My new supervisor talking shit about my old supervisor, who is one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met, is up there in the category of I just have to smile and nod and hate very second if it.
On the other hand when my old supervisor talks shit about my new supervisor we just have a laugh about how incompetent my new supervisor is.
Why did the management at my company have to change? All I want is my old supervisor back. She was the best boss I’ve ever had.
Railroad Tracks
The U.S. Standard railroad 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 U.S. 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.
In other words, bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or 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.
Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that 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 larger,
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 railroad 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!
Now you know, Horses’ Asses control almost everything.
Explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn’t it?
This is the single most mind blowing fact I’ve read on tumblr, every day is a school day-thank you.
Nice history lesson!
My daughter and I were just discussing this very subject.
most relatable lines in hamilton:
• “oh shit”
• “sweet jesus”
• “honestly it’s kind of draining”
• “fuuuuuuuuu-”
• “in the living room stressing”
• “uh, do whatever you want, i’m super dead”
• “i hadn’t slept in a week”
• “i’m young, scrappy, and hungry”
• “a mess, she looked pathetic”
• “i’m dying inside”
One bonus of being An Adult ™ is grossly misusing modern slang on purpose and watching the young interns cry inside
a fine example: the other day I pointed at a passing shark and, while looking one intern right in the eye, went “Man is that bae or what huh?” and the look on his face was something i will treasure for years
I don’t even care that I already reblogged this because seriously, how is this not a masterpiece painting hanging in the Smithsonian? Everything about this photo just says Romanticism to me
These two exist in our actual world, why are epic sagas not being written about them. I would read them ALL.
my friend showed me this video of his pet donkey greeting him when he returned home from college after a few months and you just have to watch it RIGHT NOW
Oh my god I thought this was going to be cute and heart warming and yeah it is but holy shit please turn the sound on I’m fucking dying
