[USMA:16501] Re: marathon

2001-11-30 Thread Scott Clauss
See my post [USMA:16446] Re:Depressing... Briefly, from my understanding, IOC recognizes the International Association of Athletics Federations as the governing body setting rules for running events. The IAAF rule book is on line at their website as a PDF file http://www.iaaf.org/index.asp . H

[USMA:16481] Re: FW: Why not metric in Marathon?

2001-11-29 Thread Scott Clauss
m sure the width of the > finishline can also be more than 12 mm wide thus properly covering both > distances. > > And, I'm sure no one who runs Marathons would even care about a 12 mm > difference. All that is important is that the official distance is not xx > miles, xxx yards, b

[USMA:16474] Re: FW: Why not metric in Marathon?

2001-11-29 Thread Scott Clauss
Metric marathons are tougher because they're 12 mm longer! Anyone who runs a 26 mile 385 yard marathon is a wimp. SC > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Duncan Bath > Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 7:48 AM > To: U.S. Metric Associat

[USMA:16446] Re: Depressing...

2001-11-27 Thread Scott Clauss
After some poking around I think I might have this figured out. The International Olympic Committee recognizes international sport federations (SF). These SFs set the rules. The SF governing marathons, and other track, field, and road races is the International Association of Athletics Federati

[USMA:16431] RE: What prompted decimalization

2001-11-27 Thread Scott Clauss
Only a guess, but I bet it has a lot to do computerization of the stock markets. It's much easier to enter a decimal stock price than a fractional on a keyboard. It's also probably much easier to write database code for decimal numbers. Now there's an interesting thought. If someone buys a sto

[USMA:16399] RE: marathon

2001-11-26 Thread Scott Clauss
The distance of the marathon was set at 26 miles for the London Olympics in 1908. This was the distance from the start at Windsor Castle to the finish in the Olympic stadium. 385 yards was added so the finish line would be in front of the royals' seating area. This was eventually adopted by the

[USMA:16286] Re: Call Me Claus

2001-11-21 Thread Scott Clauss
The north pole is in the middle of the Arctic ocean, international waters or ice in this case. No one has jurisdiction. The magnetic north pole is in Canadian jurisdiction, but has been known to move. I try to use metric in my workshop whenever possible Hope this answers some of the questions.

[USMA:15420] RE: letter in Irish Times

2001-09-28 Thread Scott Clauss
: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Friday, 2001-09-28 14:31 > Subject: [USMA:15416] RE: letter in Irish Times > > > > In the case of bacon, it's simply a slice. > > > > Bill Potts, CMS > > Roseville, CA > > http://m

[USMA:15415] RE: letter in Irish Times

2001-09-28 Thread Scott Clauss
What is a "rasher"? ScottC > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Han Maenen > Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 10:54 PM > To: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:15414] letter in Irish Times > > > A letter in today's Irish Times ab

[USMA:15251] Amusing quote during bike race coverage

2001-09-13 Thread Scott Clauss
During OLN coverage of la Vuelta a Espana bike race, commentator Paul Sherwin mentioned the riders were, "6 kilometers from the top of the hill. That's about four miles in the old money." Scott C

[USMA:14584] Re: Carbon Emissions

2001-07-24 Thread Scott Clauss
Does any one else getting riled up when the press uses power and energy as synonyms? They call MW energy, MW-hr power and then vis versa in the next sentence. Correct me if I'm wrong (I usually bat 0.500) but power can be considered a rate of energy consumption. I have said that one hamster ru

[USMA:14581] RE: Carbon Emissions

2001-07-24 Thread Scott Clauss
Their numbers look OK. Assuming coal is essentially 100% carbon and using C + O2 --> CO2 Meaning 1 mole (an SI unit!) of coal (carbon) comsumes one mole oxygen giving one mole of carbon dioxide. So you need to figure out how many moles of carbon are in 9000 tons of coal and then figure out the

[USMA:14495] RE: Tour de France

2001-07-19 Thread Scott Clauss
I reiterate the network that is covering Le Tour the most heavily, the Outdoor Life Network, is reporting about 80-90% of the time in SI, distances in kilometers or meters and altitudes in meters. The purists would be happy because they say kee-lo-me-ters, not kil-om-e-ters. One commentator, who

[USMA:14351] Re: Tour de France

2001-07-12 Thread Scott Clauss
The US TeeVee coverage of the Tour is on the Outdoor Life Channel, which is available on some cable systems. Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin are the commentators. They're both British with many years of working on the continent. Most of the mentioned Wombat is given parenthetically after the km or

[USMA:12987] Re: UDOT - Metric to English Conversion Memo

2001-05-24 Thread Scott Clauss
UDOT = Unit Decisions Of Troglodytes > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Duncan Bath > Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 12:16 PM > To: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:12936] Re: UDOT - Metric to English Conversion Memo > > > [Almos

[USMA:12720] RE: http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/MJ01/alacarte.asp

2001-05-08 Thread Scott Clauss
I assume you are poking at National Geographic for its non-metric use. I just asked my Indian friend and he says NG is available in India (but expensive). One of NGs contentions is they are using the units of 'Merica. What about the rest of the English speaking world? Do they publish a metric v

[USMA:12719] Re: From 1 yottameter to 1 femtometer

2001-05-08 Thread Scott Clauss
#x27;angstroms', but I don't recall 'fermis'. I hope that I am not suggesting > too technical a thread with this question, although perhaps I would > understand some of it this time around. > > Norm > - Original Message - > From: "Scott Clau

[USMA:12713] RE: From 1 yottameter to 1 femtometer

2001-05-08 Thread Scott Clauss
ssociation > Subject: [USMA:12711] RE: From 1 yottameter to 1 femtometer > > > Scott Clauss wrote: > > This is sort of fun. > > > > Try this website to see the orders of magnitude fly by: > > > > http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/po

[USMA:12710] From 1 yottameter to 1 femtometer

2001-05-08 Thread Scott Clauss
This is sort of fun. Try this website to see the orders of magnitude fly by: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html This may bog down with slower modems. They notate in SI mostly, but also use light years, microns, angstroms, and fermis.

[USMA:12571] Re: Hollywood movies

2001-05-01 Thread Scott Clauss
On this subject; anyone with a DVD player may be able to choose subtitles or foreign language and find out what is written or said. I have a DVD built into my computer, but I don't have any movies rented right now. Just an idea, Scott C > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ma

[USMA:12431] Re: NASA and weight vs. mass

2001-04-24 Thread Scott Clauss
Actually I think a pound can be mass or weight. If you need to be specific you should say "pound mass" (lbm = 0.454 kg) or "pound force" (lbf = 4.45 N). Now don't confuse pound force with a poundal (=0.138 N). Pound is also a unit of money in Cyprus, Egypt, Ireland, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, and U

[USMA:12416] RE: Error on NASA web page for SSMSS

2001-04-23 Thread Scott Clauss
I've often thought the arguments for and against the terms "mass" and "weight" that I've seen bandied about in this forum were an petty exercise in semantics. However, if NASA is talking about an object in space, this is no longer the case. NASA and the blindly following news media give the obje

[USMA:12059] RE: 07:12, NPR Morning Edition, NASA, EdWeiler

2001-04-06 Thread Scott Clauss
If you only caught the part you quoted, here is the preceding comments from my fogged memory. Loosely quoting: "One mission to Mars was lost due to a metric /english mix-up. It would nice to work only in metric. This current mission will have english and metric units co-printed in the documen

[USMA:11379] RE: Seattle quake in SI

2001-02-28 Thread Scott Clauss
Correction: I now believe the 40 km quote came from a staff member at the Alaska Tsunami Center. Don't know if they are affiliated with USGS. SC > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Scott Clauss > Sent: Wednesday, Fe

[USMA:11376] RE: Seattle quake in SI

2001-02-28 Thread Scott Clauss
The USGS told a Seattle reporter that the quake was "40 km under the surface" To which the reported replied, "Huh, what did you say?" The USGS guy repeated about 40km down, and then after some dead air said about 25 miles down. The press is now reporting that it was 30 miles underground. Dorks.

[USMA:11055] RE: Variables & Constants

2001-02-16 Thread Scott Clauss
Well it might be constant on earth to two sig. figs. On a side topic my friend spends his life wandering inhospitable places measuring gravity. He then maps it. From these data and the variations in them he can guess as to the nature of the subsurface features. The unit he uses is the Gal whic

[USMA:10882] RE: Fwd: The North Atlantic Oscillation, units of measurement

2001-02-06 Thread Scott Clauss
To avoid the 0.5 hours spent hunting the internet, bookmark this website: http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/index.html I have mentioned it before, but it is the most exhaustive I have seen for units SI and otherwise. A sverdrup acording to this site is: "a unit of flow sometimes used in ocea

[USMA:10620] RE: the whole eight metres

2001-01-23 Thread Scott Clauss
At one point I heard, but can not confirm, that this was a WWII term. It stems from the fact(?) that the ammo belts on the fighter planes were 9 yards long. To give someone the "whole nine yards" meant to unload the magazine on them. Scott C > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTE

[USMA:10052] RE: degrees Oechsle

2000-12-26 Thread Scott Clauss
No one seems to have replied to this: degree Oechsle (°Oe) a unit used in Germany and Switzerland to measure the sugar content of must, the unfermented liquour from which wine is made. One degree Oechsle (or Öchsle) is roughly equivalent to 0.2% sugar by weight. This unit is related legally to °K

[USMA:9870] RE: Flight Statistics

2000-12-19 Thread Scott Clauss
Last time I was on Delta their in-flight magazine explained baggage size restrictions in a variety of languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese (at least). All were in SI except the English and Chinese. Go figure? The only thing I could think of was

[USMA:9741] Website with metric prefixes origins and much more

2000-12-14 Thread Scott Clauss
John, This website contains a large listing of units of measure and their origins, as well as the origins of the metric prefixes: http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/index.html Scott C >>Responding to the below message on the metric litserv: USMA Subscribers, Please answer directly to John, as

[USMA:9628] RE: Horse Racing

2000-12-08 Thread Scott Clauss
The "length" equals the length of a horse. In horse racing, the length is actually interpreted as a unit of time equal to 0.2 second: the number of lengths by which one horse beats another is computed as 5 times the difference in their running times measured in seconds. Don't know how many noses

[USMA:9545] Re: Aviation information

2000-12-05 Thread Scott Clauss
I would hate to be on the plane that someone someone forgot to push that button and thought they were flying at meters and were really at feet. Reminds me of the plane that bought lbs worth of fuel and thought they got kg worth. Hey what are these mountain goats doing way up here in the clouds!?

[USMA:9520] Re: International Unit

2000-12-04 Thread Scott Clauss
See below. International unit dosing is the only way I see to sell some of these compound classes without ridiculously expensive and needless separtion and clean-up procedures. Scott C. > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Dennis Brown

[USMA:9491] FW: SI is English!

2000-12-01 Thread Scott Clauss
Meant to send this to the list, but it went to James F. only--oops. SC -Original Message- From: Scott Clauss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 3:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [USMA:9484] SI is English! The talbot is a unit of luminous (light) energy

[USMA:9490] Re: Australia not fully converted yet

2000-12-01 Thread Scott Clauss
Some vitamin and vaccine doses are measured by their biological activity, which, in turn, does not directly relate to the mass of a discrete compound per unit volume (concentration), so it is impossible to give a exact concentration for them in any metric units (or FFUs for that matter). Internati

[USMA:9484] SI is English!

2000-12-01 Thread Scott Clauss
I have gotten tired of hearing the British and Americans say that SI is French, and isn't their system. This morning while looking at torque wrenches it stuck me as odd that they advertize them as using "English and metric" units, but the metric units were newton-meters. I thought is was silly s

[USMA:9389] RE: [Fwd: Metal and alloy spec sheets]

2000-11-27 Thread Scott Clauss
gigameters per copper curium? One would think that people manufacturing copper and brass products would be more careful how and where they use the Cu symbol. Brass = 0.1 Zn/Cu (w/w) give or take. Scott C. > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Beh

[USMA:9270] Re: US metric and integers

2000-11-20 Thread Scott Clauss
What you have in Florida, New Mexico, and few other states is a classic example of S/N ~ 1. In analytical chemstry we don't usually say we can see something unless the signal to noise ratio is > 2.5 or 3.0. So what you have in Florida is a bunch of power hungry types trying to interpret the nois

[USMA:9169] kg/cm^2

2000-11-14 Thread Scott Clauss
Seems we have two threads going here discussing kg/cm^2. The electric pump thread and the Discovery TV show thread. This kg is really kgf or kilogram-force, also know as a kilopond = 9.8 N.(not exact) The 9.8 comes from the acceleration of gravity (units = m/s^2). So 1 kg[f]/cm^2 = 9.8 N/cm^2 =

[USMA:8956] RE: gram precision

2000-11-02 Thread Scott Clauss
I readily admit naivete, but I think I heard somewhere that in trade precision has to error to the too much side not ±1 only +1. Certainly the blanket statement that nothing is packaged to 1 gram precision is doomed to counter examples. It all depends on the size of the package. A stick of gum

[USMA:8935] AP Stylebook

2000-11-01 Thread Scott Clauss
We often chastise the AP and their stylebook. I'm just wondering if anyone in this Litserv actually owns a copy, and what does it really say in regards to metric? You can buy it from Amazon for sixteen bucks. Saw another version for 11 bucks, but I seem to have lost the ref. for that. This boo

[USMA:8907] RE: Dennis's virus

2000-10-31 Thread Scott Clauss
The puter guys identified it as virus "VBS Plan B" SC > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Scott Clauss > Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 3:49 PM > To: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:8903] RE: Denni

[USMA:8903] RE: Dennis's virus

2000-10-31 Thread Scott Clauss
I received something from Dennis Brownridge as well. I opened it, but not the attachment because it looked suspicious. It appears to have come straight from DB not the USMA. The subject line was WONELI (as in Whoa Nelli?) The message was "POWERIAOVO" I'll have my puter nerds look at it. I'm

[USMA:8872] RE: Fw: Les Accents

2000-10-30 Thread Scott Clauss
> > Metric prefix for micro, as in microgram, microliter > > Alt230 µ µg µL Interesting I've alway used "Alt0181" for µ. Both work. Here is "Alt230" => µ. Both select the same box in the character map too. To a former mac user this seems od

[USMA:8787] CNN vs NASA

2000-10-26 Thread Scott Clauss
Just read CNN's report of NASA's Mars exploration revamp. It uses only SI to describe the Reconnaissance Orbiter resolution http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/10/25/mars.campaign/index.html Whereas NASA's own web report uses the barley grains (cm) format. ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/

[USMA:8756] Re: FW: Weights and Measures

2000-10-25 Thread Scott Clauss
> > 1 kilogram of falling figs: 1 Fig Newton > Kilograms measure mass while newtons measure forces (including weight). But since it's falling there must be some acceleration (unless it's at terminal velocity). So there could be a force associated with this--if I just knew the coversion factor f

[USMA:8658] RE: Trek through the Gobanese Forest

2000-10-18 Thread Scott Clauss
And in yesterday's installment Dr. Fay commented on being covered in "centimeters of goo" after walking through a swamp. >From my listening today the FFUs were only at the introduction and end when Alex C. said the trek was 12,500 miles (a coversion from 2 km?). Alex Chadwick even used kilom

[USMA:8544] RE: Malin

2000-10-13 Thread Scott Clauss
I just did a google search on "Malin F2M" and got a bunch of hits for transgender organizations! Seems F2M also stands for female to male . found http://www.freedom2measure.org/ what a bunch of hooey, but no mention of Malin. Mailing address is Arlington, Texas. Maybe he sells propane and has

[USMA:8538] RE: FW: Time vs. mass, volume, etc. [Yahoo! Clubs: Metric America]

2000-10-13 Thread Scott Clauss
One should point out to Jake (does this go to him?) that the second is a metric (SI) unit. minutes, days, etc. are not but... All these exchanges have sort of struck me as silly recently. With a 95% world majority our side has already won. People who argue against the world standard because o

[USMA:8523] RE: 1 calorie per 100 ml

2000-10-13 Thread Scott Clauss
obably are not safe saying "0 Cal" for reasons that have more to do > with law than with science. > > Jim > > Scott Clauss wrote: > > > > Never seen such a label, but I don't drink much soda. > > > > But isn't 1 Cal = 4+ kJ? > >

[USMA:8491] RE: 1 calorie per 100 ml

2000-10-12 Thread Scott Clauss
Never seen such a label, but I don't drink much soda. But isn't 1 Cal = 4+ kJ? Scott C > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Gregory Peterson > Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 1:45 PM > To: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:8489]