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On Sat, 24 May 2008 11:21:59 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom>
wrote:
>I never saw one that was that complex, except an architectural ruler.
>Maybe I don't do the sort of work that sort of ruler helps with.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architect's_scale
Lordy, I remember those but what I described was a ruler we bought for
school.
--
Regards
Stephen
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On Sat, 24 May 2008 22:01:40 +0100, Stephen wrote:
> On 24 May 2008 14:55:15 -0400, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>
>>Kilo = abbreviation of kilogram (as Andrel said), but the funnier part
>>is if you read "meter" not as a distance, but rather a device for
>>measuring something (think water meter or gas meter).
>
> Oh! The shame needing an American to explain English what will Phil C
> think of me :-)
;-) Some Americans actually do speak English, though - I find myself
actually having to correct my spelling often because I tend to use
British spelling conventions rather than American. When I send out a
newsletter, I often have to read it a second time to 'Americanise' the
spellings just to avoid having half my audience tell me I can't spell. ;-)
Jim
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Warp wrote:
>
> That's inaccurate. It gets much warmer than 15 degrees in summer here.
> Sometimes *way* too much.
Also, who the heck stops grilling at -5C?
Ah, that was only hotdogs, they're not so famous here anyway.
> As for the t-shirt, you are not going to be in one when the temperature
> is -1 degrees for long periods of time, but something like 5 minutes may
> be just ok. It can actually be quite refreshing.
Yes, even with -30C :p. That why I wrote "pretty much" instead of
"definedly".
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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On 24 May 2008 20:40:10 -0400, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom>
wrote:
>;-) Some Americans actually do speak English, though - I find myself
>actually having to correct my spelling often because I tend to use
>British spelling conventions rather than American. When I send out a
>newsletter, I often have to read it a second time to 'Americanise' the
>spellings just to avoid having half my audience tell me I can't spell. ;-)
LOL :)
--
Regards
Stephen
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On Sun, 25 May 2008 17:36:03 +0100, Stephen wrote:
> On 24 May 2008 20:40:10 -0400, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>
>>;-) Some Americans actually do speak English, though - I find myself
>>actually having to correct my spelling often because I tend to use
>>British spelling conventions rather than American. When I send out a
>>newsletter, I often have to read it a second time to 'Americanise' the
>>spellings just to avoid having half my audience tell me I can't spell.
>>;-)
>
> LOL :)
I honestly don't know when or why I started writing that way. One of the
more bizarre things that's happened to me in my life, though, was that
during the 2002 winter games here in Salt Lake, we got out of town and
stayed with friends in Bucks. Shaun was preparing for a trip to the US a
few weeks later, so he decided to practice his American on us, and we
were speaking English while we were there. I had to tell him to stop
speaking American to us because it was confusing us, and he said he
figured it was a good time to practice for his upcoming trip. :-)
We've been seriously talking about moving over there, but with the recent
changes in immigration there, when we get to the point we can, we will
probably start in Scotland (we've got friends both in Edinburough as well
as about halfway between Edinburough and Glasgow). Ireland was another
possibility, though we don't know anyone directly who lives there (I have
a former coworker whom I'm good friends with who is from Dundalk, just
outside of Dublin) and he's got family still there. But if we were to
start in Ireland, we really like Galway (though haven't been there, so
we'd want to visit first <g>).
The move may never happen, but it's something we'd like to do at least
for a while. My job is such that I could do it pretty much anywhere in
the world, so that's not an issue (though that does mean I can't get paid
relocation if I stay where I am).
Jim
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> Screws here go down to 1/32nd or 1/64th of an inch,
Oh god that just reminded me of working on old stuff when I was younger. OK
so the 1/2" socket is too small, ermm what comes next, this one looks
bigger, 5/8", nope too big, hmmm, ummm, 5/8, that's 10/16, ok so let's try
9/16", ah yes cool that fits.
>> What if you need 5 foot 3 point 85 divided into 2? Dividing 158.3 cm
>> into 2 is much easier.
>
> You'd cast everything to inches. That's how construction work is done.
> Studs are 16 inches apart, for example. I went to the store and bought
> 20-inch hoses to connect wall to sink.
So the length of a support beam is measured as something like 475 inches?
Do you have any idea how long something that is 475 inches actually looks
like? Or do you have to convert roughly into feet/yards first?
Or like the example you gave earlier, if something is 50 thousand feet away,
do you know how far that is? Or do you have to do a rough conversion to
miles first?
In metric it's far easier, you buy a piece of wood that is 1200x600x28, you
know straight away how big it is without needing to any sums in your head.
Ditto if something is 50 thousand metres away, I know it's going to take me
about 30 mins to get there straight away - no tricky conversions needed.
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>> Yeh I was thinking of just on the multi-lane-per-direction roads, as they
>> are the ones mostly used for long distances where a higher speed limit
>> might be an incentive for people to buy greener cars.
>>
>
> Well yes, in some countries. Germany's highways are pretty great
> infrastructure, for example,
I think it would also work well in the UK, France and Italy from what I've
personally experienced. In Germany they could simply say that all cars
above a certain pollution level are always limited to a maximum of 120
km/hr, even if there is no limit at that point. If they fixed it so that
that "certain level" meant around 50% of new cars sold before were either
side of the limit, then I suspect it would significantly reduce pollution
(due both to people buying greener cars, and people going slower with the
more polluting cars).
> but ie. in Finland there's rarely over 200km of highway/multi-lane on
> 500km trip.
Well yes (I experienced a crazy 3-lane road once in Finland where the middle
lane was for both directions!), but at least on those single-lane roads
there isn't so much traffic that you never get an opportunity to overtake!
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scott wrote:
>
> I think it would also work well in the UK, France and Italy from what
> I've personally experienced. In Germany they could simply say that all
I haven't driven in those countries, so I can't say yes or no. But
basically: multiple lanes are needed to make different speed limits work.
>> but ie. in Finland there's rarely over 200km of highway/multi-lane on
>> 500km trip.
>
> Well yes (I experienced a crazy 3-lane road once in Finland where the
> middle lane was for both directions!)
No, you haven't ;). You might have experienced a 3-lane road where 2
lanes are for one direction and 1 for another and the single-lane
direction going cars are allowed to overtake on the middle lane *IF*
there's no cars going another direction and using the middle lane.
That experiment was canceled 7-8 years ago, since people didn't get the
priorisation of the middle lane. Since then all 3-lane roads have been
2-lane for one direction and 1 for the other, with no allowed exceptions
(which is nasty, 'cause they usually are good places to overtake on
other direction too, if there's no cars coming towards from the other
direction).
> , but at least on those single-lane
> roads there isn't so much traffic that you never get an opportunity to
> overtake!
One might think so, but that's not true. You don't need a traffic jam to
render all overtaking-places unusable. Waiting for a realistic and safe
place to overtake a 80km/g going car on 100km/h limit might easily take
20+km. One car can be enough to render overtaking-place unusable.
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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scott wrote:
> So the length of a support beam is measured as something like 475
> inches?
Honestly, I dunno. I haven't built anything requiring "support beams". :-)
> Do you have any idea how long something that is 475 inches
> actually looks like? Or do you have to convert roughly into feet/yards
> first?
I would have to convert it in my head. 480 inches is about 40 feet, so I
know what that looks like. Yeah, it's math, but it's trivial math, on
the order of reducing fractions to common denominators.
> Or like the example you gave earlier, if something is 50 thousand feet
> away, do you know how far that is? Or do you have to do a rough
> conversion to miles first?
Mentally, I'd do a rough conversion. For something like that, I'd say
"50000 feet is about 10 miles" and I'd leave off the "280 feet per mile"
I was missing.
> In metric it's far easier, you buy a piece of wood that is 1200x600x28,
Right. And why do they sell it at 1200x600, rather than 1000x500?
Because you can divide it in thirds and quarters. :-)
> you know straight away how big it is without needing to any sums in your
> head. Ditto if something is 50 thousand metres away, I know it's going
> to take me about 30 mins to get there straight away - no tricky
> conversions needed.
Yeah. But again, unless you're actually doing science, I don't think it
comes up all that often. I can't remember the last time outside an
academic context (like this) where I needed to convert feet to miles. It
might come up once every three or four years.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> 2-lane for one direction and 1 for the other, with no allowed exceptions
This is done in the US ever so often (mostly over bridges), with the
change that the middle lane switches back and forth depending on the
time of day. So weekday mornings, there are more lanes going into the
city, and weekday afternoons, there are more lanes coming out of the
city, for example. But it's marked really well, and often even has a
concrete barrier that gets moved back and forth so you physically can't
cross to the wrong side.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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