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More about the Google calculator
Sep. 7th, 2004 12:25 amI was reading an article about rackmounted servers. It mentioned that the standard rack width is 19 inches, which struck me as an almost arbitrary number. I decided to type "19 inches * 2.54" into Google to see the result, as I'm tired enough that I'm not in the mood to wing 19 by 2 and a half. It came back with "19 inches * 2.54 = 1.225804 meters". At first I was impressed that it knew I wanted a metric answer.
Then my mind started saying "well wait, 2.5 by 2 is five so eighteen by 2.5 is 9 by five which is 45 and then another 2.5 is 47.5 and then there's the ear of it, about .8, cuz .04 by 10 is .4 and another .4 is .8 but less .04 and we have .76, so that's 48 and a quarter centimeters." However, I only came to that conclusion because I was typing out my results here.
Google was wrong and by a lot! 48 is not 123 by any stretch. When I took out the word 'inches', I got the proper 48.26. What the?
Damn them for going public! The corporate thinking is already happening. I'll let y'all know when I learn what the deal is with the rack width. I hope it isn't as old-school as the 4' 8.5" railroad gauge (which goes back to the axle lengths of Roman chariots or, ummm, sorta). By the way, that's 143.51 cm.
Totally unrelated: I'm listening to a fine show from KUCI in metro Los Angeles. The tag-team announcers, who know quite well how to talk and when not, announced a show at "the Knitting Factory Hollywood". Why does the Knitting Factory have a Hollywood location? The Knitting Factory is named for being in a former knitting factory. They don't have abandoned shirtwaist factories in LA. Why not call it something completely different, related to the fall of a local economy... say, "Streetcar Barn"?
Before I close, I found a succinct answer to my rack width inquiry. This means I can sleep early.
Oh yeah! I picked up this DVD at the Con which has a bunch of old industrial advertising films including the GM piece about "The World of 1960" from the 1939 World's Fair. One bit on the disc from 1950 features the new "operator toll dialing". It involved having a customer dial a long-distance operator, who then looks up the "trunk information" for that city and punches it into "a key set". Frankly, it's touch-tone by proxy. It's hilarious: they show relay switches (big magnetic toggles originally invented in the days of the telegraph, then known as repeaters) moving about as if that were mind-blowing science. You look at the giant relay frames being hauled into place by winches and crane into a large office. In effect, each frame contained one thousandth of the processing power found an old video card. I want folks to come over to check out this geek frenzy.
Enough from me. Enjoy your short week. I had to work today. I used the time between calls, sometimes half an hour, to clean my desk. Anything can take hours if you let it.
-when the brain wins, Dante
Then my mind started saying "well wait, 2.5 by 2 is five so eighteen by 2.5 is 9 by five which is 45 and then another 2.5 is 47.5 and then there's the ear of it, about .8, cuz .04 by 10 is .4 and another .4 is .8 but less .04 and we have .76, so that's 48 and a quarter centimeters." However, I only came to that conclusion because I was typing out my results here.
Google was wrong and by a lot! 48 is not 123 by any stretch. When I took out the word 'inches', I got the proper 48.26. What the?
Damn them for going public! The corporate thinking is already happening. I'll let y'all know when I learn what the deal is with the rack width. I hope it isn't as old-school as the 4' 8.5" railroad gauge (which goes back to the axle lengths of Roman chariots or, ummm, sorta). By the way, that's 143.51 cm.
Totally unrelated: I'm listening to a fine show from KUCI in metro Los Angeles. The tag-team announcers, who know quite well how to talk and when not, announced a show at "the Knitting Factory Hollywood". Why does the Knitting Factory have a Hollywood location? The Knitting Factory is named for being in a former knitting factory. They don't have abandoned shirtwaist factories in LA. Why not call it something completely different, related to the fall of a local economy... say, "Streetcar Barn"?
Before I close, I found a succinct answer to my rack width inquiry. This means I can sleep early.
Oh yeah! I picked up this DVD at the Con which has a bunch of old industrial advertising films including the GM piece about "The World of 1960" from the 1939 World's Fair. One bit on the disc from 1950 features the new "operator toll dialing". It involved having a customer dial a long-distance operator, who then looks up the "trunk information" for that city and punches it into "a key set". Frankly, it's touch-tone by proxy. It's hilarious: they show relay switches (big magnetic toggles originally invented in the days of the telegraph, then known as repeaters) moving about as if that were mind-blowing science. You look at the giant relay frames being hauled into place by winches and crane into a large office. In effect, each frame contained one thousandth of the processing power found an old video card. I want folks to come over to check out this geek frenzy.
Enough from me. Enjoy your short week. I had to work today. I used the time between calls, sometimes half an hour, to clean my desk. Anything can take hours if you let it.
-when the brain wins, Dante
