Comments on: A cold, calculating post

A cold, calculating post

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:53:15 -0800

If this doesn't convert you... you may truly be lost.

By: bonobo

bonobo — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 23:15:59 -0800

Thank you, it's much appreciated! The link's been added to my bookmarks under Reference --> Conversion; however, I'm curious as to what prompted you to post it. How did you discover this gem for yourself? Details, man, details!

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 23:33:14 -0800

It's almost like Google Calculator, but more confusing and cluttered! Thanks It's Raining Florence Henderson, and also to your wife, Missus Raining Florence Henderson.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 23:56:22 -0800

This thing is totally useless. It totally failed to convert radians to centipoise, or Pascals to Joules. Furthermore, my lead is still quite annoyingly untransmuted.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:25:25 -0800

Hmm, so a slave is worth 2/3 of a citizen? I did not know that.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:18:05 -0800

Citizen Premier: Did they really say that? They're wrong; it was three-fifths.

By: maryh

maryh — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:18:10 -0800

Thanks for posting this, Flo (if I may be so famliar.) I used this site a while ago to work out some cooking conversions, but didn't bother to bookmark it. There's some great stuff to play with here. My dog is 31.5 in human years, yet he behaves like an impetuous 23 year old. He's just like people!

By: maryh

maryh — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:21:58 -0800

(I meant to link this. I'm 173 years young. Arf!)

By: dsword

dsword — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 02:00:39 -0800

English is so much more beautiful in Haxor: tH!$ !$ ju$t t0 $4¥ ! H4v3 34t3ñ tH3 plum$ tH4t w3r3 !ñ tH3 !©3b0x 4ñd wH!©H ¥0u w3r3 pr0b4bl¥ $4v!ñg f0r br34Kf4$t f0rg!v3 m3 tH3¥ w3r3 d3l!©!0u$ $0 $w33t 4ñd $0 ©0ld

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 02:35:41 -0800

It doesn't convert from what a guy thinks his penis length is to what his girlfriend thinks it is.

By: 13twelve

13twelve — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 03:53:44 -0800

For some reason on reading the link title on the front page I expected this site to try and convert me to some religion of some sort. And for some other reason, possibly connected, a bit of me is dissapointed that it didnt.

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:17:11 -0800

You cannot convert me, I AM NOT A NUMBER!

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:31:42 -0800

There are also links to an acronym finder, a joke and cartoon clipart database, another database of flash games, some resources for Borland developers, and a mystery link that doesn't seem to work. They're the "Sites" numbers in the blue stripe at the bottom of the page.

By: Serial Killer Slumber Party

Serial Killer Slumber Party — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:33:06 -0800

As an metric man living in an imperial man's world, this is a breath of fresh air.

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:34:09 -0800

A teaspoon is twice as big as a coffeespoon? A UK teaspoon is bigger than a US teaspoon? No wonder all those American internet recipes go to shit. Perhaps they're not eating absolute crap the whole day long over there?

By: 13twelve

13twelve — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:40:14 -0800

You cannot convert me, I AM NOT A NUMBER! As it turns out I am. I'm either two numbers, thirteen and twelve or one number, one thousand-three-hundred-and-twelve. I'm just not sure what conversion; if any I want this site to carry out.

By: Laotic

Laotic — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:45:18 -0800

You cannot convert me, I AM NOT A NUMBER! 17589 shut up and get back in the line.

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 05:05:13 -0800

I was a Presbyterian, but after looking at this website I'm now a Unitarian Universalist.

By: hypersloth

hypersloth — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 05:12:22 -0800

I've found better conversion engines on the few occasions I've needed them, but the tagline and the comments have made this post hilarious.

By: splatta

splatta — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 05:36:30 -0800

I'd like to point out www.gometric.org as a simple (but highly complete) unit conversion engine. created and maintained by our own Plutor

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:04:40 -0800

dsword: reprise. ;)

By: beagle

beagle — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:12:02 -0800

It meets my test, the length units include smoots. A useful elaboration of this site would be to provide some kind of glossary detailing the origin and usage of the units.

By: jepler

jepler — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:18:05 -0800

Many Unix machines have the great program "units" installed. It can do all kinds of conversions. As a bonus, reading the file that defines the available units can be fun on its own. Here's a session that converts the energy stored in a capacitor from one form to another: $ units 2084 units, 71 prefixes, 32 nonlinear units You have: 220 micro F * (400 V)^2 You want: watt second * 35.2 Ever wonder how much it would cost the government to keep audio surveillance on 300 million people for a year, if they can get DVD-R media at $0.20 each, and record at cellphone quality (8 kilobit/second)? $ units "300 million * 1 year * (8 kilobit/second) * (.20USD / 4.7GB)" "million USD" * 402.85437 oh, only 400 million a year? That's pocket change! (Of course, that's just for the media, and says nothing about the costs of acquisition, recording, and retieval) Here are just two of the sillier units supported:

barn = 1e-28 m^2 (Used to measure cross section for particle physics collision, said to have originated in the phrase "big as a barn".) shed = 1e-24 barn (Defined to be a smaller companion to the barn, but it's too small to be of much use.)

Here's one last conversion for you: $ units "shoesize_men(11)" "barleycorn" * 35.750056 That's right, US mens' shoe size 11 is about 35 and a half barleycorns long. (The barleycorn is 1/3 of a UK inch, and men's shoe size is defined by a simple equation) If you don't have UNIX yet, units is a great reason to install it.

By: splatta

splatta — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:24:47 -0800

Go Metric is just a web frontend to the gnu units jepler describes above.

By: 3.2.3

3.2.3 — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:30:34 -0800

wow. it converts megabytes into gigbytes. i'll never run out of memory again! lame link o' the day. jepler, you beat me to units.

By: If I Had An Anus

If I Had An Anus — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:43:03 -0800

anksThay, orenceFlay endersonHay.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 06:52:56 -0800

Thanks for the introduction to units, jepler!

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:07:41 -0800

splatta: "I'd like to point out www.gometric.org as a simple (but highly complete) unit conversion engine. created and maintained by our own Plutor" Maintained is such a strong word.

By: billder

billder — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:23:13 -0800

If you don't have UNIX yet, units is a great reason to install it. Now there's an ad campaign!

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:29:47 -0800

Impeachment Convertor: If 1 blow job equals impeachment for Bill Clinton, then X equals impeachment for GWB. Please solve for X.

By: Pollomacho

Pollomacho — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:38:55 -0800

I'll take "snowball's chance in hell" for X in that equasion.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 08:05:18 -0800

I.R.F.H., didn't your momma tell you that the pun was the lowest form of humor?

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 08:12:18 -0800

From the Acronym Finder, first link in Kirth Gerson's comment: "Reverse Acronym Search: This search will look up the Acronym or abbreviation using its definition. Useful if you have a phrase or word that you want the acronym or abbreviation for." ... *facepalm*

By: mendel

mendel — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 08:59:46 -0800

If you don't have UNIX yet, units is a great reason to install it. You can also get it as part of cygwin.

By: beelzbubba

beelzbubba — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 09:18:22 -0800

It doesn't convert from what a guy thinks his penis length is to what his girlfriend thinks it is. posted by BrotherCaine at 2:35 AM PST on December 22 [!] give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile

By: spock

spock — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 10:04:11 -0800

There's really is no rhyme or reason to which crap FPPs will get you people going, is there?

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 10:09:50 -0800

It turned me into a newt!

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 11:11:36 -0800

Perhaps they're not eating absolute crap Try the grits

By: BigLankyBastard

BigLankyBastard — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 11:20:23 -0800

For the record, it turns out that "Forty Rods to the Hogshead" converts to .003125 miles per gallon. Grandpa Simpson's non-metric car is also non-efficient.

By: obloquy

obloquy — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:02:45 -0800

The metric system sucks.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:06:56 -0800

Citizen Premier: Did they really say that? They're wrong; it was three-fifths. posted by dhartung at 1:18 AM PST on December 22 [!] Is it too late to say "oops?"

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 17:35:29 -0800

obloquy, that site is kinda dumb, except for this, which is wicked interesting (if a tad spotty).

By: maxsparber

maxsparber — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:16:48 -0800

Well, I was Jewish, but now I'm Fahrenheit.

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:27:37 -0800

Godwin!