[TowerTalk] Tower Incident Joke

[Alan NV8A]

On 12/03/10 03:58 pm, jimlux wrote:

>>>> Mythbusters did a piece of this a couple of years ago. That piece was based
>>>> on what I think was the original myth (guy with bricks on roof), but it's
>>>> still fun to watch:
>>>> http://www.yourdiscovery.com/video/mythbusters-barrel-of-bricks/
>>>>
>>> interesting.. the voice over (in a UK accent) describes a 10 meter high
>>> structure while the drawing says 30 ft...
>>>
>> That's pretty close ... converts to 32 1/2 feet.
>
> Yes, and doesn't have spurious accuracy.  The scaffold is "about 30 feet
> high" and also "about 10 meters high"...
>
> (although remembering that 15 meters is very close to 50 feet is handy)

When VK-land changed from the Imperial system of weights and measures to 
the Metric system (which they did by stages, with gasoline being sold by 
the litre from a certain date, lumber sizes becoming metric from a 
certain date, etc., etc.), it used to drive me crazy to see newspaper 
reports that the suspect was "approximately 177.8 cm" or that the 
vehicle was traveling at "approximately 64.36 km/h": obviously someone 
gave a round figure in Imperial measurements and some idiot converted it 
to an exact Metric equivalent.

73

Alan NV8A
(long-ago VK4AFE)