Obama: Do something useful and convert us to metric. K? Thanks.

There are three main units of measurement in physics: MKS, CGS, and Customary (English). MKS stands for Meters, Kilograms, and Seconds, and CGS stands for Centimeter, Gram, and Seconds. Customary is the confusing collection of feet, miles, pounds, ounces, gallons, and such.

For those having slept through the one math or science class that addressed metric, the best reason to use metric is the way you can easily convert between different units:

• 1 KiloMeter = 1000 Meters = 100000 Centimeters
• 1 Mile = 5280 Feet = 63360 inches

• 1 Liter = 10 DeciLiters = 100 Centileters = 1000 MilliLiters
• 1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 256 tablespoons = 768 teaspoons
  

• 1 KiloGram = 1000 Grams
• 1 Pound = 16 ounce
  

You might remember a few years ago when the Mars Climate Orbiter crashed into the surface of Mars. The cause? One of the contractors used metric and the other customary resulting in the orbiter not realizing how far away it was from Mars. Huh? Who the heck uses customary in any field of science? Engineers, I guess.

You can't quit smoking gradually and similarly, you can't convert to metric if you aren't forcefully oppressed by it for a while. The withdrawal will suck, but after being inundated for a while, you won't believe you had to learn the arcane customary measurements. Also, since the economy is currently in a downswing, and the government wants to give away a ton of our tax dollars (which isn't necessarily bad, but it would be better to get something for it), some of that money should go to converting all of our road signs to metric.

Anyway, all of this was precipitated by the latest XKCD comic. Some of the relations are quite useful, regardless of the author's perverse fascination with all things Serenity. There's nothing wrong with raptors or Ron Paul, though.

Skiing at Breck!

So, not much truly exciting has been taking place recently besides paling around with Kristen. Until yesterday, that is!

My first visit to Breckenridge was on a trip with some fellow Clara Vista workers back in the mid-90s. The first day was blech -- snowy, cold, and zero visibility. The next day was at Vail, with perfect weather and skiing. However, the altitude and dryness kicked my ass and I didn't ski the last day back at Breck.

My next visit to Breck was awesome. While I was doing some consulting work in Colorado Springs a few years ago, Mike and I accidentally met up with Mitchell and Sue and had an one of my best days of skiing.

Yesterday was a great, first day of the ski season for me. So far this season Breckenridge appears to have the most snow of the Colorado ski resorts, plus it is a little farther away so the crowds were non-existent. Most of the double diamonds were closed, so I wasn't tempted to risk injury. The few difficult runs I did reminded me how much my legs muscles have atrophied. What I love about Breck is the plethora of long, intermediate runs where you can go fast and work on technique.

Of course, the views from Breckenridge are quite amazing.


You can check out my latest photo set from my trip to Breckenridge yesterday. I've added my most recent photostream pics to the top of the blog.

For inquiring minds...

Blog updates have been few and far between. Part of this is due to working on lots of stuff, and since I tend to work on things in parallel, nothing gets done timely. Working on it...

Anyway, I've been working with Pat on Sneaq/Blurt/<name still to be determined>, a fast and loose blogging engine, and spending too much time debugging all the stupid little problems I seem to encounter.

Oh, and I met an absolutely wonderful girl here in Colorado Springs. Here's a couple pics of Kristen and I while hiking Seven Bridges...


On the downside, I just found out how bad Colorado is for consulting rates. Oh well, time to write the killer iPhone application and just let the money roll in...