Of Kilometers and Light-Seconds

I happen to live in a place where the mile markers and freeway signs are in kilometers. No, it's not Britain, or even Canada. I think we were the victims of a plot by the US government to further the metric extremist agenda. (See sidebar -->) I think the signs are kind of fun. I'm so used to miles and MPH that measuring things in kilometers makes me feel like I'm going faster. Did you know that 75 MPH is 120KPH!? I only wish they had converted the speed limit signs too.

"Honestly officer, I thought it said 100 miles per hour."

While I was rocketing down the freeway today at the blazing speed of 130 KPH, I got to thinking about other measurement systems that we could impose upon the unknowing masses to cause mass-hysteria. Being of a nerdly sort, I thought about light speed and parsecs.

"But," I reasoned, "parsecs are much too large to be practical in everyday applications." Do you know how big one of those bad boys is? Google it, you'll be impressed at Han Solo's Kessel Run skills. Light-years are a bit unwieldy too, but light-seconds? Perfect!

It probably isn't safe to all of the other drivers for me to divert my concentration from such a mundane thing like staying within the lines to the higher order conversion of light seconds into real money, but I quickly emerged from my intellectual coma to exclaim,

"3.3 micro light seconds!"

My startled wife asked me what the heck I was talking about, while I marveled that she could be oblivious to the obvious train of my thoughts. I explained my previous musings to her and informed her that 1 kilometer was equal to 3.3 micro light seconds. She didn't look sufficiently impressed, so I started converting other distances to light seconds for her.

• I drive 215 micro light-seconds to work and back every day.
• It is 8 milli light-seconds from our house to my parents. (doesn't seem far enough, does it)
• It is 61 nano light-seconds from the computer to the fridge. (that's what I'm talking about!)

With this new system, nerds could brag about their cars in new and exciting ways:

"She'll do an 8 second micro light-second!"

"That's nothing. I got a new electric that'll do 0 to ten millionth of c in 4 seconds!"

The possibilities are endless! But how can we bring about this new world order? How can we force everyone to adapt to a new system? We'll need some measurement terrorists of our own. I know a guy in a Wookie costume who might help...