While the asteroid is traveling too far to pose any risk to the Earth, a possible impact event with it could become a worldwide catastrophe.

165 points

American really will use any measurement except metric

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42 points
*

If you regularly use metric in the US, you’re either an aerospace engineer or a drug dealer. lol

Edit: Thank you everyone who ackshually’d my obvious joke. I’m aware metric is more widely used that that.

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28 points

Or the military, they use it a ton

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25 points

Or the military, they use it a ton 907kg.

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13 points

The fastest way to find out is to ask how many grams are in an ounce.

28.8? Engineer

28? Dealer

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2 points

Wtf is an ounce? Scientist

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3 points

Or just a car mechanic. Tales of 10mm sockets disappearing abound.

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3 points

TIL only aerospace engineers and drug dealers buy soda at the grocery store.

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24 points
*

I’d switch, but I’ve been on the Capy system my whole life, and it’s just much more intuitive for me. Everyone knows how long a Capybara is. How fucking long a meter is? Beats the fuck out of me, maybe a half cap?

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13 points

It really was a disservice to my generation and after (late 30s) that they gave up on it.

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13 points

And we’ll misapply it as well. The asteroid isn’t the size of 1000 capybaras, it’s as wide as 1000 capybaras lined up. Assuming it’s roughly spherical, it’s actually closer to the size of 524,000,000 capybaras.

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4 points
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Asteroids can be wildly non-spherical though, in shapes way different than capybara non-sphericalities, so it’s not only misapplied but likely also nonsensical… unless, it’s a giant capybara shaped asteroid.

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1 point

True, but we’re only given the one measurement and can only assume it to be true and accurate. Even if it is non-spherical, so long as the “diameter” given is a true average we can treat it as spherical for this purpose. And, the 1000 capybaras “measurement” is still of by many orders of magnitude.

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3 points

We talking length or width?

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1 point

Volume.

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9 points

Is 1,000 capybaras equal to 10,000 guinea pigs or is it 99,729.372456 guinea pigs? I’m bad at conversions.

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2 points

It depends on your motivation to pack them in the allotted space.

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7 points

You may deny it, but capybara measurement is peak measurement.

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6 points

If it were an American measurement it would be made in Hamberders

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5 points

The Jerusalem Post

Look I think the joke is as funny as anyone else but the “unit” is an animal most of the Americans its meant to lampoon most likely wouldn’t have even heard of.

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1 point

We’ve all seen the memes, thank you very much.

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75 points

A kilocapybara

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7 points

Real science

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3 points

It’s only missing 24 to make it one Kibibara.

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2 points

The Kilo-bara

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62 points

Use measurement units damnit

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16 points

This is a measurement unit. A bit unconventional, but it’s not any worse than using three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end lengthwise, or the length of King Henry I’s foot.

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1 point

not any worse

I know this is america but could we maybe, just this once, try to measure things better?

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7 points

This one actually gave me a nice laugh. They are clearly taking a piss at unconventional units of measurement.

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7 points

My friends and I use golden retrievers as a unit of measurement, would that have been better?

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6 points

Here’s a better article.

The first asteroid, named 349507 (2008 QY), is a colossal mass that is equivalent in size to a bridge.

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5 points

1 bridge = 1000 capybaras, you heard it here first

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5 points

I just had a huge breakfast. Easily one third of a capybara

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43 points

Yup. first time I have seen capybaras used as a unit of measurement.

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25 points

My ex had titties the size of capybaras but it was mostly because she had the physique of a manatee.

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5 points

she was truly the sea cow of the land

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35 points
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Deleted by creator
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15 points
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That’s the point, they’re making fun of all the news sources that can’t be arsed to give actual measures.

“The forest fire is as big as one million football fields!” means fuck all, but saying “Equivalent to a square 75km by 75km.” that’s a measure that actually means something.

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2 points

I remember the one that was half a girrafe tall. Which is apparently 2.14m which can also ve discribed as 1 Shaq

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2 points

What’s really going to fuck with you is that the fire is mostly confined to the boundaries, so a fire would be better measured by units of length. It’s not like you have 75 square kilometers simultaneously on fire, you’ve got 75 square kilometers burned, as in past tense, and some amount of the outline of that is currently on fire.

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3 points

How do you measure the perimeter on fire though? Do you go tree to tree, leaf to leaf, or trace the perimeter of each separate leaf?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox

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9 points

Well you’re no fun at all

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