On 2016-06-20, Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> wrote:

> One of the most underrated yet critical functions of government is
> to standardise weights and measures, and that function evolved very
> slowly over time. I doubt that the Egyptian Pharoahs cared about it,

Oh, I bet they did.  How you measure things affects how much tax you
collect -- and the people at the top of every government pay a lot of
attention to that.  The state doesn't check all those gas pumps
against a volumetric flask every year to protect Joe Carowner.  I've
designed various sorts of measurement and instrumentation, and when a
device is used for doing a measurement that affects how much tax gets
paid, things get deadly serious.

> although their scribes probably did, a bit.

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