Thursday, August 11, 2005

Size Matters. Or.. matters of size

For as long as I can remember, the most useful units of measurement were double-decker busses and football fields. It was thus that I managed to get to grips with the height of Nelson's column and the deck area of the USS Nimitz. I'm afraid 30,000ft didn't quite do it for me when it came to figuring out how high vapour trails are.

And with that neat link, I think we need some more user-comprehensible terms for all the enviro-stuff that's flying about. Or, for that matter, being dropped in the ocean. I really can't get to grips with a ton of CO2.

And what happened to the ozone hole? That was once the size of the Isle of Wight (another good measure), and then Antartica.

Now it doesn't get mentioned, I presume, because it's not an issue thanks to roll-on deodorants (which we at Junkk.com favour not just because they don't squirt pressurised gasses around, but have truly neat bits ‘n bobs to make stuff out of).

But for now, if anyone could get us on track of a decent, cheap, preferably recycled material vernier calliper (accurate to at least 1 millimetre or better), I'd be grateful. We need an incentive for kids to measure things with for the site, and I'm not sure Tescos will let them bring a double-decker in with them.

2 comments:

Geoff said...

Anglia Components www.angliaac.com used to give away plastic 150mm vernier calipers as a goodie - no idea where they got them from.
I see they are just over a quid each here http://www.widgetsupply.com/page/WS/CTGY/caliper-vernier

Emma said...

Many thanks Geoff! We shall pursue these leads. I did a google of course, and there were a few US-side, and ironically even with P&P they may still be worth it, especially when we're looking at several thousands.
But like Nessie, there seem to be lots of tantalising references to UK sources abounding that we can never quite pin down!