#1 The Igloo Ice Chest
I beg to differ...
01: Beer
02: Lite Beer
“:^)
i thought the two most important inventions were Xlax and toilet paper?
I knew beer had to be one of them.
Beer goggles. Invented right after beer I imagine...
I’ve seen this before, or at least a form of it. But it’s been years and it’s still funny and true.
Reminds me of Cain and Abel. Cain was the vegan, Abel was the omnivore. Cain hid the murder of his brother, the rest is history.
I always heard it was sliced bread. Before that, I’m not sure.
and drunk driving was born
news you can’t use...
Say friend, did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches.
That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?
Because that’s the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.
I see, but why did the English build them like that?
Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.
Well, why did they use that gauge in England?
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 their wagons use that odd wheel spacing?
Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads. Because that’s the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads?
The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts?
The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.
And the motto of the story is 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 chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war-horses.
So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space?
Well, there’s an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses’ behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might 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 from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.
So a major design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse’s ass.
Six years. Wow. May the Lord bless him.
Wasn’t McCain, was it?
5.56mm
Hilarious,
The notion that conservatives came to America to work the land and develop it so more wheat, barley, hops, etc could be grown for more beer makes a lot of sense to me.
Yes, it is strange that most vegetarians are liberals. Never could understand why anyone would prefer tofu to a good hamburger, steak, or for that matter, sauerbraten or bratwursts. And how could anyone like mashed potatoes without brown gravy?
Well, you have convinced me.
What would be interesting is a geographical map showing where the wheel first appeared with notes on whether it was localy thought of.
Shared...
“The two most important inventions in all of history”
I’ll add that control of diabetes via carb reduction (less carbs and intermittent fasting), regardless of what the ‘professionals’ say, will wind up as the 3rd most import invention in human history. Forth will be to finally blame our new strains of wheat for causing this modern-day problem, worldwide.
I don’t understand light beer, and we only have 4 taps at the club, bud light, Michelob ultra, bud and coors light.
I don’t really like bud, but I only weigh like 135 lbs so bring me that, I’ll watch the news and worry about the trade war with Canada... and how there maybe a tariff on poutin..
Can I get another Bud and some chili cheese Tot’s?... I’m wasting away...
1. Country music
2. Western music