Category:
Instruments and Measuring Devices

Merrie Metric

According to the listing in the April 1983 Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the purpose of Merrie Metric was, "Promoting the interests of those concerned with the desirability of adopting the metric system."

I haven't found any use of Merrie Metric outside of the Patent and Trademark Gazette, but I'm curious what kind of uses her creators imagined for her. Were they going to sell metric rulers and tape measures with her picture on them?

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 11, 2024 - Comments (4)
Category: Instruments and Measuring Devices

What does this measure?

This is obviously a measuring device of some kind. But what exactly does it measure? The answer is below in extended.



More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 14, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Inventions, Patents, Instruments and Measuring Devices

Poronkusema

As explained by Ziya Tong in The Reality Bubble: how science reveals the hidden truths that shape our world (2019):

In Finland, the indigenous Sami people have a very special unit of measurement. It's called a poronkusema, which is defined as the distance a reindeer can travel before it needs to stop and urinate. The Sami, who have lived alongside reindeer for centuries, attentively noted that the animals won't walk and relieve themselves at the same time. And so, once approximately every 7.5 kilometres, a poronkusema, they stop and empty their bladders. While this measurement may seem a touch absurd to non-reindeer herders, it should be said that before the metric system came along, many countries and cultures had their own rather peculiar systems. It's likely that people of the future will find it just as weird that we described the unfathomable loss of our rainforests in terms of "football fields."

I found a Finnish-language book titled Poronkusema, but the google-translated blurb is somewhat incomprehensible and doesn't mention anything about urinating reindeers.

Poronkusema is a humane, unadorned and dramatic story about acceptance, forgiveness, equality and growing up. Poronkusema is a series of events with a flavor of the life of the main character and his close circle, not too salty smoothed, where treatment and head and tail are missing. Mother's forgiveness and acceptance of loved ones as they are. How can the death of a child change and shape the future of family members and close friends. This is the countdown for this story. You'll jump like a fly on a moldy ceiling and juice up juicy coincidences like peeking into locker rooms in elementary school. We were kind of the usual The Usual Suspects, like from that classic Yankee movie directed by Bryan Singer. The only difference. We weren't that good looking.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 07, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Instruments and Measuring Devices, Body Fluids

The Phone Thing

Those of us who are old enough might recall that in addition to linear slide rules, there were circular slide rules.

Such an arrangement of movable circular parts was extrapolated to a variety of other gadgets for calculating different things.

You can see a museum of such "disk or wheel" charts here.



I set out on this search thanks to the 1979 ad below.

I wonder if anyone relies on such devices nowadays, or if businesses create them for promotional purposes, as Bell Telephones did in 1979.



Phone Thing source. (Page 6)

Posted By: Paul - Thu May 28, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Telephones, Instruments and Measuring Devices, 1970s





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Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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