4 ms·

> Over 23,000 pieces are being tracked in low-Earth orbit to help satellites and the ISS avoid collisions - but they're all about the size of a softball or larg

> Over 23,000 pieces are being tracked in low-Earth orbit to help satellites and the ISS avoid collisions - but they're all about the size of a softball or larger. Why do they always do this, give a non-standard unit of measurement which 90% of countries in the world for no reference for. Its like when they describe something as "X number of football fields" - Nice one, only one country plays and misnames Handegg. its useless to the rest of us.

Mediterraneo10 5y ago
Softball is played in more countries than the USA, albeit rarely professionally. It isn't unusually to see softballs for sale in your local Decathlon.
pmontra 5y ago
A softball is not even a unit of measurement :-) I had to google what it is.
nexuist 5y ago
Aren't a soccer and football field around the same length?
- swarnie_ 5y ago
  No idea, i would need to find an American and ask but im afraid they will be a police officer and judge my melanin level to be incorrect.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    So edgy
Tade0 5y ago
There's a whole culture of mocking such units with invented ones. My favourite so far would be "burger per square eagle", which is a unit of distance. It's actually sort of a puzzle - you have to imagine how to interpret the units so that they match the result. I remember starting off using someone's idea to take a bald eagle's average wingspan (2.7m - which is incorrect BTW). What follows is that the burger must represent volume - I modeled the burger as a half sphere with a diameter of 13cm, which yielded ~500ccm - sounded believable enough. The only issue remaining was that the unit was very small - a small fraction of a millimetre. Then again measuring things in megaburgers (per square eagle) sounds fairly natural - a lot like kilometres or kilograms.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> only one country plays and misnames Handegg In Chinese it's called "olive ball". I understand South Korea plays it.

Mediterraneo10 5y ago

Softball is played in more countries than the USA, albeit rarely professionally. It isn't unusually to see softballs for sale in your local Decathlon.

pmontra 5y ago

A softball is not even a unit of measurement :-) I had to google what it is.

nexuist 5y ago

Aren't a soccer and football field around the same length?

swarnie_ 5y ago
No idea, i would need to find an American and ask but im afraid they will be a police officer and judge my melanin level to be incorrect.
- FredPret 5y ago
  So edgy

Tade0 5y ago

There's a whole culture of mocking such units with invented ones. My favourite so far would be "burger per square eagle", which is a unit of distance. It's actually sort of a puzzle - you have to imagine how to interpret the units so that they match the result. I remember starting off using someone's idea to take a bald eagle's average wingspan (2.7m - which is incorrect BTW). What follows is that the burger must represent volume - I modeled the burger as a half sphere with a diameter of 13cm, which yielded ~500ccm - sounded believable enough. The only issue remaining was that the unit was very small - a small fraction of a millimetre. Then again measuring things in megaburgers (per square eagle) sounds fairly natural - a lot like kilometres or kilograms.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> only one country plays and misnames Handegg In Chinese it's called "olive ball". I understand South Korea plays it.