Stranger in a Strange Land

[Ed Rooney 5,250]

19 hours ago, Mr Standfast said:

 

 

Good blog!  I think stylised food and lifestyle pictures are fascinating.  I just can't see the image in my head to be able to create them.

 

 

Cheers 😀

 

 

I have zero images in my head when I go out to shoot; I come across them. 

[Ed Rooney 5,250]

Have you been social distancing—washing your hands, wearing a face mask, using sanitizer, and do you have disposable gloves? This is a full-time job!

 

https://edostrange.blogspot.com/2020/08/social-distancing.html

 

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Ed Rooney

[Mr Standfast 1,301]

👍

[Bryan 15,763]

2 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Have you been social distancing—washing your hands, wearing a face mask, using sanitizer, and do you have disposable gloves? This is a full-time job!

 

https://edostrange.blogspot.com/2020/08/social-distancing.html

 

 

 

Tasty looking pizza!

[Allan Bell 3,484]

3 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Have you been social distancing—washing your hands, wearing a face mask, using sanitizer, and do you have disposable gloves? This is a full-time job!

 

https://edostrange.blogspot.com/2020/08/social-distancing.html

 

 

 

Love your blogs Edo. Very erudite, if I may say so. Particularly liked the sign saying "Wear a mask or go to jail."

 

"Wear a mask or go to jail, do not pass go and do not collect £200."😇

 

Allan

 

[Ed Rooney 5,250]

22 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Love your blogs Edo. Very erudite, if I may say so. Particularly liked the sign saying "Wear a mask or go to jail."

 

"Wear a mask or go to jail, do not pass go and do not collect £200."😇

 

Allan

 

 

Erudite? Hey, we don't put up with that kind of talk in Brooklyn! 😎

[Robert M Estall 482]

Metres are my most comfortable metric measurement; I know full well that a metre is about 3 inches longer than a yard, but in terms of social distancing, it's near enough. Height? I'm 5ft7in and no idea how much that is in centimetres. No matter how many times I look it up, the answer doesn't stick. After 50 years, I have come to terms with my weight as so many stones and so many pounds. How did we ever come to use this bonkers system? Back in the 70s Canada and USA had agreed to go metric. Pretty well at the last moment, USA pulled out but Canada had already started the switch so just kept going. When I go to the butchers I still order a 4lb chicken in spite of the fact that the scales are metric and all the prices are metric and I know full well what I want is about a 1.8 kg chook. If I go to the pub, I'll order beer by the pint but I don't do that a lot these days. I suspect Americans visiting Canada by car find it a bit confusing. At least they all drive on the same side of the road

[spacecadet 4,885]

6 minutes ago, Robert M Estall said:

5ft7in

Same here, or so I claim. 1 metre 70.

I put 1.72 on my first passport. Must have been the platform heels.

I've finally gone over to the dark side for DIY measurements. When you're buying in metres you might as well measure in them.

[wiskerke 3,985]

1 hour ago, Robert M Estall said:

Metres are my most comfortable metric measurement; I know full well that a metre is about 3 inches longer than a yard, but in terms of social distancing, it's near enough. Height? I'm 5ft7in and no idea how much that is in centimetres. No matter how many times I look it up, the answer doesn't stick. After 50 years, I have come to terms with my weight as so many stones and so many pounds. How did we ever come to use this bonkers system? Back in the 70s Canada and USA had agreed to go metric. Pretty well at the last moment, USA pulled out but Canada had already started the switch so just kept going. When I go to the butchers I still order a 4lb chicken in spite of the fact that the scales are metric and all the prices are metric and I know full well what I want is about a 1.8 kg chook. If I go to the pub, I'll order beer by the pint but I don't do that a lot these days. I suspect Americans visiting Canada by car find it a bit confusing. At least they all drive on the same side of the road

 

Metric is un-american. Ronald Reagan said so and killed off the United States Metric Board.

The fact is that one of the co-developers of the metric system was Benjamin Franklin. And that the US decided to go metric with the Metric Act in 1866. That must be a typo, no? No. 1866.

 

wim

 

edit: btw have you ever tried putting gallons in your tank on either side of the 49th parallel?

Edited August 17, 2020 by wiskerke

[Mr Standfast 1,301]

5 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

Erudite? Hey, we don't put up with that kind of talk in Brooklyn! 😎

 

Made me search Alamy for Araldite the well known epoxy glue....19 hits.

 

Race!

[Robert M Estall 482]

27 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

btw have you ever tried putting gallons in your tank on either side of the 49th parallel?

 

That's how we first learned that Americans were weird. Why would they have a smaller gallon? You can explain it as many times as you like, but it's still weird in my simple little mind. It didn't matter much as Canadians and Americans always pull into a gas station and say "Fill her up"  In France they mostly Fill her up but I have to watch them carefully as nobody in their right mind would drive a Petrol VW Van. Ah but wait, I was right now that we have come to realise Diesel is evil 

[Alex Ramsay 744]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

Same here, or so I claim. 1 metre 70.

I put 1.72 on my first passport. Must have been the platform heels.

I've finally gone over to the dark side for DIY measurements. When you're buying in metres you might as well measure in them.

 

Buying timber gives you the best of both worlds - a 3.6m length of 2"x4", anyone?

 

Alex

[Ed Rooney 5,250]

52 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

Metric is un-american. Ronald Reagan said so and killed off the United States Metric Board.

The fact is that one of the co-developers of the metric system was Benjamin Franklin. And that the US decided to go metric with the Metric Act in 1866. That must be a typo, no? No. 1866.

 

wim

 

edit: btw have you ever tried putting gallons in your tank on either side of the 49th parallel?

 

It's true that Ronnie killed off the metric system, but he created things too. He created the American homeless. 

[Michael Ventura 7,413]

33 minutes ago, Alex Ramsay said:

 

Buying timber gives you the best of both worlds - a 3.6m length of 2"x4", anyone?

 

Alex

 

And to make matters worse, a 2x4 is not really 2" by 4"....it is 1½ x 3½ inches.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Michael Ventura

[spacecadet 4,885]

1 hour ago, Robert M Estall said:

 

That's how we first learned that Americans were weird. Why would they have a smaller gallon? You can explain it as many times as you like, but it's still weird in my simple little mind. It didn't matter much as Canadians and Americans always pull into a gas station and say "Fill her up"  In France they mostly Fill her up but I have to watch them carefully as nobody in their right mind would drive a Petrol VW Van. Ah but wait, I was right now that we have come to realise Diesel is evil 

Well you could ask why we would have a larger one? At least a U.S. pint has the same number of ounces as a pound.

Edited August 17, 2020 by spacecadet

[Cecile Marion 315]

From 1992 until 2006, I taught math and science to advanced students, ages 6 - 10. One unit on metric measurement was always included in the textbook series we used, but it always seemed so odd to me that we never incorporated metric measurement into everyday life here in the US. Not having grown up using metric measurement, I actually had to teach myself before I could present the information to my students. 

[Allan Bell 3,484]

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

It's true that Ronnie killed off the metric system, but he created things too. He created the American homeless. 

 

Careful! Edging towards politics.🥴

 

Allan

 

[Mr Standfast 1,301]

Went to by a 0.6m lintel and was told they only had 60cm ones...I have a witness!!!  🙃

Edited August 17, 2020 by Mr Standfast
spelling

[spacecadet 4,885]

15 minutes ago, Mr Standfast said:

Went to by a 0.6m lintel and was told they only had 60cm ones...I have a witness!!!  🙃

Oh come on, it's perfectly simple. A metre is 1/299792458 of the distance travelled by light in one second, which is of course 9192631770 times the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium-133 atom.

Edited August 17, 2020 by spacecadet

[John Mitchell 6,108]

1 hour ago, Cecile Marion said:

From 1992 until 2006, I taught math and science to advanced students, ages 6 - 10. One unit on metric measurement was always included in the textbook series we used, but it always seemed so odd to me that we never incorporated metric measurement into everyday life here in the US. Not having grown up using metric measurement, I actually had to teach myself before I could present the information to my students. 

 

Interesting to hear that. Canada went metric in 1976. I tutor high school kids in math, and most of them couldn't tell you how many inches there are in a foot or how many ounces in a pound. However, if you ask them how tall they are, they will inevitably answer in feet and inches, which are easier to visualize than centimetres. They will also probably give their weight in pounds rather than kilos. Imperial units still seem to have a place here when it comes to everyday, practical measurements.

 

I don't think that the US will ever go metric. There would be a revolution first. You guys will probably never give up pennies either, as Canada did a number of years ago without too much fuss, even though it apparently now costs almost two cents to make each penny.

Edited August 17, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Ed Rooney 5,250]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

Oh come on, it's perfectly simple. A metre is 1/299792458 of the distance travelled by light in one second, which is of course 9192631770 times the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium-133 atom.

 

I was gonna say that, Mark—but I got a fingernail stuck in my calculator. Very painful. 

[John Mitchell 6,108]

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Oh come on, it's perfectly simple. A metre is 1/299792458 of the distance travelled by light in one second, which is of course 9192631770 times the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium-133 atom.

 

I tend to think of a metre as 1650763.73 wavelengths in a vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the 2p^10 and 5d^5 quantum levels of the krypton-86 atom. It's much more convenient, I find. 🤓

 

P.S. About the length of a baseball bat also works well. Not sure how long a cricket bat is. It has been awhile...

Edited August 17, 2020 by John Mitchell

[John Morrison 6,015]

7 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

I tend to think of a metre as 1650763.73 wavelengths in a vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the 2p^10 and 5d^5 quantum levels of the krypton-86 atom.

 

Or the distance between my arse and my elbow...

[Avpics 2,351]

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Oh come on, it's perfectly simple. A metre is 1/299792458 of the distance travelled by light in one second, which is of course 9192631770 times the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium-133 atom.

Is that faster than a mile per minute?

 

As someone whose 'real' working life has mostly involved quoting prices for areas, weights and volumes I can't imagine how difficult that would be before metric, but I do cling on to miles when guesstimating the time to make a journey sans satnav. 60mph equating to a mile per minute is really useful.

[Bryan 15,763]

Despite using the SI system professionally (and it does simplify calculations) for years, when it comes to making stuff for my allotment, or planting out, I always measure in Imperial units. My trusty home made  allotment measuring stick is calibrated in ft and inches. However working with our son on his house renovation I noticed that all measurements were in SI, so I guess  I'm part of a dying breed. Further, he uses a crafty laser measuring gadget, no rules or tapes involved. Maybe the allotment gardeners of the future will be positioning their cabbages and leeks electronically?