Weird Units of Measurement

While researching an article I posted earlier this week about micromorts (one-in-a-millionth chance of death), I found a Wikipedia page for humorous measurements.

I’ve also been thinking about NFTs a lot, so this article’s going to be a smorgasbord of measurements, NFTs, and status games. Read until the end for my favorite: The Waffle House Index.

As I drove to Princeton on Sunday, I listened to the first episode of Technostic, a podcast on the new social podcasting app Callin. For the first half of the episode, Emory and Grady had an interesting discussion about social capital, another form of measurement that is becoming increasingly weirder as the days go on.

With people paying hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for NFTs like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes with no apparent value besides to show status, it’s clearer than ever that we’re living in an age where status on the internet is more important for some people than social status in real life.

This has been abundantly clear since the rise of the Instagram influencer showing off beach houses, Lamborghinis, and vacations to exotic places. An online following is easy to fake/buy, but NFTs - based on the Ethereum blockchain - are unfalsifiable.

Grady and Emory break down this essential question:

What does owning a Bored Ape or Cryptopunk truly signify?

A) You are very wealthy and can afford to drop $100,000+ on a risky investment.

This is the easiest option to understand. It is like someone buying a Ferrari or a Louis Vuitton purse. Clearly, you are wealthy and have more money (and status) than me.

B) You were very early on crypto, and thus are someone who is ahead of the curve.

This signifies your opinion on new tech and investments should hold some weight. You are smarter than me, and I should trust you and your opinions.

Brand & Status Games

When you realize that many of these NFT-owners maker their livings based off their followings, it becomes abundantly clear that despite going against typical convention, a JPEG of an ape or pixel-art image has value.

In the use case of a creator or influencer, it makes sense to invest money in one’s brand. If you buy a cool rare NFT, you can develop an entire brand around it. But, for anyone not trying to make money off their social media brands, owning NFTs is currently worthless1.

So, now let’s talk about some measurements the average guy can actually afford.

Strange Measurements

Some of these are ones I’ve heard IRL, and others are ripped straight from that Wikipedia article.

Cow's grass

In Ireland, before the 19th century, a "cow's grass" was a measurement used by farmers to indicate the size of their fields. A cow's grass was equal to the amount of land that could produce enough grass to support a cow.

While this direct idea is a bit archaic unless you are a farmer, the concept is applicable to other avenues of thought. For example, I eat roughly 1-3 rolls of sushi every time I eat sushi. So 2 rolls of sushi could be a measurement known as a “Jason.”

Or more realistically, a medium-to-large sized dog typically eats the same amount of food. It’s somewhere around a cup to a bowl of kibble, but it could simply be called a “Clifford”.

IPM (Ideas-Per-Minute)

Well, I heard this one from a guy named Cactus Chu. IPM refers to the amount of ideas per minute in a podcast. “That Tim Ferriss Podcast has some high IPM!”

This is not to be confused with Idiots-Per-Mile, which is used to measure the number of drunken idiots walking around Pittsburgh after a Steelers game.

Centipawn

So, this one’s cool if you’re into chess.

Chess software frequently uses centipawns internally or externally as a unit measuring how strong each player's situation position is, and hence also by how much one player is beating the other, and how strong a possible move is.

100 centipawns = the value of 1 pawn – more specifically, something like the average value of the pawns at the start of the game, as the actual value of pawns depends on their position.

Loss of a pawn will therefore typically lose that player 100 centipawns. The centipawn is often used for comparing possible moves, as in a given position, chess software will often rate the better of two moves within a few centipawns of each other.

Mickey

One mickey is the smallest resolvable unit of distance by a given computer mouse pointing device. It is named after Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoon character. 

Mouse motion is reported in horizontal and vertical mickeys. Device sensitivity is usually specified in mickeys per inch. Typical resolution is 500 mickeys per inch (16 mickeys per mm), but resolutions up to 16,000 mickeys per inch (600 mickeys per mm) are available.

Waffle House Index

Waffle House Index2 is used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to determine the impact of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery.

The measure is based on the reputation of the Waffle House restaurant chain for staying open during extreme weather. This term was coined by FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate after 2 Waffle Houses stayed open during the 2011 Joplin tornado.

The index has three levels, based on the extent of operations and service at the restaurant following a storm:[2][3]

• GREEN: full menu – restaurant has power and damage is limited or no damage at all.

• YELLOW: limited menu – no power or only power from a generator, or food supplies may be low.

• RED: the restaurant is closed – indicating severe damage or severe flooding.

Takeaways:

1. Don’t measure your status by an NFT.

2. You can create your own measurements!

3. If the Waffle House is closed, find a bomb shelter.

References:

Sharma, Asit. “4 Quirky Investments That Outperformed in 2013.” The Motley Fool, 24 Dec. 2013, www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/12/23/4-quirky-investments-that-outperformed-in-2013.aspx.

Trendacosta, Katharine. “10 Of The Most Absurd Units Of Measurement On Earth.” Gizmodo, 16 Dec. 2015, gizmodo.com/10-of-the-most-absurd-units-of-measurement-on-earth-1694474719.

Wikipedia contributors. “List of Humorous Units of Measurement.” Wikipedia, 8 Aug. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement.