch:

----------


## IntheGroove

English or Yellow?

----------


## marksbug

checkerd. but...if you list the english also we will know the metrick mesurement.

----------


## Moby Duck

The Great Pyramid is “huge”, the Empire State Building is “huge”, but relatively speaking a London Bus is quite small.

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## mklotz

> The Great Pyramid is “huge”, the Empire State Building is “huge”, but relatively speaking a London Bus is quite small.



There's "huge" and there's "really huge". Your comment made me look up some volumes...

Surprisingly, the pyramid is about 2.5 times the volume of the building; 92E6 ft^3 vs 37E6.

If the interior of the pyramid is really composed of blocks of stone*, that represents one helluva lot of rock chipping.

---

* An engineer (as opposed to archaeologist) has pointed out that even rough forming of the supposed interior blocks should have produced a pile of swarf roughly as big of the pyramid itself, yet no evidence of such waste has ever been found on the plateau or in the Nile. He believes the interior is composed of rock spoil, perhaps from the blocks that formed the surface of the monument. I don't buy his theory but the missing spoil pile is a genuine issue.

----------

Moby Duck (Apr 11, 2021)

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## marksbug

and then there is the OMG THATS HUGE!!! :Banana Dance:

----------


## Karl_H

> and then there is the OMG THATS HUGE!!!



What is the conversion from imperial to metric OMG!

----------


## marksbug

it's a mess...like a flock,or heard or gaggle, it's a mess. what else is described as a mess? :Head Scratch:

----------


## IntheGroove

None of these are a mess...

----------

Karl_H (Apr 10, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Apr 10, 2021)

----------


## jdurand

... or the size of a huge asteroid!

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## Toolmaker51

> There's "huge" and there's "really huge". Your comment made me look up some volumes...
> 
> Surprisingly, the pyramid is about 2.5 times the volume of the building; 92E6 ft^3 vs 37E6.
> 
> If the interior of the pyramid is really composed of blocks of stone*, that represents one helluva lot of rock chipping.
> 
> ---
> 
> * An engineer (as opposed to archaeologist) has pointed out that even rough forming of the supposed interior blocks should have produced a pile of swarf roughly as big of the pyramid itself, yet no evidence of such waste has ever been found on the plateau or in the Nile. He believes the interior is composed of rock spoil, perhaps from the blocks that formed the surface of the monument. I don't buy his theory but the missing spoil pile is a genuine issue.



Maybe the Pyramids and surrounding desert are misconstrued. I hypothesize desert IS THE SPOIL, and Pyramids mere sculptures.

----------


## mklotz

> Maybe the Pyramids and surrounding desert are misconstrued. I hypothesize desert IS THE SPOIL, and Pyramids mere sculptures.



Interesting hypothesis but applies more to the Sphinx than the pyramids.

The Sphinx is apparently a natural rock out-cropping that was carved way, way back. It's still one of the biggest puzzles of the Giza plateau. Some archaeologists believe it was carved into an image of a lion by stone age natives long before the appearance of the Egyptian culture (it still has lion paws). Only later was it reshaped into the image of an Egyptian king. Which king is also an issue. Some folks think it represents Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid. Hard to tell since the only confirmed image of Khufu is a tiny 3" statue in the Cairo museum.

Also, if you examine the interior of the pyramid, there is evidence of carved, individual blocks of stone, not _in situ_ rock carved to look like blocks. But the real kicker is the burial chamber itself. The sarcophagus is too big to fit around the corner between the ascending and descending passage so it must have been placed in the chamber before the structure above it was constructed. It's granite so it wasn't carved from the surrounding limestone bulk of the pyramid.

What amazes me is the fact that, despite centuries of searching, nothing depicting the construction of the pyramids has been found. Modern folks like us are in awe of the pyramid; the folks alive during its construction would have been positively dazzled. If you had worked on it, wouldn't you want the fact recorded on your tomb walls so the gods knew you were a dedicated worker? OK, we can't expect the ephemera of that age to still exist, but the fact that a bunch of folks who liked to chisel all manner of stories into rock suggests that some hints about how they did it should appear, not so?

----------

EnginePaul (Apr 21, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Apr 11, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

so...the kardashieains ass??

----------


## Toolmaker51

> so...the kardashieains ass??



easier to relay centuries later, post the cosmetic surgery bills.

----------


## marksbug

oh no I wont re~lay that, NEVER DID IT never wood. :Headshake:  AND i MAY FALL IN...but with all the plastic& sily cones. Im sure it will still be around in a few century's....

----------

Toolmaker51 (Apr 11, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

We ALL know what you mean...

----------


## hemmjo

I know what you meant, but was not sure how to say it as tactfully as Markbug

----------

marksbug (Apr 11, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

> I know what you meant, but was not sure how to say it as tactfully as Markbug



Yep. He has a knack alright. He and DIY Swede, top two champs of hilarious phrases.

----------

marksbug (Apr 11, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

I aim to please, sometimes my aim is better than other times but I'm still aiming.... and that target is hard to miss. :Lol:

----------


## Jon

Dough thickness measured in post-it notes.

----------

jimfols (Apr 16, 2021),

neilbourjaily (Apr 16, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Apr 16, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

0.0332 thousandths of an inch...

----------


## Toolmaker51

> 0.0332 thousandths of an inch...



Including adhesive?

----------


## IntheGroove

Just the paper...

----------


## mklotz

> 0.0332 thousandths of an inch...



0.0332 thousandths = 0.0000332"

I presume you mean 0.0332 inches (no "thousandths")

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## marksbug

so when do you smoke it ??I never thoght about using postits....less dough...cost less?

----------


## neilbourjaily

> 0.0332 thousandths of an inch...



= 8.432 X 10^-8 meters. We're in nano country here.

----------


## neilbourjaily

oops double post. sorry.

----------


## mklotz

> = 8.432 X 10^-8 meters. We're in nano country here.



Not what I get...

0.0332 * 0.001 * 25.4 * 0.001 = 8.433 E-7

----------


## neilbourjaily

> Not what I get...
> 
> 0.0332 * 0.001 * 25.4 * 0.001 = 8.433 E-7



Yep. Too many decimals in mine. Crash the lander. Check your work, kids. Thanks for the check.

----------


## marksbug

crap,I ran out of fingers.

----------


## Philip Davies

> Interesting hypothesis but applies more to the Sphinx than the pyramids.
> 
> The Sphinx is apparently a natural rock out-cropping that was carved way, way back. It's still one of the biggest puzzles of the Giza plateau. Some archaeologists believe it was carved into an image of a lion by stone age natives long before the appearance of the Egyptian culture (it still has lion paws). Only later was it reshaped into the image of an Egyptian king. Which king is also an issue. Some folks think it represents Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid. Hard to tell since the only confirmed image of Khufu is a tiny 3" statue in the Cairo museum.
> 
> Also, if you examine the interior of the pyramid, there is evidence of carved, individual blocks of stone, not _in situ_ rock carved to look like blocks. But the real kicker is the burial chamber itself. The sarcophagus is too big to fit around the corner between the ascending and descending passage so it must have been placed in the chamber before the structure above it was constructed. It's granite so it wasn't carved from the surrounding limestone bulk of the pyramid.
> 
> What amazes me is the fact that, despite centuries of searching, nothing depicting the construction of the pyramids has been found. Modern folks like us are in awe of the pyramid; the folks alive during its construction would have been positively dazzled. If you had worked on it, wouldn't you want the fact recorded on your tomb walls so the gods knew you were a dedicated worker? OK, we can't expect the ephemera of that age to still exist, but the fact that a bunch of folks who liked to chisel all manner of stories into rock suggests that some hints about how they did it should appear, not so?



You could read about the papyri discovered by Pierre Tallet.

----------


## mklotz

> You could read about the papyri discovered by Pierre Tallet.



I have already read about Tallet's discoveries. Merer's papyri provide considerable detail about his tasks transporting limestone from Tura to the pyramid building site. However, since he and his men were apparently not involved in the actual construction, no detail about the construction engineering is provided.

How were the blocks processed once delivered? What was done with the spoil? And the most important question, how were the blocks raised and delivered to their eventual resting place in the structure? The Egyptians loved to keep written records; papyri and ostraca include everything from grocery lists to love letters yet no one seems to have thought building the biggest structure on earth important enough to deserve documentation. This absence suggests to me that their religion somehow convinced them that it was bad juju for the king to leave a record of how his tomb was built.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Apr 18, 2021)

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## Toolmaker51

> The Egyptians loved to keep written records; papyri and ostraca include everything from grocery lists to love letters yet no one seems to have thought building the biggest structure on earth important enough to deserve documentation. This absence suggests to me that their religion somehow convinced them that it was bad juju for the king to leave a record of how his tomb was built.



IF boiled down, could other than intended spectacle, pyramid were large safes; to hold the contents indefinitely? That scant records exist is part of that security. 
A big old Mosler safe is for sale on craigslist, one of those double door bank grade +5,000 pound beauties. It's in good cosmetic condition but size reduces customer interest. 3 years ago it was $4,500, the average going rate. Last week the owner who knew the combination, passed away.

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FEM2008 (Apr 18, 2021)

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## Hoosiersmoker

> Dough thickness measured in post-it notes.



While I think an actual measurement would be better here (I actually put a caliper to 9 post-its because... well because) it's roughly .89mm or .035". Not sure why this needs to be so precise for a recipe but at least they identified it as a trademarked measurement...  :Stick Out Tongue:  Why not just say 1mm?

On the other hand (they wore a glove), if you peel off 9 post-its and stick them to the full depth of either side of your work surface and roll the dough out between them letting your rolling pin run across the top of the post it notes, it would give you an exact thickness across the dough... of course you have to allow for manufacturing flaws in the rolling pin: Crowned rolling pin, board surface imperfections, uneven rolling pin surface etc, thin rolling pins can deflect and cause uneven thicknesses as well - NIGHTMARE!!!!!. With the proper precision baking instruments though, the post-its would be great but, if you're being precise would you not state the thickness as .035" or .89mm and allow the baker to use their own devices to achieve the desired thickness? For example, 18" long feeler gauges? Precision lathed SS rolling pins with different outer shoulder diameters (Outer shoulder diameters .5, 1, 1.5, 2mm etc or 1/32", 1/16", 3/32", 1/8" etc. Granted you would need a dozen or so just for precision thicknesses, but there you have it. The recipe would then read "Using a number 4 metric rolling pin with a shoulder to rolling surface differential of 2mm, roll one ball of dough..."

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## marksbug

are you mesuring the stickey portion or the non stickey portions??

----------


## Hoosiersmoker

> are you mesuring the stickey portion or the non stickey portions??



Yes...

And how do you get them to stick to a lightly floured surface?

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## Hoosiersmoker

This must be a widely accepted measuring method in Italy...?

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## old kodger

We should see this a very insidious Bruce Kathie in one of his "harmonics" books made the statement that, "by changing the measuring system from feet and inches, to metric, you inhibit the ability of future researchers to do the 'harmonic calculations' because they don't work so well in metric". "thereby you slow down the ability of ordinary people to comprehend time/speed/mass equations" Thus they keep that information in the hands of the selected few. He showed in ( I think it was Harmonic 33 ), that these equations are intimately involved with atomic explosions

----------

NortonDommi (Apr 26, 2021)

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## NortonDommi

Which is why I like having Metric and Imperial systems. Each has its pro's and con's and I have no problem flicking from one to the other. Whatever makes the job at hand easier.

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## Frank S

I've been waiting for an opportunity to post this

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## Toolmaker51

> This must be a widely accepted measuring method in Italy...?
> 
> Attachment 39271



I don't read Italian, but quite sure the batter in the flour dam is polenta, 'corn meal'. Yaa we use it too!

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## Jon

Imperial measurements explained. 3:54 video:

----------

Frank S (May 12, 2021),

hegefer (May 12, 2021),

johncg (May 13, 2021),

mklotz (May 12, 2021),

neilbourjaily (May 16, 2021),

nova_robotics (May 13, 2021),

toeless joe (May 28, 2021),

Tonyg (May 16, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (May 12, 2021)

----------


## hemmjo

Ha, that is funny!!

----------


## Toolmaker51

Revealed, FINALLY. I knew the logic would surface eventually.

----------


## Frank S

best laugh I've had all day. I laughed hard enough to probably add a light minute to my life

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## IntheGroove

Jason, Jason, Jason...

----------


## hemmjo

> best laugh I've had all day. I laughed hard enough to probably add a light minute to my life




I was thinking a light minute would be a linear measurement. 186,000 miles/sec, x 60 s =11,160,000 miles... lets ask Jason how many barley corns that is?

A light mile would be a unit of time? We should start using that.. "Honey, I will be there in 20 light miles." That means I better hurry!!!

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hegefer (May 12, 2021)

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## Moby Duck

Quote from the video: what kind of country would use a system like that?

I think there is only one big country left, and thats because they are pig headed about it, clinging to their colonial past.

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## Hoosiersmoker

So the guy that came up with it probably lost 2 fingers... so what?

----------


## mklotz

> I was thinking a light minute would be a linear measurement. 186,000 miles/sec, x 60 s =11,160,000 miles... lets ask Jason how many barley corns that is?
> 
> A light mile would be a unit of time? We should start using that.. "Honey, I will be there in 20 light miles." That means I better hurry!!!



A handy relation to remember is that light travels about a foot in a nanosecond.

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## bruce.desertrat

> A handy relation to remember is that light travels about a foot in a nanosecond.



Here's a bunch in the Smithsonian Collection. Grace Hopper used to hand them out at her talks...

https://americanhistory.si.edu/colle...ct/nmah_692464

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## Nick79

This actually explains a great deal about why my Son cannot understand fractions . . . Of all the things we should have embraced - the Metric system - should have been one of the most important - but no......

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## marksbug

so thats how you figure metrick into inches... so... what about the female math& measurements?? :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

----------


## hemmjo

> This actually explains a great deal about why my Son cannot understand fractions . . . Of all the things we should have embraced - the Metric system - should have been one of the most important - but no......



Actually the imperial system is one of the best ways to learn about fractions, UNLESS you have a teacher with a lack of understand of both measurement and fractions.

With the metric system you seldom use fractions since it is all decimal based. 

What we really should have embraced is actual learning for understanding, not learning to regurgitate for a test, then forget about. It makes no difference if it is math, science, social studies, etc, you have to really learn it for it to stay with you.

----------

marksbug (May 13, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (May 13, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

yup, my math teachers were ****. and my ****ing dad with his knots & other **** just made it worse. I figured it out on my own. my senior year in HS I got suspended quite a few times by the math teacher...he was pissed that I knew more than he did....what a useless effing moron. he was some sorta coach that had to also teach math....he keep goi9ng to school to get more pay....but was totaly useless for any thing. ended up principle at one of my kids middle school...even the teachers were laughing at him . he did nothing all day long but collect a big pay check and look stupid. he then ran for school board...and yup he got it. those useless deplomas from the fly by knight schools are good for something...good for screweing over the people that really work and know what they are doing.

----------


## hemmjo

I hear you Mark. I worked with some of those people. MANY teachers are good, creative and committed to helping kids learn. Others are just in it for the money and summers off. TOO MANY times, those bad teachers do not like it in the classroom, so they become administrators.

It is bad, and getting worse. I have to say there are still more good teachers, than there are bad ones. A real issue is that one bad teacher can undo many years of ground work done by the good teachers. 

Sorry for your bad experience. I really did love teaching. I still bump into former students who say, "Hi do you remember me".

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marksbug (May 13, 2021)

----------


## old kodger

Wow, I just waded through 26 pages of this thread before I got bored (not punched or reamed). I agree the question of metickery is contentious, and my two hap'th are these,first I use what ever measurement is closest to what I want when I'm working with wood. Because I was dragged up using imperial measure, I use thou's for anything more accurate, half an apple is still 1/2 an apple (one of two) freight still use that system (crate 5 of 20).
There is one bone of contention however with imperial measure (feet and inches), you never got the "magic 100 mm error". How this works is measure out to 1500mm, then BACK 60mm to get 1560, yeh I know, crazy, but it happens, probably because you can readily SEE the 60 close to where you're already measuring, resulting in a 100 mm error, with feet, that would be so far out that you notice it.
I'mm OFF now!

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Toolmaker51 (May 13, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

yes there are many good teachers still out there, fortunately for me, being a airforce brat I get to move around a lot, and see & live in parts of asia, okinawa as a young teenager was awesome. I did get to choose the best of everywhere I had been , it was the last place we lived when dad retired and he left home...for a few years working for lockheed cheif of training in saudi .and I chose to stay hear to live,buy a home, race,start a family and raise my kids. and even better the teachers my kids had were totally awesome. 1 daughter a DR,(also married to DR) and the other a US state dept diplomat over seas now. I did have a few good teachers but I had more usleess ones than good ones. ( the DOD school,s on okinawa were pretty good,public not so good, only a few teachers that gave a ****.) but parenting also has a lot to do with it also....probably50- 80 %. depending on the teachers and situations. if you dont give a **** about your kid that probably wont either.....

----------


## hotdog0627

Give me two orders of whatever he was drinkin' please... I'm trying to solve a problem....  :Smile:

----------


## Jon



----------

bruce.desertrat (May 28, 2021),

Little Rabbit (May 28, 2021),

marksbug (May 29, 2021),

mklotz (May 29, 2021),

nova_robotics (May 28, 2021),

Tonyg (Jun 1, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (May 28, 2021),

volodar (May 30, 2021)

----------


## hemmjo

That looks a little bit creepy. I have to see if my dog can do that!!!

----------


## IntheGroove

Fahrenheit is very cool...

----------


## Toolmaker51

Reminds me of certain 80's era female portraits; ol' Fahrenheit strikes extreme version of high school yearbook photo. 
We called [derided] it Pro-vanity.

----------


## mklotz

Was "Rankine" so ashamed he ran away before the shutter snapped?

I'll never forgive old Fahrenheit.

If you're a scientist and you are defining a standard, you should attempt to make the standard something that can be accurately reproduced locally. Now, in temperature the two widely available points are freezing and boiling water. 

So what does the dummy, Danny F, do? He uses a mix of water, ice, and a salt, to set the zero point. (Now the guy trying to calibrate his homemade thermometer has to determine type of salt, mixture proportions, etc..- all sources of error.) Then he sets an upper point as human body temperature! (Yeah, now there's a nice stable temperature.) Finally, he defines the freezing point of water as 32. With this wonky arrangement, the boiling point comes in at 212.

I won't forgive Fahrenheit but I'd willingly crucify Rankine.

It's 1859 and the concept of absolute zero exists. In thermodynamics, it makes sense to define temperatures relative to a zero set at that point. Baron Kelvin, also a Scot, did that and logically used the Celsius degree (based on freezing water zero and boiling 100) in his scale. Rankine, on the other hand, used the Farenheit degree thus propagating the use of that abomination.

----------

Moby Duck (May 30, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jun 2, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

just good ole MT dew!!! diet of coarse. I just noticed with that last pic, to me, that kelvin looks Scottish, Celsius looks roman, and Fahrenheit looks German....but I have no dog in this hunt so Ill just watch and see what works for me.

----------


## old kodger

In outback Queensland, temp is decided more easily. Go outside in the morning and you can see your breath,......"it's bloody cold!
sweat your tits of all day,........."Jeez, it's bloody hot!" anything else, any time, is just inconvenient, or otherwise, according to your particular temperament at any given moment.

----------


## Toolmaker51

I get a kick out of Mr. K's special treatments on history + effects on science in general. Hilarious 5 minute theses [plural according to google], and funnier yet to imagine him going back in those era presenting pro and con arguments. They wouldn't stand a chance, lol, against his reports on the result of their folly.
Not to linger afterward, want him definitely returned. 
But he could stop off for a king-ship, know he'd enjoy that.

----------


## mklotz

> I get a kick out of Mr. K's special treatments on history + effects on science in general. Hilarious 5 minute theses [plural according to google], and funnier yet to imagine him going back in those era presenting pro and con arguments. They wouldn't stand a chance, lol, against his reports on the result of their folly.
> Not to linger afterward, want him definitely returned. 
> But he could stop off for a king-ship, know he'd enjoy that.



Just wait till you hear my redesign of the criminal justice system. :-)

Lord Kelvin was a salty old bastard. His best quote, a favorite of mine (on my coffee mug) is:

"In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting."

Of course, he had his off days, and was dumb enough to vocalize his screwups...

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."

"When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery."

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jun 2, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

re criminal justice; thinking many here have similar outlines, and close to what is on the books of certain locations.
They just haven't the juice to enact them. 
Especially when herding the lawful is SO much easier.

Far as the other quotes, is not being faced with difficulty a step from discovery? A lot more accurate than impossibility of flight or peak of physics being attained.

----------


## IntheGroove

Geology Rocks. Geography is where it's at...

----------

marksbug (Jun 3, 2021)

----------


## neilbourjaily

> "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."



One of the dumbest things ever said. Though not to attribute it to Marv.

----------


## Hoosiersmoker

Best, most accurate weather reporter was on my grandfather's garage. It was a board with a donkey's a$$ painted on it and a rope nailed where the tail would be. Underneath it read " If the tail is moving, it's windy. If the tail is wet, it's raining. If the tail is stiff, it's freezing. If the tail is white, it's snowing and if the tail is hot it's sunny."

----------

marksbug (Jun 3, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jun 3, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

speaking of geography... so...there are 360 degrees around the earth...is that kelvin?Celsius? fair&high? or..... :Hat Tip:  just wondering

----------


## Hoosiersmoker

> speaking of geography... so...there are 360 degrees around the earth...is that kelvin?Celsius? fair&high? or..... just wondering



Yeah! I would think it would be 1000 degrees. ten fingers, base ten. So why the departure when it comes to circles and globes and such??

----------


## Toolmaker51

> Best, most accurate weather reporter was on my grandfather's garage. It was a board with a donkey's a$$ painted on it and a rope nailed where the tail would be. Underneath it read " If the tail is moving, it's windy. If the tail is wet, it's raining. If the tail is stiff, it's freezing. If the tail is white, it's snowing and if the tail is hot it's sunny."



No question that form weather recording is highly reliable. 
Until recently (decade or so) weather predictions not all that reliable, accessible or so easy zeroing in other locations. I regard that a plus, including the app, a zillion times better streamlining than the regular web. Some used to be good, all became too commercialized.

----------


## mklotz

If you want to see what the planet-wide conditions are, this...

https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren...118.380,33.790

is a fascinating toy to explore.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jun 3, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

> If you want to see what the planet-wide conditions are, this...
> 
> https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren...118.380,33.790
> 
> is a fascinating toy to explore.



Wow! That realistically deserves label of "Technology". 
So many other times, it's just stamp collecting........

----------


## mklotz

> Wow! That realistically deserves label of "Technology". 
> So many other times, it's just stamp collecting........



Click on the "earth =" for access to other stuff that can be shown. Also clicking on the units will change some of them to inferial, even wind speed in knots for old salts.

----------


## Toolmaker51

I did, not a familiar site but messed with the conversions and report modes. Nothing short of astounding. 
You notice CA quake activity? No, just shuffling around of Earths' rotation, put it back when I was done.

----------


## IntheGroove

The Earth has been quaking around here a lot lately...

----------


## old kodger

> Best, most accurate weather reporter was on my grandfather's garage. It was a board with a donkey's a$$ painted on it and a rope nailed where the tail would be. Underneath it read " If the tail is moving, it's windy. If the tail is wet, it's raining. If the tail is stiff, it's freezing. If the tail is white, it's snowing and if the tail is hot it's sunny."



Yeh, when i was a kid 6-8 years old my next door neighbour had a piece of seaweed hanging on the wall with the same philosophy, just no inscription.

----------


## Jon



----------

nova_robotics (Jun 12, 2021)

----------


## mklotz

Nautical miles are one of the few "trade" units that makes some real common sense.

The generally accepted average* radius of the earth is 3959 miles = 3440 nautical miles. 

The average circumference is 2*pi times this value = 21616 nm.

The circumference includes an angle of 360*60 = 21600 arcminutes.

So dividing we have 21616/21600 = 1.0008 nm/arcmin, an extremely convenient result for a navigator working with charts calibrated in angles.

--
* The earth is an oblate spheroid due to its rotation so the radius is not constant.

----------

Moby Duck (Jun 9, 2021),

NortonDommi (Jun 8, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jun 8, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

And a Knot is distance over time...

----------


## Toolmaker51

Marv's right [as if...lol] about nautical mile, though it's not historically clear how they arrived on that figure with combination of good mathematics and former state of the art instrumentation. But our degrees working in divisible 60's falls right in with all of it.
Side note. Ancient Greeks had no [known] practical use of navigation beyond coastal, sailing from landmark to landmark. But they _proved_ quite accurately Earth was spherical, misshaped or not, and Equator within ~800 miles of actual. It wasn't until fuzzy theology aberration of science manipulated the truth, even support to flat earth nonsense. I digress.
Back on course, All Ahead 2/3rd.
In daily use a nautical mile is rounded to 6000 feet for the best reason of all. It's fastest possible mental calculation of speed and distance, awfully handy when the course of vessels will cross or be head-on, to avert collisions. So plot of voyage could utilize correct distance to figure arrivals, and divert to 6000 if need arise. 

Quite similar to when you set alarm clock to wake, allowing morning routine and work commute, and expected arrival time. 

At sea, known as 'DR' or Dead Reckoning. Prudent masters verify actual position with prediction AND previous coordinates, often at each half-hour. It shows headway [speed], drift [off course], set [off course by wind and/ or current]. Of three components [Time, Speed, Distance] any two arrive at the answer. 

I saw this manifest last weekend, driving south out of Nebraska. We've all chimed in about systems of measurement; which includes something aside from accuracy, that of interpretation. In some ways, Time, Speed, Distance are subjective on their own, perhaps "we're hungry, they close at midnight." "Well, this jalopy only goes 55 mph." "Oh no, it's 60 miles away." 
Q. Will you make it? ?...........
A. (what time is it?)


Even better, saw this, should have pulled over for a picture. Many of our highways have travel stops; catering to over-the-road truckers, road-trippers, traveling families on vacation, and single guys hauling machinery...
A sign for the next one said _"41 miles; that's 287 dog miles."_
Handy, as I was already channeling my inner dog.


Scientifically speaking, unsure 7:1 works on that guy. He's crazy about going along for rides; any chance he bolts through house door, he becomes a concrete statue until car door opens, no way getting him back indoors. 
4 or 5 laps around the block will not trick him.

----------

neilbourjaily (Jun 8, 2021),

NortonDommi (Jun 8, 2021)

----------


## neilbourjaily

Had me a dog. Anytime I would rustle anywhere except to the kitchen or the bedroom, that dog was a statue by the door and facing outside. No ask. No refuse. 100* outside or 0*. If it was time, that dog was ready. Good dog, too. She wouldn't let anything near her car. I offered a ride to a hitchhiker without asking the dog. At the door to the pickup, the hitchhiker wisely declined the ride when he saw all the slobber on the passenger window. She tried to add toothmarks, but she couldn't get her mouth over the glass. Boy was she loud about it. hee-hee

----------


## Toolmaker51

My windows; nose prints out number drools 5:1. A bit oily, so removal a bit harder. 
I put off cleanings [advantage of a 4-door] and complain kindheartedly.

Right now, sitting in my easy chair with laptop. He's on floor, head and neck draped over my booted instep.
I'll buy all the window cleaner and paper towels required.

----------


## hemmjo

This thread about the dogs is the first I saw this morning. Just got up. Silly dog knew it was time. I was planning to sleep in a little this morning. She knows the routine, get up, check emails, got for a walk, then get started working.

Right now she is laying beside me, between me and the door. After I write this, we will go for a walk. During the day she "hunts" around the property keeping it clear of anything she does not like around. Geese, crows, buzzards are chased from our air space. Hawks she does not bother. We have no ground hogs or skunks, etc. We do have a couple fox which she tries to catch, fun to watch that, but I do hope she does not catch one of those. 

She also loves to ride, "lets got for a ride" or just the word "truck" brings her to attention and she is ready to do. One day, while working outside, she disappeared. I called and called, was getting mad as I had to get going. I had left the door open to the truck, she was in her spot, "smiling" like they do. I figure she was thinking, "stop whistling for me and lets get going." Now when I am working outside, I leave the doors open so she can rest in there when she is done hunting.

Right now she is starting to squirm, looking at me with that "lets get going" face. Funny how well they train us to do what they want!!

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jun 9, 2021)

----------


## mklotz

> ...In daily use a nautical mile is rounded to 6000 feet for the best reason of all. It's fastest possible mental calculation of speed and distance, awfully handy when the course of vessels will cross or be head-on, to avert collisions. So plot of voyage could utilize correct distance to figure arrivals, and divert to 6000 if need arise....



If you divide 2*pi*3959*5280 (circumference of earth in feet) by 21600 arcmin, you get a value for a nautical mile of 6080... ft. The official value is 6076... ft.

Back in the day when I was helping to target ICBMs, we would occasionally encounter data expressed in nautical miles and had to convert it so the latter figure is burned into my brain. It's low on my list of things I wish I could forget but it's still there.

For TLAR purposes, a nice round 6000 is good enough.

----------


## Philip Davies

O come on Noah, you were given them before anything else!

----------


## Jon



----------


## mklotz

True for very small values of "approximately".

Only in Woke math is it true that 7*360 = 360, so we don't racially discriminate against the integer seven; it's just like all the other colonial integers.

----------


## Toolmaker51

Unsure who originated that 1 field more or less approximates 7 fields...how woke is it make the statement, yet only depict 6? 
I might be missing the point, backwardness does that to me. Wagering a majority view things their way as well. 

Mr. Carrey did this 24 June 1990; or *30 years, 11 months, 17 days ago.* He derided men participating sports where they didn't belong. One narrow agenda still campaigns this is not only OK, even underwriting it.

----------


## old kodger

Well, you've finally confused the living be-jesus out of me!
When things went over to metrick, they said I'd get taller, but I'm still only 5'6"

----------


## Toolmaker51

> Well, you've finally confused the living be-jesus out of me!
> When things went over to metrick, they said I'd get taller, but I'm still only 5'6"



Ah hell. it must be contagious!

----------


## BuffaloJohn

well Jon the admin posted this, I can't figure out what it is supposed to mean, maybe Jon can enlighten...

----------


## CharlesWaugh

2 + 2 = 5 
. . . for larger values of 2

----------


## Moldyjim

> Well, you've finally confused the living be-jesus out of me!
> When things went over to metrick, they said I'd get taller, but I'm still only 5'6"



At least you are the same size, I'm getting shorter. @0 years ago I was 6 foot tall.
Last time I checked I was 5' 10-1/2". 

Ain't getting older a hoot?

----------


## old kodger

> At least you are the same size, I'm getting shorter. @0 years ago I was 6 foot tall.
> Last time I checked I was 5' 10-1/2". 
> 
> Ain't getting older a hoot?



In the words of the immortal Bard "Bugger"!

----------


## marksbug

Im knot going to try to figure out the pie required to figure kilos to miles.Ill stay with cobbler.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jun 12, 2021)

----------


## Jon



----------

HobieDave (Jun 19, 2021),

nova_robotics (Jun 18, 2021),

Ralphxyz (Jun 19, 2021)

----------


## Moldyjim

> In the words of the immortal Bard "Bugger"!



Yeah, the Doctor ordered a bone density test, turns out I have some osteoporosis from years of taking Prednisone for my RA.
Apparently, another one of prednisone's side effects is it makes EVERYTHING shorter... At least that's what I tell my wife...

----------

marksbug (Jun 18, 2021),

nova_robotics (Jun 18, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

you must be using that measuring spoon and using a smidgen too much shortening....better to use a dash of lard.

----------


## old kodger

As the old joke goes, when asked "What is that" the reply was "a piece of rope". "Well, what are those two things underneath?" "They are knots"
"Well, undo the knots and let out a bit more rope!"

----------

Philip Davies (Jun 18, 2021)

----------


## thevillageinn

But how many washing machines or football fields are those spoons?!

----------


## nova_robotics

AvE's ruler:

https://imgur.com/gallery/M4DHh

That link may or may not be safe for work, depending on your tolerance.

----------

baja (Jun 20, 2021),

jimfols (Jun 19, 2021),

marksbug (Jun 20, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

I've been afraid to post that...

----------

nova_robotics (Jun 19, 2021)

----------


## Jon

I guess a mini gallon is a quart? I think in America people might consider "gallon" to be a shape.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...t_fullsize.jpg



The size and prominence of the font of the new measurement unit on the sign, as opposed to the product name (sweet tea?), is emblematic of another classic American measurement dynamic: different shapes, sizes, and quantities of products are often presented as more important than the product itself.

In fact, this is given as one of the reasons why we measure soda in liters. The plastic 2-liter bottle came into prominence right around the time that America was considering going metric, so PepsiCo decided to denominate it in liters. It was also marketed as shatter-proof, recyclable, and, for standing upright, the bottom of the bottle had fins! Ultimately, it wasn't the liter that interested Americans, but the 2-liter _bottle_.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jun 22, 2021)

----------


## Philip Davies

I still think in pints, quarts and gallons, but I do not know what a mini-gallon is. A gallon is 8 pints, I am sure most know. But what shape is the American gallon? Nothing to do with hats, surely?

----------


## hemmjo

> I still think in pints, quarts and gallons, but I do not know what a mini-gallon is. A gallon is 8 pints, I am sure most know. But what shape is the American gallon? Nothing to do with hats, surely?



You asked... https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/...f%20the%20name.

----------


## Toolmaker51

Sounds like marketing nonsense, without mentioning signs lower right corner. "Fresh Brewed Hourly" ?
I'm glad products are supplied in different containers, like paint in a milk bottle? 
And it would blow out the comedienne's stand-up joke; house cleaning before a party includes wiping lipstick from milk container spout.

----------


## Frank S

the mini gallon cold be akin to us back in the day having our keg parties there was the standard keg 8 gallons I believe, which was abought the right size for a Friday night after the game party. Then there was the jumbo keg 12 gallons I think. This would have been the weekend at the lake or beach party keg. And along comes the Super keg 16 gallons. wholey Smokes I can't believe I actually graduated party keg, or for a wake when a bud got married. No not a wake as in after a funeral but pretty much the same thing. However now that the games are over we no longer go to the beach, there are no more collage/ university parties. the marriage is settled down we needed our own weekend relaxation keg so along comes the 1 or 2 gallon mini keg.
With tea, I'm not a tea drinker thank you very much, the Gallon of tea would be for the whole family probably dad mom and 2 1/2 kids. Don't know where the 1/2 kid came from look it up sometime  :Embarrassed:  the teenager wants some tea on his way home from his / her protest march they have no idea about liters or quarts but a mini gallon sounds about the right size to drink since it looks like mom and dad's gallon of tea they bring home but probably small enough for personal consumption.

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## Tonyg

Bearing in mind that your Imperial gallon is different to the US gallon.
Imperial gallon is 4.546 litres (British spelling) or 160 fluid ounces.
US gallon is 3.785 liters (American spelling) or 128 fluid ounces.

Glad I work in litres!

----------

Philip Davies (Jun 23, 2021)

----------


## Moby Duck

I note that 3.785 liters is liter than 4.546 litres.

----------

Tonyg (Jun 25, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

> I note that 3.785 liters is liter than 4.546 litres.



Yes, when comparing across same liquid.........

----------


## marksbug

lets play fallow the litre or was that liter..where is all this going...I just want a effing glass of water!!! AND NOT FROM A JUG.

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## old kodger

> Bearing in mind that your Imperial gallon is different to the US gallon.
> Imperial gallon is 4.546 litres (British spelling) or 160 fluid ounces.
> US gallon is 3.785 liters (American spelling) or 128 fluid ounces.
> 
> Glad I work in litres!



Actually "litres" is French, from which the word originates.

----------

Hoosiersmoker (Jun 25, 2021)

----------


## IntheGroove

Latey, I've been busier than a two-peckered billy goat. I'm not sure if that's metric or other...

----------


## Hoosiersmoker

What do you mean? An African or European billy goat?

----------


## marksbug

so how is the goat measuring up? if it were a Billie goat,would you milk it into gallon /quart or liter pails?

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## Hoosiersmoker

> so how is the goat measuring up? if it were a Billie goat,would you milk it into gallon /quart or liter pails?



I agree! The leeder pales in comparison to the gallon!

----------

carloski (Jul 1, 2021),

Philip Davies (Jul 2, 2021)

----------


## Jon



----------

baja (Jul 2, 2021),

NortonDommi (Jul 12, 2021),

nova_robotics (Jul 1, 2021),

Philip Davies (Jul 2, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jul 4, 2021),

Unisawyer (Jul 5, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

hmm lets seee... how long is my .... metrick sure sounds like more!!!!or does it? :Head Scratch: 

when mesuring horses they use hands... so...is that how many hands it takes to help jack off the horse? is that matric? and why can jack get off the horse by himself? do the hands aggravated ?do the ranch hands get paid extra for helping jack off the horse?what about jill jacks wife do they help get her off when jack is outa town? all theses different measuring systems seems to agravate some and please others, just like the ranch hands that have quite a job. 
nowdays that I dont see so well,I would rather have all my sockets&wrenches color coded as well as the fastners. as for the gass I put in my car/motorsycle/4 wheeler/lawnmower....when it's full it's full.no need to gallons or litters. I see no reason for that any way.just either fill it up or put in the amount of$$ that you want /have to spend on it.I cant pay in gallons or liter....when I buy chicken by the piece is that metric or ???? :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):  do they choke their chicken before marinading it??opps I gotta go, jacks wife is yelling....sounds like she is ready to get off.it's a hard job but somebody has to do it.

----------

baja (Jul 2, 2021),

hemmjo (Jul 1, 2021)

----------


## wimton

[QUOTE=Jon;164306]Metric vs. other measurement systems.




Great, do you also have one for weight and volumes? :Smile:

----------

Moby Duck (Jul 5, 2021),

volodar (Jul 4, 2021)

----------


## marksbug

just waite,he should turn it up a bit :ROFL:  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

----------


## mklotz

[QUOTE=wimton;184125]



> Great, do you also have one for weight and volumes?



A volume chart is going to be messy. Just the "barrel" unit alone will have a forest of intertwined lines like a French hedgerow.

There are seven different barrel sizes used in the USA, with the size being dependent on the contents. Their names and metric equivalents are as follows: US cranberry (95.5 liters), US dry (115.628 liters), US liquid (119.24 liters), US federal (117.348 liters), US federal proof spirits (151.416 liters), US drum (208.4 liters), US petroleum (135 kg.), US petroleum statistical (158.99 liters).

And then there's the matter of the floz (fluid ounce). Despite its name it's a volume measure, not a weight measure. There are a lot of fluids out there and the volume of each it takes to weigh an ounce will vary accordingly.

----------

Moby Duck (Jul 5, 2021),

volodar (Jul 4, 2021),

wimton (Jul 5, 2021)

----------


## old kodger

Just to add insult to the foregoing, many years ago I owned a boat, not much of a boat, 20ft or so long, but for Lloyds vessel insurance and registration it was measured in barrels. I suspect something to do with rum but bore NO resemblance to the number of barrels it could carry.

----------

NortonDommi (Jul 12, 2021),

volodar (Jul 4, 2021)

----------


## old kodger

Addendum to my previous post. Maybe it had something to do with it's internal volume (measured in barrels).

----------


## marksbug

or boyancy/displacement.....or possiably how much the captin can drink before his props are taken away....or..I havent a clue.ask loyd.

----------


## old kodger

> or boyancy/displacement.....or possiably how much the captin can drink before his props are taken away....or..I havent a clue.ask loyd.



Yes, displacement seems most likely, 'tho I don't recall ever being asked about it's dead weight. Lloyd might know, or perhaps his brother George.

----------


## Moby Duck

> Yes, displacement seems most likely, 'tho I don't recall ever being asked about it's dead weight. Lloyd might know, or perhaps his brother George.



I think Lloyd George knows my father.

----------


## marksbug

curious george?yes he would for sure know how many barrels of monkeys it would hold. witch would be half of the rating as the other half had barrels of bananas in it. unless the monkeys poop over board then they can add some more barrels to the deck.but it would be over weight till the monkeys ate&pooped over deck.or died or thrown in to feed the sharks for the monkeys entertainment...try to stay on the monkeys good side.but always remember they are swingers.... :Banana Dance:

----------


## old kodger

> I think Lloyd George knows my father.



My dad knows Lloyd George. .......to the music please.

----------


## Toolmaker51

Ounces. Inches. Meters. Furlongs. Nautical Miles. Thousandths. MPH. Pounds. Kilo's. Grams. Grains. Hands. KPH. Stones. PSI. Nm. Troy. Avd. C°. F°. Hours...

I suspect most people comprehend reading of thermometers and odometers, less for scales and protractors, some don't get the 24 hour clock, and well known challenges facing tape measures. So then we found off-beat comparisons, that try to relate scale of one thing to others, such as football fields.
This I swear is real, someone wishing to sell a grapple. Of all things in a household, a grapple not top of many lists, 

yet remotes are identical, right?

----------


## bruce.desertrat

LOL, You're supposed to use a banana for scale! 

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/6617...a-for-scale--4

(although, actually that particular remote is a very common model..it used to be the one that came with most Cox or Comcast cable boxes, so it's not particularly stupid to use it)

And some wag has made a standard aluminum banana for scaling purposes (this is a still from one of Hand Tool Rescue's videos on youtube ) https://i.redd.it/6688tff4tq531.png

----------

Philip Davies (Jul 10, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Jul 9, 2021)

----------


## Toolmaker51

So, to negotiate purchase I have to change cable companies? Whew, at least not a golfer. 
Not sure a 'standard banana' exists; average, maybe. In a lopped-off bunch, are not bottom rows longer and straighter?

----------


## old kodger

All I know is that by ANY comparator, I'm getting shorter.

----------


## Philip Davies

> Ounces. Inches. Meters. Furlongs. Nautical Miles. Thousandths. MPH. Pounds. Kilo's. Grams. Grains. Hands. KPH. Stones. PSI. Nm. Troy. Avd. C°. F°. Hours...
> 
> I suspect most people comprehend reading of thermometers and odometers, less for scales and protractors, some don't get the 24 hour clock, and well known challenges facing tape measures. So then we found off-beat comparisons, that try to relate scale of one thing to others, such as football fields.
> This I swear is real, someone wishing to sell a grapple. Of all things in a household, a grapple not top of many lists, 
> 
> yet remotes are identical, right?



Cubits. Remember, cubits. They came first!
Magnet fishing has become quite popular. But although they can lift a lot, more than a hand of bananas, I should think a grapple would be a useful accessory for things like motorbikes, etc.

----------

Toolmaker51 (Jul 10, 2021)

----------


## old kodger

I heard, yesterday, what I consider is the definitive way to measure the size of a lawn.
A freind of mine is a real estate agent and he tells me that the recognized way to determine the size of a lawn is the number of "tinnies" (cans of beer), that it takes to mow it.
He went on to say that a local builder prices all his jobs by "slabs", ie. cartons of beer. Which when you think about it is not so silly because the jobs rarely change in the amount of work to be done, but the ever increasing cost of living changes the price constantly, so a slab of beer rises consistently with the cost of living,.......no more calculating to be done.

----------

NortonDommi (Jul 12, 2021)

----------


## NortonDommi

> So, to negotiate purchase I have to change cable companies? Whew, at least not a golfer. 
> Not sure a 'standard banana' exists; average, maybe. In a lopped-off bunch, are not bottom rows longer and straighter?



The E.U tried to standardise Bananas by length, weight, straightness, allowable bend to length ratio and colour. This cause many plantations to be plowed under or abandoned causing an international Banana shortage and crippling a few countries economies.
The U.N.G.C. actually overruled their European branch office the E.U. on that one.

Now I have a question for everybody. How many metres in a mile?

----------


## nova_robotics

> Now I have a question for everybody. How many metres in a mile?



Three. There are also more than that. But there's definitely three.

----------


## old kodger

presuming this to be the question it purports to be,
One statue mile = 1760 yards 
1760 x36 statute inches 36 being the number of inches in a yard = 63360. 
63360/39.2 (39.2 being the length of a metre measured in statute inches) =1616.32
So, 1616.32 metres, unless this was a trick question.
nb. I'm not aware if there may be a difference between "statute" and "American" yards.

Ultimately the answer could be "LOTS"

----------


## jdurand

> Now I have a question for everybody. How many metres in a mile?



obviously none, one is metric and one is a king's shoe size.

 :Smile:   :Smile:   :Smile:

----------


## Philip Davies

In the news today: “Goldfish the size of rugby balls have taken over a Minnesota lake!” I question whether many Minnesota residents can visualise the size of a rugby ball, but still.... That’s a jolly fat goldfish!

----------

NortonDommi (Jul 13, 2021)

----------


## Frank S

> In the news today: “Goldfish the size of rugby balls have taken over a Minnesota lake!” I question whether many Minnesota residents can visualise the size of a rugby ball, but still.... That’s a jolly fat goldfish!



yeah they sound more like the Japanese carp or Koi or what ever they are called.
I knew a guy in college who got drunk at his girlfriend's 21st birthday party, decided he was going to impress her by drinking the entire contents of her gold fish bowl and swallow all of the gold fish alive. Needless to say she was not impressed in the least, and her dad was even less impressed when the guy puked up most of the still live gold fish on their new carpet. Pizza, cake, beer, goldfish and fish bowl water on white carpet, you get the picture I'm sure.

----------


## mklotz

> In the news today: “Goldfish the size of rugby balls have taken over a Minnesota lake!” I question whether many Minnesota residents can visualise the size of a rugby ball, but still.... That’s a jolly fat goldfish!



I think you've created a whole new category of stupid measurement gauges to explore - Culture-alien measurement comparisons. 

BTW, you're correct in doubting that Usonians would know about rugby; they probably think it's some sort of floor covering.

----------


## marksbug

that depends on how many houses are on the mile long street and weather they have just 1 meter or 2( for a shop/home in the back)

----------


## IntheGroove

We have some here...

----------


## marksbug

so..how do we standardize feet?? some people have short feet some have long feet. and some have a foot long....banana, so....oh never mind,it's usualy longer than a furlong or long fur...

----------


## old kodger

> obviously none, one is metric and one is a king's shoe size.



Like I said " if this question is what it purports to be"
At the risk of upsetting a very large proportion of the respondents of this forum, Americans have odd ball versions of a lot of things "aluminum, soddering, US gallons" to name just a few.

----------


## marksbug

were not the only ones with some odd stuff.....

----------


## IntheGroove

Why would a country so bent on the metric system use stone as a unit of weight...

----------

jimfols (Jul 13, 2021),

marksbug (Jul 14, 2021),

nova_robotics (Jul 13, 2021)

----------


## old kodger

> Why would a country so bent on the metric system use stone as a unit of weight...



To whom do you refer? I'm in Australia and I assure you that weight here is measured in Kg's

----------

Tonyg (Jul 14, 2021)

----------


## hemmjo

> Like I said " if this question is what it purports to be"
> At the risk of upsetting a very large proportion of the respondents of this forum, Americans have odd ball versions of a lot of things "aluminum, soddering, US gallons" to name just a few.



WELL, I for one, am so offended that I offer the following as evidence.  :Smile: 
(Not sure as evidence for what, but it is evidence for something!!!! )

https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/ar...al-gallons.php. 

The History of this is here. https://marketbusinessnews.com/finan...eters%2C%20etc.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...term=Soddering

https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...?term=Aluminum

And just FYI, I am not really offended, you gotta laugh. It is fascinating how things morph as time and distance separate us. Now that most in the world are able to come back together and communicate freely via the internet, we can so easily see how the differences have evolved. 

Now if we could just come together and solve the REAL problems of the world.

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marksbug (Jul 14, 2021)

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## jdurand

> To whom do you refer? I'm in Australia and I assure you that weight here is measured in Kg's



To pick nits, kg is mass, NOT weight. Pounds is force that's taken to be mass in the west.

ie: 1 kg of water is still 1kg in space or on the moon, but 1 pound of water changes even by your location on Earth.

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marksbug (Jul 14, 2021)

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## jdurand

> Now if we could just come together and solve the REAL problems of the world.



Yes, we need more chocolate!  :Smile:

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marksbug (Jul 14, 2021)

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## IntheGroove

From Britannia:
"Stone, British unit of weight for dry products generally equivalent to 14 pounds avoirdupois (6.35 kg), though it varied from 4 to 32 pounds (1.814 to 14.515 kg) for various items over time. Originally any good-sized rock chosen as a local standard, the stone came to be widely used as a unit of weight in trade, its value fluctuating with the commodity and region. In the 14th century England’s exportation of raw wool to Florence necessitated a fixed standard. In 1389 a royal statute fixed the stone of wool at 14 pounds and the sack of wool at 26 stones. Trade stones of variant weights persist, such as the glass stone of 5 pounds. The stone is still commonly used in Britain to designate the weights of people and large animals."

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marksbug (Jul 14, 2021)

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## marksbug

I have many stones in my yard,I doubt any weigh 14 pounds or 6.35 kg's. what Im wondering is how many pounds does a stone cost over there?? and how hard can you pound on it?can you pound on it while your stoned? or do you stone it before you pound it? how many pebbles are in a stone?? how much did pebbles flint stone cost?and what about that blarney stone?? where / when does it come into the equation?? all this thinking is making my head pound :Smash:

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## old kodger

As I said in a previous post, "by any comparator, I'm getting shorter" an addendum to that is by any comparator I'm also getting heavier. the end product is likely to be a lemon on legs. How do we calculate the mass of a lemon on legs?

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nova_robotics (Jul 15, 2021)

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## TheElderBrother

I always say, when life gives you lemons, put them in a pillowcase and beat the ever-loving **** out of whoever's responsible.

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## Toolmaker51

The description of "A lemon on legs" paints a visual alright, not disturbing, just humorous.

There is another, differently phrased but equal in humor. It describes an overweight [such as one of our politicians] retiree. 
He's beach or poolside in Brazilian styled too-brief excuse for swimwear as an egg wearing a rubberband. 
That IS disturbing!

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old kodger (Jul 15, 2021)

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## old kodger

My mother, being 4'10" (in any direction) was severally described as "a lemon on legs" so it's little surprise that I'm off down the same road. Mind you, she lived 'til 95 years old so that can't be bad.

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## Philip Davies

For once, I am looking forward to a TV programme later this week, to do with the “internationally accepted prototype” of a kilogram. This has shed, I read, a fraction of its weight. This is described as the “equivalent of an eyelash”. Really? That seems quite a lot, and since it is locked in a vault near Paris, it’s not likely to be due to wear and tear. Hopefully the programme will explain why, although if it’s quantum physics, that will in itself be enough. The metrologists are apparently “racing” to invent a new standard kilogram. What are the likely candidates? I suggest 703 coffee beans.

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## mklotz

> For once, I am looking forward to a TV programme later this week, to do with the “internationally accepted prototype” of a kilogram. This has shed, I read, a fraction of its weight. This is described as the “equivalent of an eyelash”. Really? That seems quite a lot, and since it is locked in a vault near Paris, it’s not likely to be due to wear and tear. Hopefully the programme will explain why, although if it’s quantum physics, that will in itself be enough. The metrologists are apparently “racing” to invent a new standard kilogram. What are the likely candidates? I suggest 703 coffee beans.



According to this article...

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science...ns-ncna1007731

it's lost only 50 micrograms, the weight of a few fingerprints; an eyelash would weigh much more.

Science has advanced enough that we can now define the fundamental quantities (meter, kilogram, second) of the metric system in terms of physical constants not subject to the vagaries of nature as the prototypes of the past were. The meter is already defined in terms of the speed of light in a vacuum, a universal constant. The second is defined in terms of the radiation emitted by cesium. The kilogram was the last fundamental to be defined in terms of a physical artefact.

Now the kilogram has been defined in terms of Planck's constant, h = 6.62607015E-34 kg·m²/sec so the physical standard in France is no longer needed; it can rust and abrade away as much as it wishes.

Defining in terms of universal physical constants not only removes the dependence on objects subject to change, it allows users anywhere to generate the standard rather than having to travel to a prototype, measure, and then attempt to carry that measurement back unchanged.

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Philip Davies (Sep 13, 2021)

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## bruce.desertrat

> Defining in terms of universal physical constants not only removes the dependence on objects subject to change, it allows users anywhere to generate the standard rather than having to travel to a prototype, measure, and then attempt to carry that measurement back unchanged.



And it keeps pirates from stealing them, helping to cement America on the Imperial Standards swamp. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...-metric-system.

Speaking of which I found this amazing graphic today, showing the relationships of liquid measure in the (US) Imperial system. See they're perfectly simple! (just don't do it wrong; I think you'll summon a demon instead of finding how many teaspoons in ⅓ cup :-)

----------

jimfols (Sep 12, 2021),

nova_robotics (Sep 12, 2021),

Toolmaker51 (Sep 12, 2021)

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## mklotz

Nice, but it doesn't show those classic, party-on, wine bottles...

Jeroboam
Salmanazar
Balthazar
Nebuchadnezzar

The inferial system, in addition to its innate idiocy, has the habit of giving units names that carry exactly no information about the unit's numerical value or relation to the base unit. Naming units for obscure biblical kings is the zenith of that nasty practice.

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Moldyjim (Sep 13, 2021)

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## old kodger

> According to this article...
> 
> https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science...ns-ncna1007731
> 
> it's lost only 50 micrograms, the weight of a few fingerprints; an eyelash would weigh much more.
> 
> Science has advanced enough that we can now define the fundamental quantities (meter, kilogram, second) of the metric system in terms of physical constants not subject to the vagaries of nature as the prototypes of the past were. The meter is already defined in terms of the speed of light in a vacuum, a universal constant. The second is defined in terms of the radiation emitted by cesium. The kilogram was the last fundamental to be defined in terms of a physical artefact.
> 
> Now the kilogram has been defined in terms of Planck's constant, h = 6.62607015E-34 kg·m²/sec so the physical standard in France is no longer needed; it can rust and abrade away as much as it wishes.
> ...



There is a fundamental flaw in the statement "time is a constant" it's been established that it is not, therefore ALL calculations based, or using, the speed of light are by definition variable.

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## bruce.desertrat

Well many times _monks_ were the brewers, vinters and distillers, so maybe the names weren't so obscure to them; or originated as some sort of in-joke. some cursory googling does not turn up and definitive information on the origins...quite possibly the originators didn't remember why they called them that the next morning :-)

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old kodger (Sep 12, 2021)

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## mklotz

> Well many times _monks_ were the brewers, vinters and distillers, so maybe the names weren't so obscure to them; or originated as some sort of in-joke. some cursory googling does not turn up and definitive information on the origins...quite possibly the originators didn't remember why they called them that the next morning :-)



Maybe they used the kings' names as a sort of code so they could talk openly in front of the bishop...

Yeah, last night was a real Nebuchadnezzar of a night!

Nah, the bishop was probably the biggest souse of them all.

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FEM2008 (Sep 12, 2021)

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## Toolmaker51

> And it keeps pirates from stealing them, helping to cement America on the Imperial Standards swamp. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...-metric-system.
> 
> Speaking of which I found this amazing graphic today, showing the relationships of liquid measure in the (US) Imperial system. See they're perfectly simple! (just don't do it wrong; I think you'll summon a demon instead of finding how many teaspoons in ⅓ cup :-)



Decent graphic depiction, but siding with Marv on this one, summoning inferial IS demonic...

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bruce.desertrat (Sep 13, 2021)

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## marksbug

they forgot to add hand full and mouth full.

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## IntheGroove

And the ever popular butt load...

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## bruce.desertrat

And the pinch, a smidge, a little bit, and grandma's ever favorite: "enough"

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## hemmjo

It is raining here. I cannot work outside. I know I have 100's of things I should be doing inside, but instead I was waisting time online. Found this video I thought might be of interest to this group. Listen carefully for a couple of references to various non standard units of weight, (*a couple of US nickels*) for example.

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## mklotz

While I wouldn't recommend quoting weights in units of nickels, the fact that a nickel weighs 5 grams is handy for impromptu scale checking, not to mention the ease of remembering that 5 cents weighs 5 grams.

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## Toolmaker51

> While I wouldn't recommend quoting weights in units of nickels, the fact that a nickel weighs 5 grams is handy for impromptu scale checking, not to mention the ease of remembering that 5 cents weighs 5 grams.



Relatable concerning reference weights. The famous author, especially on subject of reloading, Dean Grennell, told how his first powder scale was home made. His efforts at calibration were via aspirin tablets, bottle labeled as 5 grains.
Not so, 5 grains was weight of active content, less of course than complete tablet. He was lucky to not overcharge handgun cartridges with energetic powder like Hercules Bullseye, a favorite target composition. In .38 Special, the standard was 2.7 grains, a bit more with Unique.
BTW one pound = 7000 grains, 1 gram is 15.4323583529 grains...

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## marksbug

if I had a grain of salt and a nickel for every thime i wanted to weigh somethen I could make a margarita...for one of those tok tic hootchies visiting the photo shop for some body work and torn clothes.

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## Philip Davies

I hope that this cartoon, originally published in Punch in 1914, will amuse you.
Although I grew up with pounds, shillings and pence, the sum was too difficult for my mental arithmetic. I expect, though, most of the adult readers at the time would have reached the answer rapidly. Would you like to know why?

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## Philip Davies

Unfortunately the print is difficult to read. The schoolmaster asks Tertius what 4% of £5 would be. Tertius’s second guess is the nearest.

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## bruce.desertrat

Well, they were used to mental gymnastics, or...the other party always accepted just which answer the other came up with : ) 

_"It's three shillings, two ha-penny and three groats!"_  (I will note that my _entire_ knowledge of the old system of English currency comes from Mary Poppins )  :Big Grin: 

At least Thomas Jefferson prevailed with our currency....4% of 5 bucks is 20 cents.

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## marksbug

i DONT HAVE ANY DEER AROUND HEAR,I DO HAVE 5 SENCES....SOMETIMES..,BUT NO GOATS(UNLESS YOU COUNT ME) AS FOR MARRY POPPINS ...I WOOD GIVE HER A FEW POUND'S TO PASS THE TIME AND PUT A SMILE ON BOTH OUR FACES. A LITTLE BIT~O~HUNNYV :Banana Dance:

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## DIYSwede

Maybe OT - but I just had to share this _(as self-restraint is a scarce resource nowadays)_:

 

Easier to read:https://polaris93.livejournal.com/2046896.html

Definition of Force: 
"1 Blintzal (b-al) = a force which, when acting upon 1 blintz of mass for 1 kovac, causes it to attain a velocity of 1 potrzebie per kovac"

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bruce.desertrat (Oct 27, 2021),

Philip Davies (Oct 27, 2021)

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## old kodger

Am I glad that I'mm nearly 80, or am I glad that I'km nearly 80? there's only a finite timme that I must put up with this crap

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## bruce.desertrat

I love that nearly all the various terms Knuth used other than 'Potrzebie' pretty much read like Don Martin sound effects (and yes it is by *THE* Donald Knuth of _The Art of Computer Programming_ , as a young man )

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## Jon

A nice collection of football field measurement memes.

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## mklotz

> Unfortunately the print is difficult to read. The schoolmaster asks Tertius what 4% of £5 would be. Tertiuss second guess is the nearest.
> Attachment 40713



Once one learns the definitions of £/s/d, it's straightforward, even for a metriphile Usonian...

£5 = 100 s(hillings) so 4% is 4 shillings, or 48 d, or 192 farthings

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## hemmjo

Another crazy comparison;

*'Superload' Lumbers Across Pennsylvania, Two Lanes Wide and as Heavy as Two Whales*

The article clarifies BlueWhales.

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## marksbug

that all depends on how many times the story has been told,as well as the original fisherman/whaler. sounds like a whale of a story to me. but a super load of what?? my wife got a superload in the back of her honda one time, I was helping her with it

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bruce.desertrat (Jan 16, 2022)

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## Toolmaker51

> that all depends on how many times the story has been told,as well as the original fisherman/whaler. sounds like a whale of a story to me. but a super load of what?? my wife got a superload in the back of her honda one time, I was helping her with it



or....
https://www.pehalnews.in/superload-l...hales/1544463/

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marksbug (Jan 16, 2022)

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## Jon

The Banana equivalent dose or BED is a measurement of ionizing radiation, because bananas contain potassium-40, a radioactive isotope of potassium. For example, a lethal dose of radiation is about 35,000,000 BED. Made famous in part by this chart from Randall Munroe of XKCD:

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...t_fullsize.jpg

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clydeman (Feb 12, 2022),

Hoosiersmoker (Feb 9, 2022),

jimfols (Feb 8, 2022),

neilbourjaily (Feb 9, 2022),

nova_robotics (Feb 9, 2022)

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## Toolmaker51

So, what radiation did Jane receive from Tarzan, while sleeping among banana trees?

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## Hoosiersmoker

I love the tagline "A cellphone's transmitter does not produce ionizing radiation* and does not cause cancer. 
*Unless it's a bananaphone"

Because "living within 50 miles of a nuclear powerplant for a year is equal to eating one banana." I knew there was a reason I don't like bananas!

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## hemmjo

I find this troubling, and a bit confusing.



It appears that responders working to rescue people are able to withstand 2 1/2 times the radiation than responders working to save valuable property.

Can working saving "valuable" people take more radiation than those saving people of less "value" who makes that call? 

How does that work? I realize that it is more important to save people than is it equipment, but people can only take so much radiation, no matter what they are doing.

What am I missing?

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## neilbourjaily

I think the chart means to say it is worth absorbing more mSv rescuing people than rescuing property.

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## marksbug

so should I eat bananas or not?? what about the radaition i got from my cancer treetments that were higher than permited(was waht I was told by tech that gave them to me) 3 or 4 different times trying to kill either me or the cancer. (they may of done both...)

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## hemmjo

> I think the chart means to say it is worth absorbing more mSv rescuing people than rescuing property.



I understand that concept, but that is not what the chart says.

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## jimfols

The Banana equivalent dose or BED

At the very bottom is says don't believe anything you see on the internet.

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## Jon

Asteroid measured in a fraction of a giraffe.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...t-Iceland.html

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carloski (Sep 5, 2022),

Inner (Sep 5, 2022),

nova_robotics (Sep 3, 2022)

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## IntheGroove

Which half...

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nova_robotics (Sep 3, 2022)

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## mklotz

I'll get right to work adding African wild animal pieces to my units conversion program. It needs an update anyway; recently I was made aware of some missing entries...

1 imperial gill = 12 imperial dessertspoons
1 inferial gill = 11.8294 inferial dessertspoons

Introducing a living animal into the already overtaxed zoo of Imperial measurement will produce some very thorny problems. The opportunities for humor are sufficiently fertile to encourage a revival of _Monty Python's Flying Circus_.

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asterix (Sep 10, 2022),

baja (Sep 11, 2022)

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## Jon

I think that the clickbait era may have exacerbated the problem of bizarre units of measurement.

Also, it seems like they're using a giraffe as a measure of volume, when it would've been more appropriate as a measure of height.

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## Ronj

Half as tall, half as wide or half as heavy.

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## neilbourjaily

I find the space between my forefinger and my thumb to be a reliable measurement. No matter how wide or far away, I find the object of measurement to fit exactly.

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Philip Davies (Sep 24, 2022),

WorkerB (Sep 6, 2022)

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## Bony

According to Google there are only 3 countries left in the world that still use the Imperial system for measurement and the US is one of them. Wasn't a measurement conversion error the cause of a shuttle disaster. How about joining the rest of the world you guys if only because it's SO much easier to use.
(Yea ok, we still drive on the left down under, and that's not going to change)

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## schuylergrace

How many warthogs are in a giraffe? I prefer to use smaller units to enhance precision.

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## hemmjo

In regard to (Yea ok, we still drive on the left down under, and that's not going to change), That has to do with the Earths rotation...Right? If one person stands on the North Pole they are spinning in one direction, if at the same time another person stands on the South Pole, they are spinning in the opposite direction!!! Right? Imagine the Earth's axis were an all thread rod that is stationary. Each person holding a nut. As the Earth spins, one nut is getting closer to the Earth, the other nut is getting further away! Right? SO one is turning left the other is turning right. SO it is OK if you people "down there" on the bottom half drive on the left. But those up on the top half that drive on the left, well there is no excuse for that!!! 
But it is all good because we are all little "nuts" anyway  :Beer:  

Of course if the Earth is flat, then this is all meaningless.


ON a more serious note. I find it interesting that the metric/imperial systems are so often MIXED within the same size designation. Tires (tyres) are the first example that comes to mind. While some tires, here in the US anyway, are in inches 35X12.50R15LT E, others are mixed millimeter and inch, P255/60R17 102V.

Is it like this "down there also"?

For your further enjoyment;

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## Ralphxyz

So it just made a splash?

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## mklotz

> So it just made a splash?



Probably a fairly large splash.

Imagine, if you can, a ball of rock 3 meters in diameter hitting the ocean at 19 km/sec (42500 mph) !

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## Jon

Another measurement gem is the story of how A&W restaurants tried to market a 1/3 pound burger (larger than the standard 1/4 pound burger) but it failed. A&W hired a market research firm, who determined that Americans thought it was foolish to pay more for a 1/3 pound burger than a 1/4 pound burger, because 3 is less than 4. It's possible that there may be other reasons that this strategy failed, but this signal suggests that the research firm was probably correct. This has entered restaurant lore with an official entry on the website of A&W Restaurants: https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-th...rger-fractions

This is especially ironic because Americans' innumeracy was so great that it overcame their legendary love of both burgers and portion size increases. Note how modern fast food marketing strategy eschews fractions and instead focuses on increasing the number of burger patties, even if they are thinner and weigh less.




I searched on "math is hard meme" for an image to accompany this post, and there are some beauties:

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baja (Sep 26, 2022),

hemmjo (Sep 25, 2022),

KustomsbyKent (Sep 27, 2022),

nova_robotics (Sep 24, 2022),

papa bill2 (Sep 29, 2022),

Philip Davies (Sep 24, 2022),

RetiredFAE (Sep 24, 2022),

thevillageinn (Sep 24, 2022)

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## thevillageinn

This is also why many times a 50% off sale will be accompanied with the statement: thats half!

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## mklotz

My contribution...



The legend at the bottom is so true. DAMHIKT.

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neilbourjaily (Sep 25, 2022)

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## schuylergrace

Well, there was a study done a while back that showed somewhere north of 80% of Americans believe they are either in the top 20% of income earners or close to it. I never knew it was so crowded at the yacht harbor!

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## old kodger

Life's hard by the yard, by the inch it's a cinch. Try metricating that.

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## Bony

In response to Hemmjo, in Australia tyre sizes use inches to signify wheel diameter. So 255/65 R17 is an example the 17 being inches. The only other aberration I am aware of is altitude measurement for aircraft which is in feet, I guess for safety reasons. Similarly aircraft airspeed and nautical speed is measured in knots or nautical miles per hour, a nautical mile being, I think an arbitrary division used for increments of latitude and longitude which assists in navigation calculations.

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## Frank S

> Well, there was a study done a while back that showed somewhere north of 80% of Americans believe they are either in the top 20% of income earners or close to it. I never knew it was so crowded at the yacht harbor!



And that is the reason why most are broke and don't even know it, even if they all woke up one morning to find they no longer owed anything on any type of credit, and those who play the stock markets found out they no longer held any investment capital aside from their original cash investment none of them would be able to last 6 months on what little real income or actual cash on hand they possessed before once again finding themselves up to their eyebrows in debt.

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## mklotz

> ... a nautical mile being, I think an arbitrary division used for increments of latitude and longitude which assists in navigation calculations.



A nautical mile (6076 ft) is approximately the length of one arc minute of latitude on the earth's surface. The length of an arc minute of longitude is different at different latitudes.

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Bony (Sep 26, 2022)

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## Jon

> My contribution...
> 
> 
> 
> The legend at the bottom is so true. DAMHIKT.



Well, if we are doing pi jokes:

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mklotz (Sep 26, 2022)

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## mklotz

A quote from...

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segmen...e-really-need/

Mathematician James Grime of the YouTube channel Numberphile has determined that 39 digits of pi—

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288420

—would suffice to calculate the circumference of the known universe to the width of a hydrogen atom. (That number is rounded, for those of you keeping track.)

My alma mater has pi to a billion digits available for your delectation...

https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/pi/

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## neilbourjaily

[QUOTE=mklotz;211017]A quote from...

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segmen...e-really-need/

Mathematician James Grime of the YouTube channel Numberphile has determined that 39 digits of pi—

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288420

—would suffice to calculate the circumference of the known universe to the width of a hydrogen atom. (That number is rounded, for those of you keeping track.)

JPL, on the other hand tracks Voyager 1 using pi rounded only to a measly 15 digits. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/20...e-really-need/

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## hemmjo

> Snip...
> 
> would suffice to calculate the circumference of the known universe to the width of a hydrogen atom. (That number is rounded, for those of you keeping track.)... Snip



Assuming of course that the universe was round and had some comprehensible and definable limit.

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## mklotz

> Assuming of course that the universe was round and had some comprehensible and definable limit.



The "KNOWN universe" is defined by the greatest distance to which we can see with our current technology. It is a radius and associated with that radius is the geometric notion of a circumference. It is that circumference to which the quote refers, not the as yet unknown boundary of the universe, if indeed one exists.

The most puzzling issue to me revolves around the fact that the universe is expanding. Into what is it expanding ? The question is as mind contorting as speculation of the origin of the big bang.

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## Frank S

> The "KNOWN universe" is defined by the greatest distance to which we can see with our current technology. It is a radius and associated with that radius is the geometric notion of a circumference. It is that circumference to which the quote refers, not the as yet unknown boundary of the universe, if indeed one exists.
> 
> The most puzzling issue to me revolves around the fact that the universe is expanding. Into what is it expanding ? The question is as mind contorting as speculation of the origin of the big bang.



I heard there is a good resterauant at the edge of the universe

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## neilbourjaily

> I heard there is a good resterauant at the edge of the universe



Good to know 'cause there ain't no good restaurants around here.

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