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Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

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Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#81

Post by wil421 »

bilekas wrote: post #69
Animats wrote: post #68

This is an issue with bronze statues. Washington, D.C. has many of them. The ones at Memorial Bridge are occasionally cleaned and polished, but most of the others are not and have turned green. New York City has some statues polished, some not, depending on who owns them. The Prometheus statue at Rockefeller Center and the Charging Bull at Bowling Green are kept shined up.

Isn't the oxidation of the green sometimes part of the aesthetic though ?

I would’ve liked to have seen the Statue of Liberty in its original copper glory. The green has certainly become iconic but I’m sure the copper brown color was a sight to see.

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#82

Post by usrbinbash »

saalweachter wrote: post #77
usrbinbash wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, all measurement systems are functionally arbitrary It's not a question whether they are arbitrary, it's a question if they are technically consistent within themselves. The metric system is: Everything is orders of magnitude, powers of ten, throughout all the measurements. Consequently, everything measured by base units of distance and mass follows the same rules: A Watt is 1 Joule per second, which is 1 Newt…

> Measurements of mass don't follow measurements of distance. A ton is 160 stone, or 160 * 8 "hundredweights", or 160 * 8 * 14 pounds, or 160 * 8 * 14 * 16 ounces. Not only is it not dependent on the distance measurements, the conversion rates are also dissimilar. Woah woah woah, don't put that evil on us in the USA, that stone madness is all British. A US hundredweight is 100 lbs. The metric system didn't invent wat…

> Woah woah woah, don't put that evil on us in the USA, that stone madness is all British.

> A US hundredweight is 100 lbs.

The fact that there are more than one sort of imperial measurements, and that they are different, makes matters worse, rather than better. The metric system works the same, everywhere, in all countries, and in all languages. The only thing that changed since its inception, was switching from defining base units through comparison to physical templates, to defining them by natural universal constants, aka. making it even better than it already was.

> The metric system didn't invent water volume and weight correspondence

I didn't say it did, I said they depend on one another. And in metric, that works for ALL weights and measurements, and does so consistently. Cool, so 1 pint of water == 1 pound. How much is a pint in cubic inches? How many cubic furlongs of water do I need for 10 imperial Tons?

Oh, and btw.: What exactly do you mean when you say "pint"? Because there are many different ones. Just a short list of examples:

    - Imperial Pint (568ml)
    - Liquid Pint (473ml)
    - Dry Pint (551ml)
    - Indian Pint (330ml)
    - The Australian pint (570ml)
    - The South Australian pint (425ml)
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pint#Other_pints

If I have to rely on context, locality and customs to have a chance to understand what a unit of volume actually means, then there may be some issues with the underlying system. One reason why the metric system was invented, and why today almost every country in the world officially uses it, was to solve exactly these problems of ambiguity.

When I say "liter", there is no ambiguity, it's always 1 cubic decimeter.

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#83

Post by Latty »

bnjms wrote: post #33
Latty wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often the kind of thing people hate for a while, and then with enough time becomes iconic and you'd probably end up with an article about how they were debating whether to preserve it or not as it aged. I think about this a lot when it comes to "eyesores", particularly wind turbines. When you think of how windmills are considered picturesque, it always makes me a little surprised when people moan about modern wind ge…

After seeing a video of someone showing how the nearby windmill cast a rotating shadow on their living room window some months of the year I understood it is a legitimate issue for some. But generally I’m with you. I just don’t get it. Windmills look neat and do neat things.

For sure, not saying there are no issues (sound, shadows, etc...) especially when very close, but some people object to them literally just being in sight, which is wild to me.

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#84

Post by Aloha »

usrbinbash wrote: post #82
saalweachter wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Measurements of mass don't follow measurements of distance. A ton is 160 stone, or 160 * 8 "hundredweights", or 160 * 8 * 14 pounds, or 160 * 8 * 14 * 16 ounces. Not only is it not dependent on the distance measurements, the conversion rates are also dissimilar. Woah woah woah, don't put that evil on us in the USA, that stone madness is all British. A US hundredweight is 100 lbs. The metric system didn't invent wat…

> Woah woah woah, don't put that evil on us in the USA, that stone madness is all British. > A US hundredweight is 100 lbs. The fact that there are more than one sort of imperial measurements, and that they are different , makes matters worse, rather than better. The metric system works the same, everywhere, in all countries, and in all languages. The only thing that changed since its inception, was switching from de…

US Customary Units (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units) is not the same as Imperial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units)

For what its worth, our system was standardized in 1832, and has been bound to SI equivalents since 1895.

For a broader comparison of the differences - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and...

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#85

Post by Aloha »

tialaramex wrote: post #74
Aloha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dislike of change is a worldwide constant, like gravity. Also, all measurement systems are functionally arbitrary - be it the kings foot, a rod in a library, or some mathematical constant - all are arbitrary, ours is just a little less rational and certainly less relational than others. Fahrenheit is just fine however thank you. (My ideal system would be a zero to 200 system, water would freeze at zero and boil at 20…

In terms of arbitrariness, note that your "traditional" units are only actually defined in terms of the SI system ("metric" units). Metrication is expensive and although the US is rich it declines to spend the eye-watering sums it would cost to do adequate metrication separately for its own unit system, so the pound is defined as some number of kilograms, the inch is defined as some number of metres and so on. As a r…

The number of layers of arbitrary dont bother me very much. We've metrified our industry (gradually over 50 or so years), dealing the the government is metric, etc. I think we've adopted the metric system in the most important places - I dont think our competitiveness is harmed or helped if I have to buy meat by the KG at the grocery, or the weather forecast comes in celsius or not.

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#86

Post by Aloha »

wkat4242 wrote: post #73
Aloha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dislike of change is a worldwide constant, like gravity. Also, all measurement systems are functionally arbitrary - be it the kings foot, a rod in a library, or some mathematical constant - all are arbitrary, ours is just a little less rational and certainly less relational than others. Fahrenheit is just fine however thank you. (My ideal system would be a zero to 200 system, water would freeze at zero and boil at 20…

> for a bunch of historical reasons americans don't like dollar coins. (Mostly the size we picked is too close to the quarter) I'm also surprised you like the dollar bills all the same size and colour. I don't know how I'd pay in a bar while drunk lol. Though I guess like most people these days I just slap my phone on the reader.

They are now subtlety different colors, anything 10 dollars and above has their own shade. I dont personally I think it matters very much, I actually mostly carry 2 dollar bills around, for novelty (and rememberability) factors (they make great tips).

And.. basically yeah, we pay with cards now, lol

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#87

Post by Aloha »

mulmen wrote: post #67
Aloha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dislike of change is a worldwide constant, like gravity. Also, all measurement systems are functionally arbitrary - be it the kings foot, a rod in a library, or some mathematical constant - all are arbitrary, ours is just a little less rational and certainly less relational than others. Fahrenheit is just fine however thank you. (My ideal system would be a zero to 200 system, water would freeze at zero and boil at 20…

Anyone involved with chemistry uses the metric system. As does anyone who plays soccer. It's everywhere. Go look at any item in your pantry, metric units will be printed on it.

Yeah, that was largely my point, everyone who complains about america not being metric has not been to the store, I think we're around as metrified at the UK, the one difference is we still use Fahrenheit, and anything sold bulk measure is sold in pounds - packaged goods have Metric on them either because of a legal requirement, or because of bleedover from Canada and Mexico, most store scales can do KG or Pounds - but are set to Pounds.

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#88

Post by mrguyorama »

nine_k wrote: post #55
catiopatio wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safety over freedom and happiness certainly is an increasingly common way of viewing the world.

It's not safety. It's more like extermination: domestic cats kill to play, not to eat. They have plenty of energy, compared to wild animals, and vets keep their life longer and more healthy. So the balance goes even more off. (I love cats, and keep two. They have their serving of fresh air in the fire escape.)

Also there are just SO GODDAMN MORE CATS than there naturally would be, and SIGNIFICANTLY FEWER BIRDS than there naturally would be.

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#89

Post by mrguyorama »

samplatt wrote: post #50
paganel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of them kill a lot of birds and bats. On top of that, they of course need access roads for maintenance crews to come do their thing once in a while, if located in a former pristine environment that isn't ideal. To say nothing of when the construction actually takes place, again, if it all happens in a pristine location then it's not ok.

I've always been suspect of the 'kills birds' argument. I lived near some turbines on an extremely windy coast, and never EVER saw any dead birds anywhere near it. Daily cleaning up the evidence with ruthless efficiency or just FUD by the NIMBYs?

Some wind turbines in some places kill some birds sometimes. There is research going into reducing it with different blade coatings or paints. Fox news and AM radio turns this into "Wind turbines kill thousands of birds" as if they suddenly care about birds like some make love not war hippies.

It's an issue, but if they were that concerned about birds they would be screaming about glass windows and skyscrapers.

Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty

#90

Post by mrguyorama »

runarb wrote: post #44
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are obnoxious at night when a large cluster of them are all flashing their warning lights.

Here are some gif showing the effect: https://www.nrk.no/nordland/mdg-mener-vindturbin-i-vindpark-... The article is in Norwegian, but look at the pictures. It must be stressful to have all those read warning lights blinking all night.

>It must be stressful to have all those read warning lights blinking all night.

Why?

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