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A medieval Jewish astrologer prophesied to a king that his favorite mistress would soon die. Sure enough, the woman died a short time later. The king was outraged at the astrologer, certain that his prophecy had brought about the woman's death. He summoned the astrologer and commanded him: "Prophecy, tell me when you will die!" The astrologer realized that the king was planning to kill him immediately, no matter what answer he gave. "I do not know when I will die," he answered finally. "I only know that whenever I die, the king will die three days later."
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Here is a look into ENGINEERING specs that is very interesting, educational, historical, completely true, and hysterical all at the same time: The U.S. standard railroad gauge (width between the two rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots first formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Thus, we have the answer to the original question. Now the twist to the story... There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or S.R.B.'s. The S.R.B.'s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the S.R.B.'s might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the S.R.B.'s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The S.R.B.'s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' rears. So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's Ass!
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At my new job we a have a general mailbox into which people send requests for updates and changes. I am completely serious when I tell you that today we received the following mail. 1)There is a sing where the rotisserie chicken is served stating that you get a 20oz soda with the meal...but the cashers says that it is wrong & it should say 16oz...that's not a problem but the cashers by the snack/entrence section have a very nasty attitude about it. 2)Today(4/25/01) the was "Seafood Pasta Primavera" on the menu but instead they had chicken parmesian--again this is not the problem. The problem is those same damn cashers at the entrance--they charged me for the seafood pasta which is $4.95 instead of the chicken pamesian which is $4.95. I explained the situation to them but they just dont want to hear what I have to say. I'm really disgusted with the way the cafateria is being run.
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