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For people that don't know this is not how you use Calipers
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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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I remember when I first applied for a job in a fabrication/machine shop. One of the questions in the interview was "Do you know how to read a tape measure‽" followed by "demonstrate that you can use a tape measure" along with some other fun ones like "what is the difference between these two pieces of material" (one was aluminum, the other stainless) and other such things. I remember being surprised/disappointed that there were grown people who couldn't read a tape measure.
I've worked in machine shops and drafting offices for years now, and I'm no longer surprised by people who can't use basic measuring tools. Still disappointed though.
There's a great test for programmers called FizzBuzz. It's an extremely easy task - print some numbers (maybe 1 to 100), but replace them with Fizz if they're divisible by 3, by Buzz if they're divisible by 5, or by FizzBuzz if they're both.
Many reasonable people consider it way too easy - if you can write this, it doesn't mean that you can write complex programs, or that you know the applicable languages, or that you know anything about the business domain.
But interviewers know that it's a great test because a lot of so-called programmers still fail it.
We did a fizzbuzz interview with a candidate. He passed but I had a weird feeling about it so we asked him to do another one with 7 and 21 and he couldn't do it even with his old code right there
Damn, dude managed to literally memorize code without having any idea of what was going on. Meanwhile, I'd spend most of my time trying to figure whether it's div or mod that i'm supposed to use to check for the remainder of a division, I always forget which is which
It's slightly different because all numbers divisible by 21 are also divisible by 7, so you would get all Fizz and FizzBuzz but no Buzz. So the question is, should you even be checking for Buzz, or should you make your code more efficient by eliminating those lines?
I think they meant 3/7/21 instead of the standard 3/5/15.
Omg!
Oh I could see how that would trap someone. It would trap me but I'm not a programmer. 😆
It's good for a young dev IMO because that problem has many solutions and shows the programming style of the dev as well. But I agree that having a problem that is related to the actual work is better.
It is great because it allows you to eliminate bad candidates very quickly. It can't be the only test, but it's very useful as the first one.
I very much prefer every product of multiplication of 9 up to 3000 in a descending order.
Ypu get to see a lot more than the fizzbuzz. And still very easy task. Then you can ask about processing and memory optimizations.
OK - now I'm curious, what were the most common mistakes people made reading a tape measurer? Because I'm having trouble working out how someone could screw that up lol
We had a guy we called "10/16" (ten sixteenths) because he was told to grab some 5/8" (0.625" or 16mm) steel plate, but he couldn't find any he could only find 10/16" and 12/16".
People will count the little lines on the tape and not remember if they are 1/32, 1/16, or 1/8.
I think metric would help this.
Oh OK - that does make a bit more sense. Still not exactly Nobel prize material, but fucking up the fractions at least makes more sense than not knowing how to read numbers and count lines lol
Metric would help with everything lol. I dream of the day we finally make the switch
I fear it.
I'm sure I could adapt, I just don't want to.
However, if there was a transition period it would be fine.
Teach it in schools, post signs for both for a while, a couple generations and boom, fully metric.
Just don't tell me the speed limit is 30 kilometers an hour, I have no frame of reference for that really.
There would for sure a transition period, otherwise it would be total chaos, not just at a personal level, but an industrial one. And I don't doubt that somepeople will continue using inches and cups until the day they die.
As for the speed limit comment, that's a almost a non-issue - practically every car on the road today either has a setting to switch from MPH to KMPH (for digital speedometers) or for analogue speedometers it will generally tend to show both. At that point you don't need a frame of reference, just make the number on your dashboard <= the number on the sign. That's it. Though as you say, it would almost certainly be a case of both units being on all the signs for a long while.
It wouldn't even take a couple generations IMO. Maybe a decade or two for official stuff to move over. I have absolutely no doubt that plenty of stubborn people will completely refuse to move over to metric for their personal lives, but that's fine tbh. No one cares in Billy over in Idaho wants to keep measuring his ingredients in tablespoons/cups/pints/etc or say it's a 20 mile drive instead of a 30km one. As long as professionals can all rely on things being in metric in professional settings
Yeah, fractions are dumb. Or I’m dumb and fractions are easy, but why don’t we split the difference and switch to metric?
Or, in impeery'all, a toe away from that
Why don't we split the difference and make a meter equal a yard? I will concede to a longer yard.
I worked with a girl who would say "4 and 3 ticks!" meaning 1/8ths. We laughed at her enough that she tried to improve and started saying "4 point 3!" that lead to a discussion about decimal inches. I really blew her mind when I showed her the scale in 12ths on carpenter squares.
I worked on a site with two carpenters once, and one would measure and the other cut. One guy would call out "inch and a quarter strong" or " inch and a quarter weak" etc. Meaning 1 inch and 3/8 or one inch and 1/8. Perfect cuts every time.
Isn't strong or weak mean where the cut needs to be on the line? Since the blade is usually 1/8", weak means that the cut is made before the line, removing the thickness of the blade on the measurement (1 1/2" becomes 1 3/8") and strong means that the cut is made after the line, leaving the actual measurement. This is how I was thought, but I am not in the construction industry.
Depends on the crews tolerances? I've used + or - to refer to 16ths and only call out 1/8ths. 1 1/2" would be "One and four" 1 7/16ths would be "One and three plus"
In old timey boat building they denoted feet°inches°eighths°plus so 58 5/16ths would get written as 4°10°2+
I like this
Some people dont know why the metal bit riveted to the end moves...
Or they even say this is a sign of wear and means you should throw it out.
And because I enjoy sharing knowledge more than boasting I know more than others: the reason it moves is to account for the thickness of the metal hook itself.
It makes a difference if you are hooking it onto the back of something and measuring from there, OR butting it up onto something and measuring from there.
If you want accurate and consistent readings in both of these situations, the hook has to move. It basically pivots around the true point you’re measuring from.
Everywhere I've worked, you'd "burn an inch" or "burn a foot" meaning you don't use the metal tab, you hold the 1" or 1' mark at the start and measure from there.
Measure twice cut once is a saying for a reason.
If you already knew this expression, here is chapter two:
Account for the width of the blade.
Ahh our good friend, kerf!
For years I just drew a line and then sawed down the middle of it. 🙄
Oh my sweet summer child.
This is what happens when you have a banker for a dad.
Makes sense. My dad's an engineer, so I got a solid education in most tools.
Somehow I’m also an idiot with finances. I guess the moral is I had a hands off dad who didn’t know shit.
At least for me, that has more to do with misremembering what I measured than mismeasuring it
Can't count how many times I the workshop I measured something, made a mental note of it, walked back to the workbench, only to have to walk back and remeasure it because now I've forgotten what I just measured lol
I got in the habit of writing that shit down on scraps of paper or wood. And then, of course, I got in the habit of dropping those scraps of paper or wood into the growing pile of scraps of paper or wood back in my shop and picking up the wrong one when it came time to cut.
And this is why I always have a bunch of marking and numbers and other vandalism on whatever board or piece of material I'm using.
Did they expect you to identify which metals they were, or just that they were different metals?
I was expected to know that one was stainless steel and the other was aluminum, but not the specific grades of stainless or aluminum. Stainless and aluminum can look very similar when they're dirty, and 300 series stainless won't stick to a magnet just like aluminum won't stick to a magnet. But if you pick them up or even rap on them with your knuckles you can tell the difference.
After having a customer chew us out for something that wasn't our fault he had us follow him to another room to discuss some more work. He borrows my tape measure and tries to measure something on the wall and the tape keeps falling over and flexing. It finally hits him in the face and hands it back to me and says "I'm not familiar with this type of tool". I think he saw our faces turn red and eyes water up as we were trying SOOO hard not to laugh.