The other day, in my massive catchup post, I mentioned some crucial engineering equivalences:

• If something is physically impossible, then it is really hard.
• If something is possible but you don't know how to do it, then it is hard.  Even if, once you knew how to do it, it wouldn't take much time or work.
• If you know how to do something, it is easy.  Even if it takes a long time and requires lots of work.
• If you know how to do something and it won't take long, then it is done.

In the same vein, Ken King, Aperio's CFO, points out some important engineering conversions:

• Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter: Eskimo Pi
• 2000 pounds of Chinese soup: Won ton
• 1 millionth of a mouthwash: 1 microscope
• Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement: 1 bananosecond
• Weight an evangelist carries with God: 1 billigram
• Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour: Knot-furlong
• 365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer because it's less filling: 1 lite year
• 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone: 1 Rod Serling
• Half of a large intestine: 1 semicolon
• 1000 aches: 1 kilohurtz
• Basic unit of laryngitis: 1 hoarsepower
• Shortest distance between two jokes: A straight line (think about it for a moment)
• 453.6 graham crackers: 1 pound cake
• 1 million microphones: 1 megaphone
• 1 million microphones: 1 phone
• 1 million phones: 1 megaphone
• 1 million megaphones: 1 bedlam
• 1 million bicycles: 2 megacycles
• 2000 mockingbirds: two kilomockingbirds (work on it...)
• 10 cards: 1 decacards
• 1 kilogram 102 grams of falling figs: 1 Fig Newton
• 1000 cubic centimeters of wet socks: 1 literhosen
• 1 millionth of a fish: 1 microfiche
• 1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin
• 10 rations: 1 decoration
• 100 rations: 1 C-ration
• 2 monograms: 1 diagram
• 8 nickels: 2 paradigms
• 3 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital: 1 I.V. League
• 1 millihelen: amount of beauty required to launch one ship

Offered as a public service...