American Customary (a.k.a Freedom) Units vs Imperial vs Metric

[ChezCheese:)]

A long time ago, say about 1979, I used to collect 8x10 movie stills. And I had a lucid dream where when I looked at the photograph, the movie would start from that point in the film. I remember it was a scene in To Have and to Have Not with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Thus I predicted watching movies on demand on tablets. And now it is as common as reading used to be.

 

[Chargeride]

A long time ago, say about 1979, I used to collect 8x10 movie stills. And I had a lucid dream where when I looked at the photograph, the movie would start from that point in the film. I remember it was a scene in To Have and to Have Not with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Thus I predicted watching movies on demand on tablets. And now it is as common as reading used to be.

Uncanny, but 8mmx10mm, is that for ants?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Uncanny, but 8mmx10mm, is that for ants?

That's when you forgot naming the unit of measure

My brother-in-law had some funny ideas back in 1980s:
-- It could be a chip with the music stored. You would listen to it the way you listen to a Walkman today.
-- I think there will be a time when all computers in the world would be connected in a network, and the combined knowledge of the humankind would be available to anyone
A prophet?

My idea of that era was:
-- It is virtually impossible to listen to the Walkman music in the headphones in noisy places. Why not use a microphone to collect the ambient noise, reverse the phase and mix that signal with the music? The noise would be cancelled!
Did that make me the inventor of Active Noise Cancelling?

Well, the difference between having an idea and making it happen is huge.

 

[PCeBiker]

I had a lucid dream where when I looked at the photograph, the movie would start from that point in the film.

In the early 70's I had a bunch of big little books.
The books were small but they were an inch thick with pages.

Some of them had stop action photos of cartoons.
I had a book with Bugs trying to pull a out of the ground.
He pulled on it twice and it slipped out of his 's (well, 's I guess?)

On the third try the pulled Bugs into the ground and the was gone !!!

A long time ago, say about 1979, I used to collect 8x10 movie stills.

Uncanny, but 8mmx10mm, is that for ants?

Microfilm

It's not just for taking pictures of ants.
It's for Russian spies to take 🖼's with tiny 's

.

 

[Chargeride]

That's when you forgot naming the unit of measure

My brother-in-law had some funny ideas back in 1980s:
-- It could be a chip with the music stored. You would listen to it the way you listen to a Walkman today.
-- I think there will be a time when all computers in the world would be connected in a network, and the combined knowledge of the humankind would be available to anyone
A prophet?

My idea of that era was:
-- It is virtually impossible to listen to the Walkman music in the headphones in noisy places. Why not use a microphone to collect the ambient noise, reverse the phase and mix that signal with the music? The noise would be cancelled!
Did that make me the inventor of Active Noise Cancelling?

Well, the difference between having an idea and making it happen is huge.

That was one of the questions in my final high school physics exam.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

A question that only Stomp seems to have answered: Do you Americans feel comfortable with metric dimensions in cycling? The part sizes etc.

 

[Roamers]

A question that only Stomp seems to have answered: Do you Americans feel comfortable with metric dimensions in cycling? The part sizes etc.

Sure. If I ned a part, look it up or measure if necessary, and order. Don't order many parts, but ordering an "X" for specific model bike is no big deal.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

A little self-deprecating story

For a large part of my life I was surrounded by the metric values. For instance, I was shooting the AKM and AKMS, SVD, PW-33, PM-63 during my Army service. (I also threw a grenade and exploded some TNT). For me, the 7.62 mm calibre of the Kalashnikov assault rifle was just natural. Only later, I realised it was just 0.30 in But it was not the worst...

As a youngster, I used to play football (a.k.a. soccer). For me, the penalty shot point of 11th metre was as natural as breathing. Only in my 40s, I learned all Association Football dimensions were converted from feet and yards

 

[PCeBiker]

Coke is sold by liter in the U.S., isn't it.

I thought it was sold by the gram or ounce?

I suppose you could sell it by volume, but then people would get ripped off buying the puffy low density Coke.

My idea of that era was:
-- Why not use a microphone to collect the ambient noise, reverse the phase and mix that signal with the music? The noise would be cancelled!

My idea is, and I think @stompandgo might be interested, is instead of noise canceling relying on software to eliminate noise, I was thinking of installing a microphone on the back of my helmet and sending the sound directly to ear plug headphones.


@stompandgo and I both notice that when we turn our heads to the side, there's No wind noise.

It's the air rushing past the ears that makes the noise, so a microphone on the back of the helmet 'should' pick up sound without any wind noise to eliminate?

The difference in wind noise by simply turning your head to the side is Very Noticeable.
But as @stompandgo knows. It's all just in our heads.

 

[PCeBiker]

,.. I was thinking of installing a microphone on the back of my helmet

"Hear" We Go,..

I look to my left when I do a shoulder check, so I'm gunna install the right on the front of my helmet, and the left ear on the rear to help me stay spatially oriented.

I will need to train my muscle memory to not think that I'm going 32 kph sideways.

 

[PCeBiker]

That was one of the questions in my final high school physics exam.

I wonder what my physics teacher would say about me sticking ears to my helmet?

I remember doing sound experiments in physics class.
The teacher set up a speaker on either side of the classroom.

Each speaker was fed a sinewave but one speaker had a slightly different frequency.

We could hear the sound get loud and then silent as we walked from one side of classroom to the other.

For each Hz that it was outta phase, there was one (or was it two?) nodes (silent spots) on our walk across the classroom.

 

[PCeBiker]

I've decided to just drill holes through the back of my and install acoustic tubes.
Then just plug them in my's.

That aughta do it??

They should feed sound from the less turbulent air space behind my head directly into my ears.

If that doesn't work, I bought one of these FBI devices to add to it ,..

It's got a speaker and two built-in microphones.

I'm sure that I can get a mic stuck to my helmet somewhere where it's outta the wind?

I might have to cannibalize the gizmo and install the mics in a proper housing and stick them on my helmet like Mr. head

 

[stompandgo]

Do you buy your breakfast cereal from Aliexpress?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Do you buy your breakfast cereal from Aliexpress?

I'm glad I 'ignore' him

 

[Chargeride]

The French still have a bit of crazy.

 

[Chargeride]

This puts the whole thing to bed.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

That's when you forgot naming the unit of measure

My brother-in-law had some funny ideas back in 1980s:
-- It could be a chip with the music stored. You would listen to it the way you listen to a Walkman today.
-- I think there will be a time when all computers in the world would be connected in a network, and the combined knowledge of the humankind would be available to anyone
A prophet?

My idea of that era was:
-- It is virtually impossible to listen to the Walkman music in the headphones in noisy places. Why not use a microphone to collect the ambient noise, reverse the phase and mix that signal with the music? The noise would be cancelled!
Did that make me the inventor of Active Noise Cancelling?

Well, the difference between having an idea and making it happen is huge.

In the 1940s, Vannevar Bush basically mapped out what the Internet, Google, and Wikipedia had to be. He missed porn though. His famous "As We May Think" had this all worked out in July of 1945. Worth a read. One of the interesting things about it is that while he saw quite a few things clearly, he was also clearly and often hilariously locked into a 1940s world view that produced some assumptions that from our 2020s perspective would seem bizarre.

The idea of noise cancelling headphones had been around for a long time (at least since the 1930s), but nobody could figure out how to make them with vacuum tubes that would be practical and comfortable to wear on someone's head. I remember 1930s-era copies of the Radio Amateur's Handbook that talked about building noise canceling circuitry to reduce static on DX.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

This puts the whole thing to bed.

That's why the title of this thread is "American Customary Units...", naming the Imperial as another system. I think the UK is metric with some hangover from the Imperial times The British cyclists on GCN have no issue with kilometres or km/h

In the 1940s, Vannevar Bush basically mapped out what the Internet, Google, and Wikipedia had to be. He missed porn though. His famous "As We May Think" had this all worked out in July of 1945. Worth a read. One of the interesting things about it is that while he saw quite a few things clearly, he was also clearly and often hilariously locked into a 1940s world view that produced some assumptions that from our 2020s perspective would seem bizarre.

The idea of noise cancelling headphones had been around for a long time (at least since the 1930s), but nobody could figure out how to make them with vacuum tubes that would be practical and comfortable to wear on someone's head. I remember 1930s-era copies of the Radio Amateur's Handbook that talked about building noise canceling circuitry to reduce static on DX.

Thank you Mr. Coffee! Enlightening!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Mr. Coffee: The Polish author Stanisław Lem (whose writing varied from sci-fi comedy through solemn space stories to serious philosophical discourse) described the world past the AI takeover and with the robots inhabiting Earth for many generations in one of his witty novels (it could be the Fables for Robots but I last read Lem many years ago and can't quite remember).

Another novel, The Futurological Congress (my favourite) describes the humankind drowned in multiple layers of psychemistry. I recommend both reads!