# Do you doubt your bathroom scale?



## Wuzzat? (Jan 8, 2014)

Do you have an encyclopedia or many books all bound the same, and access to an accurate scale such as found at the Post Office or the supermarket?
Then with two volumes from your encyclopedia and a formula I allege that you can check the accuracy of your bathroom scale to within 1 part in 7000 at the total weight of your books, or possibly more weight.


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## bud16415 (Jan 8, 2014)

I don&#8217;t have a bathroom scale and do they still have encyclopedias? 

Does anyone know the total weight of the internet?


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## Wuzzat? (Jan 8, 2014)

bud16415 said:


> I don&#8217;t have a bathroom scale and do they still have encyclopedias?
> 
> Does anyone know the total weight of the internet?


The weight of information is undefined, along with mass, length, time and charge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units

But there is more information in 
"Toddler, unharmed, kills burglar"
than
"Senator says he believes in Motherhood, God, Country and Apple Pie"


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## nealtw (Jan 8, 2014)

Why wouldn't you use a bag of sugar or some other known weight to check the scale. My mother was a big woman but she never weght more than 350 lbs as that's all it would do before it ran into stoppers.


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## Wuzzat? (Jan 8, 2014)

nealtw said:


> Why wouldn't you use a bag of sugar or some other known weight to check the scale. My mother was a big woman but she never weght more than 350 lbs as that's all it would do before it ran into stoppers.


Weighing cinder blocks at the Post Office attracts attention but I may weigh one wrapped up as a package, but I hope I can do this with several small weights known to very high accuracy, and arithmetic.  
Books are about 35 lbs/cu ft.  

For my books the binding of each is calculated to weigh 2.7 oz and each page, 0.05631 oz, so totaling the pagecount of each book and number of bindings gives me the weight of a stack of books.

With the books I can use the scale as a comparator (so it doesn't need accuracy, only repeatability) and then get the weight of other heavy items, like cement bags or 5 gal. buckets of stones.


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## nealtw (Jan 8, 2014)

You really do need something to keep you busy.


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## Wuzzat? (Jan 9, 2014)

nealtw said:


> You really do need something to keep you busy.


I have access to three spring-based scales and a medical scale (no springs, only levers and weights) and each gives different answers.  It could be my problem that I pursue inconsistencies.

Sort of along the same lines, quite by accident I caught my mortgage company contradicting itself in writing, therefore it (probably intentionally) made at least one false statement.  In other words, a lie.  

Now I'm checking everything they ever sent me, going back to 1992.  The amortization table already seems to be off, in their favor.  

It seems that I'll be keeping busy with finding an honest attorney to write to these people.


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## nealtw (Jan 9, 2014)

Years ago my brother-in-law went thru his morgage payment by payment and found he had paid off a twenty year mortgage in 17 years, this was before computers.
In the seventys I bought a house with what I understud was a mortgage that was locked in, when the interest rate went down, I read the fine print and couldn't find anything that would stop me from paying it out. I asked them about it and they sent me the paper that I had not got a copy of. The loan was for 5 years and had to be rewritten after that time, so I sold the house with the same date, no problem. But they advized me my the morgage was a 4 yr loan but the lawyer had writtin it for 47 month so I would have to pay a 3 month penaly to pay it off. I delivered the check along with the court papers for three years of the interest difference, they changed their minds.


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## Wuzzat? (Jan 10, 2014)

It sounds like we're going to need to talk to an actuary before we decide to pay off this mortgage or not.  We will definitely become less liquid.

With all the books on decision theory and game theory that I have this should be an easy problem, but the stakes are high.  

http://www.google.com/search?q=deci...com%2Ftreeplan-for-decision-trees.htm;796;550


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## Chris (Jan 10, 2014)

My scale has been in the kids bathroom next to the toilet so long I am scared to step on it without shoes on.


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## oldognewtrick (Jan 10, 2014)

I don't know what would cause a bigger fight at my house, if I brought home a bathroom scale or another woman...I'm thinking the scale...:hide:


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## Wuzzat? (Jan 11, 2014)

http://www.google.com/search?q=does...2Fdoes-this-shirt-make-me-look-fat%2F;398;290


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## nealtw (Jan 13, 2014)

We do have to find you something to do!!!


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## Wuzzat? (Jan 13, 2014)

nealtw said:


> We do have to find you something to do!!!


I did apply for a job as the pilot of that plane full of topless skydivers shown in the Fleggard commercial on YouTube but I haven't heard from them yet.  Do you think the competition is 'stiff'?  
The girl at the end who falls in the pool I have seen once on a TV set in western Europe a few years ago but she had clothes on.

And since I took a course on income tax just recently at a community college my current challenge is to get the same answers that TurboTax will be giving me in a few weeks.

Since our mortgage company is living up to their reputation as corporate bad boys I'm also stepping through the decision tree to decide if we should pay off the mortgage early.  
To figure how much cash we need on hand I need to figure out what will happen to each of us in what order to some level of probability.  This is proving rather difficult.

And there's two hifi sets in the basement that need troubleshooting.  They're both dead but I only have a schematic for one.  
And Christmas lights to be fixed.  
And I need to test a homemade resistor to replace the blower resistor in my car.  The resistor from the dealer, for $60, lasted one whole day.  It seems the blower motor pulls excessive current.

BTW, the scale reads perfectly when loaded with 44 lbs.


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