Stupid of the Month for March · 1:59am Mar 23rd, 2018
Some things are so stupid, I just have to share them.
#3: NPT pipe sizes
I was trying to buy some air hose couplers, and ran across this:
This is, and I quote, an "Anderson Metals 57001 Brass Hose Fitting Adapter 1/4" Barb x 1/4" NPT Male Pipe". That means it has a barb fitting for a 1/4" pipe (on the left), and an NPT fitting for a 1/4" pipe (on the right).
Before I clicked on "buy", I paused. Why was 1/4 inch so much bigger on the right than on the left?
Determined Googling eventually revealed the answer to me: NPT pipe sizes are not measurements. There is no such thing as a 1/4" NPT pipe. There is a 1/4 NPT pipe thread, which has an O.D. (Outer Diameter) of 0.540" (meaning it fits into a pipe with an I.D. (Inner Diameter) of a tiny bit less than that). Lest you think this is because they're measuring 1/4 of some other unit, a 1/8 NPT pipe thread has an O.D. of 0.405". The 1/4 is meaningless.
But every hardware store in America that stocks NPT fittings labels them in inches. So if you buy a fitting advertised as '1/4" NPT ', it will be half an inch in diameter, unless it's 1/4" in diameter because the advertiser measured it and wrote down 1/4". So when you see an add on ebay for a 1/4" NPT pipe, you have to first ask if that's a pipe with NPT threading that's 1/4" O.D., or a 1/4 NPT pipe.
#2: The Circular Laguna Garzon Bridge in Uruguay
They needed a bridge to go across an inlet, on a road that otherwise goes through sand and nowhere. A long, fairly straight road with no entrances or exits, where people might be tempted to press the pedal down.
To quote Amusing Planet: "Its architect Rafael Viñoly has a perfectly logical and functional explanation: the curved design will force drivers to slow down the speed of their cars while also prove an opportunity to enjoy the panoramic views of this amazing landscape. The bridge also has a pair of pedestrian walkways."
Walkways which, let us note, have 4 crosswalks instead of 0, forcing pedestrians to cross the highway twice, at just the points where drivers are suddenly realizing there's no more road in front of them.
Unless, of course, they're distracted by a pedestrian. Or it's at night, in which case they can't actually see that there's no more road ahead of them. Do you see the helpful street lights on the curve of the bridge, showing drivers that the road is about to curve? No, because they're not there.
There's a zigzag highway near San Jose which was supposedly made even more crooked than it had to be, to make drivers slow down, and thus safer. Locals call it "death highway" because of the many accidents on it.
If you make drivers slow down because the road is dangerous, that's not actually a win. They'll slow down just enough to have the same perceived level of risk that they would have had on a straight road. Except for the ones who don't.
#1: This.
What. The. Fuck.
In 1485, Protestantism was spreading across Germany. It was aided by the printing press, which made it possible for ordinary people to own a copy of the Bible, and to discover that the doctrines which were most important to the medieval Holy Church--the Apostolic Succession, the role of the sacraments in salvation, the priesthood, the Trinity and their hair-splitting explications of its nature, and the attributes of God--had little or no basis in it.
The Archbishop of Würzburg observed that:
For we have seen how Christ's books containing [details of the] celebration of divine services, as well as works on divine matters and the most important principles of our religion, have been translated from Latin into German to be handled by the common people, which must inevitably be considered an offence to religion. … For what is there to enable the ignorant and unlearned men and women, into whose hands the books of holy Scripture might then fall, to pick out the true meanings?
He therefore decreed that, from then on,
It is most certainly important for us to preserve the immaculate purity of holy Scripture, and for this purpose [...] we decree that no works whatsoever, of whatever science, art or [fame?] they may happen to be, whether they are composed in Greek, Latin, or any other language, may be translated into German; nor may any such translated books be sold or purchased anywhere - publicly or secretly, directly or indirectly - unless they have been examined… by [...] the Doctors and Masters of the University in our city of Mainz, or by Doctors and Masters in our city of Erfurt whom we have selected for this purpose.
(Source)
The Catholic Church had begun teaching that the laity should not have access to scripture in the 11th century, but only really started taking action on the matter in the early 13th century, when various popes, bishops, and councils made rules against laity owning Bibles, because laity owning Bibles had been the cause of the Waldensian heresy. Not many people cared, since not many people could read or afford a handwritten Bible anyway.
This 1485 edict was part of a much longer second wave of similar prohibitions, in response to the Wycliffe Bible, increasing literacy, and the advent of printing, and later, to the Protestant Reformation [1]. This time, the rule was only against Bible translations that were (a) in a common language, and (b) not approved by the Church. The catch was that no Bible translations into any common language were approved by the Church.
This second set of Bible bans peaked with the 1598 version of the Index Liborum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books), which was especially strict (though enforcement varied, with near-complete freedom in Britain, Venice, Florence, and the Netherlands). But this time, people cared, because owning and reading a Bible in their own language was a thing they might actually aspire to. The mobilization of the Catholic hierarchy and the Inquisitions to ban and punish the reading of the Bible (other than in Hebrew, Greek or Latin) across Europe became, ironically, a public relations coup for Protestantism.
How would you file a historically important 500 year-old document like that?
HOPEFULLY NOT LIKE THIS.
Footnotes
[1] The clause in the 1485 edict saying that Bible translations must be "approved" was present in all such edicts that I'm aware of in the 15th and 16th centuries. This was effectively a ban, since AFAIK, the Church didn't approve any of the many translations made into any language other than Latin until the 1609 English Douay-Rheims Bible. They probably felt an approved English translation was necessary because England was by then Protestant, and translations not based on Jerome's Vulgate were already freely available there. The Romans themselves got their first approved Italian Bible in 1781.
I've been unable to find most of the 16th-century Italian translations (Jenkins & Preston p. 222) on versions of the 1559, 1564, 1582, or 1598 Index Librorum Prohibitorum--though note (Cheely 2013 footnote 9) indicates different cities published different versions of the Index. All but Nicolò Malerbi's were certainly banned, as they weren't based on Jerome's Vulgate. Malerbi's Bible wasreprinted approximately seventy times in either full or partial form between 1471 and 1567 (Cheely 2013 footnote 24), so Italians could buy it at least during that time. Bible versions were listed in the Index individually in 1559, and Malerbi's translation is not listed. The individual listings were removed and Bibles in general dealt with instead by Rules 3 and 4 in the 1564-1598 versions.
As best as I can tell from Google translate, Rule 3 says that men of learning may be granted permission to read the Old Testament (in Greek, Hebrew, or Latin) on the judgement of their Bishop, while the New Testament is (... translation garbled; either "generally okay to read" or "generally forbidden"; probably the former as the Church regarded the Old Testament as more problematic). Rule 4 seems to say that a vernacular language (a language spoken by common people) may only be used for instruction by a priest, and only of such simple doctrines as are suitable for children. This implies that no member of the laity could have copies of the Bible in any vernacular language.
References
Allan K. Jenkins & Patrick Preston, 2016. Biblical Scholarship and the Church: A Sixteenth-Century Crisis of Authority. Routledge.
Those are some stupid things.
What is your opinion on the US military's MK2?
4822968 My opinion is that I don't know what it is. Google tells me it's this:
warrelics.eu/forum/attachments/ordnance-ammo/975875d1467330670t-us-mk-ii-grenade-mkii_0.jpg
I haven't used it. Will review it if you provide me with samples.
That bridge is a wonder. A stupid, stupid wonder.
For the pipe thing, there is a method to it, though I still think it's a little silly. Pipe measurements describe the inner diameter of the pipe. So a 1/4" pipe should have an opening that is 1/4" wide. I think (but can't say for sure) that this is to account for pipes of different materials that might need different wall thicknesses to carry the same amount of liquid. Measuring the inner diameter, you can be sure that 1/4" pipes can transport the same amount of liquid at the same rate, regardless of the total outer diameter. Still makes things annoying when you're trying to fit them together.
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The M2 tank, with a crew armed with M2 submachine guns, could optionally be equipped with M2 flamethrowers and was all but impervious to M2 Browning .50 machine-gun fire, but remained susceptible to M2 mines throughout its service life.
There also exists the M3 Tripod, M3 SMG, M3 machine gun, M3 trench knife, M3 20mm cannon, M3 105mm Howitzer, M3 90mm Gun, M3 37mm Gun, M3 75mm Gun, M3 Bradley, M3 Half-Track, Lee, M3 Scout Car, and M3 Stuart.
4822997 Alas, no. A 1/4 NPT male coupler has a 1/2" OD--but it's a male coupler, so its OD is the ID of the pipe that screws onto it.
The inner diameter is not part of the NPT specification. A 1/4 NPT male coupler that I have has a 3/8" inner diameter.
Well no doubt that is a world of stupid. The one that made me laugh, though, (and cry, because history?) was the label stuck to the historical document. Clearly the clerk who did that was Protestant.
4823020 Remember this is Bad Horse of the Evil League of Evil you're talking to. If you provide him with samples, he will certainly "evaluate" them. To measure their effectiveness at preventing others from reaching
hisworld domination, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with that.Pipe sizes are insanely frustrating. A few weekends ago I had to plumb in my humidifier. It has 1/4" copper tubing going to it, which is to say that it's the same size as the 1/4" copper tubing at the hardware store. (There are at least two sizes of 1/4" Cu tubing, depending on whether it's measured by ID or OD.)
I needed to connect to the 1/2" copper pipe, so I got myself a tee, a valve, and a 1/2"-1/4" C-C solder adapter. Turns out that 1/4" wasn't for 1/4" tubing, as it was much too large, and I can only guess that it's for some mythical 1/4" hard copper pipe that I've never seen before and the hardware store had no examples of. So we had to rush back to the hardware store, with samples of the pipes that I had just cut, to find a different arrangement of fittings to work, because we couldn't exactly turn the house's water back on with one of our main pipes cut open.
You have to love when several conflicting, ancient standards all survive to modern day.
Why would you...
Why would you store anything like that, let alone a 500 year old document?
Just... why?
That's a markdown sticker. Salvation half off through Friday.
Speaking as a New Jerseyan, I am equal parts amused and horrified to see that traffic circles have infected minds that far afield, and in such a brazen manner.
And the sticker is just... Whoever did that was hopefully fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.
I swear, some people don't seem to understand that stickers stick to things.
4823173
Mere amateurs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
No matter where one goes in this world, or how long one lingers, one can always be assured of an endless supply of incompetence. Often masquerading as artistic creativity (my own latest writing being a prime example).
4823119
I can hear Twilight screaming.
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And when you ask someone to explain why all these weird and confusing and conflicting standards exists, instead of simply standardizing on actual measurements, you'll invariably get the same answer...
It sucks, but the bible bans don't surprise me. Still terrible though. I'm guessing you're not surprised either.
...what did they do to that book?
WHO DID IT? WHO? I NEED A NAME!
Well, there kinda is, although it isn't called "NPT pipe". When it was created, the standard was relatively intuitive and based on with how pipes are chosen, joined together and what is convenient to use "in the field" (strictly speaking following story is about BSP, but NPT is very similar).
At the time pipes were chosen by internal diameter (that is what flow rate depends on), cut to necessary length, have male threads cut into their both ends and joined together with fittings with female threads. Cutting female threads into pipe ends is generally a bad idea since that create very noticeable flow constriction at fittings* (you can't make walls on corresponding male parts too-too thin) and would require to use pipes with larger internal diameter which would increase cost (most of used metal is in pipes). So folks century-something ago looked at available technology and most common usages, chose convenient discrete series of internal diameters and standardized precise outside diameter and minimal inside diameter (there's also pipes with thicker walls for higher pressures, which made stuff a bit more tricky).
Standardizing actual measurements may seem like a good idea, but it actually requires to either:
And third one --- measuring threads is actually major pain in the butt requiring specialized tools:
(1) again choose discrete series that can easily discriminated by looking at them. And now everyone has to memorize bunch of random numbers which are measurements (metric thread kinda does that with thread pitch).
(2) or have no series and be able to measure threads "in the field" (in case you need, for example, add something to existing plumbing). First problem here is that making standard parts is more complicated. Second one --- computational load on plumber
media.rs-online.com/t_large/F6830756-01.jpg
media.rs-online.com/t_large/R315775-01.jpg
or even worse:
vlabs.iitb.ac.in/vlabs-dev/vlab_bootcamp/bootcamp/mmsynergy/labs/exp1/images/m2.png
(and these are for just cylindrical threads, pipe threads are often tapered)
(*) Well, these barbed fittings for rubber hoses do basically that, but there's no other way in that case (and by extension, rubber hoses are standardized by precise internal diameter)
I'm kinda overindulging on necroposting in your blog recently. If I'm annoying you, it's enough to just say...
5388052
I necropost all the time! If something isn't worth replying to 5 years later, it wasn't worth writing in the first place, is my motto.
I am very bad about responding to comments now, though.
How do you know so much about pipes?
5391799
(Internet is probably the greatest human invention ever where answer to every question (and ponies) can be found)
I kinda had to do some basic plumbers work a couple of times and later had to cut a few threads (that I didn't have dies for) on a lathe. And while looking at precise dimensions I asked myself exactly the same question