On authors who make up arbitrary units of measurement
For anyone who cares, the author in question is Carol Berg. I'd just read an excerpt from one of her novels after Zhe told me that he borrowed a book of hers from the library. The following conversation ensued.
me: there was far too much exposition in it though, and i really hate it when authors come up with arbitrary units of measurement to make hteir world feel more foreign
17:38 Zhe:
i would prefer if authors used metric units of measurement
Zhe: like
17:39 he wielded a huge sword of 95 cm
me: actually i lie, the excerpt i read before was also in first person
lol i don't mind imperial that much
17:40 at least we're somewhat familiar with both imperial and metric
Zhe: that's true
me: whereas i don't have any idea what a quant is and it just makes one more thing you need to explain to me before i can start appreciating the parts of the story that i care about
17:41 Zhe: u sure it's not a real unit of measurement?
me: considering that she defined it immediately afterwards, almost certainly not
apparently its the length of a knucklebone
or somesuch
Zhe: to make it extra difficult, they should use a logrithmic unit if measurement for lengths and weights
17:42 me: or obsolete ones like links and chains..
haha
Zhe: or to the power of some irrational number
like e
me: his sword was 3 times the golden ratio phi in units
17:43 or the new way they like to measure metric, in terms of vibration of caesium atoms or whatnot
or the amount of time it takes light to travel X distance
Zhe: or in terms of mythical creatures that they themselves invented
17:44 like "it would have taken a gobberwookie three seconds of the fourth moon's lunar time to travel it's breadth
me: heh i think you're onto something
17:45 i had to wait thrice the fourth moons orbit before meeting her
17:48 Zhe: i had to wait thrice the eclipse of the third and seventh moon, whereby the third moon has an orbital frequency 1/pi of the second second moon, and the seventh moon had an orbital frequency of 1/e of the fourth moon, and the second and fourth moon eclipses when the jabberwokkie migrates across the great plains of elih