Chit-Chat

jakematic said:

she "can't visualize how big a kilo of water is" <facepalm>

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I bet who doesn't know how much a gallon of water weighs either.

romad said:

BTW, aren't you glad the U.S. defined the inch as 2.54cm, replacing the ENGLISH definition of "3 barley corns"?

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ZOMG - I just learned this week the French inch is different.
Of course that book was written in 1946 so who knows what transpired since !

Uwe said:

I bet who doesn't know how much a gallon of water weighs either.

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Don't get me started... I beg of you... please...

Uwe said:

I bet who doesn't know how much a gallon of water weighs either.

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Doesn't that depend on which state the water is in, solid, liquid, vapor? Or at least the temperature?


More than you probably want to know: http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/h44-12.cfm
but appendices B & C are of interest.

Meanwhile in Estonia.

vreihen said:

The answer is that we won the war, so there!

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hmmm... bit before my time, but from what I have read, whilst the American contribution to victory was not insubstantial, there were a bunch of other countries involved! But you guys did help us a lot in the pacific region - for which successive Aussie generations will be (should be) eternally grateful.

Vreihen said:

Seriously though, I'm going to use the same logic against England. Why on Earth do you insist on driving on the incorrect side of the road, and in cars that cost significantly more to make for your market because the steering apparatus is on the wrong side?

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Touché - good point . I'm beaten by your better argument albeit I'm not sure that I would characterise "the wrong side" as an accurate description. Rather, I think the better way of putting it might be "the other side". Perhaps with the eventual globalisation of everything, we will all adopt the common systems and we will just become an amorphous mass of sameness!

It is very simple: Britain, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia are islands while mainland countries in Africa, Asia and South America that still do so are former colonies and were forced into it by their British oppressors.

romad said:

It is very simple: Britain, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia are islands while mainland countries in Africa, Asia and South America that still do so are former colonies and were forced into it by their British oppressors.

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Romad: rather than being "forced into it", I suspect that our preferred driver's side was just a casual consequence of the habits of the original convicts and their captors that first settled here (i.e. horse drawn vehicles). Do you know if the US always drove on the other side (i.e. In the real early days), or was there a deliberate shift in where you drove at some point in your history?

DV52 said:

Romad: rather than being "forced into it", I suspect that our preferred driver's side was just a casual consequence of the habits of the original convicts and their captors that first settled here (i.e. horse drawn vehicles). Do you know if the US always drove on the other side (i.e. In the real early days), or was there a deliberate shift in where you drove at some point in your history?

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It seems to have been that way from our early colonial times (17th Century): http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/right.cfm Looks like the first law mandating it was by the State of Pennsylvania in 1792.

Hey, that article even cites an Australian historian!

romad said:

Looks like the first law mandating it was by the State of Pennsylvania in 1792.

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Hmm... don't all good things come out of Pennsylvania?

DV52 said:

Hmm... don't all good things come out of Pennsylvania?

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Ehhh.... no.

It just happens to be one of the oldest political, financial and cultural centres in America.
Philadelphia was once the capital of the country.

jakematic said:

Ehhh.... no.

It just happens to be one of the oldest political, financial and cultural centres in America.
Philadelphia was once the capital of the country.

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Jake: I must respectfully bow to your better understanding of American history (albeit now that you have raised the matter, I will try to find-out why Philadelphia lost out to Washington DC - I bet it had something to do with political compromise).

Anyhow my reference to "all good things coming out of Pennsylvania" referred to that legendary and universally loved institution that resides at 881 Sumneytown Pike Lansdale !! From what I hear, they make some pretty nifty stuff there!!

DV52 said:

Jake: I must respectfully bow to better understanding of American history (albeit now that you have raised the matter, I will try to find-out why Philadelphia lost out to Washington DC - I bet it had something to do with political compromise).

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Didn't I see Jake's signature on the Declaration of Independence?


Seriously though, I believe the reason for DC being selected as the Capitol was the founding fathers wanting to *not* have it located in any specific state. The District of Columbia is not a state, and doesn't have a vote in Congress (although it does have a Congresscritter who can participate but not vote). Don't miss the irony of "taxation without representation" being one of the great rally cries that stirred the Revolutionary War, and then we arranged our own federal government that taxes the people of DC and doesn't give them votes in Congress.....

Uwe said:

I bet who doesn't know how much a gallon of water weighs either.

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Ten pounds at STP on their side of the pond, and about 8.3 on our side. The reason for the difference is that their gravity is stronger because the UK sucks. I'm still confused about why they get better miles per gallon over there, despite the stronger gravity.....

DV52 said:

Touché - good point . I'm beaten by your better argument albeit I'm not sure that I would characterise "the wrong side" as an accurate description. Rather, I think the better way of putting it might be "the other side". Perhaps with the eventual globalisation of everything, we will all adopt the common systems and we will just become an amorphous mass of sameness!

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I stand by my "wrong side" description, because I was nearly killed more than once simply crossing the road. Why did the silly American cross the road? To get blindsided by a double-decker bus! The American school system of the 1960's and 1970's drilled two things into every kid -- duck and cover, and look left, right, and left again before crossing the street. There must be enough pedestrian accidents in London where they actually painted "LOOK RIGHT" on the asphalt at crosswalks in the tourist areas to remind everyone from Europe and the rest of the civilized world of the British's refusal to get with the program.

Speaking of metric, I found my pictures from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. Here's the Shepherd gate clock with the benchmarks below, and my size 12 paw in the public measurement benchmark for one foot:





It does bear mentioning that I rode a scooter for over 50 miles in Bermuda on the wrong side of the road without crashing into anything, although traffic circles (roundabouts) did bother me a little bit having to drive them in the Formula 1 direction and not NASCAR direction.....

DV52 said:

my reference to "all good things coming out of Pennsylvania" referred to that legendary and universally loved institution that resides at 881 Sumneytown Pike Lansdale !! From what I hear, they make some pretty nifty stuff there!!

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Yes they do!
I lived/worked in PA for 3 years and it wasn't a great experience other than a few people I met.
One went on to run his own mammoth company, one is a VP of a global outfit now, one owns several Greek isles, etc.
There's a story about a stolen $87,500 cheque I'll tell you someday over beers

vreihen said:

Didn't I see Jake's signature on the Declaration of Independence?

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Shh! You musn't let anyone know my actual age or planet of origin

vreihen said:

I stand by my "wrong side" description, because I was nearly killed more than once simply crossing the road.

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Gads... my team's first trip to England one of the guys thought he should rent a car, I told him he can't drive well here so how was that going to work out...
More than once I almost needed a fresh pair of shorts on my first day in the UK.

You fly from Charlotte to Gatwick and arrive at a crazy early hour, take the train and pray they have at least 5 liters of tea left on the service, then take a cab.
Next thing you know your jetlag-addled brain is sitting in a cab rounding a corner with a double decker on-coming.
Naturally for those of us who drive on the other side of the road you go into panic mode expecting a head on crash

To this day I always look 'the wrong way' first before crossing the street, and am careful which set of stairs I use [think up the down staircase at rush hour in Oxford Circus station]

Uwe said:

Oy-Vey!

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Oy-vey, oo-vey, oo-veh, pick one dammit.

In all seriousness, I think it's disrespectful to mangle someone's name in conversation, so I really am trying to get it right.

Flaps10 said:

And will someone PM me the proper way to pronounce Uwe's name? I was going sheep all the way.

Edit: NM! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLaZNpS6_Ek

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Nice find. I had looked around on Youtube for a bit but I'll swear the one guy I found who introduced himself regularly said it two different ways. My next grand plan was to wait until late at night and then call his office and listen to his voicemail greeting.

Uwe said:

Yeah, that's pretty good, except that most native English speakers can listen to that a hundred times and still don't get it right, at least not consistently.

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I think I can hack that, but I can imagine you're right about consistency. That -veh is a sound English speakers can generate easily enough ("veteran", etc) but I can't think of any words offhand that end like that. It feels a little forced for some reason. I shall practice!

Jason

jakematic said:

Philadelphia was once the capital of the country.

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As were Lancaster and York

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capitals_in_the_United_States#United_States_of_America

vreihen said:

Didn't I see Jake's signature on the Declaration of Independence?

Seriously though, I believe the reason for DC being selected as the Capitol was the founding fathers wanting to *not* have it located in any specific state. The District of Columbia is not a state, and doesn't have a vote in Congress (although it does have a Congresscritter who can participate but not vote). Don't miss the irony of "taxation without representation" being one of the great rally cries that stirred the Revolutionary War, and then we arranged our own federal government that taxes the people of DC and doesn't give them votes in Congress.....

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It was part of the framing of the Constitution. The large northern states wanted the new government to assume their Revolutionary War debts while the smaller southern states (who had paid off their debts) didn't. The quid pro quo was if the southern states acquiesced on the debt issue, the national capital would be moved out of New York and Philadelphia to a southern location.* George Washington was asked to pick the site and he chose a 100 square mile square site straddling the Potomac River, taking in parts of Maryland and Virginia since it was close to his Mount Vernon home.

The District of Columbia is represented by ALL elected members of Congress according to the Constitution plus additional non-voting delegates in the House of Representatives have been added.. The residents vote for their city government and vote for president. The only ways to change it would be amending the Constitution to give DC separate voting representation in both Houses of Congress (ala the 23rd amendment), or to retrocede the residential sections surrounding the core governmental area to Maryland.

*This actual agreement wasn't reached until 3 years after the Constitutional Convention so it is called "The Compromise of 1790"

jyoung8607 said:

My next grand plan was to wait until late at night and then call his office and listen to his voicemail greeting.

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Old sales trick - done it a thousand times to get past gatekeepers.

jyoung8607 said:

That -veh is a sound English speakers can generate easily enough ("veteran", etc) but I can't think of any words offhand that end like that.

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The ending isn't the hard part for native English speakers....

jyoung8607 said:

My next grand plan was to wait until late at night and then call his office and listen to his voicemail greeting.

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Suppose his voicemail message says "Thank you for calling Ross-Tech" and doesn't have his name?????