Metric vs. other measurement systems - chart

[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?

[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!!!