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A comment on Why is America stuck with bad headlights?. Parent comment

Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by tardyp on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @03:36AM (#24047610)
For non mid west born ppl,

A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing.

Although a quarter mile (1320 feet, 402 m) is the best known measure for a drag track, many tracks are eighth mile (201 m) tracks, and the premiere classes will run 1,000 foot (304.8m) races

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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by speeder on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @07:46AM (#24048961)
US people and their weird measurements :P

But honestly, why these lengths specifically?

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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by saalweachter on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @08:17AM (#24049177)
1/8th mile = 1 furlong.

Many short races, for feet or horses, that started way back when are some number of furlongs.

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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by speeder on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @08:21AM (#24049198)
Now THAT is an interesting information, never heard of "furlongs" before!
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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by saalweachter on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @10:46AM (#24050501)
It's a fantastic unit if you need to convert distances from metric to imperial, because 1 furlong = ~200 meters. So if you tell someone something is half a kilometer away and they ask what that is in imperial, you can quickly respond "2 1/2 furlongs".
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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by HeyLaughingBoy on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @12:11PM (#24051371)
A furlong, the approximate distance that an average draft horse can pull a single-bottom plow before needing a rest, is my favorite measurement because it sounds so grounded in reality. It's just how long the furrow is.

Right next to the parsec, but only because of the Star Wars references :-)

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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by wrycoder on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @07:43PM (#24066814)
Snails are rated in furlongs per fortnight.
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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by AdmiralGinge on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @08:14AM (#24049161)
As much as we like to point fingers over the Atlantic, here in the UK our roads are mostly imperial except heights and widths which are in both feet and metres, because lorry drivers from the Continent kept crashing into bridges!
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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by bluGill on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @08:33AM (#24049275)
They are even (in our wierd measument system), and reasonable distances for different engines to run out of power/traction/other factor and thus not accelerate as much.
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Re:Why is America stuck with bad headlights? by shoes_for_thee on Tuesday August 04, 2020 @10:06PM (#24056583)
Important also to note that a quarter mile is the unit at which one quantize one's life.
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