Comments on: WCYDWT Live: Dirt

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:58:12 +0000

This sort of thing makes me so upset. Thanks for exposing it.

By: dy/dan » Blog Archive » “The best learning begins with a good worksheet.”

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:21:40 +0000

[…] introduce me to new ideas, who offer me their time and energy to field-test my latest harebrained schemes, readers who have helped me pinball quickly from failure to […]

By: WCYDWT Live: Reflection « Clarify Me

WCYDWT Live: Reflection « Clarify Me — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:27:08 +0000

[…] This past Saturday I was fortunate enough to be one of the 20 for the second WCYDWT Live session. […]

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 00:21:30 +0000

Email if you end up going waaaaay deep.

By: Steve G.

Steve G. — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 23:24:36 +0000

Trying to find another way to check the soil density, I found (on the internet of course) a range of 1-2 grams per cubic cm for desert soil, and also tried (at my son’s suggestion) lunar soil, which gave me a range of 1.58-1.74 g/cm3. I arbitrarily chose 1.6 g/cm3, which I converted to 99.9 lb/ft3. Not that far from the number we used (120 lb/ft3). Rounding to 100, I still get a yearly total of 173.25 tons of dirt. Astounding!

So, if X-Ray dug about 1000 pounds *less* of dirt each day, how much dirt are these boys digging, anyway? The 5-foot shovelers dig almost 10,000 pounds, I calculate. 3% less shovel digs approximately 10% less dirt.

Other extensions:

How much shorter would a shovel have to be for a boy to dig half as much as the others?

What size of a shovel would a (very, very small) person use to dig a hole with only 100 pounds of dirt? [Like a textbook comparison of cube-to-cylinder volumes.]

Thanks again for the meeting, Dan!

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:52:07 +0000

Count me in if it’s not too late!

By: David L

David L — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:29:33 +0000

So I feel the need to explain, I didn’t misunderstand the time – 3pm PST is 6pm here. Got it. Had it. All over it.

I thought that I missed the DimDim invite and I wanted to ask early, hence the reference to 3:11pm EST.

Sorry for the confusion…though I am wondering What Can I Do With This confusion about timezones.

By: Mr. K

Mr. K — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:19:25 +0000

> just list Pacific and Eastern times

Or use Zulu time. It’s a lot less Ethnocentric that way.

By: Steve G.

Steve G. — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:15:37 +0000

And as a possibly-interesting side note, it appears that the time stamps on comments here are given in PST, so my “1:11 pm” comment was actually written at 2:11 pm on all the clocks in my house (here in Oregon, on PDT).

By: Steve G.

Steve G. — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:11:47 +0000

You know, Dan, I got a little confused about the time as well, because it says 3:00 Pacific STANDARD Time on your graphic, but most of us Pacific folks (if not everyone?) are on Pacific DAYLIGHT Time right now. So, I made sure to be home before 2:00, just in case, then realized I was converting backwards, so that 3:00 PST would actually be at 4:00 PDT. So I figured I’ll keep an eye on my email shortly before 3:00, and if that doesn’t work, slightly before 4:00. It sounds, from your 12:34 post (my favorite time of the day, 1-2-3-4), like it’s going to be at 3:00 pm “regular” time (i.e. PDT).

As for increasing clarity next time, perhaps do what TV show ads often do: just list Pacific and Eastern times and let the Central and Mountain folks work inward from those “boundary” times. If you wrote “3 pm Pacific/6 pm Eastern”, I imagine that would remove most (if not all) of the confusion.