Specs and Hunger ... nyuk, nyuk's

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              How Specs Live Forever

The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4
feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that
gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and
the US railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the
English people build them like that? Because the first rail lines
were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways,
and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built
the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for
building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the
wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any
other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long
distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance
roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of
their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts?
The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of
destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots.
Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all
alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United
States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from
the original specification  for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.
Specs and Bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are
handed a specification and wonder what horse's behind came up with it,
you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were
made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war
horses.

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       Three cowboys had been riding the range since early in the
  morning. One of them was a member of the Navajo Nation. Being
  busy with herding stray cattle all day, there had been no time
  for the three of them to eat. Toward the end of the day, two of
  the cowboys started talking about how hungry they were and about
  the huge meals they were going to eat when they reached town.
  When one of the cowboys asked the Navajo if he was also hungry,
  he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "No."
       Later that evening, after they had arrived in town, all
  three ordered large steak dinners. As the Navajo proceeded to eat
  everything in sight with great gusto, one of his friends reminded
  him that less than an hour earlier he had told them that he was
  not hungry. "Not wise to be hungry then," he replied. "No food."

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 ______ ___   __ _____ __    __   __  __ tnally@iquest.net tnally@mcp.com
|_    _|   \ |  |  _  |  |  |  |  \ \/ / tgnally@prairienet.org
  |  | |  |\\|  |  _  |  |__|  |__ |  |  T. Nally - "A M.I.M.E. is a
  |__| |__| \___|_| |_|_____|_____||__|  a terrible thing to waste."