24 January 2008

Measuring laughter

If you want an intellectual chuckle, try this website.
Where else are you going to see definitions for things like:

FurlongsPerFortnight: 1 furlong/fortnight = 10 Snail's Pace (note: 1 furlong = 10 chains) This is incredibly (literally, for once) close to a centimetre / minute -- 0.99785914 cm/minute
c (speed of light): 1.80 terafurlongs per fortnight
c (speed of light): 18 terasnailpaces

and

kilominute: 16 hours, 40 minutes

and

Wales: 20,640 km^2, used in the British media as an equivalence unit of area, as in "An area of rainforest the size of Wales is cut down every year."

and

The Monkey-minute. It is famously said that an infinite (or a large) number of monkeys typing randomly at a keyboard for eternity, will produce the complete works of Shakespeare (or some other literary canon). It follows, naturally, that for works of lesser magnitude or quality, a smaller number of monkeys (or shorter duration) will suffice. DilBert once asked Dogbert to assess the quality of poetry he had written; to which Dogbert repeated the above assertion. Dilbert asked "what about my poem?" Dogbert replies: "Three monkeys, 10 minutes". Hence, the monkey-minute is a measure of literary quality.

and

Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter = Eskimo Pi

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