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Simon Jensen-Fellows | 1 May 2008 03:40

Re: Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen


On Apr 30, 2008, at 7:12 AM, matthiasm wrote:

>
> On 30.04.2008, at 12:23, Steve Scotten wrote:
>> I'm not saying it's right, but it's hardly news. The 1.5" x 3.5" has
>> been the standard for almost fifty years and the 1.75" x 3.75" for
>> over a decade before that. At this point in the game, no one should  
>> be
>> alarmed by this discovery. If they are alarmed, like Matthias was,
>> they should be assured that it's all right. The sky is not falling,
>> the sky fell a long time ago.
>>
>> That's all I intended.
>
>
> But, but, but..., but I am German, and while this fact is hardly
> puzzeling for an American, for a young immigrating German, the world
> almost stops rotating and the universe collapses, if something that is
> called "53mm by 106mm", we *will* have planned our project to that
> precission and expect acuracy ;-).

This Englishman finds it utterly bizarre also. And I am sadly old  
enough to remember buying lumber in Britain sized in imperial units.
If we could match the reported size and the actual size, I don't  
understand why the US can't either.

I'm sure you can imagine the frustration I felt after carefully  
designing an elaborate octagonal treehouse for my daughter, only to  
discover that I'd spent hundreds of dollars on wood that was not the
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Lord Groundhog | 1 May 2008 14:20
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Re: [OT] Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen

~~~ On 2008/05/01 02:40, Simon Jensen-Fellows at sjf <at> myfanwy.com wrote ~~~

> 
> On Apr 30, 2008, at 7:12 AM, matthiasm wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 30.04.2008, at 12:23, Steve Scotten wrote:
>>> I'm not saying it's right, but it's hardly news. The 1.5" x 3.5" has
>>> been the standard for almost fifty years and the 1.75" x 3.75" for
>>> over a decade before that. At this point in the game, no one should
>>> be
>>> alarmed by this discovery. If they are alarmed, like Matthias was,
>>> they should be assured that it's all right. The sky is not falling,
>>> the sky fell a long time ago.
>>> 
>>> That's all I intended.
>> 
>> 
>> But, but, but..., but I am German, and while this fact is hardly
>> puzzeling for an American, for a young immigrating German, the world
>> almost stops rotating and the universe collapses, if something that is
>> called "53mm by 106mm", we *will* have planned our project to that
>> precission and expect acuracy ;-).
> 
> This Englishman finds it utterly bizarre also. And I am sadly old
> enough to remember buying lumber in Britain sized in imperial units.
> If we could match the reported size and the actual size, I don't
> understand why the US can't either.
> 
> I'm sure you can imagine the frustration I felt after carefully
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matthiasm | 1 May 2008 14:58

Re: [OT] Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen


On 01.05.2008, at 14:20, Lord Groundhog wrote:
> As it happens I prefer the metric system for most things but feel
> comfortable with both, apart from the British thing of weighing  
> people in
> "stones" -- I mean, come on!  Stones?  You want to talk about a lack  
> of
> precision, weighing in stones and pounds tends to be minus ounces:   
> useless!

To me it is not so much the fractions, but the - to me - entirely  
random choice of how much of one thing is another thing. Like 12  
inches to the foot? Who came up with that? Why twelve? And three feet  
to the yard? But how many yards to the mile? Few people even know.  
When I made my california Drivers License, I did not know what a yard  
was, so I went to the lady who was watching over us: How many yards  
from a crossing...? was the question. Knowing miles and feet, I asked  
her to explain a yard to me. She shrugged and her answer was: "Check  
b) and you're fine." .

Perfect answer to me in that situation ;-)

In metric, everything is divided by the number of finger I have  
(unless I am a carpenter with a table saw...).

Matthias

----
http://robowerk.com/
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Morgan Aldridge | 1 May 2008 15:39
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Re: Unna.org is down?

I was back home for a couple hours yesterday and thought I had fixed
the router again, but it appears that I didn't do enough testing from
the outside world. Unfortunately, it looks like UNNA will be down for
the next few days until I can drive the 150 miles back to address the
issue properly.

My sincerest apologies,

Morgan Aldridge
---
morgant <at> makkintosshu.com
http://www.makkintosshu.com/

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L.W. Brown | 1 May 2008 16:52
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Re: Unna.org is down?

Sorry about your loss.

On 1. May.,`08, at 09:39 EDT, Morgan Aldridge wrote:

> Unfortunately, it looks like UNNA will be down for
> the next few days until I can drive the 150 miles back

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Doug Denby | 1 May 2008 17:16
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Re: [OT] Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen

Distance between end of thumb and first knuckle = 1 inch. A rough  
approximation but appropriate when you don't have a ruler.
Twelve of those is generally the length of a normally proportioned  
male person.
Four those is generally the width of a hand and useful for measuring  
the height of a horse.
Compare to the cubit of biblical ark fame.

A yard is the length of a single pace. The pace of most people is  
equal to the length of three of their feet. i.e. one foot distance is  
left between the toe of one foot and the hell of the other when  
intently walking. Coincidently this is the distance for normally  
proportioned males from the tip of their fingers to the nose when arms  
are outstretched. Standardized to King Henry I's (1068-1135) personal  
measurements. This comes in useful when measuring the length of a rope  
or cloth or such materials. (3 feet to a yard)

Two of them make up a fathom -- the length of the rope between two  
outstretched arms when pulling a weighted rope up from the bottom of  
the sea -- a useful water depth measure. (6 feet to a fathom).

The acre is the only unit of area in common use, other than the square- 
foot, and the square mile. The rood is an area of 1 furlong by 1 rod,  
or 1210 sq. yds. An acre is four roods. An acre is traditionally  
thought of as the area that could be ploughed by a team of oxen in a  
morning without tiring them. A rod comes out to 5 and a half yards. It  
is also called a pole, perch or lugg.

A chain is made up of 100 links and is standardly used to measure the  
width of roads and areas of fields, etc. It equals 66 feet or 22
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Larry Zasitko | 1 May 2008 17:11
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Re: [OT] Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen


On 1-May-08, at 6:58 AM, matthiasm wrote:

>
>
> To me it is not so much the fractions, but the - to me - entirely
> random choice of how much of one thing is another thing. Like 12
> inches to the foot? Who came up with that? Why twelve? And three feet
> to the yard? But how many yards to the mile? Few people even know.
> When I made my california Drivers License, I did not know what a yard
> was, so I went to the lady who was watching over us: How many yards
> from a crossing...? was the question. Knowing miles and feet, I asked
> her to explain a yard to me. She shrugged and her answer was: "Check
> b) and you're fine." .
>
> Perfect answer to me in that situation ;-)
>
I have to agree that Imperial measurements do not make sense, evan to  
a canuk :-)
2x4 is as far as I am aware the rough dimensions of lumber, I have  
actually seen some of these in
houses that date back to the early 1900's and barns and such.

If I recall right the Imperial measurements come from Egypt and some  
emperor decided the middle
finger bone of the first finger was an inch. Back then everything was  
based on average human
dimensions for bones. That said it would be hard to get anything  
consistent as people do vary :-)
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G. Isten | 1 May 2008 18:02
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Re: [OT] Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen

Hi Doug, 

I find these historical units absolutely fascinating -- and also logic, given that our ancestors felt the
same need for standardization and reproduceability that we do. Still, every region and area had their
own, and in the 21st century, with a globalized economy and global competition, IMHO there is no more room
for anachronistic units. We haven't got time  to waste trying to figure out if it may be planed down or not,
where the speaker my come from and the like. A simple, standardized straight-forward system is a must, and
that's the metric system.

For instance, on the Indian subcontinent lakhs and crores are still widely used. It can be very confusing
having to deal with figures such as 1,00,00,000 where commas appear after nearly every other digit! And
it's time-consuming having to convert amounts thus expressed in the US-dollar-based budget for an
international project.

BTW -- anyone out there willing to measure their Newton screen? :-)

Cheers, 

Gisela

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John Coady | 1 May 2008 18:22
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Re: Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen

And we all know what the speed of light is.  Right?

Of course, it's 1.7998848E12.

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Abraham Limpo Martínez | 1 May 2008 18:24

Re: [OT] Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen

As for the choice of 12 instead of 10, is easy: 12 is easily divisible 
by 4, 3 and 2. 10 can only be divided by 5 and 2. Most old european 
measures (before the introduction of decimal system) are powers of 12 
instead of 10, mainly because most old european measures (and, by 
extension, american measures) derive from the roman pound, which was 
divided by 12 ounces; the only exception, of course is the pound 
avoirdupois (the common pound), which is divisible by 16.

(As for the pound in currency, is a direct successor of the Roman "As 
Libral". Charlemagne adopted the pound for his empire. The equivalence 
was 1 pound = 2 Mark = 20 "Sueldos" = 240 "Dineros" - Sorry I didn't 
find the correct name in english for all the names)

For example, in spain, the "gruesa" is the equivalent to twelve docens. 
It is still used in tailoring to count buttons or threads, and in 
counting large numbers of eggs.

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Gmane