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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| A new unit of astronomical measurement |
| 2023-03-04 |
| [Hot Air] We are used to arguing about the merits of the Imperial vs Metric systems of measurement. As we should. Imperial units are clearly superior to the metric system, as is proven by the fact that the Metric system was first adopted by France during the revolution. Nothing good came out of the French Revolution. The only country to have reached the moon—the United States, of course—uses the Imperial system. Inches, feet, miles, Fahrenheit, pints, gallons... All the useful units. None of that Frenchie stuff. Too bad Brexit didn’t extend to measurement units. Although the Brits still use "stone" as a unit, and I have no idea what that means. How many stones did the Saturn V weigh? Who cares. We had the Saturn V, and the UK had Jaguars that couldn’t even start back then. In any case, when it comes to asteroids the units of measurement are neither Imperial nor Metric. Rather, they are analogies. An asteroid roughly the size of 14 flamingos flying foot-to-beak is set to skim past the Earth Wednesday, March 1, according to NASA's asteroid tracker. jpost But 14 flamingos are probably more dangerous since this won't hit us. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #8 Gomez Aadams train collisions. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2023-03-04 11:16 |
| #7 "Son, bring me the left handed hammer." -blinks- "Com'on, Dad." |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2023-03-04 11:10 |
| #6 Only a man could come up with 1 inch = 1 mile. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2023-03-04 11:08 |
| #5 I had HO, N and Lionel all at the same time. HO and N stock was elegant. Lionel was great for young kids. I miss it. Along with the slot car stuff. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2023-03-04 11:07 |
| #4 Mixed measures: I've been an HO scale (railroad) modeler for 50 years and the scale is 3.5 mm = 1'. It's a long story, originating in England... It's easier to use 1/87th full size. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2023-03-04 11:03 |
| #3 …..andSTILL cannot find the correct wrench. Good thing hammers are bilingual. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2023-03-04 10:18 |
| #2 I love needing both metric and SAE tools when I work on my car... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2023-03-04 10:01 |
| #1 Having recentlt retired from 40+ years in manufacturing, I will tell you this: Just about everything made in the US today is made to metric standards. You basically have to if your're going to have any compatability with overseas components. They may say it's in Imperial, but when you get to the engineering drawings, it's metric. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2023-03-04 10:00 |