SI Units

[davywavy]

The system of SI units is a largely internationally-agreed standard units of measurement; things like mass being measured in KG, temperature being measured in degrees kelvin (like a degree centigrade, but colder), and time being measured in seconds.

There are several specialist SI units for very specific circumstances which are rather less well known:

Dinosaur Measurement: The standard unit for measuring the size of a dinosaur is the 'car', so a triceratops is 'about the size of a car' or the Pleisosaur recently found in Devon was 'big enough to eat a car' (hence it being carniverous*).
Scaling up is easy, with three cars equalling one 'bus', so a Tyrannosaurus Rex was 'taller than a bus'.
For extremely precise dinosaur measurements, we can use the specific measurement of the 'London Bus' (roughly 1.1837 busses), so a Brontosaurus was as 'long as three London Busses'

Poor government and emotional blackmail: The SI unit of bad government is 'the child'. The value of a child rises according to the degree of social control and emotional blackmail being attempted, so we start with
If seatbelt laws save one child from harm, then they are worthwhile.
This leads to:
If 24-hour surveillance and banning parents from playing with their own children saves one child from harm, then they are worthwhile.
And hence inevitably to:
If harming a hundred children saves one child from harm, then it is worthwile.

Internet outrage: 'The Twitter' replaced the 'Blog Post' as the SI unit for internet outrage in early 2008. A remarkably small unit of measurement, a single twitter is a barely noticable fluctuation of outrage on the quantum level. However, several units for scaling up have since been developed, including the Lily Allen (equal to five ordinary twitters), the Paris Hilton (equal to twenty ordinary twitters) and the Stephen Fry (equal to a thousand ordinary twitters).

^{*Ah, I kill myself sometimes.}

Comments

[blue-cat.livejournal.com]

Gotta tweet this!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

If you could get Stephen Fry to Twitter it, that would truly be bizarre.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember reading that the SI unit for geographical size is "the Belgium", eg "every year an area of rainforest the size of Belgium disappears" "The floods covered an area the size of Belgium" etc

H

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

Belgium, or football pitches. How many football pitches to a Belgium though?
*ignorant*

[(Anonymous)]

naah, football pitches are imperial

H

[(Anonymous)]

I'm told the metric system was invented by Isaac Newton, which makes people who object to it 'cos "It's foreign, innit" much funnier.

[borusa.livejournal.com]

Wrong - but it was an Englishman - John Wilkins, who proposed it in his classic work: An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* of course!

[(Anonymous)]

I thought the Imperial unit was the Wales.

D

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a "Wales"? That does leave the question open as to whether this is Wales before it gets flattened out or afterwards (rather like a rounded or flat tablespoon of flour): I gather that a flattened Wales is equivalent to an England.

[(Anonymous)]

oops, sorry....must read all posts next time.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Not quite a unit of measurement, but have you noticed how cysts, abcesses, and other gross things that develop inside people's bodies are often described as being "the size of a grapefruit"?

Well, the grapefruit-sized ones are.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

And from there it is just a step to a fruit-based SI system for tumours. Starting with grapes and working all the way up to pumpkins, it's a strict mathemetical progression of size.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I hope you appreciate just how much effort it takes to not go into why there are only seven SI units.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

But how would you measure that effort? Is it more or less than a 'Geoff Capes lifting a car'?

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

A recipe last night instructed me to make my falafels the size of a walnut.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that budgetting issues have a strict Si, as they're too dependant on variables; for example, Evil Tory Cuts are measured in 'Nurses' or 'Policemen', whilst Goodly Labour Cuts are measured in 'Efficiencies'.

I'm not sure as to the Efficiency/Nurses conversion scale.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

temperature being measured in degrees kelvin
Er, no. Just Kelvin. Unlike Celsius or Fahrenheit, it doesn't come with degrees (anymore, since 1967).

Twitter followers are measured in Gaimans and Wheatons. The problem with those units is that they change all the time.

Dinosaur Measurement

[applez.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the North American size inflation for cars holds true for Dinosaurs too? ;-)

After all, North American cars burn more Dinosaurs per mile than anyone else's...

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

At the moment the SI Unit for healthcare is freedoms versus socialisms. How many freedoms do you lose to a government run program?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

ALL OF THEM.

[diamondkelt.livejournal.com]

DINO-MITE

rofl, sorry just had to.