Comments on: An open letter to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/ Explaining the Inexplicable Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:13:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: David http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-482 Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:29:58 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-482 Late-breaking entry into the proposals for useful yardsticks of natural phenomena: according to Idiot Toys, Sony is actually using the “Blu-Ray” DVD case as a sensitive measure of TV thickness! I’m running out to BestBuy this afternoon to pick up a stack of these babies to measure all of the TV’s in the house. However, given the age of our TVs, I’d better make sure to pick up Box Sets.

]]> By: David http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-74 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:44:32 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-74 Into All That (437,000,000 G)
Jesus (181,000,000 G; or about 0.4 IAT)

Huh. Leaving the quotes off of the above searches increases the number of hits by 3 orders of magnitude for Into All That, but actually drops Jesus by a few percent. Maybe you should put some Ads by Google over there on the right-hand side. Seems like this is becoming a gold mine, just waiting to be tapped.

]]> By: Eric S. http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-72 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:26:02 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-72 Setting a limit? Stupendous idea. In the grand scheme of things, I’m thinking that neither Chernobyl or even Chicxulub qualify as the end of our prospective yardstick (any Geology geek will tell you the cataclysm at the end of the Permian made the extinction of the dinosaurs look like a rainy picnic). I’ll bet this guy has some things to say on the matter: http://qntm.org/?destroy

]]> By: hangingcurve http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-71 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:19:33 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-71 1 Chernobyl = sorry, I can’t find reliable statistics to base this one on

You could use Chernobyl as your limit… as x moves toward Chernobyl, OMGs move toward infinity…

]]> By: Eric S. http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-70 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:43:46 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-70 Using this new fangled slide rule I had the boys down in R&D throw together, the asteroid that hit Chicxulub was only .0105 Texases. Which I beleive is also the approximate mass of Egg McMuffins sold by a certain unnamed restaurant chain on an average weekday.

]]> By: David http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-69 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:21:34 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-69 Ten kilometers?!? Are you telling me the dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet smaller than Rhode Island?

I’m sorry; how big is that in Texases? I never got the hang of these new-fangled unit conversions.

]]> By: Eric S. http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-67 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:25:29 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-67 Sez Wikipedia:
“The crater is more than 180 kilometers (110 mi) in diameter, making the feature one of the largest confirmed impact structures in the world; the impacting bolide (asteroid or comet) that formed the crater was at least 10 km (6 mi) in diameter.”

Ten kilometers?!? Are you telling me the dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet smaller than Rhode Island? What a bunch of wusses.

]]> By: David http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-66 Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:34:48 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-66 Ecological disaster (OMG), in (area covered, in miles)(clean up time, in months)
I believe this unit is actually in fact an S.I. unit, subject to modification by prefixes and arithmetic suffixes. Hence: 1 Chicxulub event = 1 ZOMG!!!?!

]]> By: David http://intoallthat.com/2008/03/16/an-open-letter-to-the-international-bureau-of-weights-and-measures/#comment-64 Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:45:17 +0000 http://intoallthat.wordpress.com/?p=29#comment-64 I must say that I am highly pleased to see that the cow standard of ferocity is being upheld. That said, I do have a comment regarding the “parsec” as a unit of time. I do believe that the canonical stance regarding this unit is that Han Solo knew full well what he was saying. The Kessel Spice Run has been traditionally followed a convoluted route full of astronomical hazards, and a linear route is impossible. The shortest route (in parsecs, of course) is sometimes the quickest, however one must always be careful not to bounce too close to a supernova. That would end your trip real quick now, wouldn’t it?

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