dectech

???

  stewball

  thesnailphilosopher

happy anniversary to the great molasses flood

  cranquis

  tinsnip

this is how shotgun shells are made apparently

and then needles got made that way too

  samjohnssonvt

Wires as well

  derinthescarletpescatarian

That is so unnecessarily imprecise.

  myriadplethorae

It’s not actually that imprecise from a low-tech perspective though? How else are you going to measure the difference between a 6 vs a 9 gauge needle without some highly precise measuring equipment? This is cheap and replicable, and isn’t it easier to make a big cylinder to match a specific diameter?

  derinthescarletpescatarian

I'd measure the diameter of the mold used to make the needle and label the molded needles accordingly but however people want to do it is fine I guess

Stacking circles inside circles doesn't measure things all that precisely. To give a super exaggerated example, a 1-guage needle via this method could be 1 inch diameter, .51 inch diamater, or anything in between. You can nearly double the size of a needle at that scale and still have the same gauge.

Obviously most needles are smaller than that and the margin of error is thus smaller, but it's still so unnecessarily imprecise when you can just measure the diameter of the molds and use that as your standard. If you want to measure them at home by chucking them in a ring you still can. But the measurement standard should be diameter-based.

  sufficientlylargen

It seems weirdly imprecise because it's not true. I don't know where this rumor comes from, but that's not how needle sizes came about. As I understand it, they come from wire gauge sizes, where you make a wire thinner and thinner by repeatedly pulling it through smaller and smaller holes in a draw plate:

ALT

They're numbered in order from largest to smallest because you do them sequentially, making the wire slightly thinner each time, and the gauge # is just the number of holes you pull it through.

Notably, in every gauge system I'm aware of, the size-0 wire or needle is still much, much less than an inch across, because it's a wire or a needle, not a piece of rebar.

My best guess about the "number of wires/needles that fit in a 1in cylinder" things is that someone who was confused about gauge numbers had a 1" hole, noticed that they could shove a little more than 20 24-gauge wires in it, jumped to the conclusion that this must be how it was defined, and started confidently telling everyone that this was true.

  elodieunderglass

Do you want me to use historical knitting knowledge to make this a little bit worse

  icantbearsedtothinkofone

I must know how historical knitting information can be anything but a benefit.

And now I'm thinking about the Terrible Knitters of Mold or whatever it was, the women who hand-knit REALLY fast using knitting sheaths.

  elodieunderglass

Right! so this post is about sewing needles, where gauge/diameter are slightly less important than in other types of needle, such as medical needles or knitting needles. There's of reasonable amount of wiggle room in crafting a sewing needle, a very ancient technology that can really be made any old way (it doesn't even need to have an eye - it can just be a poky thorn or animal quill that pokes thread through holes.) And the technological innovation of the metal sewing needle being made from drawn wire and the points ground on a grindstone is supported because we know that's how they did it and because that's the easiest way to to make long thin pieces of metal, so needle size mapping to wire size (and a higher number being number of draws through a plate) makes sense.

Keep reading

  estel-and-agape

The like button is heart shaped for a reason and the reason is that it means I love you

  lastoneout

KIDS LOVE IT TOO!!

  arbitraryexistence

Ever since reading my first time loop-based book as a preteen, I’ve had a Secret Time Loop Code Word. It’s been the same word all these years. I’ve never written it down anywhere or told anyone what it is, just kept it tucked away in my brain. That way, if someone I know ever confided in me that they were stuck in a time loop, I would have a way to confirm it: I would tell them the time loop code word and instruct them to find and talk to me again on the next loop. Of course, if it’s a time loop, I wouldn’t remember telling them the code word. But they’d remember it. So if someone ever came to me and said “I’m stuck in a time loop, and the time loop code word is [X],” and it was indeed the word I’ve secretly held onto for most of my life, I would know that we had had this conversation in a previous loop and that they were telling the truth.

Will this ever be useful? Almost certainly not. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with having a completely absurd contingency plan. In case of time loops.

  jackhawksmoor

  munchy-k

the guy also like thinks everyone knows bc he never tries to hide the fact that the hawk is a person but everyone assumes hes always just joking. like the others being like "damn its crazy how he knows exactly what you want him to do its like he knows english or something." and the guy is just like "well yeah thats his first language so ofc he's fluent??" and they all go "haha good one" and move on, leaving him confused

  munchy-k

they just think hes a quirky guy that really loves his pet and says things like "the 9 of us" even tho there are clearly only 8 people! he just cares about the bird so much he counts it as a group member haha !