Got all derailed this morning. Had a job to do some painting work, but ended up running a bit behind schedule. It wasn’t a rigid timeline, but I had a pretty good idea of the whens and whatnot. First was a scramble to dig out the necessary painting gear, load it all up, then to add in a stop at Lowe’s for the one thing I couldn’t seem to find: a bucket grid for a 5-gal bucket.
Oh, well. Worked out fine. Tomorrow is the second coat. All my stuff’s in place now, though.
Oh, come on, everybody knows there are 4 pecks to a bushel. We used to use bushel baskets to collect raked leaves and stuff. And I've seen peck baskets of apples and things.
I was interested to learn (or be reminded) that a furlong is an eighth of a mile. You know why? Because in Chicago there are long blocks and short blocks, and there are 4 long blocks between major streets, and the numbering system reflects that. The major cross street one long block north of me is 6400 north, and I'm at approximately 6300. If I went to the next major street south of me, that would be 6000 north. Handy for identifying the nearest cross street for a particular address. (One generally knows many of the major cross streets by name.) Anyway, there are 4 long blocks per mile, but there are also shorter blocks half that length, which means 8 short blocks per mile. The front of my corner building is on one of those short blocks. So if I go out there and eyeball the length of that short block, now I know I am looking at a furlong! And my walk up the long block to the bus stop is two furlongs!
Somehow I feel a bit more grounded to know this information. Thanks!
It’s fascinating. Arcane, yes—but fascinating. Like someone gave you a secret decoder ring or something.
The block/mile system sounds like it might have something to do with the township system of land measurement that spread west with the Northwest Ordinance…? …or words to that effect?
It may have something to do with townships. We have those here, too. But the 8 blocks per mile just sort of makes sense. It was introduced in 1909 when the city updated its house numbering system, because things had gotten to be a bit of a mess.
Man, I'm really glad no one thought something like a Metric System for measuring time would be a good idea. Wouldn't that be fun to try and convert to "English" (AKA the non-decimal Base-60 sexagesimal system of seconds, minutes, hours etc that we're all so familiar with).
Oh...
Well, hell.
Name Length Notes
Planck time ~5.39×10−44 s The amount of time light takes to travel one Planck length.
quectosecond 10−30 s One nonillionth of a second.
rontosecond 10−27 s One octillionth of a second.
yoctosecond 10−24 s One septillionth of a second.
jiffy (physics) 3×10−24 s The amount of time light takes to travel one fermi (about the size of a nucleon) in a vacuum.
zeptosecond 10−21 s One sextillionth of a second. Time measurement scale of the NIST and JILA strontium atomic clock. Smallest fragment of time currently measurable is 247 zeptoseconds.[3][4]
attosecond 10−18 s One quintillionth of a second.
atomic time ~2.42×10−17 s Derived from atomic theory of hydrogen.
femtosecond 10−15 s One quadrillionth of a second.
svedberg 10−13 s 100 femtoseconds, time unit used for sedimentation rates (usually of proteins).
picosecond 10−12 s One trillionth of a second.
nanosecond 10−9 s One billionth of a second. Time for molecules to fluoresce.
shake 10−8 s 10 nanoseconds, also a casual term for a short period of time.
microsecond 10−6 s One millionth of a second. Symbol is μs
millisecond 10−3 s One thousandth of a second. Shortest time unit used on stopwatches.
centisecond 10−2 s One hundredth of a second.
jiffy (electronics) ~2×10−2 s Used to measure the time between alternating power cycles.
decisecond 10−1 s One tenth of a second.
second 1 s SI base unit for time.
decasecond 10 s Ten seconds (one sixth of a minute)
minute 60 s
hectosecond 100 s
milliday 1/1000 d (0.001 d) 1.44 minutes, or 86.4 seconds. Also marketed as a ".beat" by the Swatch corporation.
moment 1/40 solar hour (90 s on average) Medieval unit of time used by astronomers to compute astronomical movements, length varies with the season.[5] Also colloquially refers to a brief period of time.
centiday 0.01 d (1 % of a day) 14.4 minutes, or 864 seconds. One-hundredth of a day is 1 cd (centiday), also called "kè" in traditional Chinese timekeeping. The unit was also proposed by Lagrange and endorsed by Rey-Pailhade[6] in the 19th century, named "centijours" (from French centi- 'hundred' and jour 'day').
kilosecond 103 s 16.666... minutes.
hour 60 min
deciday 0.1 d (10 % of a day) 2.4 hours, or 144 minutes. One-tenth of a day is 1 dd (deciday), also called "gēng" in traditional Chinese timekeeping.
day 24 h Longest unit used on stopwatches and countdowns. The SI day is exactly 86 400 seconds.
week 7 d Historically sometimes also called "sennight".
decaday 10 d (1 Dd) 10 days. A period of time analogous to the concept of "week", used by different societies around the world: the ancient Egyptian calendar, the ancient Chinese calendar, and also the French Republican calendar (in which it was called a décade).
megasecond 106 s 11.57407407... days.
fortnight 2 weeks 14 days
lunar month 27 d 4 h 48 min – 29 d 12 h Various definitions of lunar month exist; sometimes also called a "lunation".
month 28–31 d Occasionally calculated as 30 days.
quarantine 40 d (approximately 5.71 weeks) To retain in obligatory isolation or separation, as a sanitary measure to prevent the spread of contagious disease. Historically it meant to be isolated for 40 days. From Middle English quarantine, from Italian quarantina ("forty days"), the period Venetians customarily kept ships from plague-ridden countries waiting off port, from quaranta ("forty"), from Latin quadrāgintā.
hectoday 100 d (1 hd) 100 days, roughly equivalent to 1/4 of a year (91.25 days). In Chinese tradition "bǎi rì" (百日) is the hundredth day after one's birth, also called Baby's 100 Days Celebration.
semester 18 weeks A division of the academic year.[7] Literally "six months", also used in this sense.
lunar year 354.37 d
year 12 mo 365 or 366 d
common year 365 d 52 weeks and 1 day.
leap year formula 365 d 5 h 45 min 44.64 s 365.2401 days, according to Gregorian calendar's leap year formula that occurs every 4 years except every century except every 4th century
tropical year 365 d 5 h 48 min 45.216 s[8] Average.
Gregorian year 365 d 5 h 49 min 12 s Average.
sidereal year 365 d 6 h 9 min 9.7635456 s
leap year 366 d 52 weeks and 2 d
olympiad 4 yr A quadrennium (plural: quadrennia or quadrenniums) is also a period of four years, most commonly used in reference to the four-year period between each Olympic Games.[9] It is also used in reference to the four-year interval between leap years, for example when wishing friends and family a "happy quadrennium" on February 29.
lustrum 5 yr In early Roman times, the interval between censuses.
decade 10 yr
indiction 15 yr Interval for taxation assessments (Roman Empire).
gigasecond 109 s About 31.71 years.
jubilee 50 yr
century 100 yr
millennium 1000 yr Also called "kiloannum".
Age 2148 and 2/3 of a year A superstitious unit of time used in astrology, each of them representing a star sign.
terasecond 1012 s About 31 710 years.
megaannum 106 yr Also called "megayear". 1000 millennia (plural of millennium), or 1 million years (in geology, abbreviated as Ma).
petasecond 1015 s About 31 709 792 years.
galactic year 2.3×108 yr The amount of time it takes the Solar System to orbit the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (approx 230000000 years[2]).
cosmological decade logarithmic (varies) 10 times the length of the previous cosmological decade, with CD 1 beginning either 10 seconds or 10 years after the Big Bang, depending on the definition.
eon 109 yr Also refers to an indefinite period of time, otherwise is 1000000000 years.
kalpa 4.32×109 yr Used in Hindu mythology. About 4320000000 years.
exasecond 1018 s About 31 709 791 984 years. Approximately 2.3 times the current age of the universe.
zettasecond 1021 s about 31 709 791 983 765 years.
yottasecond 1024 s About 31 709 791 983 764 587 years.
ronnasecond 1027 s About 31709791983764586504 years.
quettasecond 1030 s About 31,709,791,983,764,586,504,313 years.
This makes me laugh more than you might expect, considering that this past Monday morning I'd gone to an outpatient clinic at a local hospital for a diagnostic chest procedure expecting to be back home in a couple or three hours and ended up admitted to the hospital through the emergency department for a collapsed lung, a risk that accompanies said procedure.
Nota bene: If one is going to be admitted to a hospital for treatment and observation, one might do well to choose a hospital which isn't experiencing a nurses' strike at the time.
To sum up the experience, let's just say it was, um, kinda' special.
(I'm fine; the replacement nurses did their jobs well. Went home late the following afternoon.)
"The imperial system is what gives the United States its idiosyncratic everyday usage of miles, inches, pounds, feet, acres, degrees Fahrenheit, and so on."
I was a teenager when Canada switched to the Metric system. I was thirteen when we switched from Fahrenheit to Celsius, sixteen (with a newly minted drivers license) when we switched to kilometres, and eighteen when we switched from gallons to litres. As a result, I've spent my life working through the transition from units that were initially ingrained in me (at a time when it was really easy to learn things) to units that I had to use throughout my adult life.
Some of this has been relatively easy: Weights (kilograms), Distances (kilometres), and temperatures (in degrees Celsius) all make good sense. Some of the more esoteric measures never really caught on. For a while, they tried to convince us to think of windchill in terms of watts per square meter (a measure of heat loss from the skin), which no one (other than a handful of nerds and scientists) could wrap their heads around. It took them a few decades, but they finally reverted back to a more familiar measure, which now equates wind chill to the equivalent temperature in degrees Celsius. This is important when you live in a climate where it is very helpful to know that, even though the website says it's only -20C, it's actually going to feel like -30C if you dare to venture outside.
However, thanks to our neighbour to the south, I've also spent most of my adult life converting between the two systems. If I'm trying to get friends down south to understand how cold it is here during the winter, I inevitably have to convert to degrees Fahrenheit. Similarly, if I'm trying to compare the price of gasoline between the two places, I not only have to do a foreign exchange calculation (US$/C$), but also a gallons/litres calculation. I can easily convert miles to kilometres, fahrenheit to celsius, and pounds to kilograms in my head.
This would be much easier, however, if Americans had at least adopted the full Imperial system as is. Instead, the powers that be decided that an Imperial Gallon was too big for their purposes and created their own value. Thus, if I'm working from a cookbook, it can matter a lot whether the author is/was British or American. Pints, Quarts, and Gallons are all 20% larger in Imperial terms than in US terms. Even the measurements of the lowly fluid ounce are different (and fluid ounces don't directly translate to ounces)! Then there's the whole issue of teaspoons and tablespoons. Not only is there also a 20% difference between the volume of a US teaspoon/tablespoon and an Imperial one, but there's also a weird 3:1 ratio to consider. It's much easier to work in grams and millilitres.
BTW, Wikipedia shows Canada (along with the UK) as using a mixed metric/imperial system. So where does Canada still use imperial? Or is that simply unofficial use?
That's a good question. It may be a distinction between "official" and "common usage". There are still enough boomers around who still straddle the fence. If I give my height in feet and inches and my weight in pounds at the doctor's office, they will go along with it (although they might record centimeters and kilograms for official purposes). There are other areas where imperial measurements are still a little "sticky" (some still use acres and sections to define farmland, although hectares are the official measure).
Overall, it may just take until my generation shuffles off this mortal coil before Imperial is eradicated completely.
There was a short-lived effort to metrify the US in the 1970s, which stalled out and was eventually ended under Ronald Reagan.
meanwhile, I used the metric system in high school science, college physics classes, in the Army and ultimately when I was stationed in Germany. I can still convert readily between miles and kilometers from driving on German roads and (of course) the autobahns.
As much computation as there is in stuff (IoT, for instance), choice of measuring system shouldn’t be much of an issue. You should be able to get your device of choice to give you information in your favorite increments.
For many years, as a high school shop teacher, one of my tasks was to teach teenagers to use the American version of the imperial system of measures. You might think this would be easy in a US school, but my school was on the Texas/Mexico border. Most of my students had grown up shopping (or going to school) in Mexico, using the metric system. Additionally, outside of some rudimentary instruction in feet, inches, and fractions of an inch in 3rd grade, they had been using the metric system in all their science classes.
They bitterly resented having to learn imperial measures, particularly inch/fractional measurement. I agreed with them that the metric system was far easier to work with and told them that if I could wave a magic wand and convert US practice to metric, I'd do it. The fact of the matter was that if they planned to work in construction in the US, they'd better know imperial measurement. They'd ask, "Why?" and I'd answer, "Because the US has the largest market in the world and we can." Then I'd have to introduce them to micrometers and decimal thousandths of an inch for mechanics and machine shop.
Yeah, the mils and tenths of an inch are a great punchline to the whole U.S. Imperial gag. It was presumably drunken engineers who devised wire gauges.
I was pretty down yesterday afternoon when I came into the house. Usually at that time of day my husband is watching stuff for which he generously dons headphones so I don't have to hear.
But yesterday he had found a 2 hour John Belushi-era SNL broadcast. We watched together. It was good.
Between the nation of Imperial units, England, and it's centuries long competitor, France; are many fun battles.
Today's puzzler, the "pouce", is the French inch. Sometimes called the Paris inch.
As a failed Physicist, we learned many units of measure. Measuring and wizzics are intertwined. Alas, for decades of owning this beautiful cast bronze holding an 18th century mercury R (Reaumer) C Celsius thermometer, the Aneroid (mechanical) Holosteric (solid, ie no liquid mercury) barometer baffled one DougAz.
It is dual scaled with Millimeters on the outer round scale, but also similar but truly not Inch scale. This "inch" scale was subdivided. Not in 8ths or 16ths, but 12th ! What is a 12th of an inch!?
Finally, the answer was inside an 1840s Japy Frese French clock. The pendulum had 12ths.
Pouce, the Paris or French inch equals 1.067 Inch (Imperial, English). It was in use pre French revolution. Generally banned in the Napoleon era, but allowed in special instruments like clocks, watches and barometer.
Ligne is the 1/12th division of the pouce.
So Finally, my holosteric barometer units were found!
You know, of course, the metric system itself was first devised during the French Revolution? Two other things from the Revolution, the "Republican calendar" and decimalized time, did not last.
yes. the pouce or Paris or French (not David) inch preceded the French metric system. It was allowed to continue for special instruments like clocks and barometer and watches
I'm thinking of getting a Free Press subscription, just so I can read more Nellie Bowles. I get the teasers every day, and on Friday it's Nellie. She's good.
I've read about the FP getting scooped up by CBS or something for big dough and elevating Bari to management. I wonder if there's gnashing teeth and jealousy at all the other news media startups?
The proposed buyout is for amounts of money that would make any ex-mainstream media type salivate, amounts that would let one take very, VERY nice vacations.
It's interesting - if accurate - that the buyer thinks it's an investment that will earn them a profit. If I were 20 years younger, I'd be really interested in the cash flow and the profit projections, but I'm too tired now.
Yep. Tech and social media: the numbers boggle the mind, as do the scale and scope.
Don’t know if I’d ever had guessed Oracle and Larry Ellison would come out on top of that heap. Not that I had any money on anything else in there, but I’d assumed his business and company were passé.
Human beings still excel in one area: our ability to estimate. I no longer remember how to convert most things, like Fahrenheit to Celsius, but I remember 0=32, 212=100, and 98.6=37, so I can usually guess.
It gets you in ballpark range. F, subtract 32, divide in two. I use 2/3 of the km distance or speed for miles. If needed, 2.2 cm per inch or 2.2 pounds per kilo—but those are at a scale where the ballpark range isn’t usually helpful…
I’m horrible with numbers—way too sloppy mentally. If someone tells me I’ve just botched something there, I’ll not be surprised in the least.
Good morning. 53 degrees here, rising to maybe the low 80s and sunny.
The mothership is circling back to cover the Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, which happened earlier in the week. The FP’s TGIF is headlined “Prove Me Wrong” which was the title of the event that Charlie Kirk was leading, when he was shot. In fact, he was engaged with a questioner about mass shootings. The. FBI released photos of the shooter, on whom there are apparently no leads, but a reward for information leading to his capture, has been issued.
Sadly, you can go to any library today, or tag sale, and get yourself a beautiful old card catalog. Sandra has one and they can be cut down and used as coffee tables, side tables, etc. No one uses a card catalog for finding books in a library any more. Dewey is sad.
Sheldon Cooper in the TV show had a card catalog. Drama Queen likes to go to sales. She could probably find me one, but I'm giving everything away instead of getting more stuff, no matter how cool.
As someone whose profession depended on agility in interchanging metric and English units (and volume to mass), the "Nobody knows" lines grated. The fact that Washington was a surveyor made it even worse.
This isn't a traditional festival. It's 200 performances at dozens of venues all around metro Nashville. One wristband gets you in almost everything. There were special performances -- Maggie Rose with the Nashville Symphony, Dwight Yokum and friends at an amphitheater, the AMA awards -- that were separate tickets. But being a festival ticket holder got you priority choice of tickets. I did go to the awards. John Fogerty closed out the show with all the performers and the audience singing Proud Mary at the top of their lungs.
Got all derailed this morning. Had a job to do some painting work, but ended up running a bit behind schedule. It wasn’t a rigid timeline, but I had a pretty good idea of the whens and whatnot. First was a scramble to dig out the necessary painting gear, load it all up, then to add in a stop at Lowe’s for the one thing I couldn’t seem to find: a bucket grid for a 5-gal bucket.
Oh, well. Worked out fine. Tomorrow is the second coat. All my stuff’s in place now, though.
Oh, come on, everybody knows there are 4 pecks to a bushel. We used to use bushel baskets to collect raked leaves and stuff. And I've seen peck baskets of apples and things.
I was interested to learn (or be reminded) that a furlong is an eighth of a mile. You know why? Because in Chicago there are long blocks and short blocks, and there are 4 long blocks between major streets, and the numbering system reflects that. The major cross street one long block north of me is 6400 north, and I'm at approximately 6300. If I went to the next major street south of me, that would be 6000 north. Handy for identifying the nearest cross street for a particular address. (One generally knows many of the major cross streets by name.) Anyway, there are 4 long blocks per mile, but there are also shorter blocks half that length, which means 8 short blocks per mile. The front of my corner building is on one of those short blocks. So if I go out there and eyeball the length of that short block, now I know I am looking at a furlong! And my walk up the long block to the bus stop is two furlongs!
Somehow I feel a bit more grounded to know this information. Thanks!
It’s fascinating. Arcane, yes—but fascinating. Like someone gave you a secret decoder ring or something.
The block/mile system sounds like it might have something to do with the township system of land measurement that spread west with the Northwest Ordinance…? …or words to that effect?
It may have something to do with townships. We have those here, too. But the 8 blocks per mile just sort of makes sense. It was introduced in 1909 when the city updated its house numbering system, because things had gotten to be a bit of a mess.
My mother used to sing to me,
"I love you, a bushel and a peck! A bushel and a peck, and a hug around your neck!"
And I would laugh and laugh!
That's from the musical Guys and Dolls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W6A6O8zKyM
That version's a little different from how mama did it...
I put that one up because it had captions with the lyrics.
You want old school?
Here's Vivian Blaine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5BKa8xGlzo
Here she is on the cover of Life Magazine in 1951: https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMjAw/z/-I8AAOSwYMdnrEb1/$_57.JPG?set_id=880000500F
Man, I'm really glad no one thought something like a Metric System for measuring time would be a good idea. Wouldn't that be fun to try and convert to "English" (AKA the non-decimal Base-60 sexagesimal system of seconds, minutes, hours etc that we're all so familiar with).
Oh...
Well, hell.
Name Length Notes
Planck time ~5.39×10−44 s The amount of time light takes to travel one Planck length.
quectosecond 10−30 s One nonillionth of a second.
rontosecond 10−27 s One octillionth of a second.
yoctosecond 10−24 s One septillionth of a second.
jiffy (physics) 3×10−24 s The amount of time light takes to travel one fermi (about the size of a nucleon) in a vacuum.
zeptosecond 10−21 s One sextillionth of a second. Time measurement scale of the NIST and JILA strontium atomic clock. Smallest fragment of time currently measurable is 247 zeptoseconds.[3][4]
attosecond 10−18 s One quintillionth of a second.
atomic time ~2.42×10−17 s Derived from atomic theory of hydrogen.
femtosecond 10−15 s One quadrillionth of a second.
svedberg 10−13 s 100 femtoseconds, time unit used for sedimentation rates (usually of proteins).
picosecond 10−12 s One trillionth of a second.
nanosecond 10−9 s One billionth of a second. Time for molecules to fluoresce.
shake 10−8 s 10 nanoseconds, also a casual term for a short period of time.
microsecond 10−6 s One millionth of a second. Symbol is μs
millisecond 10−3 s One thousandth of a second. Shortest time unit used on stopwatches.
centisecond 10−2 s One hundredth of a second.
jiffy (electronics) ~2×10−2 s Used to measure the time between alternating power cycles.
decisecond 10−1 s One tenth of a second.
second 1 s SI base unit for time.
decasecond 10 s Ten seconds (one sixth of a minute)
minute 60 s
hectosecond 100 s
milliday 1/1000 d (0.001 d) 1.44 minutes, or 86.4 seconds. Also marketed as a ".beat" by the Swatch corporation.
moment 1/40 solar hour (90 s on average) Medieval unit of time used by astronomers to compute astronomical movements, length varies with the season.[5] Also colloquially refers to a brief period of time.
centiday 0.01 d (1 % of a day) 14.4 minutes, or 864 seconds. One-hundredth of a day is 1 cd (centiday), also called "kè" in traditional Chinese timekeeping. The unit was also proposed by Lagrange and endorsed by Rey-Pailhade[6] in the 19th century, named "centijours" (from French centi- 'hundred' and jour 'day').
kilosecond 103 s 16.666... minutes.
hour 60 min
deciday 0.1 d (10 % of a day) 2.4 hours, or 144 minutes. One-tenth of a day is 1 dd (deciday), also called "gēng" in traditional Chinese timekeeping.
day 24 h Longest unit used on stopwatches and countdowns. The SI day is exactly 86 400 seconds.
week 7 d Historically sometimes also called "sennight".
decaday 10 d (1 Dd) 10 days. A period of time analogous to the concept of "week", used by different societies around the world: the ancient Egyptian calendar, the ancient Chinese calendar, and also the French Republican calendar (in which it was called a décade).
megasecond 106 s 11.57407407... days.
fortnight 2 weeks 14 days
lunar month 27 d 4 h 48 min – 29 d 12 h Various definitions of lunar month exist; sometimes also called a "lunation".
month 28–31 d Occasionally calculated as 30 days.
quarantine 40 d (approximately 5.71 weeks) To retain in obligatory isolation or separation, as a sanitary measure to prevent the spread of contagious disease. Historically it meant to be isolated for 40 days. From Middle English quarantine, from Italian quarantina ("forty days"), the period Venetians customarily kept ships from plague-ridden countries waiting off port, from quaranta ("forty"), from Latin quadrāgintā.
hectoday 100 d (1 hd) 100 days, roughly equivalent to 1/4 of a year (91.25 days). In Chinese tradition "bǎi rì" (百日) is the hundredth day after one's birth, also called Baby's 100 Days Celebration.
semester 18 weeks A division of the academic year.[7] Literally "six months", also used in this sense.
lunar year 354.37 d
year 12 mo 365 or 366 d
common year 365 d 52 weeks and 1 day.
leap year formula 365 d 5 h 45 min 44.64 s 365.2401 days, according to Gregorian calendar's leap year formula that occurs every 4 years except every century except every 4th century
tropical year 365 d 5 h 48 min 45.216 s[8] Average.
Gregorian year 365 d 5 h 49 min 12 s Average.
sidereal year 365 d 6 h 9 min 9.7635456 s
leap year 366 d 52 weeks and 2 d
olympiad 4 yr A quadrennium (plural: quadrennia or quadrenniums) is also a period of four years, most commonly used in reference to the four-year period between each Olympic Games.[9] It is also used in reference to the four-year interval between leap years, for example when wishing friends and family a "happy quadrennium" on February 29.
lustrum 5 yr In early Roman times, the interval between censuses.
decade 10 yr
indiction 15 yr Interval for taxation assessments (Roman Empire).
gigasecond 109 s About 31.71 years.
jubilee 50 yr
century 100 yr
millennium 1000 yr Also called "kiloannum".
Age 2148 and 2/3 of a year A superstitious unit of time used in astrology, each of them representing a star sign.
terasecond 1012 s About 31 710 years.
megaannum 106 yr Also called "megayear". 1000 millennia (plural of millennium), or 1 million years (in geology, abbreviated as Ma).
petasecond 1015 s About 31 709 792 years.
galactic year 2.3×108 yr The amount of time it takes the Solar System to orbit the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (approx 230000000 years[2]).
cosmological decade logarithmic (varies) 10 times the length of the previous cosmological decade, with CD 1 beginning either 10 seconds or 10 years after the Big Bang, depending on the definition.
eon 109 yr Also refers to an indefinite period of time, otherwise is 1000000000 years.
kalpa 4.32×109 yr Used in Hindu mythology. About 4320000000 years.
exasecond 1018 s About 31 709 791 984 years. Approximately 2.3 times the current age of the universe.
zettasecond 1021 s about 31 709 791 983 765 years.
yottasecond 1024 s About 31 709 791 983 764 587 years.
ronnasecond 1027 s About 31709791983764586504 years.
quettasecond 1030 s About 31,709,791,983,764,586,504,313 years.
Everyone stand well back! This man needs air!
BREATHE! BREATHE!
Ha!!!!
This makes me laugh more than you might expect, considering that this past Monday morning I'd gone to an outpatient clinic at a local hospital for a diagnostic chest procedure expecting to be back home in a couple or three hours and ended up admitted to the hospital through the emergency department for a collapsed lung, a risk that accompanies said procedure.
Nota bene: If one is going to be admitted to a hospital for treatment and observation, one might do well to choose a hospital which isn't experiencing a nurses' strike at the time.
To sum up the experience, let's just say it was, um, kinda' special.
(I'm fine; the replacement nurses did their jobs well. Went home late the following afternoon.)
Holy Moly! I sure hope you’re doing fine. Sounds like an unwelcome thrill… Maybe switch to bungee jumping for a pass-time.
I'll take your suggestion under advisement and let you know.
I don't like to jump into things without thinking them over.
(Is this enough proof for you that I'm fine?)
Gulp. Wow.
Had fun this afternoon, huh?
I like zeptoseconds.
And sennights and fortnights.
Fortnights were the nights you built a fort and Mom let you sleep in it. Or they could have been, if I'd known the word back then.
I like the jiffy.
I spent many a happy fortnight behind walls made of pillows and blankets around my bed when I was a kid. :-)
Those were the days. :-)
"The imperial system is what gives the United States its idiosyncratic everyday usage of miles, inches, pounds, feet, acres, degrees Fahrenheit, and so on."
I was a teenager when Canada switched to the Metric system. I was thirteen when we switched from Fahrenheit to Celsius, sixteen (with a newly minted drivers license) when we switched to kilometres, and eighteen when we switched from gallons to litres. As a result, I've spent my life working through the transition from units that were initially ingrained in me (at a time when it was really easy to learn things) to units that I had to use throughout my adult life.
Some of this has been relatively easy: Weights (kilograms), Distances (kilometres), and temperatures (in degrees Celsius) all make good sense. Some of the more esoteric measures never really caught on. For a while, they tried to convince us to think of windchill in terms of watts per square meter (a measure of heat loss from the skin), which no one (other than a handful of nerds and scientists) could wrap their heads around. It took them a few decades, but they finally reverted back to a more familiar measure, which now equates wind chill to the equivalent temperature in degrees Celsius. This is important when you live in a climate where it is very helpful to know that, even though the website says it's only -20C, it's actually going to feel like -30C if you dare to venture outside.
However, thanks to our neighbour to the south, I've also spent most of my adult life converting between the two systems. If I'm trying to get friends down south to understand how cold it is here during the winter, I inevitably have to convert to degrees Fahrenheit. Similarly, if I'm trying to compare the price of gasoline between the two places, I not only have to do a foreign exchange calculation (US$/C$), but also a gallons/litres calculation. I can easily convert miles to kilometres, fahrenheit to celsius, and pounds to kilograms in my head.
This would be much easier, however, if Americans had at least adopted the full Imperial system as is. Instead, the powers that be decided that an Imperial Gallon was too big for their purposes and created their own value. Thus, if I'm working from a cookbook, it can matter a lot whether the author is/was British or American. Pints, Quarts, and Gallons are all 20% larger in Imperial terms than in US terms. Even the measurements of the lowly fluid ounce are different (and fluid ounces don't directly translate to ounces)! Then there's the whole issue of teaspoons and tablespoons. Not only is there also a 20% difference between the volume of a US teaspoon/tablespoon and an Imperial one, but there's also a weird 3:1 ratio to consider. It's much easier to work in grams and millilitres.
BTW, Wikipedia shows Canada (along with the UK) as using a mixed metric/imperial system. So where does Canada still use imperial? Or is that simply unofficial use?
That's a good question. It may be a distinction between "official" and "common usage". There are still enough boomers around who still straddle the fence. If I give my height in feet and inches and my weight in pounds at the doctor's office, they will go along with it (although they might record centimeters and kilograms for official purposes). There are other areas where imperial measurements are still a little "sticky" (some still use acres and sections to define farmland, although hectares are the official measure).
Overall, it may just take until my generation shuffles off this mortal coil before Imperial is eradicated completely.
There was a short-lived effort to metrify the US in the 1970s, which stalled out and was eventually ended under Ronald Reagan.
meanwhile, I used the metric system in high school science, college physics classes, in the Army and ultimately when I was stationed in Germany. I can still convert readily between miles and kilometers from driving on German roads and (of course) the autobahns.
As much computation as there is in stuff (IoT, for instance), choice of measuring system shouldn’t be much of an issue. You should be able to get your device of choice to give you information in your favorite increments.
For many years, as a high school shop teacher, one of my tasks was to teach teenagers to use the American version of the imperial system of measures. You might think this would be easy in a US school, but my school was on the Texas/Mexico border. Most of my students had grown up shopping (or going to school) in Mexico, using the metric system. Additionally, outside of some rudimentary instruction in feet, inches, and fractions of an inch in 3rd grade, they had been using the metric system in all their science classes.
They bitterly resented having to learn imperial measures, particularly inch/fractional measurement. I agreed with them that the metric system was far easier to work with and told them that if I could wave a magic wand and convert US practice to metric, I'd do it. The fact of the matter was that if they planned to work in construction in the US, they'd better know imperial measurement. They'd ask, "Why?" and I'd answer, "Because the US has the largest market in the world and we can." Then I'd have to introduce them to micrometers and decimal thousandths of an inch for mechanics and machine shop.
Yeah, the mils and tenths of an inch are a great punchline to the whole U.S. Imperial gag. It was presumably drunken engineers who devised wire gauges.
I just stick with American recipes.
I like cooking with mass (grams), at least for dry ingredients.
Best way to go. Particularly for baking.
I was pretty down yesterday afternoon when I came into the house. Usually at that time of day my husband is watching stuff for which he generously dons headphones so I don't have to hear.
But yesterday he had found a 2 hour John Belushi-era SNL broadcast. We watched together. It was good.
Between the nation of Imperial units, England, and it's centuries long competitor, France; are many fun battles.
Today's puzzler, the "pouce", is the French inch. Sometimes called the Paris inch.
As a failed Physicist, we learned many units of measure. Measuring and wizzics are intertwined. Alas, for decades of owning this beautiful cast bronze holding an 18th century mercury R (Reaumer) C Celsius thermometer, the Aneroid (mechanical) Holosteric (solid, ie no liquid mercury) barometer baffled one DougAz.
It is dual scaled with Millimeters on the outer round scale, but also similar but truly not Inch scale. This "inch" scale was subdivided. Not in 8ths or 16ths, but 12th ! What is a 12th of an inch!?
Finally, the answer was inside an 1840s Japy Frese French clock. The pendulum had 12ths.
Pouce, the Paris or French inch equals 1.067 Inch (Imperial, English). It was in use pre French revolution. Generally banned in the Napoleon era, but allowed in special instruments like clocks, watches and barometer.
Ligne is the 1/12th division of the pouce.
So Finally, my holosteric barometer units were found!
Is the "pounce" your mystery length measurement?
You know, of course, the metric system itself was first devised during the French Revolution? Two other things from the Revolution, the "Republican calendar" and decimalized time, did not last.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_inch
yes. the pouce or Paris or French (not David) inch preceded the French metric system. It was allowed to continue for special instruments like clocks and barometer and watches
Extraordinary.
Celsius
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9aumur_scale#:~:text=R%C3%A9aumur's%20thermometer%20contained%20diluted%20alcohol,up%20to%20the%20zero%20mark.
I'm thinking of getting a Free Press subscription, just so I can read more Nellie Bowles. I get the teasers every day, and on Friday it's Nellie. She's good.
I've read about the FP getting scooped up by CBS or something for big dough and elevating Bari to management. I wonder if there's gnashing teeth and jealousy at all the other news media startups?
Or you could just host some friends out to a nice dinner... 😉
I like Nellie's TGIF a lot, but not enough to subscribe right now. I've seen some pieces about the possible buyout but not bothered to read them.
The proposed buyout is for amounts of money that would make any ex-mainstream media type salivate, amounts that would let one take very, VERY nice vacations.
It's interesting - if accurate - that the buyer thinks it's an investment that will earn them a profit. If I were 20 years younger, I'd be really interested in the cash flow and the profit projections, but I'm too tired now.
I'm always too tired to think about that stuff. It all seems disconnected from any business reality I'm familiar with.
When I skim the news, I...briefly...latch onto weird stuff that seems bigger than the actual story. I don't know why.
Yep. Tech and social media: the numbers boggle the mind, as do the scale and scope.
Don’t know if I’d ever had guessed Oracle and Larry Ellison would come out on top of that heap. Not that I had any money on anything else in there, but I’d assumed his business and company were passé.
This is a good, funny little essay for a Friday morning. Thanks much.
Human beings still excel in one area: our ability to estimate. I no longer remember how to convert most things, like Fahrenheit to Celsius, but I remember 0=32, 212=100, and 98.6=37, so I can usually guess.
It gets you in ballpark range. F, subtract 32, divide in two. I use 2/3 of the km distance or speed for miles. If needed, 2.2 cm per inch or 2.2 pounds per kilo—but those are at a scale where the ballpark range isn’t usually helpful…
I’m horrible with numbers—way too sloppy mentally. If someone tells me I’ve just botched something there, I’ll not be surprised in the least.
Geez I always thought it was a “butt-ton” when describing a large amount of something but it’s really a “butt-tun.”
There was a pretty amusing anonymous Twitter account “Metric Buttload”.
哈哈哈哈。。。。
Which translates to?
HA HA HA HA.....
Thank you.
A few degrees less
air, water and sun angle
Sigh “ahhh” to Autumn.
🤩⭐️
Very apt. Last thing I read this morning before I had to make a dash to the painting job…
Autumn haiku...very good!
Thanks, Kurt.
It's good. I've never been able to figure out haiku.
Very nice, John.
Thanks, Cynthia.
Good morning. 53 degrees here, rising to maybe the low 80s and sunny.
The mothership is circling back to cover the Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, which happened earlier in the week. The FP’s TGIF is headlined “Prove Me Wrong” which was the title of the event that Charlie Kirk was leading, when he was shot. In fact, he was engaged with a questioner about mass shootings. The. FBI released photos of the shooter, on whom there are apparently no leads, but a reward for information leading to his capture, has been issued.
I was a "Prove me wrong" kind of person at 31. At 59, I'm like, "We're all wrong in a lot of ways, and right in some others. More pie?"
Lordy. If I haven’t had to eat more words than I’ve ever spoken, I’ll eat my hat…
Me too.
Keep your fork...there's pie!
Sometimes you also want a spoon, because there's ice cream.
Good point.
My Grandpa used to get a slab of cheddar cheese to go with his apple pie.
I've heard of that, but it never appealed to me.
Me neither.
This is the way.
The Dao.
Pie. It's a mystery, like Pi, only you eat it.
Cake is aristocratic. Pie exists in service to the people. 为人民服务!
Excellent insight.
Sadly, you can go to any library today, or tag sale, and get yourself a beautiful old card catalog. Sandra has one and they can be cut down and used as coffee tables, side tables, etc. No one uses a card catalog for finding books in a library any more. Dewey is sad.
Sheldon Cooper in the TV show had a card catalog. Drama Queen likes to go to sales. She could probably find me one, but I'm giving everything away instead of getting more stuff, no matter how cool.
I fell for the card catalog thing because for some reason I imagined it would be good for storing all sorts of weird small stuff. What happens is...
1. Now there's a big heavy wooden thing that doesn't fit anywhere.
2. It's filled with stuff that would have been better to have been scrapped.
3. No one seems to want a big wooden thing full of stuff no one wants or needs.
"3. No one seems to want a big wooden thing full of stuff no one wants or needs."
That could describe my house, only people do want my house.
That was Ye Olde Funne!
I feel like the SNL skit with Nate Bargatze as George Washington is relevant here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqfVE-fykk
That was a good one! Someone had posted it in comments once some time ago.
Me!
*squints* You look familiar.
Sort of the disadvantage of a group that communicates in writing...
As someone whose profession depended on agility in interchanging metric and English units (and volume to mass), the "Nobody knows" lines grated. The fact that Washington was a surveyor made it even worse.
The sports bits were funny.
You beat me to it. 🤣
I'd not seen that. Pretty good.
A Classic!
EARWORM: I'm at the AmericanaFest. The band I'm With Her won the Song of the Year award with Ancient Light: https://youtu.be/3xIh2j1Gq0s?si=wyQj4ts7uroP5K-h
Two more days of festival. Plenty of music left, but I'm running out of gas!
Excellent song.
Are you camping?
In a Marriott.
This isn't a traditional festival. It's 200 performances at dozens of venues all around metro Nashville. One wristband gets you in almost everything. There were special performances -- Maggie Rose with the Nashville Symphony, Dwight Yokum and friends at an amphitheater, the AMA awards -- that were separate tickets. But being a festival ticket holder got you priority choice of tickets. I did go to the awards. John Fogerty closed out the show with all the performers and the audience singing Proud Mary at the top of their lungs.
That must've been beautiful.
"John Fogerty closed out the show with all the performers and the audience singing Proud Mary at the top of their lungs."
I feel old. I would have cried.
It was emotional.
That's because we're so old.
I see my folks are getting on
And I watch their bodies change
I know they see the same in me
And it makes us both feel strange
It's what we all go through
Those lines are pretty hard to take
When they're staring back at you
Oh Oh Oh, scared you'll run out of time
Bonnie Rait - Nick of Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztkpEJOJGDI
Not yet, dear. Let them tell me that when they put me in the home. I have a few minutes left to enjoy.