new Powers of 10 video has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach on that post.

>> ^jbaber:

Why you should learn to love the metric system.


After reading that link, I think he raised a few good points such as nautical miles, and chopping wood but I still don't see that much advantage of imperial over metric. By example:

Fahrenheit degrees are a 0-100 scale of normal temperature: 0° is quite cold, 100° is quite hot.

Celcius 0° is water freezing and 100° is water boiling at 1 atmosphere, isn't that more intuitive than quite cold and quite hot? You can even use water to measure temperature.

Traditional units naturally express an estimation's margin of error.
Because there are units for every scale, my choice of units expresses my confidence in an estimate. Telling you my couch is about 10 ft. 6 in. wide expresses more confidence than saying it is about 10 ft. wide. Because metric units differ by such great amounts, there is often no way to do this. I must say my couch is about 3 meters or 300cm wide. The former implies my margin of error is 1 meter, and the latter that it's 1cm. In reality, I must depend on the roundness of 300 to imply that my margin of error is 10cm.

Err, what about saying it's about 3.3 meters? You can be as vague or precise as you want with metric. How is it intuitive if you can't express the measurement with fraction?

The steps between units are often small and intuitive.... ...A few feet is a yard. A few yards is a rod. A few rods is a chain. 10 chains is a furlong. 8 furlongs is a mile.

What? How is that intuitive? How do you trust measures when you can say a few something is a another thing? How many is a few?

To me, most arguments are about "Imperial is good because I'm familiar with the notions.", which can apply to any deprecated local standard and shouldn't be used as proof of being intuitive.

FYI, I grew up in China that uses another local system which nobody else use. I never liked it even though it mostly uses the power of 10 like the metric system. It's just too arbitrary of a scale to be any use other than understanding what old people is trying to say.

>> ^darkrowan:

Uhm... ok so in searching for the original "Powers of 10" video, which is the name that eludes you @ant, I hit up on this vid. Does this make it a dupe? The other vid is there in response to the original, which was narrated rather than a music video.
>> ^ant:
>> ^kir_mokum:
this isn't a fan made video. i'm pretty sure it's a public domain science education video. DJ shadow use to use it for his live performances. very cool video though.

Yeah, I can't remember its video name. It had no music IIRC.



I would say a dupe. I think you show throw this to SiftTalk.

Uhm... ok so in searching for the original "Powers of 10" video, which is the name that eludes you @ant, I hit up on this vid. Does this make it a dupe? The other vid is there in response to the original, which was narrated rather than a music video.
>> ^ant:

>> ^kir_mokum:
this isn't a fan made video. i'm pretty sure it's a public domain science education video. DJ shadow use to use it for his live performances. very cool video though.

Yeah, I can't remember its video name. It had no music IIRC.

Microwave works well too. Similar effect, place the disk in read surface up and hit it with full power for 10 seconds. Fantastic light show.

Powers of 10, they make a difference. The difference between going to the supermarket, and going around to the other side of the city is about the same factor he was off by. Or it is the difference between our position next to the sun, and the Voyager 1 spacecraft which is about to exit the solar system.

Have you tried explaining to her what fascism is?

Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3


Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Honestly, I can't remember where it was - it's been an ongoing discussion, which has taken place in discarded videos that were * discussed. If you feel strongly about it, make a sift talk post, maybe someone will come out of the woodwork with the links (or I'll have time to find them myself ).

In my opinion, the videos are victims of the old rules and since none of the old posters have been mopey about it, I say we let it stay the way it is. It was working as intended then, and we're working as intended now.

In reply to this comment by Tymbrwulf:
Yeah, but it was discarded by siftbot and not the user under the old rules! Mind linking me to the discussion where it was discussed previously?

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
It's discarded and therefore not a dupe. We've established this precedence earlier.

Yeah, but it was discarded by siftbot and not the user under the old rules! Mind linking me to the discussion where it was discussed previously?

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
It's discarded and therefore not a dupe. We've established this precedence earlier.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Powers-of-10

This should be combined with the "Universe in Powers of 10" video, because, you know, we are all human-centric.

As I said earlier, his height was listed at 6'11.5. I rounded it up without thinking it would be 7'0". Sorry for the mistake, but I can't help it that your imperial length system is so completely retarded.
In metric it's just 2.24m and 2.12m. Or 224cm and 212cm, look no retarded conversion, just to powers of 10.

*fixed the title

Weight 62.3 tonnes -> 56517.61 kilos

speed 80km

Kinetic energy 13,677,261.62 Joules

# 1×106 J, the kinetic energy of a one tonne vehicle at 45 metres per second (100 miles per hour)
# 1×106 J, approximately the food energy of a snack such as a Mars bar
# 1×107 J, the energy of a day's worth of heavy labour[2]
# 1×108 J, the kinetic energy of a 55 tonne aircraft at typical landing speed (115 knots or 59 m/s)

powers of 10 are crazy

wow. Ok, he staves off the free will argument by stating that quantum physics throws an unknowable wrench into the works. Fine.

I think that it's throwing in the towel. He says that our brains can have the power of 10 to the 27th simultaneous computations. That alone, to me, is beyond our ability to truly comprehend. And if you top it off with quantum physics, it goes even farther beyond our reach. This doesn't mean that we should throw in the towel and say that there is a universal consciousness that we all tap into, or that there is a soul. It just means it's still far beyond our ability to comprehend.

I guess my argument is that we are still very much robots, but we don't have even the ability to comprehend what 'robots' are truly capable of or even what the definition of robot is or the rules of the definition.

They keep talking of consciousness like it's a switch. Like every living thing on earth, except humans, has zero ability to reflect about themselves and are merely reacting to stimuli. Seems like an awful ego trip to me.

I could go on all day about this I guess...

You're right, SG it is *near *dupe. Here's the original, a bit shorter:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Size-Comparison-of-Various-Celestial-Bodies

Also a nice one here:

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-grand-scheme-of-things


Here's a really good one if anyone wants to post it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WEL117xXpw

And don't forget the "Powers of 10" videos here:

http://www.videosift.com/video/IBM-Powers-Of-Ten-amazing-9-minute-science-video

And here:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Spectrum-Natural-ends-of-time-and-space

And, of course, here:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Powers-of-ten-Simpsons-version



And jwray, there's an invite for you at the "Clouds and Beyond" Collective.

Sc