What did you do in the shop today?

[jlpservicesinc]

Why oh why do we really have to have like 8 different measurement systems for force and or torque..  I work on bicycles, cars, engines, etc, etc.. Newton meters.. Inch pounds, foot lbs, etc, etc.. Saw one the other day CM3 something something Small 3.. 

LOL.. I can do anything.. I can do anything, better than you..  Sing it..   I can do anything, I can do anything better than you..     Can't even agree to disagree.. Or is it disagree to agree.. "Hand up in the air if you just don't care"..    

Feeling cynical this morning.. 

[JHCC]

“Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.“

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary 

[jlpservicesinc]

JHCC.. That is so funny..  Than why doesn't anybody else I know.. get it..    Thanks for the huge chuckle this morning..  That alone might be enough to spur me into going out into the 15F trailer to take on the flat basket handle again..  

Boy that flat twist handle feels good in the hand.. 

[ThomasPowers]

"Standards are such a great thing that everyone has their own!"

[Chelonian]

2 hours ago, JHCC said:

And let’s not forget the Mars Climate Orbiter that burned up in the Martian atmosphere because NASA engineers didn’t convert pounds of force to newtons for the software controlling the thrusters. 

Or the Gimli Glider. It was an airliner in 1983 that was accidentally loaded with 22,300 pounds of fuel, instead of the required 22,300 kilograms. It ran out of fuel and had to glide in for an emergency landing.

[JHCC]

"That still only counts as one!" -- Gimli

[J.P. Hall]

There's always a relevant XKCD:

[ThomasPowers]

Doesn't help  that things have to be different enough to not get sued for "copying"...

[Daswulf]

Made my first snail out of a failed something or other. (Already had the split for the eyes and alittle taper on the end.)

Then I got this silly idea to make a mushroom for it to hang out on. 14.5" tall. Next will be cleanup and paint. 

[Eventlessbox]

That is adorable. Any thoughts on paint color?

[Daswulf]

Thinking red and white for the cap. Browns and greens for the rest.

[Mudman]

I dig it das

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Looks like a Texas longhorn snail

 

[ausfire]

Looks like you were making a longhorn and changed your mind!  Another pic after the paint please, Das.

[pnut]

20 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

"Standards are such a great thing that everyone has their own!"

It's a shame president Carter didn't go through with the switch to the metric system. It seems so much simpler than the arbitrary units like pounds ,yards, miles, cups, etc etc.

Metric units make more sense to me. I understand 1000 grams= 1 kilogram, or 100 centimeters = 1meter but not so clear why 12inches = 1foot . Oh well I guess it's not that important just wanted to gripe for a second. Thanks

Pnut (Mike) 

[JHCC]

Non-decimal, perhaps, but not arbitrary. Feet, yards, miles, cups, pints, bushels, pounds, tons — all of these arose in a pre-modern world where the relationship between humans and the things they made and used and measured was more organic. A foot is a very useful measure, and twelve inches is easy to divide in halves, thirds, and quarters. Rods, furlongs, and acres grew out of the lived experience of agricultural workers. And so on. 

Metric is certainly easier to calculate, and international standardization makes tons of sense when finance and trade stretch around the globe. However, that doesn’t mean is that the old measurements were “arbitrary”; it just means that is a developed among people for whom utility was more important than ease of calculation.

[pnut]

Jhcc, I'm not denying the utility of of non decimal measurements but what is an inch based on?  

[JHCC]

Approximately the length of the first joint of the thumb. 

[pnut]

Whose thumb? That's what I meant when I said arbitrary. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't useful. I'm American I think in inches feet ounces etc. To be more concise I should have said the metric system is more intuitive. Tens tenths hundredths thousandths.      

[JHCC]

When you have one craftsman working on one piece in a pre-modern workshop (say, a bodger making a chair), he would obviously be using his own thumb, span, foot, and cubit. Standardization only becomes an issue when you're dealing with many people working together or (more importantly) with trade, and even then, we see less the creation of new measurements and more setting consistent units for existing usages. It's interesting to note that many of the very earliest laws had to do with standardization of weights and measures and penalties for people who attempted to circumvent the official standards. 

I think if decimal systems were more intuitive, you'd see more of them developing earlier. Instead, we see systems evolving all over the world that are based on the human body, humans' experience of the world with which they interact, and simple fractions. Decimal systems, on the other hand, were first proposed in the late 16th century -- some three thousand years after the first non-metric standardization -- and only formally introduced at the end of the 18th, in post-Revolutionary France.

[pnut]

I'm not trying to argue the utility of either system. For me knowing a few prefixes I can more easily understand a system like metric. Milligram let's me know a thousandth of a gram is being referenced. Grains drams etc are harder for me to keep straight. Regarding when decimals and fractions were invented the zero is a relatively new idea. 

The metric system is more intuitive to me  When I was in school and figured out what each prefix meant it seemed much simpler than miles pounds etc. 

Being American I Naturally think in inches and yards. But a system based on tens seems simpler to me. 

 

[JHCC]

Metric is certainly easier to learn in school or from a book. When all learning was on-the-job learning, it didn't make as much of a difference.

[jlpservicesinc]

it is funny but lots of the measurement aspects were in fact localized and as things spread so did the measurement system.. 

Look at language..  You could say it's a lot of a measurment system in terms of where which language has spread to..   

It always strikes me as crazy that in Europe you have countries practically on top of each other yet they developed a completely different language.. German, swedish, english, Italian, Russian, Chinese.. etc, etc..  Sure there is some cross over how could there not be.. Then get in Ubekastan and those areas and the sub dialics or local changes in a common language.. 

here in the USA   differences between geographical regions yes its still english.. 

My point is the USA is fairly large land mass and for the most part we all speak english.. Yet there are countries nearly upon themselves and they have 2 different languages.. My cousin from the old country could speak 6 languages fluidly because of where she was from. 

In the way back it's pretty amazing when I started reading old machinist manuals and they were talking about standards of threads and how so and so used such and such threads and then argue the point for why or why not use that thread.. 

I imagine before threads standardized a lot of time was spent on just making bolts and rethreading something in order to fix it.. 

[pnut]

Jlpservices, yes that is strange. Different dialects same language 

Jhcc. You are correct. In a pinchI've used pen caps pencils all sorts of things as units of measurements. 

Jlpservices, the earlier you are exposed to a language the easier it is to learn.

[BillyBones]

Been reading the discussion of measurements. Quite interesting. The inch was first the length of some king of Englands first thumb joint, but was later changed to 3 barley corns end to end. The foot came from Charlemagne's foot, then later it was 36 barley corns laid end to end. A furlough was the distance an ox team could plow before rest and an acre was the amount of land that an ox team could plow in a day. A mile was the distance a Roman legion took to take 1000 double steps. 

When i was a teenager me and some friends were shall we say enjoying some adult beverages, and decided to build a clubhouse. It was cool. Electricity, fridge, couch, i had a hammock (stole the soccer nets from the high school one night and made one into the hammock.) Anyway all our measurements were in beer bottle.