A new unit of measure.
10I’ve been a fan of “furlongs per fortnight” since an electronics instructor introduced me to it, but here’s a new favorite.
“We used to have a unit of distance that was a nautical mile plus a furlong. But we ditched it as redundant. So yes, we had it… but knot-furlong.”
Perpetrated by Wheels Of Confusion in the Ars Technica comments.
And you should see the puns that followed. (Starting at page 8 of the comments on the article below, if you’re a glutton for pun-ishment.)
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“Pun-ishment” - very nice!
I think we need to do some work on units for time measurement, also. Technology lately has us immersed in milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, etc., but now I believe we need to work on prefixes in the other direction.
In particular, we need to standardize the “justasec”. It seems to have a duration anywhere from a dekasecond, through kiloseconds, to even small fractions of Megaseconds. (Whole Megaseconds for a “justasec” would be a cause for mayhem to ensue.)
Our Congress typically holds hearings on arguably less crucial things. So unimportant that they just awarded themselves a paid vacation. (It lasted most of a Megasecond, certainly more than a justasec.)
The time has come * for politicians to make themselves useful (even if they don’t usually understand the consequences of what they do).
*pun intended
So, whattabout the diameter of a “round tuit”?
@mike808 I’ll get back to you on that…
@macromeh If you need justaminute or two, or even justaday that’s fine.
@mike808 I think you’re confused. A round tuit has no “dimension” in physical space as it is a measure (of indeterminate length) of time. Having said that, you can have a physical representation, in the form of a (typically round) wooden token, usually given out by clowns and magicians, of which my father was both. Mine is around here SOMEwhere, and is approximately an inch and a quarter across, which I’m sure is not universal.
Would 60 justasecs be more or less equivalent to a justaminute?
The unit of justaminute is often used by your SO providing an estimate of when you will actually be prepared to leave to attend an event scheduled long in advance. The time between the use of the justaminute unit and leaving is a unique and non-repeating duration.
Also used by gamers indicating when they will be finished playing to perform some activity, also likely to have been agreed upon well in advance. The duration if this use of the justaminute unit is between the its use and the observance of one of two events: 1) the appearance of one or more instances in the chat of the term “gg”, or 2) loud and enthusiastic repeated combinations of expletives, optionally including a forceful release of any handheld items, commonly referred to as “rage quitting”.
@mike808 It’s all subjective and also depends heavily on inflation. I think a “justasec” nowadays is about as long as a “justaminute” was when I was growing up. I know I used to tell my Mom “justaminute” when she called me to do something, but that tended to bring out some unexpected parenting from her.
Though, as you inferred above, the use of “justaminutes” doesn’t necessarily follow a uniform distribution. Maybe it’s normally distributed about some intended average.
But it’s hard for me to be objective about units of time, as now that I’m old, weeks seem to go by about as fast as days used to. (Sociologists/psychologists with math skills claim it’s all on a logarithmic scale.)
E.g., on a lot of Meh “deals”, I think to myself, “Didn’t we just have these for sale?” and find that it had indeed been weeks or even a month or two before the repeat.
I thought we were going to discuss alternatives to a banana.
Is a banana a scalar or a vector? Does it matter if it’s being use for comparison versus specifically to point out something?
And what’s up with the mixed prepositions?
@2many2no “Is a banana a scalar or a vector?”
Could even make a situation tensor, if threatened to be shoved up someone’s ___.
@2many2no I can’t remember what the unit of measurement was for someone’s car? Maybe hippos? (can’t find the meh link)
I find “aggravation” and “trauma” need to be included when measuring a task or event. Along with the usual tangibles like cost, time, distance, etc…
Is a “shitload” a unit of volume or weight/mass?
@mike808 Yes.
@mike808 Odor.
If you want to know rhinos to raccoons read this (it also includes a microfortnight measurement too buried in the comments)
https://meh.com/forum/topics/things-i-learned-today?sort=most-likes
@Kidsandliz o what’s the difference between a rhino and a raccoon?
@shelines A raccoon is 0.1625 the length of a rhino? Oh wait. Raccoons come with a built in mask and rhino’s don’t. That should help telling them apart.