Innumerate?
 

I have just heard on the news that Covid-19 infections have increased by three quarters. Does that mean that if they increase by another quarter, Covid-19 infections will have increased by one?

The same people who say '100% increase' rather than just saying 'double'.

Ah lads if you can't work that one out we're doomed.
If something increases by three-quarters it means it is slightly shorter than 4 football pitches but nearly as deep as an Olympic size swimming pool.
Think Phenolphthalein, how much para-Dimethylaminobenzaldehyde do you put in a FW boiler. About 3/4 or 66% would be fine. Likewise with the haversine of the angle theta between Venus and Rigel. And if suspicious of the answer, double it and tell the crew you put in 110% effort.

Sorry, but we're still doomed...................... :yawn:

I prefer to go to Fahrenheit as it's always warmer there than at Celsius

In a deep Celsian winter the minimum temperature can reach -50. In Dangabrielland it might go as low as -58.

Yes but, how many London double decker buses can you fit in one funnel?

It'll be the size of Wales.

It will be infinitely large ... and then some.

Inch by thick probably running from nothing to feck all.

A good laugh, gents! Thanks.
Then there is the "smidgeon"..........
Rgds.
Dave

Thanks for simplifying it for us.

Or a midge's dick.

That's the one I was trying to remember! Another "fine" measurement here in Mexico is a pubic hair!

Phenolpthalein - I took over from a 4/E who was a filthy cont. He left me some boiler suits - They went over the wall the moment we were Full Away.

Anyway, the boiler water was horrendous. During handover, he had told me that everything was fine. I asked him about dosing and he said that he just threw a cup of "that stuff" in every day.

It took me about one week to fully bring everything under control and reliable. The C/E who had cobbed on to the shenanigans of the previous 4/E too late, asked me if I was falsifying the test results. I took him to show my routine and the test results. I felt quite good for a while having done a good job!

Rgds.
Dave

in Scotland it's a bawhair !

Almost exactly!

Greetings notnila and welcome to SH. Bon voyage.

All summed up with: "Close enough for government work ..." :rolleyes:

A Navy CPO whom I worked with on a survey job in Africa used the expression 'close enough for small ships' which always amused me.

For small quantities it all depends on what one is measuring and who is doing it
e.g.
Fluids, such as wine - un soup spoon.
Distance - A squidgee bit.
Time - tic or sec.

Let's all give ourselves a pat on the back for succeeding in our quest for accuracy and our commitment to nanotechnology.

Old Harland and Bluff measurement was the "peak o' your cap" if the peak of your cap fitted the gap it was close enough. Anything larger and the welder would fill it in. :jester:

RN Ordnance Artificers had to work to within 2 thousands of an inch, while Engine Room Artificers were allowed 10 thou. Shipwrights notoriously worked to the nearest dockyard...

All those above will do if you can't get it "Spot-on".....

JJ.

All sparkies work to the diameter of an electron. Problem is none of us have ever seen an electron, so we've had to invent something called: Electroguessology. :pint:

How many electrons would it take to fill an Olympic pool or three London double-deckers!

As one must know, for accuracy, if the scrotal hair scale in use is the Scottish or Mexican, one must also know if the electron is calibrated to the imperial or metric standard of subatomic particles.

Lot of people I know measure with a piece of string. It does sort of do the job on occasion.

Superstrings on the other hand are a tad more difficult to work with.

At 10 to the power of -33 cm in length (plus or minus a peck multiplied by a rood) it is tricky to find it again if you drop it. Made even more so by it's ability to be in two places at the same time, or to disappear into another Universe altogether and be replaced by an egg plant. :egg:

Sound like the little bits for my model kits, Bob! Now I know the secret, sub-atomic string assembly, not model glue. A bit of a bugger to paint though.
Rgds.
Dave

Many years ago, my buddy, now a retired long serving C/E was asked by the lad we were drinking with (a car Mechanic) what sort of accuracy he worked to as a Marine Engineer
Well, you usually measure the job with a Micrometer, Mark it with chalk, then burn it off:)
Sounded good to me as a humble Turd Mate
Kev

Interestingly when visiting a forum for my home town online I mentioned that on Saturday, after a bit of roof dancing and running up and down a ladder a few times trying to find a fault on an aerial (I'm a radio Ham .. HAH HAH !!) which is a bit harder for me these days as I'm a bit wobbly for that sh1t, I stated that when I'd finished I dropped half a bottle of gin (with tonic !! not straight. Very hot and sunny day.)

I was asked by one lady member if my half a bottle was from a 35cl or 50cl. (They do gin in litre bottles !! ... I didn't actually know that. :eek:)

I have gone metric in most things, but not drink. It's still pints and gills for me. Being adept at lying about my drinking to my GP, (also female) I replied 0.616 pints. I don't yet know if the forum lady believed me ... I'm bloody sure my GP didn't. :p:pint::p

The thickness of a fly shit was very accurate at times, Andy

In Hull Tech two fifths of fcuk all was the required degree of accuracy in all but Blackburn Aviation.

Does 'all' tend to infinity? If so then surely 0.4 of anything multiplied by 'all' must be a significant something.

You can also "shimmy" anything up! Just get a load of precut shims and Bob's your uncle!

I had to centre and level a thickener once in Hexham. While there is no "F" in scum skimmer, this one had one (old water treatment equipment joke)! No one from the service department was available. I was lent a "dinky" digital theodolite for the tower and the plant owner had rented a laser level/distance instrument but didn't know particularly what to do with it.

Fun and games on a freezing Saturday morning. While I got the shims right in thickness and had a handy drawing for them to be cut from A-316, it was only when we came to install them that I realized that they had to be installed on the diagonally opposite leg to what I had calculated! All went well and the client was pleased.

It was only when I got to a nearby pub to get something to eat prior to my drive home that I realized I was in the first stages of hypothermia. I had never imagined that the NE was colder in winter than Loch Striven in July!

To cap it off, the missus wanted to go to Sainsbury's when I arrived back but, in the rush, no one had brought a door key. We had to break in!

Rgds.
Dave

When the Chief or the 2nd ask you to adjust valve a smidgen, you didn't query it and ask, do you mean gnats whisker or a gnats cock or maybe just a small tweak, were they all the same measurement? I don't know, maybe gnats whisker is smaller than a smidgen and bigger than a tweak? but thinking about it maybe gnats cock was the biggest. (depending on how the gnat felt at the time !) But whatever term we chose always seemed to the right amount. Andy

As an ardent Brexiteer and a committed European I will not accept any Treaty Boris has signed unless the use of the BSF Thread is made compulsory before 2025. As I sit here typing my eyes are scanning my bookshelves for my Zeus Tables. Zeus Tables are our Gatling Gun with which to defend our engineering heritage from the simplistic and corrupt European imposter. Our war cry and slogan will be "55 degrees is here to stay".

Shimmy. This is the plumbers' equivalent of the anaesthetists' titration. A fag packet guesstimate of the likely material needs and then feed it in until the job is just done and not much more.

Gatling is not one of ours but of our cousinage across the pond (further across FTBO E-S). Maxim was ours, if we ignore birthplaces, mausoleumed at West Norwood (close to the fabulous, for the electrically bent horology enthusiast, Clockworks gallery).

Zeus is now a metrificated publication.

55 degrees? Significant, I google, in sewage digesting technology but three of them were also American.

I should have been born 197 parsecs from here, on a planet going around Betelgeuse. Nice warm sun, bit of excitement first thing in the morning ... (has the Sun gone supernova yet ?) ... no midges or shims or string or flat cap peaks or machine guns.


Oh and of course Whitworth threads.:pint::p

The mention of a fag packet in Varley's post #38, (the use of # being common on the Western Shores of the North Atlantic to signify a numerical value as in "number 38"), reminded me of a neighbour when I was a mere lad. He was an enthusiastic motor mechanic, having taken a course in car mechanics at evening classes. If he couldn't find his set of feeler gauges, he would use the flap of a cardboard cigarette packet instead to set the gap on the spark plugs. I seem to remember him saying that Senior Service packets gave an accurate setting, in preference to Weights or Woodbines,