Unusual Standard Units of Measurement

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Author Message Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI, LEED® AP Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 77 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 02:34 pm:    Some may be aware of various unusual standard units of measurement, such as the Puppy (p): The SI unit of happiness, puppy, is derivable as the quantity of happiness which one 1 kilogram beagle puppy whose body temperature is 310 kelvins produces when held in skin contact for one second. There is also the “Helen” (H), the SI unit of beuaty: that amount of beauty required to launch one thousand Achaean ships of approximately eight tons empty displacement each, or approximately eight-thousand tons of shipping, and to destroy one city. The milliHelen (mH): a more convenient measure than the Helen, that amount of beauty required to launch one ship and burn down a single house. This of course, leads to the question: What is the male equivalent of the “Helen”? I have partial definitions for some others and believe these definitions need to expanded: For example: Fonzie (SI measure of coolness) (F): One Fonzie is the amount of coolness generated by Arthur Fonzarelli. What would a MegaFonzie (MF) be then? {Futurama’s definition is obvious flawed] Warhols (The SI unit of fame duration) (w): One (1) Warhol equals 15 minutes of fame. Accordingly, if you’ve been famous for three years, that’s just over 105 kilowarhols (kw). There is a critical point — varying from celebrity to celebrity — where that person has outstayed their welcome, and are in negative Warhol territory, or the Kanye. [-1 Warhol = 1 Kanye (k).] I am confident that the denizens of this site can contribute to this cause. Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED® AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 1166 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 02:44 pm:    You have waaaay too much time on your hands! But I await with bated breath the contributions to come. Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI, LEED® AP Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 78 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 03:05 pm:    Here I am contributing to the further development of science and I get dissed! Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED® AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 1167 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 03:30 pm:    The Connery: (SI unit of spectacular aging): The Connery is measured in terms of the number of women who turn and stare, swoon, or sigh. One Connery is equal to 100 such reactions. Oh, and 83 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI, LEED® AP Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 79 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 03:49 pm:    The Connery: nice. George A. Everding, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: geverding Post Number: 573 Registered: 11-2004 Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 04:59 pm:    BOM Scale: Basic unit of fun. Today rates as about a 0.6 on the BOM scale. I am having significantly less fun than a Barrel Of Monkeys. Here's hoping the upcoming weekend will rate at least a 2.0 BOM George A. Everding AIA CSI CCS CCCA Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies St. Louis, MO Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI, LEED® AP Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 80 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 05:06 pm:    George; While I am sympathetic with your current BOM deficit, in the interest of completeness I must ask for clarification of your definition. What size and construction of barrel? What number, size, age and species of monkeys? Inquiring minds want to know. Or is the definition of BOM like the classic definition of pornography: you know it if you see it? Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 1082 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 03:30 pm:    okay, I've got a couple: Palin: a measurement of how much your politcal ambitions outstrip your actual skill-set. a Mega-Palin is when you can't pronounce the words your speech writers produce for you or you just go make up words. Snooki: a measurement that combines two things: lack of actual usefulness times amount of fame. (fame being measured by appearances on reality shows, People Magazine and the like) Louboutin: a measurement of a woman's status and power: (calculated by the number of Louboutin pumps in her closet) and finally, Neruda: a Latin American calculation of a man's sexiness, based on Neruda poems committed to memory in Spanish. Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI, LEED® AP Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 82 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 04:04 pm:    Nice. Of course, that leads to the obvious question of what is a milli-Palin? On a separate topic, what is the unit of measurement of a mind-numbing pseudoscientific utterance? A “Monckton”? A “Ham”? A “Dembski”? Suggestions? Then of course, we must agree on common units of measurement (e.g.; is it 5 minutes of mind-numbing, or 10 minutes? Does the jaw have to drop?). Reminds me of the time I had to explain to an architect and an owner that merely insulating an exterior chase would not prevent freezing: we would have to provide some heat. As I recall, I finally “got through’ when I suggested theycompare the chase, to putting something in a picnic cooler, and asked how long it would take for the internal temperature to match the outside temperature. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1287 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 04:23 pm:    Milli-Palin: When you lip-sync your outsized ambitions? Steven Bruneel, AIA, CSI-CDT, LEED-AP Senior Member Username: redseca2 Post Number: 260 Registered: 12-2006 Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 06:33 pm:    The Norris Constant: As the number of Ninja assassins trying to get Chuck Norris in a B movie increases, the probability that they will collide and cancel each other out increases exponentially, creating the familiar bell curve with Chuck at the top. Lisa Goodwin Robbins, RA, CCS, LEED ap Senior Member Username: lgoodrob Post Number: 112 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 09:30 am:    More please! I love this thread! Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI, LEED® AP Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 83 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 03:17 pm:    The Pikotuki (TP) Measurement of Incompetence Equal to 1/1000 of a nanotuki, or 0.0288 seconds of competent systems support. Also equal to one millionth of a mikrotuki, and used to describe work done by a grossly incompetent work force. Finish (Nokia Research Center): pikotukihenkilö means "grossly incompetent person assigned in systems support". The Mikrotuki (Finish: Literally micro-support): Derives from Finnish mikrotukihenkilö ("microcomputers systems support person"). It is one workday (8 h or 28,800 seconds) of one competent PC systems support person Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 1092 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, December 31, 2010 - 06:25 pm:    and finally, Designer: a measurement describing someone with architectural ambitions who can not detail their way out of a paper bag. Of course... one would need to define the size of the paper bag, and how long they would be given to detail, but I think these issues can be worked out. This may be one of those amorphous measurements, much like the Barrel of Monkeys, above. Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 1093 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, December 31, 2010 - 06:29 pm:    oh... and The Invoice Measurement of Time: much like the Theory of Relativity, this is an inverse constant that is applied to services invoices sent out for payment. Factors include: invoice as a percentage of total monthly consultant billings X how irritating the client was to work with X how much you need the money = the inverse of how quickly you will be paid for that work. Ellis C. Whitby, AIA, PE, CSI, LEED® AP Senior Member Username: ecwhitby Post Number: 87 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 09:13 am:    Regarding the "Invoice Measurement of Time": are there different standards? Such as: 1) how long it takes for the Owner to pay the prime; 2) how long it takes the prime to pay the consultants. Also, does the Owners demand that chnages be implemented immediately versus thier willingness to pay for the change factor in?