Unit of Measurement WTF
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From an article in our office newsletter welcoming our new CIO (it dept around 100 bodies):
"He admits to falling in love with this first one gigabyte processor".
We're boned.
ps. I've verified that this was not just some editorial gaff. Actual quote, people.
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Head...
Desk...
SMACK!
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Possibly a mistake by whoever typed up the newsletter? Seems more likely.
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I really should have moved that paper spike first.
This is the guy, btw who is taking over after the deputy cheif of police had the job (we're city govt) after the last REAL CIO was exposed as a moron who treated his employees like crap.
Movin' on up.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Possibly a mistake by whoever typed up the newsletter? Seems more likely.
I only wish. I did get it checked out and the original recording shows "one gigabyte processor".
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@henny said:
I only wish. I did get it checked out and the original recording shows "one gigabyte processor".
I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. It may very well have been an unconscious slip up. Haven't you ever accidentally said something when you meant to say something else? This is rather amusing and possibly not the greatest start for a new CIO, but I can see how this could happen even to the experts.
Unfortunately the human brain is not perfect.
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I still find it easier to believe it's another case of some computer illiterate person taking the role of CIO. This one has a lot of potential for WTF'ery.
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]
I still find it easier to believe it's another case of some computer illiterate person taking the role of CIO. This one has a lot of potential for WTF'ery.
[/quote]
You find it easier to believe that someone completely incompetent took over a management role rather than that he simply misspoke? I know lots of morons get into jobs they shouldn't have, but until we see absolute proof otherwise I tend to go with the simplest explanation.
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I personally fell in love with my first 4 ghz of ram. No quack.
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@henny said:
That reminds me of an article someone posted on a BBS that was talking about the 8 Gigawatt iPhone. As a plus, the article was from a Spanish (from Spain) source, the only guys who dare transalte watts into vatios. (This "translation", by the way, make me crack up on other people that think VA stands for vatios (watts) when it actually stands for volts-amperes, but that's another story.)"He admits to falling in love with this first one gigabyte processor".
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@danixdefcon5 said:
(This "translation", by the way, make me crack up on other people that think VA stands for vatios (watts) when it actually stands for volts-amperes, but that's another story.)
Well, considering W == VA (pretty standard if you don't care much about power factor), it really shouldn't be an issue.
It is pretty common to just change the unit of VA to W and vice versa as needed.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
True. But the guy confusing "vatios" with VA was doing so precisely when choosing the correct VA rating for a UPS, where power factor is an issue. We went to the safe side and assumed 60% efficiency for the PSU, and it worked.@danixdefcon5 said:
(This "translation", by the way, make me crack up on other people that think VA stands for vatios (watts) when it actually stands for volts-amperes, but that's another story.)
Well, considering W == VA (pretty standard if you don't care much about power factor), it really shouldn't be an issue.
It is pretty common to just change the unit of VA to W and vice versa as needed.
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Maybe it has a gigabyte data dus instead of 32 or 64 bits ?
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You all missed the real WTF: processorophilia.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
<hints id="hah_hints"></hints>Well, considering W == VA (pretty standard if you don't care much about power factor), it really shouldn't be an issue.
Apparently it is if you're a UPS manufacturer. Gotta love seeing those "650 VA" backups that actually support a 250 W load.
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@boomzilla
Stupid moon units
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@boomzilla That's a really small wrench.
edit: Oh, I know - it's for eyeglasses, right?
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@dcon said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@boomzilla That's a really small wrench.
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@dcon said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
Oh, I know - it's for eyeglasses, right?
It’s clearly for remote-control models: 5/16 mm works fine for a 1:48 scale model when the bolts are 15 mm on the real thing.
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@Gurth In the UK I learned that a scale of 1:32 means that 1 inch on the paper corresponds to 32 foot on the ground...
We odd Europeans would call that 1:384...
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@boomzilla
5/16 mm
... Let me try to calculate... 1 inch is about 25 mm, so that maketh1/80 inch
...
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@BernieTheBernie And 5/16" is 7.9375 mm
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@PleegWat
8 mm
- that looks quite fitting for that thing on the photo.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
In the UK I learned that a scale of 1:32 means that 1 inch on the paper corresponds to 32 foot on the ground
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@BernieTheBernie said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Gurth In the UK I learned that a scale of 1:32 means that 1 inch on the paper corresponds to 32 foot on the ground...
We odd Europeans would call that 1:384...Whoever taught you must have had an odd understanding of scale, then. 1:32 means that one inch (if you insist on using those) on the paper would be 2⅔ feet (= 32 inches) on the ground.
A lot of modelling scales (1:12, 1:24, 1:48, 1:72, 1:144, 1:288 and more) do have easy inch-to-foot conversions, though, which makes them seem very weird to those of us used to more rational units of measurement. For example, there is the (mainly American) habit of saying “quarter scale” for 1:48, because in that scale, a quarter inch on the model corresponds to one foot on the real thing. 1:32 is “three-eights scale” in that case, but it’s never called that AFAIK.
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@LaoC said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Luhmann said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@boomzilla
Stupid moon unitsNo bullying Ms. Zappa here!
Like, totally!
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@Gurth said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
A lot of modelling scales (1:12, 1:24, 1:48, 1:72, 1:144, 1:288 and more) do have easy inch-to-foot conversions, though, which makes them seem very weird to those of us used to more rational units of measurement.
Eh, you guys are just racist against denominators that aren't multiples of 10. Far less rational if you ask me.
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@boomzilla said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Gurth said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
A lot of modelling scales (1:12, 1:24, 1:48, 1:72, 1:144, 1:288 and more) do have easy inch-to-foot conversions, though, which makes them seem very weird to those of us used to more rational units of measurement.
Eh, you guys are just racist against denominators that aren't multiples of 10. Far less rational if you ask me.
Last I checked the numbers 12, 24, 48, 72, 144, 288 and numbers that are multiples of 10 are all rational numbers.
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@Vault_Dweller said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@boomzilla said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Gurth said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
A lot of modelling scales (1:12, 1:24, 1:48, 1:72, 1:144, 1:288 and more) do have easy inch-to-foot conversions, though, which makes them seem very weird to those of us used to more rational units of measurement.
Eh, you guys are just racist against denominators that aren't multiples of 10. Far less rational if you ask me.
Last I checked the numbers 12, 24, 48, 72, 144, 288 and numbers that are multiples of 10 are all rational numbers.
And?
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@boomzilla said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Vault_Dweller said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@boomzilla said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Gurth said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
A lot of modelling scales (1:12, 1:24, 1:48, 1:72, 1:144, 1:288 and more) do have easy inch-to-foot conversions, though, which makes them seem very weird to those of us used to more rational units of measurement.
Eh, you guys are just racist against denominators that aren't multiples of 10. Far less rational if you ask me.
Last I checked the numbers 12, 24, 48, 72, 144, 288 and numbers that are multiples of 10 are all rational numbers.
And?
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@Vault_Dweller said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@boomzilla said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Vault_Dweller said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@boomzilla said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Gurth said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
A lot of modelling scales (1:12, 1:24, 1:48, 1:72, 1:144, 1:288 and more) do have easy inch-to-foot conversions, though, which makes them seem very weird to those of us used to more rational units of measurement.
Eh, you guys are just racist against denominators that aren't multiples of 10. Far less rational if you ask me.
Last I checked the numbers 12, 24, 48, 72, 144, 288 and numbers that are multiples of 10 are all rational numbers.
And?
Yes, exactly!
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@boomzilla said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
Eh, you guys are just racist against denominators that aren't multiples of 10. Far less rational if you ask me.
Because 10 is much less awkward if you use the metric system without the weird multipliers you guys insist on adding to it. And even with those, as long as you would just stick to one weird multiplier instead of several that stack.
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@Gurth Until you need to divide your thing cleanly into numbers that aren't 2, 5 or 10. Base 12 is so much more accommodating.
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@loopback0 said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@BernieTheBernie said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
In the UK I learned that a scale of 1:32 means that 1 inch on the paper corresponds to 32 foot on the ground
YES!
That happened in the north... in the scottish lowlands, not far from Glasgow. Around year 2000.
Perhaps Scotland is different from England?
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@BernieTheBernie said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
Perhaps Scotland is different from England?
That's often true but I've never heard of 1:32 scale meaning anything other than 1 unit to 32 of the same unit.
What was this weird 1:384 scale for?
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@loopback0 Car park of a hospital.
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@BernieTheBernie
I'll just chalk it up to either some weird Scottish thing or some industry-specific thing.
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@Arantor said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@Gurth Until you need to divide your thing cleanly into numbers that aren't 2, 5 or 10. Base 12 is so much more accommodating.
Base 12 having 2, 3 and 4 as factors is indeed beneficial, but unfortunately we are using base 10 for numbers and that makes any other multiplication factor impractical when you work across multiple orders of magnitude (which is whenever you get to hundreds of this and thousands of that).
The damned fact we have five fingers on each hand is usually blamed for the choice of base 10, but note that base 12 counting can be done on fingers—by pointing with one hand to the links between knuckles on the other (there is 12 of them excluding thumb). And you can count to 60 that way if you make it significant which finger does the pointing. But it's less obvious than just counting the fingers.
(You can also count to 1024 on fingers. To computer folks that might even be more obvious than the 12 and 60 methods).
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@Bulb said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
Base 12 having 2, 3 and 4 as factors is indeed beneficial, but unfortunately we are using base 10 for numbers and that makes any other multiplication factor impractical when you work across multiple orders of magnitude (which is whenever you get to hundreds of this and thousands of that).
We have a linguistic preference for base 10 too. Yes, there are some equivalents in base 12 ("ten" ⇒ "dozen", "hundred" ⇒ "gross") but I don't know of any beyond that; 123 has no special name (that I'm aware of) unlike 103, 104, 106, ...
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@Arantor said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
Base 12 is so much more accommodating.
Not if the rest of your measurement system assumes another base. It would be reasonable if the rest of the UK/US system was also base 12, but every following unit uses a different base. So yes, sure, eventually it’s base 12 if you break them down far enough, but who does that in practice?
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@Gurth It even isn't eventually 12 for many dimensions anyway. Lengths use the factor 12 a lot (12 poiints = pica, 6 pica = inch, 12 inch = foot, 5280 feet = mile), but volumes tend to use powers of 2 (8 fluid ounces = cup, 2 cups = pint, 2 pints = quart, 4 quart = gallon — and that is 231 cubic inches, which is totally impractical relation) and so do weights (16 drams = ounce, 16 ounces = pound, 2000 pounds = short ton).
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@Bulb said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
volumes tend to use powers of 2
Except when they don't. There are 20 UK fluid ounces to the UK pint, whereas there are 16 Florida ounces to the US pint.
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@dkf also 14 pounds to the stone, wtf is that all about.
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@Arantor said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@dkf also 14 pounds to the stone, wtf is that all about.
It used to be 12, but processed foods, fat epidemic, etc etc
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Can someone turn this thing off?
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@Arantor said in Unit of Measurement WTF:
@dkf also 14 pounds to the stone, wtf is that all about.
That was for practice. The UK carat to 3 1647/9691 grains was the rational masterpiece.
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@kazitor You don't want to do that. It'll cause your
traintruck of thought to run away, veer off the road, and end up in the gutter. Say hi to Tsaukpaetra when you get there.