On: Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught (1996) [pdf]

[velcrovan]

Some of my favorites:

nanoacre = about 4 square millimeters

microfortnight = about 1.2 seconds

beard-second = 5-10 nanometers (depending on who you ask), or the length an average beard grows in one second

[daynthelife → velcrovan]

Working in HFT, my favorite is 1 nanosecond ≈ 1 foot

[harrison_clarke → daynthelife]

grace hopper would carry around nanosecond-long wires, for demonstrations

https://youtu.be/ZR0ujwlvbkQ?si=aAj2OkbS8cj_MeGo&t=2707

[cubefox → daynthelife]

My favorite from What if? (xkcd):

20 miles per gallon ≈ 0.1 mm²

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F%2820+mile%2Fgallo...

[anal_reactor → velcrovan]

I think the beauty of "microcentury" is that things that take 50 minutes indeed feel like a "microcentury"

[eleveriven → anal_reactor]

The feeling of how long certain tasks can feel!

[dingnuts → anal_reactor]

my mind immediately went to college classes, which were almost always exactly 1 microcentury

perfect

[myself248 → velcrovan]

Saturating 100Mbps will move about 1TB/day.

[schubart → velcrovan]

And a light foot is a nanosecond. Think about it…

[tutipop → schubart]

a light nanosecond is a foot :)

[daynthelife → schubart]

Beat me to it!

[__rito__ → daynthelife]

You will like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw

[volemo → velcrovan]

Also attoparsec [1] ≈ 3 cm.

[1]: https://youtube.com/@attoparsec

[rzzzt → velcrovan]

15 minutes = 1 centiday

[liamN → velcrovan]

I like going the other way, too. My personal favorite:

kilosecond: 11.57 days

and fun to say, but never useful:

gigasecond: 31.68 years

[greggyb → liamN]

I think you're confusing your kiloseconds with megaseconds.

* 60 seconds per minute

* 60 minutes per hour: 3600 seconds per hour

* 1 kilosecond = 16 minutes and 40 seconds

* 24 hours per day: 86,400 +/- 1 seconds per day

* 1,000,000 / 86,400 ~= 11.57

I love giving metric-using friends a hard time whenever they criticize imperial units of measure. I always tell them that I will happily embrace metric when they give up their irrational attachment to an archaic system of time-telling.