Metrication

[kalvado]

Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

But the world is just a bunch of backyards put together, so just go from one backyard to the next.

You are forgetting about roads!

[kkt]

Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

But the world is just a bunch of backyards put together, so just go from one backyard to the next.

You are forgetting about roads!

Euclidean geometry is great for designing one interchange.  Does not scale if you try to design a whole interstate from coast to coast on the same survey.

better?

[kalvado]

Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

But the world is just a bunch of backyards put together, so just go from one backyard to the next.

You are forgetting about roads!

Euclidean geometry is great for designing one interchange.  Does not scale if you try to design a whole interstate from coast to coast on the same survey.

better?

But this is "non-road" board!!!111

[Scott5114]

Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Isn't the distance between roads normally measured centerline to centerline? (That's how I do it when I'm using a manual measurement tool on Google Maps or whatever.)

[kalvado]

Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Isn't the distance between roads normally measured centerline to centerline? (That's how I do it when I'm using a manual measurement tool on Google Maps or whatever.)

But if you're talking lot size?
But  thinking about it...  I never lived in the area significantly flat to have a real large-scale uniform grid not interrupted by  terrain and/or water. Probably that's why I am pretty unimpressed when measurement distance by grid is discussed?

[Scott5114]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

[kalvado]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Apparently you're not from NY. Over here, especially on small residential streets, actual pavement takes only part of ROW so 6-10 feet of what you think as being your lawn are actually public property with lot owner having some rights (e.g. campaign signs cannot be posted without permission)

[SectorZ]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Guess my part of the country does the opposite. I live on a road that is at best 20' wide yet is 40' wide on paper. Roughly 10' of my front yard isn't really mine.

[Road Hog]

The curvature of the earth is negligible for areas the size of, say, counties. In terms of distances between fixed meridians, the difference between them 30 miles north and south is a few inches. When you blow out to the state and regional levels, though, the differences become much more apparent. Anyone familiar with USGS topo maps can recognize the problem.

[Rothman]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it.

[kalvado]

The curvature of the earth is negligible for areas the size of, say, counties. In terms of distances between fixed meridians, the difference between them 30 miles north and south is a few inches. When you blow out to the state and regional levels, though, the differences become much more apparent. Anyone familiar with USGS topo maps can recognize the problem.

if we talk about 1 degree latitude difference, say between 45 and 44 degrees, the difference between north and south sides of 1 deg = 69 mile "tall"  "rectangle" is 1.8%, or 96' per mile. 
Sweetwater county WY, for one, is significantly more than 1 deg north to south. Here in NY, Lawrence  county is coming close being 0.95 deg "tall". Those are  pretty large for counties, though. 

[kalvado]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it.

Well, I had a very similar discussion earlier in the year!
At least Saratoga county taxes residential properties per property value, not per acre.  So if I didn't pay for that band along the road, I am not taxed on that.
However, that wasn't articulated when we were buying the property, and many property owners are not aware of exact line. So, I am taxed on whatever I paid for and how much I paid for - and only surveyor may know what I  actually paid for. In fact, assessed land value within the lot in our neighborhood is assigned regardless of lot size - with same number used for our 1.2, next door neighbor 1.8 and across the street 0.46 acre. In all cases that is roughly 10% of total assessment for tax purposes

[Rothman]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it.

Well, I had a very similar discussion earlier in the year!
At least Saratoga county taxes residential properties per property value, not per acre.  So if I didn't pay for that band along the road, I am not taxed on that.
However, that wasn't articulated when we were buying the property, and many property owners are not aware of exact line. So, I am taxed on whatever I paid for and how much I paid for - and only surveyor may know what I  actually paid for. In fact, assessed land value within the lot in our neighborhood is assigned regardless of lot size - with same number used for our 1.2, next door neighbor 1.8 and across the street 0.46 acre. In all cases that is roughly 10% of total assessment for tax purposes

Well, duh.  I live in NY and know how it works here property tax-wise.  I had a house that was involved in a minor dispute, so I know all about the highway boundary and assessed values.

That's why I asked Scott.

[kalvado]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it.

Well, I had a very similar discussion earlier in the year!
At least Saratoga county taxes residential properties per property value, not per acre.  So if I didn't pay for that band along the road, I am not taxed on that.
However, that wasn't articulated when we were buying the property, and many property owners are not aware of exact line. So, I am taxed on whatever I paid for and how much I paid for - and only surveyor may know what I  actually paid for. In fact, assessed land value within the lot in our neighborhood is assigned regardless of lot size - with same number used for our 1.2, next door neighbor 1.8 and across the street 0.46 acre. In all cases that is roughly 10% of total assessment for tax purposes

Well, duh.  I live in NY and know how it works here property tax-wise.  I had a house that was involved in a minor dispute, so I know all about the highway boundary and assessed values.

That's why I asked Scott.

Well, looks like I need a break....

[US 89]

Salt Lake City is one of those places where the difference between centerline and actual frontage mattered, at least in terms of laying out the downtown grid. One block was designed to be 10 acres of usable land, since the original idea was that a block was supposed to be enough land for a family to live off of with agriculture and such. It turns out that a square of this size is one furlong on each side, or 10 chains, or 660 feet (getting back to the original topic of units). That's exactly 1/8 of a mile, and for this reason I've seen several places claim that this means 8 blocks equals a mile in SLC.

But that doesn't account for the streets, which are a full 2 chains (132 feet) wide. The story goes that Brigham Young wanted the streets wide enough that an ox cart could turn around "without resorting to profanity". So in terms of centerline distance, one block is 12 chains, or 792 feet - which is exactly 0.15 miles. That means a mile is 6 2/3 blocks, and 20 blocks equals exactly 3 miles. Unfortunately that 20:3 exact ratio is generally not usable since traveling this distance in any direction will usually take you far enough that the downtown grid breaks down and approximations take over, either with the original Salt Lake County grid (east valley from 900 S to 4500 S) or federal survey grid (PLSS - west and south valleys).

In several western cities, the PLSS was there first and city grids followed based on top of that, so centerline mileage works out well there. Phoenix, for example, is 14 blocks to a mile exactly for this reason. But Salt Lake City's downtown grid predates the PLSS in the area.

[TXtoNJ]

They just need to have a general kWh tax, based on the existing gas tax, that applies to all energy consumption.

[Big John]

They just need to have a general kWh tax, based on the existing gas tax, that applies to all energy consumption.

Bill Clinton proposed a BTU tax, but it didn't pass the Senate.

[Scott5114]

But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved.

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it.

I went to the county assessor's site to see exactly what they had down for me in terms of square footage to answer this question, and it would seem that the details here are a bit more nuanced than I originally assumed. In most of urbanized Norman the lots are in fact drawn so that the edge of the lot is approximately at the curb line, and the ROW is not part of the lot. I'm on a corner lot, so my lot even has a chamfered corner to prevent me from owning any of the intersection.

However, when I scroll into more rural areas, the lot lines do indeed follow the centerlines of the roads. This comports with my experience growing up in rural McClain County. There, you could even go to the corner of the property and see it marked with a surveyor's spike driven through the pavement. My parents still own that property, but I'm not about to ask how the taxes are assessed on that, since any mention of taxes around my dad would be taken as an invitation to hurl ethnic slurs at Barack Obama. So I'll happily end my line of inquiry there.

[7/8]

Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread:

[Brandon]

Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread:

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

[kalvado]

Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread:

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

People will get used to Kelvins eventually.
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

[algorerhythms]

Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread:

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

People will get used to Kelvins eventually.
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

In my field, we regularly measure temperatures in microKelvins.

[Scott5114]

And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

[Road Hog]

Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread:

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

The imperial system is actually based on base-2. Eight ounces in a cup, two cups in a pint, two pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon etc.

[vdeane]

And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.