Miles To Go

The idea of keeping an informational journal/blog came to me as a result of my frequently coming across long awaited answers to little, floating questions I had and thinking "Oh! I definitely want to remember this-- you never know when that question's going to arise again!" I'm sure everyone wants to be prepared for unexpected trivia nights, or those moments when you find yourself watching Who Wants to Be A Millionaire reruns alone on the couch at 1am (come on, what's more personally satisfying than nailing that $100,000 question? You're one step away from declaring your candidacy for the next political race, and you know it... pajamas and all).

Honestly though, I love learning new things, no matter how obscure or irrelevant the information may seem. The human mind has a seemingly infinite capacity to store and retrieve information. I personally accept nature's challenge to learn as much as possible, using this blog as a source to keep my easily-distractable mind on track.

So now that the pesky background information is out of the way- onward! To the box-worthy news of the day!

NAUTICAL MILES

For the longest time, I thought to myself, "Why on earth do we need to separately designate miles on land vs. miles traveled on water?? A mile is a mile people!"-- WRONG. 

Here's the scoop: 

A nautical mile is a unit of length equivalent to one minute of arc of latitude or longitude. Unlike the standard mile we non-metric users of America are used to, this measurement is actually based off of something that makes sense. But, because we still rely on the arbitrary mile, a comparison is warranted. A nautical mile equates to approximately 6,076 feet, while the standard 'land mile' is defined as 5,280 feet. 

Quick summary:
--Nautical miles make sense, standard miles are completely arbitrary 
--A nautical mile covers a longer distance than a driven mile