Acre-foot

Berkeley, Saturday, February 7, 2026 10:35 PM

Typing this in the second floor of MLK. Library closes at 10 pm on Saturdays. A good place to work here, although, this is a distraction. And there will a few more of accounting of events. But I wandering a bit through Eshleman Hall and MLK, until find this place. I received an advice for another floor in MLK, but not sure if it is accurate. I will learn that in the next days. I went to that floor though. At least I went to pee and get water in the restroom and next to the restroom in that floor. Good water bottle stations by the way. Not automatic. No sensors. Mechanic, manual things are great. Decreases some degrees of things that get wrong.

I work on international system: metric units.

But time by time I read volume in acre-foot.

I had probably less than 4 fluid oz of beer this evening. It was good. That talking about volumes.

Awareness is good. Mixing things. I guess is important to keep records then to understand a few things.

i.e. after a thanksgiving beautiful invitation complain about page progress.

It is always that is one in the moment and present and always identify the source, and be honest about it.

Then, of course one can understand the sequence of events without necessarily deviation.

Particularly, if two days before there was another major event. All of those are deviation from the units. It seems that this building will close in 15 minutes. It is great.

I guess hard to identify truths that early. Unless that one is not fully flowing and awake. Of course, in the mix of thoughts, there might be bit of numbeness while trying to navigate through reality. But life of course is not an act. It is a flow.

Long time ago to make sense of acre-foot, I went a bit through the history of measurements.

Not sure about the beginnings. I might have written that elsewhere.

But let’s start with the rod.

A chain has 4 rods and 100 links, and 66 ft.

A cable’s length has 720 ft and 120 fathoms.

A furlong has 10 chains and 40 rods.

An acre has 10 chain square, or 160 rd.

I would need to find the history of this logic. I wrote once.

I think an acre was 1 chain wide by 10 chain long. It was a way of measuring in old times. Would need to check the time.

I guess they developed a standard chain and a standard rod.

I will need to leave the building now… to be continued.

Ok. Now I can type in a normal size screen. After long time. About 5ish months. Since the last week of August. I set up this screen at home. I understand. Still it has been one small increment of each thing per day.

Still doing inventory. Throwing some stuff. I understand it is time.

Regardless, not too bad to see some progress in plants, probably pest control was eradicated, the car fix itself. Somethings one knows from the past. Water sometimes can mess up electric cables, but not necessarily fully damage them. I will look into that closer at some point.

One fathom is 6 feet. 1 furlong is 10 chain or 40 rods.

One acre is 1 furlong times 1 chain.

I guess I would need to learn the origins of the feet measurement. Because it has not exact conversion to the rod.

Well, in those times, everything is standardized, yet we might still carry a small error in conversion between systems, in the very far small decimals.

1 standard chain was 66 ft, and also 4 rods, as said above.

Then, 66 ft equals 4 rods. Or 1 rod equals 16.5 feet. Well, those were large rods then.

1 furlong then is 10 chains, which is 40 rods, which then is 660 ft.

1 furlong, means 1 furrow long. It seems it was the length that an ox could plough without resting (Wikipedia, 2026).

So an ox without resting can do a 1/8 of a mile. That is 660 ft or 200 meters.

Regarding the width, I am not sure yet. But that is 1 chain, which is 66 ft, or 4 rods, or about 20.1168 meters. Not sure about the reasoning of the width yet. I would need to read about it at some point.

Then, one acre-foot, becomes in those hard numbers to process in volume, easier to see in 1 acre by 1 foot tall which is the purpose. But if converting to cubit feet, it would be 66 ft times 660 ft x 1 ft = 43,560 cubic feet. This numbers does not have much meaning. Or it would be 0.3048 ft (high) x 20.1168 ft (width) x 200 meters (long) = 1,226.30 cubic meters. Google says the conversion is 1,233.48 m3. I should have done an error somewhere.

But regardless, it only matters to have clear the measurement of an acre and of 1 foot. So 1 acre is about 20.1168 meters by 200 meters. That is 4,023.36 meters.

Newman might be less than an acre. Memorial Glade is a bit more: 1.20 acres. Including the street. 1 acre would be equal from Patty’s house to Elizabeth house. Plus the house and the building in front of those. Including the full dimension of the street.

Or half acre is about 4 of those parcels.

That doesn’t translate that 8 parcels are an acre. Actually, 7 of those parcels would be an acre. But it might help me to have a reference in the brain of what is a half acre, what is an acre, and what is an acre-foot.