September 24, 2008

Bobs Rule

Naming something after yourself takes a little bit of nerve and a somewhat bloated sense of self-importance. Barring any family traditions, we even think it's odd to give a child a 'Jr.' name. Well now that all pales in comparison with this guy named Bob who has created a whole new measuring system, based solely around the unit now known as, you guessed it, a 'Bob.'

There is quite a bit of information on the Bobs Rule website explaining not only the problem with both the metric system and the standard U.S. system (feet and inches), but also the reasons why the Bob is better. The Bob is essentially 1/24th of an inch, which,

allow[s] us to take advantage of the largely forgotten 1/24" and elevate it to its rightful place as a core unit of measurement.

Indeed.

But the joke may be on us. Maybe the new measurement will catch on, not only with woodworkers, but with the rest of the world as well. You never know, someday we may be find ourselves asking a barkeep for 2 and a half Bobs of whiskey, with just a quarter Bob of water on top.

Drop us a line if any of you have gone as far as to get one of these rulers and used it. Lord knows we've all seen the ads in Fine Homebuilding.

At BobsRule.com