Monday, January 06, 2014
Juiced metrology
We seem to be stuck with juiced-up fake measurements. Unemployment numbers are juiced to make the current admin sound better, stock markets are nothing but juice, interest rates are juiced by QE to make life easier for the Chosen Ones and harder for honest people, house prices are juiced to force ordinary people into bankruptcy so JPMorgan can grab the houses for less than real value.
Why do we allow weathercasters to use "feels like" temperatures to juice up the drama? Wind chill is arbitrary and meaningless. Real temp is what affects houses and cars and dogs and people. Right now the real temp is dramatic enough in the eastern half of the US. No need for juice.
Would you buy a steak labeled as "Tastes like 10 pounds"? Would you buy one gallon of gasoline labeled as "Powers like 3 gallons"? A cup of espresso labeled as "Buzzes like 5 cups"?
Okay, you probably would. I give up.
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Sidenote: Polistra prefers natural human-scaled measurements where they make sense. Wind chill pretends to be a natural measurement, but it's not. Real natural temp measures are unfortunately too specific to have any common meaning, so the thermometer is the only practical choice. Each type of animal and plant and object has its own max, min and optimal temp and its own calibration curve. People of different races and different experiences have different max, min, optimal, and calibration. The jokey Annotated Thermometer gives us excellent natural temp measures. British cars won't start at +30 degrees, Jap cars won't start at -30 degrees, Minnesotans think about closing the windows at -40 degrees, etc. We had an actual Annotated Temperature in the news last week: "-20 degrees, Duluth closes its ice rinks."
Labels: Metrology
¶ 3:12 AM
