Apr 6

“The thing you need to know about an oil tanker is that it’s really big. It’s about four soccer fields long”

Why do American writers do this

All this tells me is that oil tankers are really long

I know that oil tankers are long, and I kind of know what one football pitch looks like, but it’s kind of meaningless to say it’s four of them when all I know is “football pitches are long end to end”

Show thread   

“They weigh as much as a skyscraper”

HOW MUCH IS THAT!!! HOW MUCH DOES ONE WEIGH???? All that tells me is that an oil tanker is just really heavy, which is something I already know!!!

Apr 6 at 9:12pmWeb
Show thread   Apr 6
This happens in British English as well, but it’s either used for sensationalism, like when tabloids say “an iceberg the size of Wales!”, or it is used alongside the actual measurement, like “he can jump over ten metres, that’s like the length of a double-decker bus”
Show threadShiraz Turvey 💙 🌲Apr 6

@yassie_j "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space".

Douglas Adams, Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

Show threadStefanApr 7

@yassie_j where did I read/listen about that as well?

But was it really an American thing? I feel like they wouldn't have used a soccer field.

In Germany we use Saarland for size comparisons and I always think that it's one of the smallest states, BUT IT DOESN'T HELP ME!

Show thread   Apr 7
@thehole specifically it was an American person. I have no idea why he used a “soccer field”, that was quite jarring, especially since the difference between an American and association football pitch is only about 10 m lol
Show thread‮Apr 6
@yassie_j don't forget that they also carry several whales worth of oil!
Show threadPrimavera, inevitável  Apr 6
@astrid @yassie_j as much oil as can be fit inside 70 mcmansions
Show threadPrimavera, inevitável  Apr 6
@astrid @yassie_j "honey why are you caulking all the windows and doors???"
Show thread   Apr 6
@Primavera @astrid nice caulk!
Show threadPrimavera, inevitável  Apr 6
@yassie_j @astrid you joke but it is one of my prime work skills, few can caulk as well as I do
Show threadsynApr 6
@[email protected] @[email protected] woah dishonored reference
Show thread‮Apr 6
@syn @yassie_j it explodes on impact with the same amount of energy as a hundred kangaroos jumping!
Show threadchilled bañañasApr 6
@yassie_j that's a 437'th of the way to the sun!
Show threadPrimavera, inevitável  Apr 6
@yassie_j the best part of this is that no one has an actual notion of how much a building weighs, so even the "intuitive measurement" angle fails lol
Show thread   Apr 6
@Primavera I have never ever needed to consider the weight of a building because all I know is “buildings are heavy and bigger buildings must be really heavy”
Show threadPrimavera, inevitável  Apr 6
@yassie_j lifting buildings is not a common activity lol
Show threadDavid JONESApr 7
@Primavera @yassie_j yeah? Why do skyscrapers all have this button then? *points to button labelled "LIFT"*
Show threadPrimavera, inevitável  Apr 7
@drj @yassie_j good point
Show threadEli the BeardedApr 7

@Primavera @yassie_j

Around here, lifting buildings is also not rare. "House movers" don't relocate buildings much, but lifting them, sure. I can walk 100 meters to the nearest building currently lifted, and there's a closer one being prepped.

This is the most important step in replacing a foundation: lifting the building off of that foundation.

But really, you can tell someone a thing is 200,000 tons and how many people have any idea what that means? Best to have a number and a reference

Show threadartemistApr 6
@yassie_j @Primavera the only time someone has to think about building weight is when either designing the foundation or when they're enough of a nerd that they think about it anyway
Show threadPrimavera, inevitável  Apr 6
@artemist @yassie_j I am now thinking about it.......
Show threadAgnieszka R. TurczyńskaApr 7
@yassie_j @Primavera I had some realisation when doing a deep renovation of the house. Just the amount of cement bags used for bathroom was astonishing. So, even a single detached brick&mortar house weights A LOT.
Show thread#Guigui 🇫🇷Apr 6
@yassie_j big city wants you to believe skyscrapers are really heavy so that no one tries to steal one
Show threadWarrior of Latte (Sujimon Master)   Apr 6

@yassie_j you can’t expect a country with a declining literacy rate to read and math at the same time

by the time zoomers have kids, each news article will have a video of the count from sesame street attached so he can go “one soccer field, ha ha ha, two soccer field, etc.”

Show threadwyattApr 6
@warrioroflatte @yassie_j the oldest zoomers are like 28 years old or something, just a reminder
Show threadKevin KarhanApr 6
@yassie_j yeah, that's an even more nonsensical unit as the weight is obviously dependant on the building type, materials and whether or not it's some concrete shitbox like 33 Thomas Street or some glass & metal engingeering marvel with a tuned mass dampener like Taipeh 101 that counteracts a R 7,2 earthquake easily.
Kevin Karhan (@[email protected])

@[email protected] *Muricans using anything BUT metric / SI units* - again?

jorts.horse
Show thread[Yaseenist] CauseOfBSODApr 7
@yassie_j at this point just say the blast radius is yes, it makes more sense
What's The Blast Radius On This B*tch? yes

YouTube
Show thread Anya Apr 7
@yassie_j i also like comparisons like "A desert is as barren as the surface of the moon". Where they explain deserts, something that quite a few of the readers can be expected to have personally experienced because one can just go there, by reference to a place that twelve people have ever been able to visit and most of them are already dead.
Show threadCharlotte /Cinny     Apr 7
@anya @yassie_j also it undersells how barren the moon really is
Show threadInga stands with 🇺🇦 🇵🇸Apr 7
@charlotte @yassie_j @anya and how not-barren deserts are
Show threadInga stands with 🇺🇦 🇵🇸Apr 7
@charlotte @yassie_j @anya "a millionaire is as poor as that homeless guy under the bridge who just got all his worldly possessions stolen", as said by a clueless billionaire
Show threadSPICY EVIL CAET🍬🍭🎄Apr 7
@yassie_j it weighs as much as texas
Show threadROTOPE~1 ⭐️Apr 7

@CAETFOOD @yassie_j *takes a section of Earth, all the way to the core, and puts it on a scale*

Can confirm.

Show threadLMR 🇦🇹🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏴‍☠️Apr 7
@yassie_j soccer field is at least well-defined - but skyscrapers only have a defined minimum height, and that's either 100m or 150m depending on who you ask.

does it weigh as much as the Quadrill-Tower near where I live? more? what about the burj khalifa? too much? those are orders of magnitudes apart my friend, get better comparisons
Show thread Volpeon Apr 7
@yassie_j A large oil tanker the size of a small oil tanker
Show threadHugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷Apr 7
@yassie_j Absolutely useless information.
Show thread   Apr 7
@Tooden I feel really glad this is so relatable to so many people
Show threadThe TurtleApr 7

@yassie_j Discovery Networks tends to hire science-adjacent bros who term everything's mass in terms of elephants or shit like the Empire State Building.

Like people just offhand have a sense of that.

Just tell me the fucking mass in standard units.

Show thread@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNoteApr 7
@yassie_j Roughly 50k beefy kangaroos if that helps…
Show threadReayApr 7

@yassie_j I’m totally with you. Specificality and standard units matter.

BUT, in all fairness, I also wouldn’t have any clue what it would mean if this was reported in terms of a standard like tons (or tonnes). By which I mean I’d have no idea — by magnitudes — what that would even approximate.

You could tell me an oil tanker weighs 500 tons and it would sound okay. Or you could tell me it weighs 5000 tons and it wound sound not crazy. 50,000 tons sounds like too much, but I you could pretty easily convince me.

When it gets to huge weights (or distances), I have a hard time wrapping my head around what those numbers mean in terms of more everyday references.

That said, to your point, comparing something to the weight of, say, a building doesn’t help me or anyone else in the least.

Show threadJoykillApr 7
@reay @yassie_j it's actually pretty difficult to find what an oil tanker weighs, because mostly you will find mentions of dead-weight-tonnage (DWT), which isn't a measure of the tanker itself, but rather its cargo capacity (how much it can safely carry). This ranges from 10 thousand DWTs for the very smallest tankers to 550 thousand DWTs for the largest behemoths. Knowing they're built out of steel, you could probably calculate how big the footprint needs to be to displace that amount of water.
Show threadJoykillApr 7
@reay @yassie_j once you have that figure, you could probably calculate how much that amount of steel weighs and get a ballpark estimate of the ship's actual weight
Show thread   Apr 7
@reay yeah, like if I knew how much a tanker weighed in a nominal sense rather than a relative sense I probably wouldn’t be able to visualise it, but I think using “skyscraper” as the relative value here is certainly the most useless one
Show threadRealGene ☣️Apr 7

@yassie_j
And are we talking about poured cement skyscrapers from the 1930's, or the steel & glass ones from the 1980's?

It's English vs. Metric all over again.

Show threadPhosphenesApr 7

@RealGene @yassie_j

African or European skyscraper?

Show thread怨霊redvelvetApr 7
@yassie_j they weigh an american football field, hope this clears it up ^_^
Show threadÉlanaApr 7
@[email protected] a skyscraper weighs as much as an oil tanker, hope that helps /j
Show threadROTOPE~1 ⭐️Apr 7
@yassie_j fun fact: even though a tanker is heavy (often times as heavy as or heavier than other large things), every single functional tanker is still lighter than the water it displaces.
Show threadgunstickApr 7
@yassie_j
Show threadNightDice Apr 8

@yassie_j
I think I saw the same video. Useless information all around, especially since nobody casually knows how heavy a building is.

To save someone else a search: a large cargo ship of 425m×60m (1400ft×200ft) apparently weighs around 220 kilotons, which the source (https://boatinggeeks.com/how-much-does-a-cargo-ship-weigh/) compares to the Sears Tower in Chicago.

How Much Does a Cargo Ship Weigh?

An extra-large cargo ship that measures about 440 meters by 59 meters (1,444 feet x 194 feet) would have an approximate deadweight of 220,000 tons.

Boating Geeks