#measurement

First we need to get a buttload of nails.’ ‘A buttload? How much is that?’ ‘Uh…’ Granuaile rescued me with her superior knowledge of indefinite units of measurement. ‘I believe that’s slightly more than a shitload but much less than a fuckton. ↗

— Kevin Hearne

#humor #indefinite-units-of-measurement #humor

Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurate because there is a discontinuity between each integer and the next. ↗

— Gregory Bateson

#because #between #conceivably #counting #discontinuity

Science uses the Red Shift to measure deep cosmic distances. But how to measure deep historic time? How about—the Saffron Shift. If history itself had a color, it is . . . like wood or bark, or living forest floor. Assigning hues to time periods, the sum total of history is saffron-brown—but the chromatic arc starts from blinding white (prehistory) to sun-yellow (Ancient Greece), then deepening to pale wood tones (Dark Ages) and finally exploding like an infinite chord into a full brown palette that includes mahoganies, siennas (Middle Ages), oak, sandalwood (the Renaissance), cherry, maple (Age of Reason), and near-black old woods (Industrial Revolution) for which there may not be names. As time approaches our own, the wood-brown palette fades to a weird glassy colorlessness, goes black-and-white for a brief span as you think of photographs of your grandparents, and then again fades until we get a clear medium that is the color of the world. And the present moment is perfectly transparent. It's only as you start looking into the future, that the colors start returning. The glass is turning silvery with a murky haze, and there is blue somewhere in the distance . . . ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#measurement #red-shift #saffron-shift #time-deep-time #age

People think the free market is a philosophy, they think that it is a creed. It is none of those things. Free market is a bathroom scale, it is a measuring tape, it's simply a measurement. ↗

— P. J. O'Rourke

#creed #free #free market #market #measurement

It is also right that we continue to consult with front line workers and the public to ensure that targets are reasonable and achievable, that measurement regimes are proportionate and that the targets take full account of the other reforms that are under way. ↗

— John Hutton

#also #consult #continue #ensure #front

Canadians can easily 'pass for American' as long as we don't accidentally use metric measurements or apologize when hit by a car. ↗

— Doug Coupland

#american #apologize #canadians #car #easily

As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet. ↗

— John Olver

#antarctica #attention #became #carbon #carbon dioxide

Well, usually when you talk about a mandate, you're talking about an overwhelming win. I don't think by any measurement the 2004 election was an overwhelming win. ↗

— Lincoln Chafee

#any #election #i #mandate #measurement

In a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals. ↗

— James C. Maxwell

#approximately #been #carry #constants #estimated

When it comes to exploring the mind in the framework of cognitive neuroscience, the maximal yield of data comes from integrating what a person experiences - the first person - with what the measurements show - the third person. ↗

— Daniel Goleman

#comes #data #experiences #exploring #first