Dear Readers:
As most of you are probably aware, the United States of America, Burma, and Liberia are the only countries in the world that have NOT adopted the metric system.
Every other country in the world has gone “digital” and measures distance and temperature and weight and volume and time etc. etc. in a standardized, world wide, cohesive scale.
The States just refuses to convert out of sheer stubbornness, and is even complicating the system they have by adding more stupid stuff that only an American would understand.
And WHY, you ask!
Because sometimes feet and seconds just won’t do, folks!

1. The Wheaton

It’s no surprise that the delightfully geeky actor Wil Wheaton was one of the first celebs to embrace Twitter, but he was also one of the first to attract a massive number of followers.
When half a million people subscribed to his Tweets, that number was dubbed a “Wheaton” by John Kovalic.
Today, the actor has over 1.8 million followers, but the Wheaton has remained 500,000—meaning that Wil Wheaton actually has about 3.6 Wheatons.

2. The smoot

A smoot is exactly 5 feet, 7 inches—the height of MIT freshman Oliver Smoot in 1958 when he was used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge. Smoot’s fraternity brothers determined the bridge was exactly 364.4 smoots long, plus one ear.


3. The beard-second


A beard-second is the average length a man’s beard grows in 1 second.
However, experts disagree on what that length is.
Some say 10 nanometers; others, including the Google calculator, say it’s 5.

4. The Helen

Helen of Troy’s magnificent mug is said to have launched 1,000 ships.
But what if there’s just one ship that needs help getting out of port?
Well, then you need a milliHelen.
According to writer David Lance Goines and his Helen system of measurement, a picoHelen is the unit of beauty that inspires men to “barbecue a couple of steaks and toss an inner tube into the pool.”
Meanwhile, a teraHelen has the potential to “launch the equivalent of 1,000 trillion Greek warships.”

5. The sheppey

A herd of sheep can be picturesque from a distance, but the closer you get, the dirtier and more matted the wool looks.
Fortunately, writers Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, coauthors of the humorous dictionary The Meaning of Liff, have given us a way to measure that distance.
A sheppey is how far you need to stay away from a group of sheep so that they resemble cute balls of fluff.
One sheppey is equal to about 7/8 of a mile.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/27682/wheaton-and-other-unusual-units-measurement
(And remember, ya heard it here first! -Ed.)
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Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian journalist, writer and commentator, iso one of my favourite people, and when he writes something……….., I listen!
Mr. Dyer just wrote an article about nuclear “fusion,” (not fission) and he informed us of the fact that Lockheed-Martin is so sure of obtaining a break even point in the generation of electricity that they will have a working model within five years!
(Now I realize that this “five year plan” has been tossed around for the last fifty years, but if it does come to pass there are things in the works that will change the face of the world as we know it!)
I hadn’t quite realized the full implications of these new “realities” before us, but let me pass on some of the things that will happen!
- First of all, power from nuclear fusion is not only safe, it’s CLEAN ………….., no radioactive waste, no risk of meltdowns, and no carbon dioxide emissions!
- This new nuclear power would rapidly replace coal, oil and natural gas as our main power source, and be the back-up for wind and solar!
- With new nuclear fusion power stations and electric cars the Global Warming problem would be solved!
- The oil market would collapse and those assholes holding the world to ransom with high oil prices would go back to being nothing more than a minor irritant!
(Sounds like a plan to me!)
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Today's this-must-be-Florida entry from the crime blotter comes from the city of Deltona, where police say a 500-pound man resisted arrest simply by sitting down and challenging deputies to move him, reports WKMG.


They did manage to get 45-year-old Howard Hendrix out of the house, but then ran into another obstacle: He was too big to fit in the patrol car.
 

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