Fathoming airport wifi port tribbles
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I assume you mean Fahrenheit vs Celsius, in which case:EXCUSE ME?More people in the world have experienced temperatures of 0°C than 0°F.And 100°C is not extremely far away from human experience, either. Cooking is something that was already done in the late stone age.
You did a good job missing the point. For now I'm assuming deliberately based on past interaction.
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Um, it was the only thing with a scale of 0-100 that I could think of. And I wanted to show that I am talking about °C and °F.
But this topic is stupid anyways and it is embarrassing that there are even discussions about it.
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The 16 ounces of a pint
Uh-huh. I presume those are metric fluid ounces and not imperial ones?
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Colonial!
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Imperial Measurements:
(/me is giggling like a schoolgirl)
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The fact that the imperial system is littered with obsolete units nobody uses kind of makes his point, doesn't it? Besides, they're not obsolete. They're just outside your particular experience. In ships, they use nautical miles and knots, and presumably whatever divisions of those are appropriate. Other domains may use some other 'obsolete' measures.
The point being, metric allows for everyone to use the same units. A sailor can tell a trucker how windy it is without the other guy having to figure out how knots is converted to miles per hour.
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So sailors are TRWTF?
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The fact that the imperial system is littered with obsolete units nobody uses kind of makes his point, doesn't it?
For those obsolete units, sure. But, um, no one uses those.
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They're just outside your particular experience.
So tell me, who still uses the furlong? How about an oxgate, furgate, or carucate?
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Am I the only one reminded of these by the topic title?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFzhjnjXc2o
No, I was way past Romper Room in the 70's; I just remember the TV commercials.
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Just did a little research. You are apparently correct. Also, Burma apparently uses miles and furlongs on their road signs.
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I was going to link the Wikipedia article, but you read it already. I can't even find definitions for oxgate, furgate or carucate. I'll point out, however, that @FrostCat called points, fathoms and furlongs obsolete. Furlongs are still in use, so they're not obsolete.
Points are used for font sizes, so they're not obsolete either (or maybe he didn't mean points? He didn't clarify which he thought were obsolete).
Lets check fathoms: Water depth, most modern nautical charts indicate depth in metres. However, the U.S. Hydrographic Office uses feet and fathoms. Not obsolete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathom
So, despite @another_sam trying to make a joke, and @FrostCat getting pissy about it, every one of those units is still in use. Not even the people defending the system take it seriously or can be bothered to know what all their own units mean, but expect the rest of the world to keep doing conversions when trying to interact.
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font sizes
THOSE ARE THE WORST.
Seriously, what's the difference between ens and ems and px and pt and whatever else there is and howTF do they work and whenTF should you use them?
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oxgate, furgate or carucate
And oxgang was the area which could be plowed by an ox during a single plowing season. Typically about 15 acres. A
furgatevirgate (sorry, got that one wrong) is similar, only accounting for 2 oxen instead of 1, so about 30 acres. Finally a carucate was the area which 8 oxen can plow in a single season, or about 120 acres.This all came from the original definition of an acre: The area a man and ox could plow in a single day.
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Seriously, what's the difference between ens and ems and px and pt and whatever else there is and howTF do they work and whenTF should you use them?
ens and ems are the width of the respective letter in that font. Since M is usually the approximately the widest letter in a proportional font, it's a useful metric for "how much space at most will I need to reserve?"
px you should probably never use, since it's pixels. if you use points, you get scaling on different devices.
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Since m is usually the approximately the widest lower-case letter in a proportional font,
FTFY
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Seriously, what's the difference between ens and ems and px and pt and whatever else there is and howTF do they work and whenTF should you use them?
oh, oh, I know this one! I just read about it in Practical Typography.
and
In a traditional metal font, the em was the vertical distance from the top of a piece of type to the bottom. The en was half the size of the em. Originally, the width of the em and en dashes corresponded to these units. In today’s digital fonts, they run narrower.
Whereas pixels is measurable on the screen.
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I prefer px unless I need to print something out. After all, getting a device's resolution is easier than getting it's pixel density, which would be required to convert pt to px to then show it on the screen.
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>Since m is usually the approximately the widest lower-case letter in a proportional font,
FTFY
I was right the first time. :P
"The name "em" was originally a reference to the width of the the capital "M" in the typeface and size being used, which was often the same as the point size."
Apparently that's not the current definition anyway, so neither of us was right: "An em is a unit in the field of typography, equal to the currently specified point size."
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I prefer px unless I need to print something out.
Yeah, but that's where it's a problem, and why pt is generally better. If you use points, then print size == display size, more or less.
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Unlike many other Americans, I agree with you1. The US missed a golden opportunity to adopt the metric system in 1973, which was, AFAIK, the first time metric units saw any widespread use in the US. During the energy crisis, gasoline prices rose to >$1 for the first time ever, and gas pumps were not made to handle prices that high. For a time, many were modified to dispense in liters (with correspondingly lower prices), but soon manufacturers started producing pumps that could handle prices >$1, and the US's brief flirtation with the metric system fizzled.
Maybe you'll get another chance when gas hits $10 / gal.
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Seriously, what's the difference between ens and ems
IIRC, "en" is the average width of a character, "em" is the width of the widest character (usually either W or M).
and px and pt
"px" are pixels, should be self-explanatory.
"pt" are points, there are (canonically) 72 points to an inch. This is corrected for DPI by the OS-- old school Macs, for example, were 72 DPI, meaning there was a 1-to-1 relationship between points and pixels. Windows has always been 96 DPI. Newer Windows and Macs have all sorts of different DPI settings.
But the real point is: a point is ideally 1/72nd of an inch.
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I prefer px unless I need to print something out. After all, getting a device's resolution is easier than getting it's pixel density, which would be required to convert pt to px to then show it on the screen.
That only works because browsers fudge it for you on high-res displays, because enough people are doing it wrong that they need to to keep sites readable.
You should never be using pixel measurements in CSS.
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Not talking about CSS. I suppose I should clarify the context for my comment.
I've done UI work for games. While it's true that there's a minimum font size you don't want to go below in portable devices, for the most part you'll want to scale with resolution, not screen size.
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I've done UI work for games. While it's true that there's a minimum font size you don't want to go below in portable devices, for the most part you'll want to scale with resolution, not screen size.
As long as you're scaling responsibly and not producing 0.5pt text for for the 13" 5k screens of two years from now, you can do it on your own.
If you're not sure, let the fucking OS or browser do it for you. Please. I already have enough trouble playing games on my 13" 1080p monitor.
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Maybe you'll get another chance when gas hits $10 / gal.
I paid $2.48 last week, with a shopper discount. The place closest to where I live is $2.59 for regular today.
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I was pretty surprised to see prices down to $2.89 at the cheapest places around here. I hadn't seen anything that low in years.
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Well, the ideal is a sane default, plus an option to scale the interface, plus a colorblind version.
We don't always get to work in an ideal world.
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I was pretty surprised to see prices down to $2.89 at the cheapest places around here.
Crude prices are falling due at least partly to drastically increased US production. For some reason the Saudis are not doing what they usually do in such a case, which is to curtail OPEC production.
Who knows how long it'll last, but I keep filling up partial tanks just in case.
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Well, the ideal is a sane default,
Yes, that would be why you'd use points as a measure instead of pixels.
plus an option to scale the interface,
Make sure you actually spend at least 42 microseconds QAing it, unlike Kerbal Space Program.
plus a colorblind version.
If you're not making that (or making it unnecessary in the first place), then you should get far away from the industry and start digging ditches or harvesting grapes or something.
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I was pretty surprised to see prices down to $2.89 at the cheapest places around here. I hadn't seen anything that low in years.
I live in Canada. Odds are we'll actually hit $10 / liter before you guys hit $10 / gal. Maybe that's a disadvantage of the metric system.
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I live in Canada. Odds are we'll actually hit $10 / liter before you guys hit $10 / gal.
Since CAD 10/liter is USD 33.84/gal (US) at today's exchange rate, I would be rather surprised at that.
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Points are used for font sizes, so they're not obsolete either (or maybe he didn't mean points? He didn't clarify which he thought were obsolete).
This right here, this is the point (see what I did there?) I am trying to make, also the joke. People who use Imperial and take it seriously are a joke. Which units do I think are obsolete? All of them! Which points did I mean? What does it matter, they're all obsolete!
The points I'm familiar with are 100th of an inch and used in measuring rainfall, at least on my in-laws farm. I don't know if there is another definition for point, I'd be surprised if there wasn't.
EDIT: Having now read through the rest of the thread I see @blakeyrat has pointed out (hahaha, I kill me) that a point in typography is different. I don't know how you lot build anything without it all falling down.
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Furlongs are still in use, so they're not obsolete.
Imperial French feet are still in use1 too, but that doesn't mean they're not obsolete.
1 They're used for one dimension of real-estate measurements in New Orleans, with the other dimension being the usual ones for the US. Apparently it's because the land was subdivided in one direction before the French Revolution, but not (meaningfully) in the other direction until later.
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The points I'm familiar with are 100th of an inch and used in measuring rainfall, at least on my in-laws farm.
And screw the guy who defined 1 mil at 1/1000 of an inch.
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I don't know if there is another definition for point, I'd be surprised if there wasn't.
In addition to those previously mentioned, a point is also a unit of mass, most commonly used for diamonds: 1/100 of a carat. This is actually a metric (but not SI) unit, as a carat is defined as 0.20 g.
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Which units do I think are obsolete? All of them!
Your tireless tediousity is getting boring. You sound like an American leftist: If it's not your way, you attempt to browbeat them into silence. FOAD, punk.
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Any further response from me on this topic, you may assume consists of "You keep talking, but all I hear is 'Waaaah! My pussy hurts!'"
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browbeat
The question was implied but not asked explicitly, I answered. That's browbeating?
Any further response from me on this topic, you may assume consists of "You keep talking, but all I hear is 'Waaaah! My pussy hurts!'"
Stay classy.
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Spoken like a loser.
Meh. I'll walk away from a pointless conversation if I want. I don't see any point in having a discussion with someone who can only rave about how things he doesn't like should be gotten rid of. Sounds too much like a leftist/SJW/etc.
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I don't see any point in having a discussion with someone who can only rave about how things he doesn't like should be gotten rid of.
Yep. Loser talk.
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takes one to know one
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I paid $2.48 last week, with a shopper discount. The place closest to where I live is $2.59 for regular today.
I was pretty surprised to see prices down to $2.89 at the cheapest places around here. I hadn't seen anything that low in years.
You lucky people and your 87 octane.
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@HardwareGeek said:
I was pretty surprised to see prices down to $2.89 at the cheapest places around here. I hadn't seen anything that low in years.
You lucky people and your 87 octane.
This. I haven't bought low test for my car since 2005.
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I can measure temperature in Centigrade (YES I REFUSE TO CALL IT CELSIUS, DEAL WITH IT)
Better call it centesimal degree though, otherwise people might think you're talking about angular measurement (1/10,000 of a right angle, to be precise).