Kinda off topic:
How is this good news for dieters? New kilo is lighter than old one, thus making all new measurements bigger in absolute numbers.
Besides, can't they recreate a "canonical kilo" with the required measurements?
How is this good news for dieters? New kilo is lighter than old one, thus making all new measurements bigger in absolute numbers.
Besides, can't they recreate a "canonical kilo" with the required measurements?
> Besides, can't they recreate a "canonical kilo" with the required measurements?
This is the main point of the drive to redefine the kilogram. Right now, the IPK (the French kilogram) is the SI standard for the kilogram. Groups are working hard to redefine the kilo in terms of either Planck's constant or the Avogadro number. In order to do so, the experiments that measure one of those fundamental constants must be more reliable than the IPK.
They're very close, but absolute mass measurements of the required precision at the kilogram scale have never been done before.
If you want to generate a kilogram to a certain precision (say, a part in 10^8) as a sum of a thousand well-measured grams, the grams need to be measured sqrt(1000) better (about a factor of 30). If you could multiply, you're fine, but since you're required to make (or measure) an actual kilo, you have to sum.
If we were to accept the multiplication method, it would be equivalent to restandardizing the SI upon the gram. That would be an okay thing to do, but to maintain continuity with past measurements (referenced to the IPK), we'd still have to make or measure an actual kilo, requiring precision sufficient to do the sum.
Then there's also that if the measurement changes, the results can become pretty bizarre. Say, you are on a diet for one month. At the start of the month, the kilo prototype weights 1 skg and at the end 1 ekg = 0.9 skg. You measure yourself at the start of the diet, and get that you weight 100 skg. You use some very precise diet-fu to draft a program that should see you losing 5 skg during the month. And lo and behold, you manage to stick to the program and loose exactly 5 skg.
But at the end of the month, when you measure yourself against the now-lighter prototype, you get that you now weight 106 ekg. So, you actually achieved your target and lost 5 kilos, but meanwhile ended up with 6 kilos more body mass than before the diet!
(Disclaimer: real changes in the prototype mass are of course way, way smaller.)
The headline writer for the original article put in a joke. Xentronium, correctly, pointed out he appeared to get the joke backwards. Somebody else said, "it's just a joke", which is a thoughtless thing to say when you're trying to analyze why a joke does or doesn't work. If there's anywhere it's reasonable to nerd out on a nerdy joke, it's here.
So I pointed out a great source, written by experts in funny, explaining why getting to truth really matters in comedy. I am unable to fathom why you think that's a sign of a social disorder, let alone sufficient license to act like a dick.
It's perfectly reasonable to have the opinion that wpietri advanced, and it's perfectly reasonable to raise it in this context. One could believe that for aesthetic reasons, or for political reasons, or other reasons, or a combination thereof. And I suggest that it's a higher caliber of comment than the mean HN comment, given that it suggests a source for deeper study of the commenter's opinion.
On the other hand, attempting to (tentatively) diagnose psychiatric disorders based on a single sentence on HN is completely implausible, totally insensitive (to actually ASD sufferers, I mean.. I'm sure wpietri can take it), totally oblivious to social context, and suggests that you might have a "stereotyped pattern of behaviour or interest".
Unless, of course, you have professional qualifications for such a (tentative) diagnosis, in which case I take it back.