Pics that make you smile

[kamkar]

Yeah the people you guys vote for threw away a good thing, not that the guys Danes vote for haven't done the same.

I blame complacency and the urge to want to keep a nice comfortable power job, this why it is soooooo important to have a cap on how long a person / family can serve his/her country.

Some seats in the Danish parliament have been occupied by the same family for generations, i find this most sad and embarrassing.

 

[Gibson99]

Supposedly there's a group here working on term limits for Congress. I really hope they succeed, cuz you know they'll never impose them on themselves. It was a minor miracle that they passed term limits for the president.

 

[kamkar]

They might be misunderstanding Woodrow Wilson who said " there is no higher religion than human service, to work for the common good is the greatest creed"

It just baffle me people can have that high thoughts about them self thinking i am the man and i must be here forever for my nation to succeed, talk about inflated ego

Woodrow also said " a conservative is one who never make changes, and when in doubt he consult his grandmother"

 

[SawMaster]

The metric system is more logical, easier to use, easier to teach and learn, and we are the only major Nation in the world not using it which is utterly stupid of us.
That our car manufacturers went metric didn't help a lot as they chose to use oddball wrench sizes while with any other car you can do most repairs with just 19,17, 14. 12. 10, and 8mm wrenches. Our Chevy also needs 5.5, 7, 13, 15, and 18 mm wrenches. What were those engineers thinking drinking?

I'll just have some of this as I watch the world race past us-

Phil

 

[DT MI]

Supposedly there's a group here working on term limits for Congress. I really hope they succeed, cuz you know they'll never impose them on themselves. It was a minor miracle that they passed term limits for the president.

Michigan has had term limits for some time now. The theory was it would put an end to 'career politicians'.

Problem is the law was written in such a manner that it set limits on how long they can be in a specific elected office versus total time in office. The reality is we now have career politicians playing 'musical offices'. When they hit the limit in one office they then run for election to a different one and the cycle continues.

One real world downside to term limits is it effectively puts greater power into the hands of the lobbyists as they now have the knowledge and 'infrastructure' to get the things they want. A second negative is, in the rare instance, when you have a good, decent person in office they are forced out by limits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of career politicians but term limits are not the panacea that some make it out to be.

 

[kamkar]

 

[SawMaster]

If left to a popular vote, I think a term limit of zero would pass by a huge margin

Phil

 

[Gibson99]

That our car manufacturers went metric didn't help a lot as they chose to use oddball wrench sizes while with any other car you can do most repairs with just 19,17, 14. 12. 10, and 8mm wrenches. Our Chevy also needs 5.5, 7, 13, 15, and 18 mm wrenches. What were those engineers thinking drinking?

Phil

That wasn't an accident. 5.5, 7, 11, 13, 16 and 18mm almost exactly correspond to common inch fraction sizes. Which just makes them even more likely to get rounded off when overtightened or rusted.

If left to a popular vote, I think a term limit of zero would pass by a huge margin

Phil

In computer terms, a timeout of zero means unlimited runtime.

 

[SawMaster]

A partial USA DIY FYI post of wrench interchangeability:
6.5mm=1/4; 8mm=5/16; 11mm=7/16; 13mm=1/2=5/16W; 14mm or 15mm=9/16; 16mm=5/8; 19mm=3/4; 27mm=1 1/8
Note that not all these are a perfect fit as wrench sizes vary by manufacturer (considerably) as do bolt head sizes (slightly). There are plenty more, these are just the ones I remember and commonly interchange @Gibson99 the only good sizes in your list they chose were 11(uncommon),13, and 16(which isn't a good fit). Most 9/16 wrenches will fit 14 but not 15. 7 is 9/64 IIRC which is not found in many socket sets. I have many Snap-on (tight), MAC (average), and off-brand tools (loose) which throws another monkey wrench in the mix. They still would have done better adopting the almost world standard sizes I mentioned as you have several metrics (like 17mm) where there is no common interchange so you'd need a metric set sooner or later anyway. Might as well do it right from the start

Phil

 

[DT MI]

That wasn't an accident. 5.5, 7, 11, 13, 16 and 18mm almost exactly correspond to common inch fraction sizes. Which just makes them even more likely to get rounded off when overtightened or rusted. ....

A partial USA DIY FYI post of wrench interchangeability:
6.5mm=1/4; 8mm=5/16; 11mm=7/16; 13mm=1/2=5/16W; 14mm or 15mm=9/16; 16mm=5/8; 19mm=3/4; 27mm=1 1/8
Note that not all these are a perfect fit as wrench sizes vary by manufacturer (considerably)...

Good information for those who need it. For many years it seemed I always owned a domestic brand and a European brand and did almost all my own work. To this day my toolbox has a pretty even mix of metric and non-metric wrenches/sockets/hex keys even though I'm now too lazy/short tempered/impatient to do a lot of the work I used to.

DIY Hint: If you don't have the correct size wrench go larger and put a shim between the bolt/nut and the wrench, even a coin will work.

 

[Raptor1956]

They did die!

Brian

 

[Raptor1956]

I wish we'd move to metric. It shouldn't be that hard... Our cars already have both mph and kmh on the speedos since Mexico and Canada use metric. I have way more metric tools than I do inches (with the sole exception being carpentry tools - nobody sells metric measuring tapes, squares, etc here). And in the kitchen, all my measuring cups have meric on one side and imperial on the other. Even medicine dosage is given in metric. Sadly, when the pharmacists explain the dosage, they say things like "give him 5 M-L's each night" instead of saying "give him 5 milliliters..." Makes them look kinda dumb. Kinda like when you hear someone describing battery capacity and they say "mah" (like you might call your mother) instead of "milliamp hours".

And now that I've watched the video (seen it before), it's an old joke... Which weighs more, a ton of steel or a ton of feathers? And that works whether it's metric or imperial. And if you don't get it, well, I guess you're just too dense.

But it makes me think of this:

The USA tried going metric in the 70's, but they made the mistake of giving industry like 10 years so industry did nothing for 10 years then complained they couldn't do it in time. There would be cost to redo all the speed limit signs, of course, but that would be a one time bad deal and we'd move on. But, there really is no excuse not to do it now as the change for cars is minimal -- firmware in cars newer than about 20 years. Most other things being computer controlled could be changed with a firmware/software update as if nothing happened. Most car/truck mechanics have long ago added metric tools and most would be able to handle the change without much difficulty. Older cars would have to rely on the kph scale on the analog speedo but the odo would be under-reporting by a factor of about 1.61.

One way this could be expedited would be if news and weather reports switched so that in a few weeks/months the MKS units would become second nature. But, there will always be holdouts that say it can't be done and others that just prefer to keep things as they are. A good many folks in the UK report there weight in stones even if nothing else is reported in that unit.


Brian

 

[sludgeguts]

Well, is this too difficult for non metric people(north americans)?

They had something similar on a telly prog (QI) many moons ago - which is heavier, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?
The convoluted answer was...
The troy ounce (measuring gold) is 480 grains, whilst the avoirdupois ounce (measuring everything else) is 437.5 grains, so an ounce of feathers weighs LESS than an ounce of gold.

However, there are 16 avoirdupois ounces in an av. pound (7000 grains), but only 12 troy ounces in a troy pound (5760 grains).

Therefore an ounce of gold is heavier than an ounce of feathers, but a pound of gold is lighter than a pound of feathers.

I remember when we were forced to change, I asked the butcher for a pound of sausages, he said "it's kilos now" I said "OK, I'll have a pound of kilos then!"

 

[Borg]

On that note.

 

[Sabe]

On that note.

That's almost as good as that beef dog

 

[DT MI]

...I remember when we were forced to change, I asked the butcher for a pound of sausages, he said "it's kilos now" I said "OK, I'll have a pound of kilos then!"

My kind of humor. For sure I'd have done exactly the same thing.

 

[Rajagra]

This would be mt karaoke choice:

Phil

Everyone thinks that's such an innocent song, don't they:

 

[Dashmellow]

They did die!

Brian

I have a dear friend who came down with breast cancer. She would not be alive today if not for Obamacare. She'd be the first to tell you that before obtaining coverage through Obamacare she could not have afforded insurance, but luckily for her she got sick after finally being able to purchase health insurance.

 

[Gibson99]

 

[Gibson99]