Roger O Green

I is for International System of Units

I blame Arthur. There’s this blogger/podcaster I’ve been following, AmeriNZ, an American expat now living in New Zealand. At some point in a recent podcast, he asked if anyone in his audience knew what one calls the United States system of measurement involving pounds, quarts, and feet, knowing, KNOWING that I would have to look it up; the scoundrel!

Since I could not find the answer anywhere online, I decided to contact the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and not just NIST but its Weights and Measures Division. And do you know what the woman on the phone told me? There IS no standard nomenclature for the collective U.S. weights and measurements!

Meanwhile, the system most people call “the metric system” is actually The International System of Units, Système International d’Unités, or SI for short.
At the heart of the SI is a shortlist of base units defined in an absolute way without referring to any other units… In all there are seven SI base units:
the meter for distance,
the kilogram for mass,
the second for time,
the ampere for electric current,
the kelvin for temperature,
the mole for amount of substance, and
the candela for intensity of light.
Other SI units, called SI derived units, are defined algebraically in terms of these fundamental units. Probably most used among them is degrees Celsius; absolute zero is zero degrees Kelvin, -273.16 C.

Those who claim the United States is slow off the metric ball are only partially right. “The key agreement is the Treaty of the Meter (Convention du Mètre), signed in Paris on May 20, 1875. 48 nations have now signed this treaty, including all the major industrialized countries. The United States is a charter member of this metric club, having signed the original document back in 1875.” All countries have adopted the metric system, including the U.S., and most countries (but not the U.S.) have taken steps to eliminate most uses of traditional measurements. In fact, most food items in the US are marked with dual designations. A brief history of the metric system in the US can be found HERE.

“Nearly all countries people still use traditional units sometimes, at least in colloquial expressions.” For instance, a miss is as good as a mile or a pinch for an inch.

Bookmark this! Online Conversion.com converts “just about anything to anything else.” There is also Convert.exe, a freeware program…found to be virus-free [which] uses the 1959 conversion factors for distance, [weight temperature and derived functions]. Ah, so these measurements get tweaked from time to time.

Arthur and others moving to or from the United States have suggested going “cold turkey” in learning the new measurement scheme, and virtually all of them find the temperature to be the most difficult to translate intellectually. If it helps – I read this somewhere, but also sussed it out myself, and these are approximations – 16C=61F, 28C=82F, 40C=104F.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

More Majorly Personal Meme

The Wife has a very strong moral compass that I trust implicitly.

Here’s the Sunday Stealing meme again: the 2nd half of Part 2 and all of Part 3.

31. Is it easier for you to go without food or go without sleep?

Sleep for certain.

32. What non-alcohol beverage do you enjoy drinking the most?

Flavored water.

33. When you walk into a room full of strangers, generally how is your confidence?

Lousy, but I think I fake it well.

34. Does talking about sex with anyone but your lover make you uncomfortable?

Not particularly, but I generally don’t.

35. Do you tend to believe members of the opposite sex mostly behave the same way?

Within parameters, sure. Although raising a daughter has me rethinking this a little. You try to raise her as a person, but by nurture or nature, she has become this girl who likes pink and purple and ballet and unicorns, nothing her parents imposed on her. And you see her male contemporaries, raised by like-minded parents, who have these truck-playing boys. Lydia has trucks but she usually plays with them to haul her dolls. Though she does love her train that dominates the dining room floor.

36. Did you drink any alcohol this week? If yes, what?

White Wine.

37. Would you ever consider being a vegetarian?

Yes.

38. Do you believe that there’s always room in your heart for someone?

I’d like to think so.

39. Do you believe in the concept of soul mates?

Not so much.

40. Last week, we had a few players criticize our victim’s questions. Which is fine to do and we value your opinion. Would you ever consider writing questions for Bud and me to post on a Sunday Stealing?

No. Time is not on my side.

41. What are your plans for this weekend?

Actually, there is this workshop on activism sponsored by several Presbyterian groups I’ll be attending Saturday. Church is on Sunday.

42. Do you think someone might be thinking poorly about you? Why might that be?

I’m sure it’s possible, likely because of my apparently “leftist” political leanings.

42. What features don’t you have that you would like on your cell?

No idea. I use the cell to make and receive calls.

43. How many people can comfortably sleep in your bed?

Two.

44. What are you hoping happens by the end of 2010?

For Paul McCartney to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. Might as well wish for things that are going to happen, rather than things that aren’t, such as the Democrats holding control of Congress.

45. What was the last video you watched on YouTube?

I’m guessing it’s one Eddie Mitchell posted most recently.

46. Would you ever agree to an open relationship with someone?

No.

47. Is there something that you could never give up?

You mean other than essentials like air and water? Possibly, but I don’t know what that would be.

48. Would you, (or did you) prefer a small, intimate wedding reception, or a big-scale, over-the-top reception?

It was pretty big, but simple, not over the top.

49. What’s bothering you right now?

Bigotry in all its forms.

50. Do you hate anyone?

Well, Glenn Beck is off my Christmas list.

51. What were you doing at 12 am last night?

I’m only sleeping – a Beatles cartoon.

52. Was this summer a good one? How warm was it where you live?

As is often the case, the wife programmed a whole lot more than was achievable, felt too busy. It was often very warm. Dare say the air conditioner was on a half dozen times in the summer of 2009, and at least five times that in the summer of 2010.

52. Is the last person you kissed before your current situation mad at you?

I’m assuming romantically. Actually, no.

53. Can a man and woman be friends without having feelings for each other?

Yes, happens to me all the time.

54. Do you think long-distance relationships work? If you’ve had one, tell us about it.

They can, but I think you need to establish the relationship together before that. I’ve never had any success at it.

55. Do you know why it’s called “Random Boredom“?

I have no idea what this means. In any case, I’m very seldom bored; too busy.

56. Do you thing that it’s always the man’s responsibility to initiate sex?

Not at all.

57. Have you ever made love while you were in the same room with another couple?

No.

58. Tell us the best thing about your current or most recent S/O.

She has a very strong moral compass that I trust implicitly.

59. Tell us the worst thing about your current or most recent S/O.

Sometimes she is totally unaware of current events.

60. Would you write one question in today’s comments so that we could have our followers allow us to steal their questions? We’ll need at least 15.

Well, it seems to be on my mind a lot lately: Who will be President of the United States in 2013?

My Pointless Twitter Encounter

We just don’t always treat each other fairly, and sometimes it is racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia or something else toxic.

I was tired from days of wedding celebrations. So, uncharacteristically, I went over to my Twitter feed and started reading, when I came across this:
Actually there is NO racism in America – and they have played that card one too many times – doesn’t mean a thing. with a couple of @s to a couple people. 8:13 AM

So I’m intrigued by this. Obviously, this is an ongoing conversation. I reply to her:
“There’s NO racism in America”? And who are “they” who “played that card once too often”? 8:18 AM

She responds:
They? Political Machine (including Media & Hollywood) – which you know this – so let’s stop the confused act 10:48 AM

Hey, this is no act. I didn’t know that racism was merely a creation of the powers that be:

So you’re saying racism is a media/Hollywood/political myth & doesn’t exist? This has not been my personal experience. 11:40 AM

A bit later, she replies:
So – YOU are saying – Challenges that ppl feel everyday – is RACISM? however does that track for you? Racism is a Political Term 6:24 PM

Ah, we ALL face challenges, ipso facto, there is no racism.
Humans treating other humans less well because of what, rather than who they are, that’s racism. Political term? OK. So what? 7:34 PM

Her next response annoyed me.
LOL – seriously? What Race is being treated less than humans? 7:41 PM

Well, I’ve spent too much time on this:
The old putting words in my mouth trick. never said what you suggested. I realize this is less than pointless. I retire. 7:55 PM

Her parting shot:
Putting words in your mouth? that is a trick honey- you need to go to a community where that would work 8:08 PM

Hmm. I suppose I was affected at the moment about something Rose wrote about discrimination, and probably even more so the story of a woman in a wheelchair who became all but invisible, and how she cleverly coped.

Also, last week, I was riding the bus, and a young teenager, presumably heading for school, was stopped by THREE Albany cop cars. All the folks on the bus were black, except for a couple of South Asians, and three of the black women assumed harassment of this young man, based on previous experiences with law enforcement. I never did know what the true story was in this case.

My point: we just don’t always treat each other fairly, and sometimes it IS racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, or something else particularly toxic. Is it all just some media agenda being played out? I’m thoroughly as unconvinced of that as I was unconvincing in changing my Twitter “buddy’s” mind.

What Have We Learned?

Murfreesboro, TN is about 890 miles from Ground Zero, yet someone set on fire some of the construction equipment at the site of the planned mosque there recently.

We can agree that September 11, 2001, was a terrible day in the US, indeed, world history. But can we agree on anything else?

What are the lessons we have learned from 9/11? Is it to be more suspicious of others, or try to be more understanding? Is it that most practitioners of Islam are decent people, as President George W. Bush had suggested several times, or is it, as an increasing number of Americans feel, a religion they just don’t like, so much so that a Florida minister says he was called by God to threaten to burn Korans, despite admitting not even knowing what’s in it, and inspires potential copycats in at least three states?

Taking off the table the Islamic cultural center in Manhattan mislabeled as the “ground zero mosque”, the lesson seems to be to have no more mosques anywhere in the country. Murfreesboro, TN is about 890 miles from Ground Zero, yet someone set on fire some of the construction equipment at the site of the planned mosque there recently. Other facilities from Wisconsin to California have also run into difficulties. And I won’t even get into the “Obama is a Muslim” thing.

Meanwhile, we are concluding, it appears, the war in Iraq, except for the 50,000 left behind to continue training the Iraqis. This war, built out of post-9/11 hubris when we seemed to have forgotten Afghanistan altogether, was one I openly opposed at the time. It WAS a good opportunity for some to bash the French, who like many of our major allies, also opposed the conflict; “Freedom fries,” indeed. The separate question of whether it was “worth it” remains at best open, as long as there is no operational Iraqi government.

But what do you think are the lessons of 9/11?
***
Jaquandor calls for a National Read a Qur’an Day TODAY, which seems like an inspired idea.

MOVIE REVIEW: Get Low

The movie Get Low was occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but it wasn’t cornpone humor as it might have been portrayed.

When I was growing up, living next door to my Grandma Williams’ house in Binghamton, NY was a crotchety old man named Pete Nedahall – not sure of the spelling. We – my sisters, my grandma’s next-door neighbors on the other side, and I were mighty afraid of him. If you stepped on his property to retrieve an errant ball, you were afraid that this stocky man might come out, wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts, with a pitchfork, which he did from time to time. But mostly he yelled at us in his thick eastern European accent, perhaps Hungarian. Some of the neighbor kids would taunt him. His wife Kate was actually relatively pleasant to us, but when she died, he became even more embittered.

In the new movie Get Low – though it has a 2009 copyright – Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) plays a similarly onery hermit with a shotgun who decides to hold his own funeral, while he was still alive. The local pastor Gus Horton (Gerald McRaney) won’t help Felix with his plan, despite his large wad of “hermit money”, but the local funeral director Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) is not so fussy. Aided by his assistant Buddy (Lucas Black), Frank helps Felix promote the party. Meanwhile, someone from Felix’s past, Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), returns to town, which proves to be a complicating factor, as does his relationship with another pastor, Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs).

The movie was occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but it wasn’t cornpone humor as it might have been portrayed. This is largely a function of the acting. Duvall has visited similar characters before, most notably in The Apostle, my favorite movie starring him. This is not as good a movie, but his performance is equally solid. Also to be noted is Bill Murray, who has learned in middle age, how to ratchet back his comedic characters and still be funny. I also liked Lucas Black, who I doubt I’ve ever seen in a film.

The movie is based on a true story, which apparently meant the funeral part, but not the back story about why he was closed off for four decades. Interestingly, there were critics who liked the movie very much, save for the more-or-less transparent ending. While I can see their point, the penultimate scene worked for me because of the sheer force of Duvall.

Besides, knowing the ending got me to thinking about old Mr. Nedahall, who I hadn’t crossed my mind in decades, and what secret pain he might have been experiencing those many years ago.