<story><title>And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”</title><url>https://twitter.com/Codealike/status/819990490774904833</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>logicallee</author><text>&amp;gt; To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain time.&lt;p&gt;But how did they count &amp;quot;a certain time&amp;quot;?  (Before stopwatches).</text></item><item><author>arnarbi</author><text>My favorite is &amp;quot;log&amp;quot;, named after logbooks. Logbooks have maritime origins, where the ships speed is recorded. Even today, speedometer on ships are in many languages called &amp;quot;a log&amp;quot; since the original method consists of throwing an actual log overboard with a string attached to it. The string would have knots with regular intervals. To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lazyant</author><text>The origins of precise clocks is because ships needed to calculate how far they had travelled in terms of longitude (eastwast&amp;#x2F;westward. How far you&amp;#x27;ve travel north&amp;#x2F;south is easy to calculate by how high the sun goes).&lt;p&gt;The British crown established an award for whoever could come up with a precise clock of this reason, it&amp;#x27;s a fascinating story, I recommend the book &amp;quot;Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time&amp;quot; by Dava Sobel.</text></comment>
<story><title>And that, kids, is why we call it a “Patch”</title><url>https://twitter.com/Codealike/status/819990490774904833</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>logicallee</author><text>&amp;gt; To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain time.&lt;p&gt;But how did they count &amp;quot;a certain time&amp;quot;?  (Before stopwatches).</text></item><item><author>arnarbi</author><text>My favorite is &amp;quot;log&amp;quot;, named after logbooks. Logbooks have maritime origins, where the ships speed is recorded. Even today, speedometer on ships are in many languages called &amp;quot;a log&amp;quot; since the original method consists of throwing an actual log overboard with a string attached to it. The string would have knots with regular intervals. To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nitroll</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Marine_sandglass&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Marine_sandglass&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>