Gregory's ServerAmericans will really do anything to avoid using the metric system.
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@emmz @drmaddkap @ErikBuitenhuis @emmz @drmaddkap penguins is a unit of volume equal to 100 cubic herring dorsums @ErikBuitenhuis @emmz @drmaddkap man metric habits are hard to break. Joke would have been funnier if it were 163 cubic herring dorsums per oenguin  @emmz @drmaddkap like, is it fairy penguins? Or emperor penguins? How many Americans have even seen a penguin in real life anyway?  It isn't the size of the penguins that's relevant, it's the mass. Average penguin mass is1 to 1.5 KG, according to the googles. @ScottSoCal @SocialRecluse @drmaddkap but what is the average wing-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?  @SocialRecluse @drmaddkap  @BlippyTheWonderSlug @SocialRecluse @drmaddkap  @cynblogger @SocialRecluse @drmaddkap @CassandraZeroCovid are these emperor penguins or gentoo??? @SocialRecluse @drmaddkap forwarding the idea to Tapbots, with a feature request for a new unit convertion in Calcbot @paul @mark , while I know they are already busy with the release of the great Ivory Mastodon client (@ivory) @SocialRecluse@mastodon.world @drmaddkap@meow.social  @drmaddkap Ah yes, the emperor penguin, a well known unit of measurement with which all people in North America will be intimately familiar.  @XanIndigo @drmaddkap lmfaoo right like i don't think most americans have even SEEN a penguin in person let alone have enough of a contextual idea of what that means to scale @drmaddkap @dexiheart Have to be honest though, I kinda love unhelpful descriptions like this. They’re always funny!  @XanIndigo This is so unhelpful! I don't even know if it's 22 penguins each or the two of them together are the size of 22 penguins. @bright_helpings @drmaddkap @dexiheart And if it’s both, is there a gap between them? Are the penguins included in the gap? @XanIndigo @drmaddkap A relatedly unrelated personal pet peeve is the number of people who will suggest there are penguins in the arctic. @drmaddkap @PHolder Oh, part of America is in the Arctic, so this is still relevant!  ... compared to, say, a "yard" (three foot long), which is almost as long as a meter. And many people have used "yard sticks" of that length. A "yard" is just over 8.5 cm short of a meter. So about 24 yards wide, as a really rough number. "Nearly to the 25 yard line on a football field" would do it!  @drmaddkap how many fluggers go into 1 penguin? Then I'll probably be able calculate that back to centimeters. Since, as you all know, 3.6723 fluggers equals 25 centimeters. @drmaddkap Them's big boys. @drmaddkap The infuriating part for me is a meter is close enough to a yard that I don't understand why it's so hard for my fellow Americans to grasp it. Sure, the 3 extra inches matters when needing precise calculations, but approximate sizes? Just mentally substitute meters for yards & call it close enough.   @drmaddkap Traveling at approximately 600 times the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, according to my calculations (really) @aburka @drmaddkap <pedant> @mittfh @drmaddkap European, but I glanced at Google results for 0.8 seconds and used the first number I saw so who knows @drmaddkap Fortunately, it is self-deprecating; especially since it comes from NASA, which itself uses the metric system.  @drmaddkap this is honestly way worse than if the journalist converted the meters into feet or yards. like come on it's one google search you don't have to parrot some weird metaphor  @drmaddkap Oh those wacky Americans are at it again, from the infamously American place in America known as Israel https://www.jpost.com/science/article-729035  @drmaddkap WT-? How much is that in football fields? And I don’t mean the US’ weaklin-version-rugby, no, I mean real FOOTBALL played with feet! :-) @drmaddkap I can settle on penguins though if metric's a bridge too far Penguin system of measurement (psm) is more logical than the imperial system. Indicative of US aspirations that folks would rather use something called imperial, rather than something logical   @wendinoakland @drmaddkap Whichever penguins served as the base model for the foot in feet, I guess! @wendinoakland @drmaddkap Not 'ludicrously' large. They are precisely 17.2 Undetermined Rodents in size! @drmaddkap Is there a bot for 'ridiculous alternatives to the metric system' yet because I'd probably follow :blobwhee: @drmaddkap oh, my bad, I hadn't clicked through haha. Oh well, any excuse to share these penguins...  @drmaddkap #alt4u News screenshot: „2 asteroids the size of 22 penguins to pass  @drmaddkap that’s almost one and a half whales or two and a half double decker busses in the UK @drmaddkap @drmaddkap your comment was exactly what I thought when I saw the picture. I was going to post it then I saw you already published it. @drmaddkap penguins can be 1 ft to over 3 feet tall. Which species are the asteroids measured in? Linux Penguins?  @drmaddkap Could also say "22 times as wide as a doorknob is high" for a bit of dumb folksy sound to it. Look, it's just that we Americans encounter so any emperor penguins in our daily lives that it's easy to relate to. Whereas we do not encounter any meters. So you gotta relate it to penguins, so we can be like "Ohhh those. I had three of those rooting around in my garbage cans last night." @drmaddkap to be fair the English, who are ostensibly on the metric system and l can't seem to stop using Wales as a unit of measurement. "The fire affected an area half the size of Wales" etc @wendinoakland @drmaddkap @GreenFire @drmaddkap Moving to London really made me switch over, but back in the states, I can’t see any reason to revert. How can one bake using base eight & fractions? Idiotic. @Faithinbones @GreenFire @drmaddkap @wendinoakland @MerritMD @drmaddkap I came here to post that if no one else did already. I thank you 🤣 Just you wait for them to wrap their Imperial Greatness around this paper then. I give you "Projectile Trajectory of Penguin's Faeces and Rectal Pressure Revisited" authored by Hiroyuki Tajima and Fumiya Fujisawa. @drmaddkap Penguins rule, that is a fact. And we will eventually rule over humans on Earth. However, one shouldn't confuse us with a ruler. That is very disparaging.  @drmaddkap @WayofCats “Large emperor penguin the size of a small emperor penguin is completely blocking spinward orbital traffic at the L4 Lagrange point.”  @drmaddkap We absolutely must make the Hobbit an official unit of length for the Americans. They will get used to it and in 200 or 300 years, when they stop paying attention, we will ask them to replace Hobbit with metre and we will have won.  Editor: Could you make the astroid size description more relatable to our readers? Writer: Got it! Penguins would do! We know what a yard is. We’re not complete rubes. 22 meters (yards) is 22% of a football field. @mikeylikestech @drmaddkap a metre is not a yard. Unless that was part of a joke and I missed it 🤣 @drmaddkap I don't think anyone will mind if you move to the emperor penguin system. @drmaddkap  For one Tux is roughly 1000 millimeters, volume-equivalent to one subsaharan gallon, which would represent half a polar pint, or three and a quarter Plymouth Pebbles... duh. 😂 @drmaddkap I’ll start the ball rolling… @drmaddkap Only the newspaper is Israeli... Got to read through the bit about the projectile defecating https://www.jpost.com/science/article-729035 @drmaddkap it's a good thing to keep up with the NEP (near earth penguins). At 25,000mph, they can be far more destructive than bird pooh on the window shield @drmaddkap I'm really going to need that in football fields. I have even less experience with penguins than with metric. @drmaddkap look, the article came out the day before Penguin Awareness Day. They wanted to make sure people were ready to be aware. @drmaddkap It's true. I'm comfortable with it, but most Americans freeze up as soon as you say "gram." If you hold up a baggy of cocaine or pot, they'll say "that's a gram!" or "That's not a grams!" but they can't connect the dots.    @drmaddkap I did not know that the Jerusalem Post is an American newspaper. https://www.jpost.com/science/article-729035  Audience is initially shocked. However, it has recovered. And is preparing to hit DeSantis on his next visit to the hockey rink! @drmaddkap I, for one, welcome our new penguin-based measuring system, and look forward to telling somebody how many millipenguins a bolt head is.  @drmaddkap  @drmaddkap @mmasnick I always think of a meter as just a bit more than a yard, 2.54 cm / inch, 1.6 km / mile. Of course I don’t think in metric, but all my engineering calculations use SI units. @drmaddkap it get’s worse. The penguins are using our technology now too: https://aus.social/@sonal/109719298526597002 @drmaddkap   @drmaddkap Image alt text: Headline over image of a rock in space: 2 asteroids the size of 22 penguins to pass Earth this weekend --NASA @drmaddkap @drmaddkap we could use the penguin foot, or one tenth of a penguin, a PF. And a penguin toe or PT as one tenth of a PF.  @drmaddkap Everybody knows that 22 penguins 🐧 is exactly 22 ½ cubits 📏 or 23 ⅝ ells. Checkmate🕺🏽  |
@drmaddkap 😂 also who in the world, reading this, would assume that the penguins are laid end to end rather than huddling together normally