Thursday, April 23, 2015

I am sick of 6.895

I don't think any of my readers know why that number has been occupying my mind lately. I'd tell you, in detail, but then you'd be so bored you'd kill yourself, and I couldn't bear the guilt.

When you multiply psi times 6.895 you get kpa. This is what mawp is measured in. It should always be kpa, but because a bunch of cowardly Imperial dinosaurs wimped out on converting to metric back in the dark ages, we are still stuck with psi. We should have done it, and gotten over it.

So it turns out in the database I'm working with we don't quite believe the mawp numbers. So I had the bright idea of comparing it to the regulator's database. Many agree, or nearly so, which is fine. After all, that 3 decimal number is an approximation, but good enough.

Then I discovered some of our numbers and their numbers disagreed dramatically. For them I have to check original documentation. Many of these forms are old. So I see a number on the form, usually in psi. I have to convert that to kpa because that's how it's stored in the database. Then compare it to ours and see who agrees, and if they don't, try to figure out why not. It's more complicated than it sounds, having to do with how people and databases deal with units conversion. 

Suffice to say I'm checking and fixing 2 different databases at once. Retail. It means a lot of multiplying or dividing by 6.895. Some of them I know by heart, but you don't want me to prove it.

In other news, hams are still a bit tired. I'd been hoping for a run after work today, but events conspired against me. Furnaces used to be simple. 

In other other news, I had lunch today with people that were part of my team when I started at Penn West. Many of them have moved on. It was nice to get together, but one of them was filling my ears about the joys of retirement. Maybe I should have filled my ears with wax, or lashed myself to the mast. (that's a reference for the literary) In not unrelated news, tomorrow I visit my financial advisor, and guess what I'll be talking about.

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