humorous units of measurement

Twitter followers: Wheaton 

The Wheaton is a measurement of Twitter followers relative to celebrity Wil Wheaton. The measurement was standardized when Wil Wheaton achieved half a million Twitter followers, with the effect that Wil Wheaton now has 4 Wheatons himself.

 

Celebrity-induced aid: Jolie

A Jolie is unit that denotes the amount of international aid a country receives when it becomes the cause celebre of a prominent celebrity. "In 2005, International Rescue Committee calculated that Darfur received $300 per capita in aid, while DRC received $11 per capita. Hence, a Jolie can be thought of as a 27x increase in aid receipt." 

 

Media attention: Kardashian

The Kardashian is the amount of global attention Kim Kardashian commands across all media over the space of a day. "We might then think of the Kardashian as a unit of surplus attention, attention not demanded by the leading news story of the day which could theoretically be directed towards Somali famine or conflict in Sudan."

 

the entire listing is here

chitty chitty bang bang

just found out that this musical movie i saw several moons ago was in fact loosely based on ian fleming's novel chitty-chitty-bang-bang: the magical car, film script by roald dahl.

 

'Ian Fleming is best-known as the creator of one of the best-selling literary works of all time: the James Bond series. 

 

A few years after the birth of his son Caspar in 1952, Fleming decided to write a children’s book for him, but Chitty Chitty Bang Bang didn’t see light of day until 1964, the year Fleming died. 

 

It tells the story of the Potts family and the father figure, Caractacus, who uses money from the invention of a special candy to buy and repair a unique, magical former race car, which the family affectionately names Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 

 

Fleming’s inspiration came from a series of aero engines built by racing driver and engineer Count Louis Zborowski in the early 1920s, whose first six-cylinder Maybach aero engine was called Chitty Bang Bang.

 

The original book was beautifully illustrated in black-and-white by John Burningham and was soon adapted into the 1968 classic film of the same name starring Dick Van Dyke. '

 

the above description is courtesy the marginalian.org