Subject: Intriguing!
Author:
Posted on: 2020-08-02 21:41:59 UTC
I'm very much enjoying this construction of a scientific language of the elves. There's so many weird units! The sverdrup, the langley, and my personal favourite, the muggeseggele.
Basically, I wanted to link "a joke about measurement" (a video about 12 minutes long), which is rather educational (and funny, in that we can apparently generate a lot of common units from the speed of light, the calorie, and middle C, and it could work).
And now I'm wondering what sort of ridiculous things the Department of Analytical Science is using. I don't have any immediate thoughts, but I thought I'd open the discussion
The thaum being, of course, the basic unit of magic. {= D
~Neshomeh
In this department, we use the prime, thank you very much. Leave aside the fact that thaums are also fundamental particles; with no interdimensionally agreed Standard Pigeon (or indeed Standard Billiard Ball, since the best I can make keep exploding), basing a system on them is an absurdly outmoded concept. Lead, on the other hand, is lead wherever you go, despite my best efforts.
Norlossë tells me 1 prime = 0.45 milin.lár (canu), and who am I to argue?
hS
(No, not DAS-SIGN - the Symbolism and Ideogram Generation divisioN never got off the ground.)
I think it would be - hroom - hasty to assume all of DAS use the same units. I'm sure the Thistle would like them to, but the Flowering Leek refuses to restrain the Physical Sciences in that way.
Norlossë & Huinesoron - Quenya units. Length is measured in rangar (approximately yards) and lári (leagues, ca. 3 miles). Time is the ré (day, 24h; I think the plural is ri), but also the yén (144 years). For weight... I think they'd use the Quenya translation of the Gondorian coin mirian, which might be mírim; in other words, the weight of a silver penny.
Maria Celeste - Renaissance Florentine units, which per this page are the braccio (arm), libbra (pound), moggio (sack), and boccale (barrel).
Aleksei, Mandy, Wei-Ting, Dr. Niamh, Yasmeen - Metric, though the definitions Aleksei uses have shifted a fair bit.
Ned - tends to avoid units and work in music.
Alembic, Penny - Ankh-Morpork Customary Units, which frankly probably correlate 1:1 with:
Joan - Imperial units (which have the same names, but different definitions, to US customary units).
Sunniva, Laduquac - Eclectic units from their own cultures which they've never provided translation tables for.
Atlas, Durand - For various reasons, don't really understand the concept of 'units'.
And no, nobody uses US customary units. The Thistle wouldn't, either - his first scientists under the DMSE&R were Vemi (thought she was Welsh), Penny (English), and Dr. Niamh (Irish, except when she's Vietnamese). Not that I'd put it past V&P to use all sorts of daft units just to troll their boss...
hS
Length
Base unit: ranga = 38 inches ('Numenorean Yard').
5000 rangar = 1 lár ('league', approx. 3 miles)
Time
Base unit: lúmë = 1 hour
24 lúmi = 1 ré (day) 365 ri + 5.81 lúmi = 1 coronar (solar year, defined precisely by Tolkien as 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds) 144 coronari = 1 yén (Great Year)
Weight
Base unit: Mírim = 1 pennyweight (0.055 oz). Quite pleased to find this is an actual British unit, and does actually mean the weight of a silver penny.
1/24 mírimi = 1 milin ('grain'; the English pennyweight = 24 grains, so why not?)
Power
Technically unnecessary, but it makes things easier when working with energy:
Base unit: *Poldore rocco = 1 horsepower ('strength of a horse') = 745.7 watts. (We're using the imperial horsepower here; I don't think Tolkien liked metric.)
Temperature
This one was a struggle, until I remembered the original definition of a degree Celcius:
Base unit: *Niculallo welelanna = 100 C ('from freezing to boiling')
'wele' is actually an early, Qenya verb, but it seems to still be of a valid form, and... well, there's nothing better.
Quantity
Purely for entertainment value:
Base unit: *Noldare = 1 mol ('mole' in early Qenya. You know... the animal. ^_^)
Luminous intensity
I assumed this one would be impossible, but if I'm allowed pennyweight, then:
Base unit: Lícuma = 1 candlepower = 0.981 candela ('candle'). :D
Electricity can go hang; there's no way to get there within Tolkien's vocabulary. Other than that, we now have 6 of the 7 SI base units covered, so we can calculate anything we like. The speed of light? 1.12 x 1012 rangar/lúmë. A McDonald's Happy Meal? 4.3 x 10-8 poldore rocco-lúmi.
Tell your friends.
hS
This is going on Netilardo, right? Because it should.
~Neshomeh
And here it is, complete with the revelation that a food calorie should actually be written as 62 377 milin.lár2/lúmë2.
EDIT: If anyone has any other units or values that they want converting, let me know and I'll add them to the list!
Hmm... what's the derivation of 'bit'? 'Binary digit'... well, there's notessë for 'numeral', but binary? Oh, wait:
Notesset, or '(natural) pair of numerals'. That's a nonsense statement in Quenya, as numerals don't form a natural pair (such as 'pair of hands') - there's ten of the blighters! The only way you can form a natural pair is to work in binary, where there's only two. Hence, a notesset is a single bit. (A quick delve into computer science reveals that a byte - a joke which wouldn't work too well in Quenya - is also known as an octet, so perhaps simply toldo, 'an eight', would work there. Thoughts most welcome.)
hS
even though that's kind of dumb because clean and beautiful light is better than grimy, smoky candles and torches
What about radiation? Or magnetism? And the various units derived from those?
The SI radiation units are:
1 Becquerel = 1 s-1. In Quenya, that's 3600 lúmi-1
1 Sievert (and indeed 1 Gray) = 1 m2/s2, but also 1 J/kg. Since we already have 1J = 14.9 milin.lár2/lúmë2, we can fairly quickly divide by... 15 432 milin to get 9.655 x 10-4 lár2/lúmë2.
Magnetism is more difficult: the SI units are based on amps (eg, 1 Tesla = 1 kg/s2A, or one Newton per meter per amp). Since it's a relatively new field, there don't seem to be any historical units with quirky definitions I can work on. All the SI units involving electromagnetism are people's names, it's awful!
-- oh! Aha. There are systems which define electromagnetic units in terms of other units: see here. The handy definition is:
"two equal point charges spaced 1 centimetre apart are said to be of 1 franklin [charge, = 3.33564×10−10 coulombs] each if the electrostatic force between them is 1 dyne [= 10−5 N]."
So it's an experimental value, which can fairly hideously be defined as 1 g1/2cm3/2/s. I should be able to convert that into both Quenya and SI... but later. :)
hS
I'm very much enjoying this construction of a scientific language of the elves. There's so many weird units! The sverdrup, the langley, and my personal favourite, the muggeseggele.
It's a clunky Google Sheet, but it lets me convert SI units directly into QMS.
The first thing it revealed is that I got the value of a joule wrong: it should be 358 mirim.lár^2/lúmë^2. I, uh, divided by 24 instead of multiplying. ^_^; Luckily, this means that a food calorie is very close to 2 milin.lár^2/lúmë^2, so it all works out.
The upshot is that your attempts to fox me are met with digital indifference:
1 sverdrup = 0.77 lár3/ré ('cubic leagues per day')
1 langley = 2x1017 mírim/ré2 ('pennyweights per day squared')
1 muggeseggele = 1 viepiva (allowing for a very slight anatomical shift, that one's literal).
hS
How utterly unexpected!
(( Because I looked up the original word [one smoot, many smoots, btw] and found some more in the same vein. ^_^
~Neshomeh ))
Honestly. I hope the pair of you learn some decorum soon. Or at the very least get yourselves some wipe clean furniture.
Given I haven't picked up the kind of decorum you're talking about in over a century and a half, I somehow doubt it's going to happen any time soon. You'd probably be better off either accepting it or just not worrying about it. Unless you're interested in a deeper understanding of why I'm perfectly happy without much decorum sticking to me, in which case you can figure out where to find me pretty easily ;)
-J
((Sometimes I. boggle a bit at the moments it's in character for Jacques to flirt. The weirder thing is, he's usually either serious or willing to immediately become much more serious about it if the other party flirts back.
I've been writing this character for about seven years. The most likely 'if my character somehow met me' scenario is probably just sitting down for a conversation and him slowly boggling more and more at the fact that his main author is fundamentally pretty different from him in many ways. There's honestly a pretty strong disconnect, and it makes itself known something like 1-3 times per interlude, mostly in the form of 'wait a moment, he wouldn't tone it down/be more polite there, you're not writing Dawn, you know.' It's kind of fascinating, sometimes. ~Z))
That invitation still stands, by the way. ^_~
But really, you're so much more decorous than I am, Notary. I wouldn't dream of trying to out-decor you. I'll just stick to plain, undecorated fun. :)
—Jenni
I think you are a credit to your profession and to this organization as a whole. Thus, I fail to see what purpose could be served by engendering within you the level of acrid nausea commonly reserved for weapons-grade emetics by exposing you to my naked, soapy form. Please understand that this is no mark against your character, nor is it another attempt at unpleasantness or the start of another spat. I am just... this. And you are you. And never the twain shall meet, especially not uncovered save for wisps of steam and a strategically placed rubber duck.
I'm pretty sure you have, on multiple occasions at this point. Granted, the timeline's mostly still hypothetical and fuzzy, and this light RP stuff isn't exactly canon anyway, but never mind that. It's probably not spoilers to point out I had a thing for the Phantom of the Opera at one point—not Gerard Butler, mind you; the Leroux/Kay version—and I'd have made good on it, too, we'd ever gotten to the point where I thought it was appropriate (which we didn't, so enough said).
Apart from the most strictly literal sense, appearances don't matter.
So knock it off.
But we could have a strategically placed rubber duck if you want, though. ;)
—Jenni
Kindly performed by our holographic replicas of most of the PPC, which we would never use for anything inappropriate, probably.
~
NOTARY: Rubber ducky, clutched in my hand
JENNI: Rubber ducky, should've been banned
NOTARY: Public show'rs, for direst need
JENNI: Public show'rs, perfect for me
NOTARY: Rubber duck, drifting away
JENNI: And oh, those rubber pants!
CONTINUITY COUNCIL: Tell me more, tell me more:
Were you crippled with shame?
JACQUES: Tell me more, tell me more:
Did you check for her name?
~
NOTARY: Splashed around, where was my duck?
JENNI: Splashed around, gosh what rhymes with duck?
NOTARY: Hid my face, who'd want to see?
JENNI: Hid my towel, 'Oh where can it be?'
NOTARY: Rubber duck, why did you leave?
JENNI: But oh, those rubber pants!
CONTINUITY COUNCIL: Tell me more, tell me more:
Did she help you to soap?
JACQUES: Tell me more, tell me more:
Is it crass to say 'grope'?
~
NOTARY: Tried to stay where it was steamy
JENNI: Oh come on, I wanted 'steamy'!
NOTARY: Wore the most clothes I could swing
JENNI: Wore a smile - is that ev'rything?
NOTARY: Rubber duck, wish you were here
JENNI: But oh, those rubber pants!
CONTINUITY COUNCIL: Tell me more, tell me more:
Did you have a nice chat?
JACQUES: Tell me more, tell me more:
Was it another spat?
~
NOTARY: She got close - perhaps she was blind
JENNI: She got close, her ducky to find
NOTARY: Held my tongue, didn't call her a pest.
JENNI: Something 'tongue', now what rhymes with 'pest'?
NOTARY: Rubber duck, lost in the foam
JENNI: But oh, those rubber pants!
CONTINUITY COUNCIL: Tell me more, tell me more:
Did she take a few snaps?
JACQUES: Tell me more, tell me more:
Did it end with a slap?
~
NOTARY: No hot water, that's where it ends
JENNI: A cold shower, I must recommend.
NOTARY: Went back home, glad of the peace.
JENNI: Made a plan, to come back next week.
NOTARY: Rubber duck, back in my hand
BOTH: But oh - those rubber pants!
((O.O))
Ah, Grease, always good stuff. I particularly like the "what rhymes with" jokes. ^_^
Jenni: "I would like to state for the record that I would never actually mack on someone who wasn't interested in a public shower. Or anywhere else, for that matter. ... But also I think our lines got swapped at the start of the last verse. Cold water's no fun; that's why she keeps saying it." ;P
And oh, those rubber pants, indeed. I keep thinking I should apologize, and then I remember that's not even remotely my fault. {X D Your mind is a marvelous thing.
~Neshomeh
I mean, okay, she did, but not in the song. I was very careful with that. Song!Notary was very insecure, but not specified to be unwilling. (Which I think means I'm doing better than the original song...)
The cold shower was for recovering after the exhausting, uh, hunt for the rubber ducky. That's definitely all that happened.
Undis Closed: "And we definitely don't have pictures we'll be passing to the Monitor as soon as we can get a secure connection."
hS
Jenni: "And too much experience with the Monitor. Uuugh, the break room is going to be a circus when that comes out. Cheers, Undis." :/
It all makes sense now. ^_^
~Neshomeh
You're actually a nice person, why would they mock you and post compromising pictures of you to embarrass you and express disdain for you? If they were doing it to something like me I could just about understand it, but why you? You are a good person and you care about people! Even when they don't deserve it! This is... I am genuinely confused! Why would this happen to you and not to me?
((I should mention that this is simply the Notary's self-loathing coming out to play; she's not really able to comprehend having embarrassing pictures posted around the breakroom being something that's just a bit of fun and not a ploy for power. Girl has capital-I Issues. Also, the Rubber Ducky song was excellent and I love it and I want someone to record it. =] ))
Unless you think the ConCoun is remotely capable of leaving it alone, and based on what you've told me, I don't. I'm sorry about that. I know a thing like this will be harder for you than for me.
The thing is, it's not all that compromising or even embarrassing to me. I've been with FicPsych for almost two decades. Half my clients know me well enough to guess what's true and what's not, and the other half won't be harmed by an object lesson in what I really believe. Even if a few leave me, that's all right—they'll get a better fit with someone else, and I'll have room for someone I can help more. It all works out in the long run.
And the other nurses are, by and large, my friends. They'll poke fun at me, sure, but then I get to poke fun right back. No harm done. ^_^ Also, if I did step out of line, they'd tell me. That's a good thing. I really don't want to end up with a Sue-tracker again. I gotta have people to keep me humble. :)
D'you really think we'd publish obviously fake photos from that clown Undi Sclosed? Please! We do have some journalistic integrity here (unlike those NAME THIEVES at the so-called New Monitor). Obviously we're not gonna let him fob us off with holodeck snaps without checking first.
Any rumours that said 'checking' consists of me lurking outside the showers to catch when - sorry, 'if' - the two of you go in there together are vicious lies made up by... someone... bad. Yep. That's the one.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and waterproof my camera.
~Agent S. Rohana, Ed., MM (REAL)
(So should I scrap the pictures? We do still need a story for page 7. -Estelnar)
(Nah, keep 'em on file. If all else fails, we can pull out the old 'no smoke without digitally simulated fire' line and run 'em anyway. -Starwind)
a) Yes you would.
b) Good luck with that. The only "public" showers I actually frequent are in FicPsych (and they've got stalls, so nyah).
Mind you, I've no objection to hot pinups in principle, but here's a crazy idea: how about just asking nicely? :P
—Jenni
Haaaaaang on a minute... Robinson? Jenni Robinson?
We've already done you! Stop trying to sneak back into our paper; we're a serious journalistic endeavour, don'cha'know.
I think that was one of our more popular issues, actually. ~Estelnar
What? No way, that was... what, fourteen years ago? We've done hun- doz- lots since then!
Neverthless. ~E
...
Heeeeey, Agent Robinson, about that 'asking nicely' thing...
-S.R.
See, I've always been a supporter of the Monitor. Absurd, hyperbolic gossip Serious investigative journalism is good fun when it's not taken to the point of being insulting.
You know what, I was going to say yes, but I've just remembered I'm still angry about that one. Perhaps if there were some sort of public recanting of and apology for the Sue remark, which was below the belt if not downright libelous, I might reconsider entering negotiations for some exclusive content.
—Jenni
Did we even write that one? -S.R.
I think it came in an anonymous envelope, but that's not the point. This is a matter of principle.
We have principles? Did they come in the envelope too? -S.R.
-_-
If only there were some sort of device that could analyze one's character. :|
Come on, ladies, be serious for one minute.
—Jenni
[Muttered conversation ensues]
-- no, I know, but she didn't say --
-- right, so we stick to the letter of the --
-- not my fault; you should have read --
-- okay. Hi! So you're saying if we-
I've got DAS-SWEAR on the line, Starwind.
Hold on a moment. Hi, Dr. Niamh? This is the Monit... er, the Mary-Sue Monitoring Team. ... no, you wouldn't have, we're new. ... right. So we were wondering, Suvians are your speciality, right? So would you be able to assess someone to confirm they're not a Suvian? ... right. ... no, I know that's what a CAD's for, but I was hoping... uh-huh. ... no, I get that. ... sorry. ... no, wait, I--
She hung up.
... Agent Robinson! Or is it Nurse Robinson? Anyway, you're saying if we print a CAD reading of you to prove you're not a Suvian, you'll provide us with "exclusive" "content"? Because I think we can arrange that.
Ask her about the calendar.
I'm not going to- we don't even have a calendar, Estelnar!
But we could make so much money! Think of it: "Hello, Nurse! Seven Seasons of HQ's Hottest... Healthcare... Hottie"? I don't know, we can work on it.
That's just corny, Estelnar. -- wait, seven?
I know, but I figure we can get away with adding the middle-days as a separate page. More pictures means more money, right?
... what calendar are you even using?
The proper one. What are YOU using?
The one we've been printing on the cover of every issue!
Oh. Huh, I always wondered about that--
[SIGNAL LOST]
((Well, give them an inch and they'll take you a sixth of the way to Venus. ~hS))
If it will satisfy you to print a CAD reading, fine. I'll even give you the ones from my annual evaluations (because guess what, FicPsych keeps track of the mental and metafictional state of its staff; shocking, I know). I believe you'll find the percentage trends downward, with the occasional oscillation. Nobody's perfect, right? ;)
But I'm more interested in the apology. Then we can discuss what I'm willing to provide you in the future. Up front, I'm not engaging in any "content" involving the white coat or other trappings of my job. The "hot nurse" thing is so trite. Surely you can do better than that.
—Jenni
(( She does have some dignity to preserve. Compartmentalization is key. {= ) ... Mind you, I wouldn't be surprised if, a week later, the Kudzu decided the entire department should engage in a series of, uh, promotional images to increase the visibility of FicPsych and humanize increase the bipedal-mammalian sense of sympathy and relatability toward the staff... ))
You know, somehow that really isn't what I expected to be doing when I joined FicPsych. Besides, mightn't it be better not to have agents come in going "oh, I know you! You look different with a shirt on, haha..." ? Just a thought.
I mean, you can probably talk me into posing in a leather jacket, or something. I even still have one. Well, two. But I'm going to be fully clothed apart from the jacket as well, and I don't mean in tight leather pants, either.
(To borrow a phrase, buy me a drink first. And don't take pictures.)
At least, I didn't.
Not that I'm criticizing. It's very considerate of the Director to spend her valuable time working to understand and support a staff that are very different from her. Sometimes we just have to be patient while understanding takes root.
And learn to duck and weave. Sometimes that, too. >.>
hS has watched half of these
No, really, I've seen Dark Matter, and he's pretty okay. {= )
So's Ben, for that matter. He might have been the Umbrella Academy's MVP in the second season.
You can keep the Cylon, and I'm not really familiar with the rest of them, though I feel like I should know who the guy with the boutonniere is and I may have seen the animated film forever ago?
~Neshomeh
-6, the unstable oracle from 9. I own this film for some reason; it's okay, I think?
-Number Six, from I Am Number Four. I know nothing about this film, but apparently she comes from Lorien; explains the Galadriel hair.
-Cylon Number Six, from Battlestar Galactica (2004). I think this is the Six in Gaius' head. Battlestar was weird.
-Number Six, star of The Prisoner. Weird 60s British scifi series; I've not seen it.
-Ben, aka Number Six, from Umbrella Academy. We watched the first few episodes; I think he showed up (y'know... hanging around with Klaus. ^_~)
-Six, from Dark Matter. I know absolutely nothing about this, but since I had five I needed a sixth. :)
There are a handful of other characters named Six in fiction, but they seem to mostly be actual personal names, or not numbered with respect to anything else. I was delighted to find six who actually had corresponding number 1 to 5. :)
Yeah, this was a lot of work for a quick joke.
hS
Look, we said it'd shock you for a reason, and it wasn't because your console hasn't been properly earthed. :)
-- NPC Shawcross
They're not hurting anything except your sense of prudishness. Though maybe if you removed that stick from up your nefr, you'd lighten up a little.
-Moonstone Sentry of the ConCouOfGaInEx
(ps from Zeb, hi Jacques!)
:* ;)
Have you tried that apple fritter recipe yet? I haven't had a chance to grab another bottle of oil for the frying, but if the TARDIS really does have that deep fryer, maybe you've had better luck?
-J
I haven't yet, but I've been meaning to! Did you know Ave and I figured out if we put on Babish's show it's a great way to get Ellie to drift off for a nap? He's got such a soothing voice, sometimes I find myself falling asleep too—but never mind that.
You should come over and use the TARDIS' fry vats! The Aviator makes a good, and I mean really good Scotch egg in them.
...Also, I miss seeing you.
-Zeb xo