Re: tossing pancakes

Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1iiksli.mln25ki25y44N%spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1gmogu2czvqie$.udr3yocn3jok.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx>,
Brian M. Scott <b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:01:46 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in <news:K2GyAy.FBJ@xxxxxxxxxxx>
in rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

I don't have any vaguest notion how long a furlong really *is* ...

220 yards, exactly an eighth of a mile.

It's one of the basic units in the (in)famous FFF system of
units (furlong/firkin/fortnight). Useful(?) conversions:
one furlong per fortnight is very close to one centimetre
per minute, so 60 kph (about 37 mph) is very close to 10^5
furlongs per fortnight; one microfortnight is a hair under
1.21 seconds.

OK, I'll happily take your word for it. Have I told y'all that I
nearly flunked out of seventh grade through an inability to deal
with long division?

It's the same as short division, except you use a calculator instead of
doing it in your head.

Oh no it isn't. Anyway, when I was in seventh grade we didn't
HAVE calculators.

That's why I said "That's progress" (which you snipped). :-)

If you use a calculator, it's just as easy to divide 42607/137 as it is
to divide 21/3, except it takes five more key presses.

A more important question is whether you know what it *means* to divide
twenty-one by three -- if you do, I expect you also know what it means
to divide forty-two thousand, six hundred and seven by one hundred and
thirty seven.

Jonathan
.

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