Good Hardware Tools

On 18/11/20 20:45, Paul Rubin wrote:
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>> But AFAIK only the USA has Fahrenheit (and other non-metric units) as
>> standard.
> 
> Automotive speed limits in every country I've visited are posted in
> miles per hour or kilometers per hour.  Metric units would of course be
> meters per second (100 km/hour is about 28 m/sec).
> 
> Me, I support switching to the FFF (Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight) system.
> For example, the speed of light is about 1.8e12 furlongs per fortnight.
> 
> ;-)
> 

I rather like pi seconds = 1 nanocentury, to about 0.4%.

"I'll just be a few nanocenturies, dear".

On 11/18/20 3:45 PM, Paul Rubin wrote:
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>> But AFAIK only the USA has Fahrenheit (and other non-metric units) as
>> standard.
> 
> Automotive speed limits in every country I've visited are posted in
> miles per hour or kilometers per hour.  Metric units would of course be
> meters per second (100 km/hour is about 28 m/sec).
> 
> Me, I support switching to the FFF (Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight) system.
> For example, the speed of light is about 1.8e12 furlongs per fortnight.
> 
> ;-)
> 

And one attoparsec equals one decifoot to engineering accuracy, proving 
once again (if any more were needed) that God is an Englishman.

The original definition of the metre was 10**-7 of the distance from the 
Equator to North Pole measured along the meridian of Paris.  Both ends 
of that line are at sea, of course, like so many other French 
initiatives. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

-- 
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

On 18/11/2020 21:46, Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
> Am 18.11.2020 um 13:51 schrieb Niklas Holsti:
> 
>> Sometimes described by saying that the "US is inching its way towards
>> the metric system."
> 
> The term "inching" may no longer really doing it justice.  Let's do some
> (metric) math on this.  The total of the borders and coastlines of the
> mainland USA is roughly twenty thousand miles, or 32 thousand
> kilometers.  And it has been 154 years since that decision.
> 
> So to travel around the entire mainland US since then, the average speed
> would have been, roughly:
> 
>     208 km per year,
>     570 meters per day, or
>     24 meters per hour
> 
> For comparison a turtle is reported to be going 330 m/h.  It could thus
> have run circles around the mainland U.S.  Like: literally 15 times around.
> 
> Or, speaking of "sluggish": an actual slug (i.e. a garden-variety snail)
> can clock in at around 3 m/h.  That's fast enough for it to have "run"
> the entire U.S.-Mexico border in that time faster than the U.S.A. took
> to cross from the silly to the sane side of same.
> 
> It's a paradox: a country that was founded on the very principle of
> abolishing, with prejudice, everything British is now just about the
> last one on earth still sticking to these fundamentally British
> Imperial(!) units --- except Great Britain itself.  Who in turn just
> won't agree with the French on anything if they can possibly help it.

That's not /quite/ accurate.  Amongst the things that the Americans
disagreed on was spelling - but it wasn't the Americans that changed
words like "colour" and "neighbour".  It was the British who changed
them - by adding some unnecessary extra vowels to make the words look
more French-like.

And the UK has long ago given up on imperial units for anything where
accuracy is relevant.

Am 18.11.2020 um 22:08 schrieb Tom Gardner:
> I rather like pi seconds = 1 nanocentury, to about 0.4%.

And the speed of about one nano-lightyear per month is what you need to 
complete a 3-hour Marathon.

On Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 3:45:52 PM UTC-5, Paul Rubin wrote:
> David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> writes: 
> > But AFAIK only the USA has Fahrenheit (and other non-metric units) as 
> > standard.
> Automotive speed limits in every country I've visited are posted in 
> miles per hour or kilometers per hour. Metric units would of course be 
> meters per second (100 km/hour is about 28 m/sec). 
> 
> Me, I support switching to the FFF (Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight) system. 
> For example, the speed of light is about 1.8e12 furlongs per fortnight. 

I c. 

-- 

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209 

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> writes:
> I c. 

I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number.  If you
think you have received this recording in error, please rotate your
phone by 90 degrees and try your call again.

On 2020-11-18, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>> But AFAIK only the USA has Fahrenheit (and other non-metric units) as
>> standard.
>
> Automotive speed limits in every country I've visited are posted in
> miles per hour or kilometers per hour.  Metric units would of course be
> meters per second (100 km/hour is about 28 m/sec).
>

Actually not true. Kilometres are metric. Perhaps you are getting 
confused with the measurements in MKS system?

Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> writes:
> Actually not true. Kilometres are metric. Perhaps you are getting 
> confused with the measurements in MKS system?

Hours are not metric, or at least are not SI.  I can go with kilometers
per second but those numbers would inconveniently small.  MKS and CGS
have been obsolete for decades.

On 2020-11-19, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> writes:
>> Actually not true. Kilometres are metric. Perhaps you are getting 
>> confused with the measurements in MKS system?
>
> Hours are not metric, or at least are not SI.

As we do not use Kiloseconds or Megaseconds, Hours as the accepted and 
understood multiple of seconds is a suitable standin, if not SI. 
Kilometres / Hour is the metric equivalent of Miles / Hour.
Or are just being a pretty boring pedant, and probably wrong at that?
Or am I missing a joke?

Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> writes:
> As we do not use Kiloseconds or Megaseconds, Hours as the accepted and 
> understood multiple of seconds is a suitable standin, if not SI. 
> Kilometres / Hour is the metric equivalent of Miles / Hour.
> Or are just being a pretty boring pedant, and probably wrong at that?
> Or am I missing a joke?

It's partly a joke and partly pointing out the silliness of those who
ridicule the US for not using metric.  Kiloseconds and megaseconds are
metric units of time, hours are not.  Yet people (even in supposedly
metric countries) use hours because they are comfortable human units.
Those countries use meters and hours, so they are only partially metric.

In the US we do the same thing, but even further.  We also use hours
(3.6 kiloseconds), but it also uses feet and inches (inch = 2.54
centimeters).  People from other countries who act superior about this
should get their own house in order (i.e. switch from hours, days, years
to kiloseconds, megaseconds, etc.) before complaining about ours.  1
year = 31.5 megaseconds, 1 century = 3.15 gigaseconds.  Let me know when
you have updated all your history books to use those units.