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Snake Oil Department, Top This

Brian Hall said:
I'm glad we still use the better system here. Inches are useful more often than centimeters and millimeters. Feet are useful more often than meters. Yards work fine instead of meters. The same with miles. This is a big country. Kilometers are too small. Our signs would need to be bigger to handle all those digits.

The same goes for Fahrenheit vs celsius. We have big temperature swings here. There is not enough detail in celsius. Have to add too many decimals. It makes sense having a lot of numbers between freezing, cold, ok, warm, hot and August.

I'm not going outside = -x to 15, too damn cold = 16 to 28, cold = 29 to 39, water freezing/snow sticking = 32, cool = 40 to 58, ok = 59 to 69, warm = 70 to 79, hot = 80 to 95, August = 95 to 110.

Here in Oklahoma, we sometimes get down to 0F in the winter and usually hit 108F in the summer. 108F with 80% humidity is another "I'm not going outside".

Celsius compacts those down too much. 0 for freezing and 38 for too hot. That's crazy.

Temperatures need a wider range so we know what to wear or whether we need to stay inside.
Click to expand...
I don't know how the rest of the world manages just fine to figure what to wear or how fast they are driving.

Other than fractional measuring in the construction business, few others use Imperial units.
 
Brian Hall said:
I'm glad we still use the better system here. Inches are useful more often than centimeters and millimeters. Feet are useful more often than meters. Yards work fine instead of meters. The same with miles. This is a big country. Kilometers are too small. Our signs would need to be bigger to handle all those digits.

The same goes for Fahrenheit vs celsius. We have big temperature swings here. There is not enough detail in celsius. Have to add too many decimals. It makes sense having a lot of numbers between freezing, cold, ok, warm, hot and August.

I'm not going outside = -x to 15, too damn cold = 16 to 28, cold = 29 to 39, water freezing/snow sticking = 32, cool = 40 to 58, ok = 59 to 69, warm = 70 to 79, hot = 80 to 95, August = 95 to 110.

Here in Oklahoma, we sometimes get down to 0F in the winter and usually hit 108F in the summer. 108F with 80% humidity is another "I'm not going outside".

Celsius compacts those down too much. 0 for freezing and 38 for too hot. That's crazy.

Temperatures need a wider range so we know what to wear or whether we need to stay inside.
Click to expand...
Goodness , next you’ll be saying it would be a good thing to have a World Series and world champions in a competition that only takes place with North American teams.

Oh wait …
:D
 
Brian Hall said:
I'm glad we still use the better system here. Inches are useful more often than centimeters and millimeters. Feet are useful more often than meters. Yards work fine instead of meters. The same with miles. This is a big country. Kilometers are too small. Our signs would need to be bigger to handle all those digits.

The same goes for Fahrenheit vs celsius. We have big temperature swings here. There is not enough detail in celsius. Have to add too many decimals. It makes sense having a lot of numbers between freezing, cold, ok, warm, hot and August.

I'm not going outside = -x to 15, too damn cold = 16 to 28, cold = 29 to 39, water freezing/snow sticking = 32, cool = 40 to 58, ok = 59 to 69, warm = 70 to 79, hot = 80 to 95, August = 95 to 110.

Here in Oklahoma, we sometimes get down to 0F in the winter and usually hit 108F in the summer. 108F with 80% humidity is another "I'm not going outside".

Celsius compacts those down too much. 0 for freezing and 38 for too hot. That's crazy.

Temperatures need a wider range so we know what to wear or whether we need to stay inside.
Click to expand...

1708519529829.jpeg


idioms.thefreedictionary.com

stir up a hornet's nest

Definition of stir up a hornet's nest in the Idioms Dictionary by The Free Dictionary
idioms.thefreedictionary.com idioms.thefreedictionary.com

Jim
 
Jim Taylor said:
View attachment 351236

idioms.thefreedictionary.com

stir up a hornet's nest

Definition of stir up a hornet's nest in the Idioms Dictionary by The Free Dictionary
idioms.thefreedictionary.com idioms.thefreedictionary.com

Jim
Click to expand...
I don't have any problems with all these differing units, i know (approx) the differences:) measure however you see fit;) the only head-scratcher for me is, why is there a difference between Land and Sea miles? how did that came about?

I know Sea Miles (1.8 Km) has something to do with the circumference measurement of the Earth in relation to.... or something like that.

feel free to correct me if i'm wrong though.
 
I suggest a new and interesting topic on which to disagree: driving on the right or on the left?
 
CapMan said:
Goodness , next you’ll be saying it would be a good thing to have a World Series and world champions in a competition that only takes place with North American teams.
Oh wait …:D
Click to expand...
Well baseball coined the title "World Series" long before world champion was as well defined.
But now the NFL, NHL, NBA, NASCAR & NHRA all sometimes call their National Champion the World Champion.
True some of these associations have competitors from several countries, play games in a few countries and have teams in two countries, but still thier title is National.
 
Brian Hall said:
I'm glad we still use the better system here. Inches are useful more often than centimeters and millimeters. Feet are useful more often than meters. Yards work fine instead of meters. The same with miles. This is a big country. Kilometers are too small. Our signs would need to be bigger to handle all those digits.

The same goes for Fahrenheit vs celsius. We have big temperature swings here. There is not enough detail in celsius. Have to add too many decimals. It makes sense having a lot of numbers between freezing, cold, ok, warm, hot and August.

I'm not going outside = -x to 15, too damn cold = 16 to 28, cold = 29 to 39, water freezing/snow sticking = 32, cool = 40 to 58, ok = 59 to 69, warm = 70 to 79, hot = 80 to 95, August = 95 to 110.

Here in Oklahoma, we sometimes get down to 0F in the winter and usually hit 108F in the summer. 108F with 80% humidity is another "I'm not going outside".

Celsius compacts those down too much. 0 for freezing and 38 for too hot. That's crazy.

Temperatures need a wider range so we know what to wear or whether we need to stay inside.
Click to expand...
I'm with you on this point. For our home we use Ecobee thermostats and will raise or lower the temperature by one degree F. That's all we need. Likewise with outside temps. I like the narrower, non-needed-decimal temperature gradients. I guess it's what one is used to when it comes to distance measurements - or any of them I guess...
 
Ahmonge said:
I suggest a new and interesting topic on which to disagree: driving on the right or on the left?
Click to expand...


Total tangent here be related to the right / left thing.

We visited Bodiam castle at the weekend.

When it was built in 1360 an attacking army could only access the gate via a causeway running left to right and parallel to the castle walls.

Because knights were always right handed it meant their shield side was on the left and their bodies were totally exposed to archers in the castle for a reasonable amount of time. By the way - those archers could fire an arrow 360m at a rate of 12 per minute !

Picture below… sorry for the digression, I found the thinking of medieval architects really insightful :)


IMG_6343.jpeg
 
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mhardy6647 said:
You know, I am just sitting here musing about the precision* of a measurement (ostensibly) presented in the media as "roughly the size of six or seven" washing machines. Our washing machine is 27 inches, umm, I mean ,about 67.8 cm wide.
6 x 67.8 cm = 406.8 cm
7 x 67.8 cm = 474.6 cm

so... the hole is 440.7 cm +/- 15.4% wide (or long, as the case may be)
We can determine the location of a cell phone within inches (or whatever ;)) -- but +/- 15% is the best we can do to measure a fricking four-ish meter long hole in a road?
"ROUGHLY"
?!?

There is no hope for civilization. No wonder folks can sell audiophiles a box of rocks to ground their system. :facepalm:

Where is are MIT and Oliver Smoot when we need 'em?
en.wikipedia.org

Smoot - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 351221




OK, definitely time for more coffee!

____________________
* or imprecision, as the case may be. :cool:
Click to expand...
Depending on its size, we on this side of the pond will measure things in units of:

Garden sheds ("A shedload of" - or the more precise "A metric shedload of")
Double decker buses.
Football fields (the soccer type for you USAnians)
Land area of Wales (The country, not the marine mammal)
 
CapMan said:
Because knights were always right handed it meant their shield side was on the left and their bodies were totally exposed to archers in the castle for a reasonable amount of time
Click to expand...
left-handed knights had an advantage to conquer this castle.
 
antcollinet said:
Depending on its size, we on this side of the pond will measure things in units of:

Garden sheds ("A shedload of" - or the more precise "A metric shedload of")
Double decker buses.
Football fields (the soccer type for you USAnians)
Land area of Wales (The country, not the marine mammal)
Click to expand...
We also use Olympic swimming pools as a unit of volume. Specifically in the context of how much raw sewage gets pumped into our sea and rivers every day by dodgy water companies :(
 
CapMan said:
Total tangent here be related to the right / left thing.

We visited Bodiam castle at the weekend.

When it was built in 1360 an attacking army could only access the gate via a causeway running left to right and parallel to the castle walls.

Because knights were always right handed it meant their shield side was on the left and their bodies were totally exposed to archers in the castle for a reasonable amount of time. By the way - those archers could fire an arrow 360m at a rate of 12 per minute !

Picture below… sorry for the digression, I found the thinking of medieval architects really insightful :)


View attachment 351313
Click to expand...
In one of those weird coincidenty things - I first heard of Bodiam castle a couple of days ago when we looked up shooting locations for the film Wonka that we'd just watched. Now two days later here it is again.
 
CapMan said:
We also use Olympic swimming pools as a unit of volume. Specifically in the context of how much raw sewage gets pumped into our sea and rivers every day by dodgy water companies :(
Click to expand...
Oh yes, I'd forgotten that one.
 
antcollinet said:
In one of those weird coincidenty things - I first heard of Bodiam castle a couple of days ago when we looked up shooting locations for the film Wonka that we'd just watched. Now two days later here it is again.
Click to expand...
Trivia time - it had 28 toilets which smelt so bad that any clothing infested with fleas or moths would be hung there to kill said bugs.
 
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