A history lesson -

This is very enlightening;

Be sure to read the final paragraph; your understanding of it will depend on the earlier part of the content. The US standard rail road gauge (distance between the 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 English expatriates designed the US railroads.

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 had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

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? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial
Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the story:

When you 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 SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from
the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the rail road track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle 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. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.

:) brilliant ! I'm now proud to be a horse's arse knowing i'm from good Roman stock

1) I won't confuse everybody by mentioning that there was a British broad gauge for railways that did not follow the Roman sizing but was based what worked best! The betamax of railways as everyone else opted for standard gauge.

2) The first rails were made of wood - the same material that makes up the brain of most politicians...

Much of the educational system is based on what someone experienced when they were a student and they had a good teacher.

A lot of the things we do today (SMS, etc) were designed for one purpose and then the trend shifted the use.

It is a bit fun to make early decisions and then see how they linger on. At other times it is very frustrating to use certain technologies knowing that they are suboptimal but they remain because they are backwards compatible.

A refreshing and shocking thing about Apple is they will sometimes leave their existing customers behind if they realize there is a better way to do something. Rather than be stuck with the installed base assumptions they will consciously choose a fresh path and suffer a bit as they transition the customer base (losing some, gaining others).

The new normal does not happen enough.

Look at UK house construction. It is far from optimal in terms of building technologies and energy use. As the typical builder is not someone you can easily retrain we tend to continue rather than innovate in a major way.

Very true - just like ARPANet, a military computer network designed in the 60's for private communication. We now know it as the Internet (used for not-very-private communication).

Well done John, that is so revealing.....and cleverly put together...how things follow for a reason. There is a reason for everthing I am told!!

Classic, I've heard this one before up to the chariot wheels bit, but not to the horses ass bit. Great stuff! Makes you wonder doesn't it in all of our technological advancement, our apparent genius, or gizmos and gadgets how much of our society will be still in evidence and effecting society in 2000 years?

More History.................................

Manure.. ............An interesting fact

Manure : In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship, and it was also before the invention
of commercial fertilizers . So, large shipments of manure were quite common.
It was shipped dry, because in dry form, it weighed a lot less than when wet. But, once water (at sea) hit it, not only did it
>become heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane gas, of course. As the stuff was stored
> below decks in bundles, you can see what could (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks, and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern...BOOOOM

Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined
just what was happening.

After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the instruction:

" Stow high in transit" on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came
into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo, and start the production of methane.

Thus evolved the term "S.H.I.T" (Stow High In Transit), which has come down through the centuries, and is in use to this very day
You probably did not know the true history of this word. Neither did I.

I had always thought it was a "GOLF TERM"...

Awesome information.

I have passed this to my directors and they now think i can pull off all sorts of random facts.....

Thanks for the read.

Tina

Again,

http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/shit.asp

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

great links thanks

Tina

Thats epic man!