Dumbbells



  • Amazon must be packing items with helium balloons instead of those air-filled pouches:

    From Dumb


  • Hmmm ... must be those "innovative" grips.

     

    <insert "that's what she said" joke here>

     



  • Hey, be glad you found a product whose shipping weight was less than it should be for once.



  • @rudraigh said:

    Hmmm ... must be those "innovative" grips.
     

    I'm guessing some kind of rampant English-to-metric-and-back thing with inconsistent conversion factors.



  •  Actually this is possible if the dumbell is a plastic container in which you put water. The dumbell weight is the water, which is not included in shipping; the plastic container would weigh considerably less. I don't know if this is the case here, but I've seen it elsewhere.



  • TRWTF is paying $13.50 + S&H for three pounds of foam-padded deadweight.



  • @da Doctah said:

    English-to-metric

    Hey, don't blame us - we're entirely au fait with the metric system. I think it's only the yanks and one or two other third-world countries that cling on to imperial, for whatever reason.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @bertram said:

    cling on to imperial, for whatever reason.

    Because it's better, of course!



  • @bertram said:

    @da Doctah said:
    English-to-metric

    Hey, don't blame us - we're entirely au fait with the metric system. I think it's only the yanks and one or two other third-world countries that cling on to imperial, for whatever reason.

    Oh don't be so high and mighty. I was watching an episode of Doctor Who "Turn Left", Donna has to go back in time and reverse a decision she made (turn left at an intersection instead of right), but the time machine screws up and sends her to the wrong place with only a 5 minutes to get there. What does Donna say when she arrives?

    "That's a half-mile away!"

    She didn't say "that's 4/5ths of a kilometer away!" And this is a British show created for British audiences to enjoy in their own little British apartments, so don't give me that bullshit about the UK switching over to metric because you haven't. You're just pretending.

    The only difference between the US and UK when it comes to metric is that we're not deluding ourselves about it; we fully admit we aren't using it.



  • They haven't adopted it, it's just that you've been screaming it in their ears for so damn long its all they hear!  :P



  • Obviously the product description is using decimal pounds, whereas the shipping weight is binary pounds.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    She didn't say "that's 4/5ths of a kilometer away!" And this is a British show created for British audiences to enjoy in their own little British apartments flats, so don't give me that bullshit about the UK switching over to metric because you haven't. You're just pretending.
     

    FTFY.



  • @bertram said:

    @da Doctah said:
    English-to-metric

    Hey, don't blame us - we're entirely at fault with the metric system. I think it's only the yanks and one or two other third-world countries that cling on to imperial, for whatever reason.


    FTFY.

    (That's how I read it the first time though. I'm pretty certain programming all day is bad for my eyes.)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I was watching an episode of Doctor Who "Turn Left", Donna has to go back in time and reverse a decision she made (turn left at an intersection instead of right), but the time machine screws up and sends her to the wrong place with only a 5 minutes to get there. What does Donna say when she arrives?

    "That's a half-mile away!"

    That's highly unlikely.
    @blakeyrat said:
    The only difference between the US and UK when it comes to metric is that we're not deluding ourselves about it; we fully admit we aren't using it.
    Not the only difference, it seems.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @__moz said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    I was watching an episode of Doctor Who "Turn Left", Donna has to go back in time and reverse a decision she made (turn left at an intersection instead of right), but the time machine screws up and sends her to the wrong place with only a 5 minutes to get there. What does Donna say when she arrives?

    "That's a half-mile away!"

    That's highly unlikely.
    But true nevertheless.



  • @PJH said:

    @__moz said:
    That's highly unlikely.
    But true nevertheless.

    [url=http://who-transcripts.atspace.com/2008/transcripts/411_turnleft.html]Not exactly[/url].



  • @__moz said:

    @PJH said:
    @__moz said:
    That's highly unlikely.
    But true nevertheless.

    Not exactly.

    Uh, that transcript says "half a mile". Twice. And earlier she says "miles away." So... good link?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @__moz said:

    @PJH said:
    @__moz said:
    That's highly unlikely.
    But true nevertheless.

    Not exactly.
    Make up your mind. It can't be both highly unlikely and not exactly true. The only substantial difference between that transcript and what you're complaining about is the distinction between 4 and 5 minutes .



  • @PJH said:

    Make up your mind. It can't be both highly unlikely and not exactly true. The only substantial difference between that transcript and what you're complaining about is the distinction between 4 and 5 minutes .

    My apologies. I thought the quote blakeyrat gave did not sound like something the character of Donna would be at all likely to say, based on what little I know of it.

    When I saw the transcript, I noticed that the quote in question does not appear anywhere within it. I have no proof that the transcript records this accurately, so I shall leave my estimate of the truth of blakeyrat's claim as being "highly unlikely".



  • @__moz said:

    When I saw the transcript, I noticed that the quote in question does not appear anywhere within it. I have no proof that the transcript records this accurately, so I shall leave my estimate of the truth of blakeyrat's claim as being "highly unlikely".

    Click the link to the transcript. Press Control-F. Type in "mile". Hit the little down arrow. The FIRST RESULT is Donna using "mile" as a measure a distance. If you go further down, you'll see two more examples of it.

    Or log on to Netflix, and watch the damned thing. It's on streaming. And the transcript is accurate.

    Or just bury your head in the sand, clasp your hands over your ears, and repeat, "I reject your reality, I reject your reality" over and over again.



  • For distance and speed, we generally use miles and miles per hour (Road signs, etc). Height and Weight (People) we also generally use feet/inches and stones. All other measurements are generally metric.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Marine said:

    For distance and speed, we generally use miles and miles per hour (Road signs, etc). Height and Weight (People) we also generally use feet/inches and stones. All other measurements are generally metric.

    While I'll grant you my local stopped selling Vodka in 1/6th gills[1] a while back, it's still serving me my Fosters in pints. What enlightened part of the UK are you in where you get it in .2, .3 and .5 l measures?





    [1] 23.7 ml for those that care. Servings today are either 25ml or 35ml, or multiples thereof.



  • Hey guys, this was a discussion about dumbbells. When did exercise equipment segway into British culture?

    Good title.

     



  •  I forgot about pints (I don't know how... i'm normally drinking them when i'm out!), but you get 330ml cans (not half a pint, 278ml), and 500ml bottles (pint is 568ml).

     It is quite messed up, but i like it. 68ml more cider than being on metric ;)



  • @AndyCanfield said:

    Hey guys, this was a discussion about dumbbells. When did exercise equipment segway into British culture?

    Good title.

    I'm not usually a spelling Nazi, but how did you get "segway" from "segue"? Dean Kamen has ruined a perfectly good word!



  • @Marine said:

     I forgot about pints (I don't know how... i'm normally drinking them when i'm out!), but you get 330ml cans (not half a pint, 278ml), and 500ml bottles (pint is 568ml).

     It is quite messed up, but i like it. 68ml more cider than being on metric ;)

    So when British people brag about having "gone metric", what they really mean is "we've gone metric to the same extent the US has, about halfway". Of course I already knew this, having been to the UK and watched tons of UK TV, but it's still funny how high-and-mighty you guys are about it on forums.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    So when British people brag about having "gone metric", what they really mean is "we've gone metric to the same extent the US has, about halfway". Of course I already knew this, having been to the UK and watched tons of UK TV, but it's still funny how high-and-mighty you guys are about it on forums.
     

    Also funny: the Brit above who scolded me for calling the non-metric system used in the US "English" and corrected it to "imperial".  We've never had "imperial" measures here in the States.  The tables on the flaps of the Pee-Chee folders always referred to the "English system" of weights and measures.  Some of us are cosmopolitan enough to have encountered gallons that are different from our gallons and were called "imperial", but that set of units has never been customary here.

    I credit the confusion to the fact that both English and imperial systems have given their completely separate sets of units the same names.



  • Speaking of dumbells, I have been living in southeast Asia since 1990 and my English gets worse all the time. One thing to suffer is my spelling because when Thai is transliterated to English it can be spelled many different ways, and nobody much cares. We've got a district in Roiet province whose name is spelled and pronounced EXACTLY the same as the Bangkok airport name but in English they are totally different spellings.

     "Segway", properly pronounced "SEG-WAY", is the thing you ride on. And SEG-WAY is a smooth transition.

    "Segue" should be pronounced "SA-GOO" which doesn't mean anything. 23-SA-GOO? You mean I should have spent more years in High SA-GOO? Maybe so.

    You are right - I spelled it rong.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @__moz said:
    When I saw the transcript, I noticed that the quote in question does not appear anywhere within it. I have no proof that the transcript records this accurately, so I shall leave my estimate of the truth of blakeyrat's claim as being "highly unlikely".

    Click the link to the transcript. Press Control-F. Type in "mile". Hit the little down arrow. The FIRST RESULT is Donna using "mile" as a measure a distance. If you go further down, you'll see two more examples of it.

    Or log on to Netflix, and watch the damned thing. It's on streaming. And the transcript is accurate.

    Or just bury your head in the sand, clasp your hands over your ears, and repeat, "I reject your reality, I reject your reality" over and over again.

     

    This problem is, __moz searched on your exact words.

    @what blakeyrat said said:

    "That's a half-mile away!"

    @what was in the script said:

    <font face="Courier New" size="2">I'm half a mile away!</font>

    So, yeah.  Only thing you were wrong about there was the exact line, and I hope nobody here cares enough about the new series to get worked up over that.



  • @Justice said:

    Only thing you were wrong about there was the exact line,

    Well, it's not like that's the only time I've heard "miles" used on British TV/movies. You hear it all the freakin' time, because British people say it all the freakin' time. The only time they're "metric" is when bragging to Americans on forums how "metric" they are.

    @Justice said:

    Filed under: bring back Tom Baker

    That entire episode he did with a giant booger hanging out of his nose was epic. Here in the US, we probably would have re-shot that, but not at the good ol' BBC!

    (I always wondered, at that time the UK had, what, 4 TV channels? And 2 of those were actually funded by taxpayers? And somehow still they spent about $50 an episode on their most famous sci-fi series... where the hell was the money going? And Doctor Who was well-funded! One of the aliens in Blake's 7 had to be played by a ROCK! And not even a painted rock!)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Justice said:
    Filed under: bring back Tom Baker

    That entire episode he did with a giant booger hanging out of his nose was epic. Here in the US, we probably would have re-shot that, but not at the good ol' BBC!

    (I always wondered, at that time the UK had, what, 4 TV channels? And 2 of those were actually funded by taxpayers? And somehow still they spent about $50 an episode on their most famous sci-fi series... where the hell was the money going? And Doctor Who was well-funded! One of the aliens in Blake's 7 had to be played by a ROCK! And not even a painted rock!)

     

    Which episode was that?  Don't think I've ever heard that particular story, but I haven't watched the old series for a while.  I may just have to get Netflix, now that I see they even have 1st Doctor episodes in streaming.

    I have no idea what the BBC's funding structure actually looked like, but I don't think Doctor Who would have been the same with a big budget.  Working cheap forced them to be creative; The Power of Kroll was a great episode, and they were trying to pull off the biggest monster in series history.  Granted it was obviously a puppet, but it still worked, and the camp factor was part of the charm in the old series.  Just isn't the same now, though I did like the Christopher Eccleston episodes.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Justice said:
    Only thing you were wrong about there was the exact line,
    Well, it's not like that's the only time I've heard "miles" used on British TV/movies. You hear it all the freakin' time, because British people say it all the freakin' time.

    Well, certainly far more often than we use "freakin". My point was that British people don't generally use "a half mile" as a noun phrase (although "a half-mile long traffic jam" would be an idiomatic phrase). It's the sort of thing you might not pick up on if you only have limited exposure to British speech, Then again, someone who has had only limited exposure to British speech would not normally know how British people use various units of measurement.



  • @__moz said:

    British people don't generally use "a half mile" as a noun phrase

    ... except in popular TV shows!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I always wondered, at that time the UK had, what, 4 TV channels? And 2 of those were actually funded by taxpayers?
    There were only 3 channels (2 of which funded via the licence fee) during Tom Baker's stint as Dr Who. The fourth channel started airing the year after he finished.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @__moz said:
    British people don't generally use "a half mile" as a noun phrase
    ... except in popular TV shows!

    It's possible. I could never get into the whole "reality TV" thing, so there are a lot of popular TV shows which I haven't seen.

    A program such as Dr. Who wouldn't use a phrase like that, though. While I'm sure there have been a few strange species which have a poor grasp of English, I doubt any of them would ever have had cause to talk about distances in human terms.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @__moz said:
    British people don't generally use "a half mile" as a noun phrase

    ... except in popular TV shows!

     

    I think the point was that they'd rather use "half a mile" (I thought that was the point from the beginning, but apparently it wasn't).



  • @__moz said:

    A program such as Dr. Who wouldn't use a phrase like that, though.

    They did. Stop denying reality. It's giving me a headache. And making me all stabby.



  • @AndyCanfield said:

    Hey guys, this was a discussion about dumbbells. When did exercise equipment segway into British culture?

    You must be new here.

     



  • @__moz said:

    British people don't generally use "a half mile" as a noun phrase
    Except when they do:

    <font face="Courier New" size="2">DONNA
    All sorts of things.
    (after a moment's thought)
    But my job, I suppose. It was on Earth... this planet called Earth, <font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);" color="#000000"> miles away</font>. But I had this job as a temp. I was a secretary at this place called H.C. Clements.
    (She gives a strange lurch)</font>

    <font face="Courier New" size="2">DONNA
    Hold on... but this is... I'm not... this is Sutton Court! I'm half a mile away!
    (yells to the sky)
    I'm half a mile away!  </font>



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @__moz said:

    British people don't generally use "a half mile" as a noun phrase
    Except when they do:

    <font face="Courier New" size="2">DONNA
    All sorts of things.
    (after a moment's thought)
    But my job, I suppose. It was on Earth... this planet called Earth, <font color="#000000"> miles away</font>. But I had this job as a temp. I was a secretary at this place called H.C. Clements.
    (She gives a strange lurch)</font>

    <font face="Courier New" size="2">DONNA
    Hold on... but this is... I'm not... this is Sutton Court! I'm half a mile away!
    (yells to the sky)
    I'm half a mile away!  </font>

     

    I sense that word order is being glossed over.  Think for a moment whether you can name a politician who has "a small group of fanatical supporters".

    Then think whether you can name one who has "a fanatical group of small supporters".

    Did you come up with the same name twice?  I suppose it's possible but the odds are against it.

     



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @__moz said:
    A program such as Dr. Who wouldn't use a phrase like that, though.
    They did. Stop denying reality. It's giving me a headache. And making me all stabby.

    They did? Do you remember which episode or series you heard this in?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @El_Heffe said:

    @__moz said:

    British people don't generally use "a half mile" as a noun phrase
    Except when they do:

    <font size="2" face="Courier New">DONNA

    All sorts of things.

    (after a moment's thought)

    But my job, I suppose. It was on Earth... this planet called Earth, <font color="#000000">
    miles away
    </font>. But I had this job as a temp. I was a secretary at this place
    called H.C. Clements.

    (She gives a strange lurch)</font>

    <font size="2" face="Courier New">DONNA

    Hold on... but this is... I'm not... this is Sutton Court! I'm half a
    mile away
    !

    (yells to the sky)

    I'm half a mile away!  </font>

    "a half mile" != "half a mile".



  • @PJH said:

    Fosters

    Eww.

    @PJH said:

    pints

    Here in Australia when we metricated (before I was born) a millilitre measurement close to the imperial was picked. So we still have "pint glasses" but they are 570mL. Though now the largest glass many bars carry is the schooner at 425mL.

    @PJH said:

    Servings today are either 25ml or 35ml, or multiples thereof.

    How am I meant to keep my alcohol levels regulated if they don't use a standard standard?!? Stupid unstandardised standard drink.



  • @__moz said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @__moz said:
    A program such as Dr. Who wouldn't use a phrase like that, though.
    They did. Stop denying reality. It's giving me a headache. And making me all stabby.

    They did? Do you remember which episode or series you heard this in?

    Yah. Waaay too obvious now.



  • @Zemm said:

    @PJH said:
    Servings today are either 25ml or 35ml, or multiples thereof.
    How am I meant to keep my alcohol levels regulated if they don't use a standard standard?!? Stupid unstandardised standard drink.

    Simple, you stop drinking when the ground starts moving. I agree about the Fosters, though.
    @blakeyrat said:
    @__moz said:
    @blakeyrat said:
    @__moz said:
    A program such as Dr. Who wouldn't use a phrase like that, though.
    They did. Stop denying reality. It's giving me a headache. And making me all stabby.

    They did? Do you remember which episode or series you heard this in?
    Yah. Waaay too obvious now.

    Should I take that as a "no"?



  • @PJH said:

    <FONT face="Courier New" size=2>Hold on... but this is... I'm not... this is Sutton Court! I'm half a mile away!
    (yells to the sky)
    I'm half a mile away! </FONT>

    Yes, but the TARDIS universal translator is allowed to make mistakes like this when it's important to the plot. And I think this plot point was caused by the TARDIS to start with.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Qwerty said:

    @PJH said:

    <font size="2" face="Courier New">Hold on... but this is... I'm not... this is Sutton Court! I'm half a mile away!
    (yells to the sky)
    I'm half a mile away! </font>

    Yes, but the TARDIS universal translator is allowed to make mistakes like this when it's important to the plot. And I think this plot point was caused by the TARDIS to start with.

    1) You're misquoting there
    2) Since Donna is English, there'd be nothing for the TARDIS to translate. Not that there's a perceivable mistake there to begin with.


  • @Qwerty said:

    <FONT face="Courier New" size=2>Hold on... but this is... I'm not... this is Sutton Court! I'm half a mile away!
    (yells to the sky)
    I'm half a mile away! </FONT>

    1] See tags.

    2] If she's speaking to the sky, what language is the Tardis translating it into? I should think the better answer is that the Tardis doesn't need to translate anything since there's no listener.


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