It's so cold...
Leonard &
It's so cold today I saw a devil buying a snow shovel in McGuckins... =^D
--
==Leonard
==Leonard E. Sitongia Computer System Management Team (CSMT)
sito...@ncar.ucar.edu voice: (303)497-1509 fax: (303)497-1589
High Altitude Observatory P.O. Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307 USA
Thomas David Kehoe
It was so cold today that I saw a politician standing with his hands
in his own pockets. :-)
--
Ask me for the STUTTERING FAQ.
Visit the Stuttering Science & Therapy Website: www.casafuturatech.com
Thomas David Kehoe ke...@netcom.com (888) FLU-ENCY
Transient Ischemic Attack
Leonard & wrote:
>
> It's so cold today I saw a devil buying a snow shovel in McGuckins...
Okay, okay, I know this isn't Boulder.Jokes, but I just gotta...
So this guy who used to work in a boiler room all day every day
for fifty years (don't stop me if you know this one because it's
too late anyhow) dies and he goes to hell. Satan shows up and
says "Ha! New Victim!!! Time to suffer, scum!!" and he turns
up the temperature to where its BLAZING hot.
"All right!!" says the man, "God it feels just like home!!"
The Devil, a little perplexed, says, "Oh, yeah??" and he turns up
the heat until it's AFRICA hot, and the dude's skin is melting the
frigg off.
"Sweeeeeeet!" cries the man, with a liquidy grin, "I looooove it
hot!!"
So the Devil, having done this line of work for a while, says,
"You like it hot, eh?" and he turns the climate controls down
to Top-Of-Mount-Everest icicle fricking cold. With a triumphant
grin, he goes back to find the dude, shivering for all he's worth,
ice caked all over him, blue as a smurf, is STILL SMILING! He
says, "What the hell?? You like it freezing cold, too??"
"No," said the man, "I hate it. But I'm happy 'cos the Broncos
must have just won the Superbowl!!"
Sorry.... I'll go shoot myself now.
-BWD.
-=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=- -=<>=-
_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/_/ Brian W. Drake, EMT-B/IV
_/ _/_/ _/ _/ Software Engineerin' Fool
_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ & Humble Servant of ODDI
_/ _/ _/_/ _/ Surgical Navigation Teks
_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ dra...@ebola.subrosa.com
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Remember: ODDI is all-powerful. Serve ODDI.
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Your quote of the day is:
"Imagine you are a congressman. Now, imagine you are an idiot. But,
I repeat myself..."
-- Mark Twain
Have a happy day..
Jack Reed
In article <32da8248....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, Scott....@worldnet.att.net (Scott Weiser) writes:
|> On Tue, 14 Jan 1997 05:56:24 GMT, ke...@netcom.com (Thomas David
|> Kehoe) wrote:
|>
|> >
|> >It was so cold today that I saw a politician standing with his hands
|> >in his own pockets. :-)
|>
|> It was so cold today that I saw a bunch of brass monkeys warming
^^^^^^^
|> themselves over a witch.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Which part?
Robert Parson
A few years ago, during a particularly bad cold snap, the Camera
published an Annotated Thermometer as its editorial cartoon. It
looked something like this (this is from memory; the original
had several more entries):
+40 Californians shiver uncontrollably; Minnesotans go swimming.
+30 Californians weep pitiably; Minnesotans eat ice cream.
+20 You can see your breath.
+10 You need jumper cables to get the car going.
+ 5 Too cold to snow.
0 You can hear your breath.
- 5 Too cold to skate.
-10 You need jumper cables to get the driver going.
-20 Too cold to think.
-30 You can cut your breath and use it to build an igloo.
-40 Californians disappear; Minnesotans button top button.
------
Robert
Hyperion Systems
In article <5bocd7$l...@ncar.ucar.edu>,
Colin Rosenthal <rose...@hao.ucar.edu> wrote:
>But can anybody really argue against switching over to Centigrade/Celsius
>for temperature? It's such a simple, logical, system based on familiar
>landmarks - freezing and boiling. Am I crying in the wilderness here?
Well, yes, you are crying in the wilderness, but I have a theory on why we
stick to the "English System".
Wall Street.
You see, if we were to convert to the metric system, our kids would no
longer spend to much time on fractions long about the fourth grade. We
would not need to spend so much time on calculating how many furlongs in a
hectare, or how many ounces in a stone.
Now, what would happen, was that our kids would get really good at
decimals, since calculating with the matric system is so easy. So, we
would spend our entire life doing decimals, and what is also primarily
decimals? Money! That's right, we would all be good financial managers,
because we would understand the nuances inherent in decimal calculation.
If that were to happen, we would not need Social Security, since we would
all have enough money to retire comfortably. Now, Wall Street cooked up
Social Security decades ago so that it would fail, and need to be bailed
out by, who? Right: Wall Street!
Well, it appears as if that is going to happen soon. So, in the end, Wall
Street gets its wish, and gets all our tax money, and we are all left
wondering why there are really 1.8 Farenheit degrees in every Celsius
degree.
- John
Daniel Packman
>for temperature? It's such a simple, logical, system based on familiar
>landmarks - freezing and boiling. Am I crying in the wilderness here?
IMHO the main advantage of the metric system is the easy conversion from
one unit (eg, cm) to another unit (eg, km). This conversion for units of
length and mass (kg, g, milligrams...) is common. It is less common to
need to convert temperature to any other unit. The 'feeling' of the numbers
associated with temperature are just as easy to come by in Farenheight as
they are in Celsius. An argument could be made that an absolute scale
(Kelvin or Rankine or electron volts) is a better and more fundamental
choice, but for common usage outside the lab, the important thing is that
people like the "feel" of the numbers they use. I was raised on Farenheight
and Celsius degrees just feel too big. Anyway, lets all agree that when
its 40 below is damn cold.
William Fickas
Dave Shapiro wrote:
>
> Colin Rosenthal (rose...@asp.hao.ucar.edu) wrote:
>
> : I can understand Americans wanting to keep imperial units for weights
> : and measures, even if they do insist on calling them "English".
>
> I can't. We have ten fingers, and we work in base ten. Why are there twelve
> inches to a foot?
8< --- snip
The same reason there are 180 degrees between the F freezing and boiling
points of water: 12 and 180 divide into pieces (more price factors)
better than 10 and 100. With 10 divisions only 1/2, 1/5 and 1/10 are
even. With 12 divisions one can get 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6 and 1/12.
William Fickas wfi...@kentek.com
Hyperion Systems
In article <32DFFC...@kentek.com>,
William Fickas <wfi...@kentek.com> wrote:
>The same reason there are 180 degrees between the F freezing and boiling
>points of water: 12 and 180 divide into pieces (more price factors)
>better than 10 and 100. With 10 divisions only 1/2, 1/5 and 1/10 are
>even. With 12 divisions one can get 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6 and 1/12.
This would seem to be a chicken and egg scenario. Did we happen to be
able to divide a foot up into 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, and 1/12 because we
happen to choose 12 inches, or did we choose 12 inches so we would have
more divisions?
I've always heard that an inch was equal the the length of the ruling
king's second segment on his right pinky, and a foot was equal to the
length of the ruling king's foot. Just so happens that the last king had
12 pinky segments per foot.
- John
Colin Rosenthal
I can understand Americans wanting to keep imperial units for weights
and measures, even if they do insist on calling them "English".
But can anybody really argue against switching over to Centigrade/Celsius
for temperature? It's such a simple, logical, system based on familiar
landmarks - freezing and boiling. Am I crying in the wilderness here?
Colin Rosenthal
Tom Christiansen
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
In boulder.general,
dsh...@argo.ecte.uswc.uswest.com (Dave Shapiro) writes:
:Colin Rosenthal (rose...@asp.hao.ucar.edu) wrote:
:: I can understand Americans wanting to keep imperial units for weights
:: and measures, even if they do insist on calling them "English".
:
:I can't. We have ten fingers, and we work in base ten. Why are there twelve
:inches to a foot?
Because it's useful. I'd rather have 2 and 3 (and preferably several
of each) as prime factors than 2 and 5. Many, many early cultures realized
how nice it was to make integral divisions, and used 12, 60, and/or
360. Why do we have 60 seconds per minute and per second? What about
24 hours per day? Why does a circle have 360 degrees? Why aren't we
blindly changing all them? Because it's too useful as it is.
And liquid measures are actually in binary, because it's always nice
to have half or double of something:
dram 1 2**0 drams
- *= 2 2**1 drams
tablespoon *= 2 2**2 drams
ounce *= 2 2**3 drams
- *= 2 2**4 drams
gill, noggin *= 2 2**5 drams
cup *= 2 2**6 drams
pint *= 2 2**7 drams
quart *= 2 2**8 drams
magnum *= 2 2**8 drams
gallon *= 2 2**10 drams
That makes one gallon equal to a kilodram (2**10 drams).
And it's not by accident that a pint of water weighs one pound.
Base 10 is not so natural as you seem to think. Base 12 and base 60 are
infinitely more convenient than base 10, and base 2 has serious uses as
well. And in this culture that can't hope to do long division without a
calculator anyway, it doesn't matter. And don't tell me computer prefer
base 10 either.
Quick, if I'm travelling 10 meters per second, how far do I get in a
hour? A day? Whoops. Guess that doesn't work out so nicely. I'll go
metric when everyone and everything else does, including time. Don't make
me convert miles/hour into meters/second unless we have have 100 seconds
per minutes and 100 minutes per hour and 10 hours per day. Until then, I
intend to continue with English mesaurements, as do a quarter billion
other Americans, and at least 20 or 30 million Englishmen. (Centigrade
I don't mind too much, though.)
People tease the English for having (had) a monetary system of 240 pence
per pound. But it's infinitely sensible: in a nation of shopkeepers,
having more ways to divide is great when something's N per pound, since
with prime factors of 4 2's, a 3, and a 5, you can divide evenly by any
of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 30, 40, 60, 80, or 120.
Marvellous!
--tom
--
Tom Christiansen Perl Consultant, Gamer, Hiker tch...@mox.perl.com
f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
J Michael Hayes
In article <5boqbk$7...@ncar.ucar.edu>,
Daniel Packman <pa...@uars1.acd.ucar.edu> wrote:
>Anyway, lets all agree that when
>its 40 below is damn cold.
>
>
(in Farenheit of course)
25-40 brisk
15-25 invigorating
0-15 chilly
-20-0 a bit cold
-40--20 cold
<-40 damn cold
unless a better base 60 system can be adopted. :-)
Mike
Thomas David Kehoe
Scott Weiser <Scott....@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>It was so cold today that I saw a bunch of brass monkeys warming
??? The phrase is, "...so cold I met a brass monkey on his way
to the welder's."
For the literate..."cold as Finnegan's feet the day they buried
him."
From Raymond Chandler: "...cold as a nightwatchman's feet."
From Peter MacDougall: "...cold enough to freeze a yak."
From P.G. Wodehouse: "...colder than a halibut on ice."
None of those would be uttered by a Typical Boulderite(tm).
The Typical Boulderite(tm) says, "as long as I keep moving
I don't get cold." Typical Boulderites(tm) never admit being cold.
E.g., last week it was -7 during the Boulder Road Runners Club
Sunday morning run. I wore a thin polypro undershirt, and a
lightweight fleece shirt, and I was sweating.
Scott Weiser
>Scott Weiser <Scott....@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>It was so cold today that I saw a bunch of brass monkeys warming
>>themselves over a witch.
>
>??? The phrase is, "...so cold I met a brass monkey on his way
>to the welder's."
Hey, that was an original....an allusion to the thermal
characteristics of a magical crone's mammary.....
Regards,
Scott Weiser
******
"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend upon my
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!"
******
Copyright 1997 by Scott Weiser
Jim Shapiro
Tom Christiansen (tch...@mox.perl.com) wrote:
: [courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
: In boulder.general,
: dsh...@argo.ecte.uswc.uswest.com (Dave Shapiro) writes:
: :Colin Rosenthal (rose...@asp.hao.ucar.edu) wrote:
: :: I can understand Americans wanting to keep imperial units for weights
: :: and measures, even if they do insist on calling them "English".
: :
: :I can't. We have ten fingers, and we work in base ten. Why are there twelve
: :inches to a foot?
: Because it's useful. I'd rather have 2 and 3 (and preferably several
: of each) as prime factors than 2 and 5. Many, many early cultures realized
: how nice it was to make integral divisions, and used 12, 60, and/or
: 360. Why do we have 60 seconds per minute and per second? What about
: 24 hours per day? Why does a circle have 360 degrees? Why aren't we
: blindly changing all them? Because it's too useful as it is.
: And liquid measures are actually in binary, because it's always nice
: to have half or double of something:
: dram 1 2**0 drams
: - *= 2 2**1 drams
Do not forget teaspoon = tablespoon / 3 , oops! Where did that pesky
three come from.
: tablespoon *= 2 2**2 drams
: ounce *= 2 2**3 drams
: - *= 2 2**4 drams
: gill, noggin *= 2 2**5 drams
: cup *= 2 2**6 drams
: pint *= 2 2**7 drams
: quart *= 2 2**8 drams
: magnum *= 2 2**8 drams
: gallon *= 2 2**10 drams
: That makes one gallon equal to a kilodram (2**10 drams).
: And it's not by accident that a pint of water weighs one pound.
: Base 10 is not so natural as you seem to think. Base 12 and base 60 are
: infinitely more convenient than base 10, and base 2 has serious uses as
: well. And in this culture that can't hope to do long division without a
: calculator anyway, it doesn't matter. And don't tell me computer prefer
: base 10 either.
[snip]
And do not overlook calories which, besides being an oddball size,
are there to constantly remind us that heat energy is somehow different
from other forms of energy. Oh, not the "calorie" used to measure the
food energy - those are really kilocalories.
The British Thermal Unit is another good one. Now the energy depends
on gravity! It is not even an intrinsic unit.
And then there are the units for weight. So now we are supposed to
keep track of the pull of gravity times our mass. Make sure you
take the centrifugal force and the earth's radius into account if
you weigh yourself in different places.
English units are sort of like EBCDIC. Each had their time and place,
but it is time to move on to standardized systems. Even IBM realized
that when they switched to ASCII with the introduction of the PC.
Scientists, the people who have to work with numbers and units all
day long, have long since realized the value of the metric system. Me
too.
One more, often overlooked problem, is that of American tool makers
who find it difficult to compete in the international market because
they have to make two versions of all of their tools. I am all for
standardization. In the long run it helps everybody.
: Tom Christiansen Perl Consultant, Gamer, Hiker tch...@mox.perl.com
--
Beware of all endeavors which require the purchase of new software.
(With apologies to Henry David Thoreau.)
Jim Shapiro
Markus Berndt
: That makes one gallon equal to a kilodram (2**10 drams).
: And it's not by accident that a pint of water weighs one pound.
.. surprise: one litre of water weighs one kilogram!
- Markus
--
Markus Berndt - office: (303) 492-0685, fax: 492-4066 fax, home: 440-9158
Department of Applied Math, C.B. 526, Univ. of CO, Boulder, CO 80309-0526
URL -------- http://amath-www.colorado.edu/appm/student/berndt/index.html
Gary Strand
tc> Tom Christiansen
tc> Quick, if I'm travelling 10 meters per second, how far do I get in a hour?
36 km. If you don't know than 1 hour = 3600 seconds, you've got a problem.
How often do you refer to something travelling at X feet/second? How easy is
it to remember than 3600/5280 is 0.681 (approximately)?
tc> A day?
864 km.
tc> Guess that doesn't work out so nicely.
What do you mean? How many acres in a square mile? How many square feet in
an acre? How many square yards in an acre? How many miles is 100,000 feet?
tc> I'll go metric when everyone and everything else does, including time.
Ahhh, but you see, time isn't exactly amenable to nice easy measurement,
metric or otherwise, since it's astronomically based. You can them whatever
you want, but the time it takes the earth to make one orbit is just about
365.2422 times it takes to make one rotation on its axis. That number is
the same (well, not counting its change over some lengthy period of time)
regardless of whether you call one orbit a "year" made up of "days" or
something else.
Surely, given a decimal number system, a decimal measurement system makes
sense. Or do you think in combinations of base-2, base-3, and base-12?
--
Gary Strand
stra...@ucar.edu http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/gary
Max L. Tindell
Scott Weiser wrote:
<snip>
> It was so cold today that I saw a bunch of brass monkeys warming
> themselves over a witch.
>
>
> Scott Weiser
>
Scott,
I find that truly hard to believe. The "monkey" referred to in the oft
cited saying was in fact a triangular shaped tray made of brass used on
old sailing warships. Upon this tray the iron cannonballs were stacked
in a pyramid shape. When it got cold, real cold, the difference in the
expansion coefficient of the two metals caused the pyramid of balls to
collapse, thus freezing the balls off the brass monkey.
Max
Scott Weiser
How very interesting! I had no idea. Thanks for the derivation of
the term.
In that case, it was so cold I saw a bunch of balls warming their
brass monkey over a witch.....;-)