L Austin France wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 1:56 pm
Just watching a programme where they said you could fit the Tower of London inside a dome of the Eden Project.
I can understand that better than I could if you gave me the measurements, I've never been able to 'picture' a distance or size with out a comparison. If you told me something was ten miles away, I wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about.
Yeah but that's 'cos you've seen the Tower.
Try using that simile to people who've never moved far from the middle of Siberia. I'm sure they would have a better understanding if you used their measurements (whatever they are)
Strangely, I was wondering only today while working on my mower if with the Americans refusing to embrace the metric system are using their version of Imperial when building their space stations, satellites, and related stuff. Even their threaded fasteners are different, and within metric the Japanese thread pitch is different from the European.
On my headstone it will say: Please switch off mobile phones. I'm trying to get some sleep.
At my age I prefer to lose them or at least some of them
With this hand, I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never be empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle, I will light your way into darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.........The Corpse Bride
DominicBest wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 12:28 pm
Comparing size is completely different to giving measurements and allows more people to understand the size of the thing being talked about.
More people? Really?
I will of course bow to your superior knowledge but as a mere engineer I haven't a clue how many football pitches it'll take to cover my 2.5 Ha field or how many times bigger my lawn is to an Olympic pool.
I can of course find out this information & do the maths but what a faff. It'll work with every day small objects such as "the size of a fag packet" but when you get to large dimensions ??????
Just watching a programme where they said you could fit the Tower of London inside a dome of the Eden Project. Righty Oh!
I disagree. Most people wouldn’t have a clue what a particular area would look like without a reference point. Measurements are a bit abstract.
Hotrodder wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 6:06 pm
Strangely, I was wondering only today while working on my mower if with the Americans refusing to embrace the metric system are using their version of Imperial when building their space stations, satellites, and related stuff. Even their threaded fasteners are different, and within metric the Japanese thread pitch is different from the European.
It is interesting - in woodwork some US tool manufacturers treat metric very much as an afterthought - but US woodworkers using European kit seem to readily adopt metric over imperial. Were US tool manufacturers to produce metric kit more readily I could see imperial dying out there.
Hotrodder wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 10:51 am
I have only been a passenger once with a French driver.
It was a proper white knuckle ride.
A very wealthy local family we know quite well are as tight as duck's arses. Father drives, is as blind as a bat but won't pay for glasses & daughter dear refuses to waste money on repairs to her car's inoperative screen wipers.
A builder pal of mine knew about the family & was chaufered by the dad to one of their rental houses in daughters car which got caught up in a downpour on the return . He was shaking & soaking wet when they finally made it back home having spent the whole 10 km per hour trip navigating with his head out of the back window. White knuckle ain't in it. Being a passenger with either is deffo a brown trouser affair.
Reminds me a bit of one of my early potholing trips.
We were driven with the potholing equipment (aka gear) in the back of a Commer van (highly illegal even back then). Pothole trip completed and late into the evening we began the drive back and as we drove up the Yorkshire passes so it started to snow. The windscreen wipers became slower and slower until finally they stopped with a goodly layer of snow on them and on the screen. Driver with the window open and head out of the window gained us another couple of miles. Eventually we realised this too was not the solution and the snowfall was now tending towards blizzard. A length of strong string was produced, tied to one wiper, in through the drivers open window, across the cab and out through the, now open, passenger window and finally tied to the other wiper. As we then proceeded with both windows open, the passenger in the passenger seat was pulling the string back and forth and so moving the windscreen wipers back and forth.
The perennial question "how long is a piece of string" came in very handy then. Much more so than a degree in accountancy, marine biology or media studies.
On my headstone it will say: Please switch off mobile phones. I'm trying to get some sleep.
Grab a chair, kick off your shoes, chill and chat.
