Units of Measurement: The Smoot

I was snooping in peoples' backyards via Google Earth after seeing some really nice houses in North Bexley. Just out of curiosity, I checked to see if any of the pools were regulation length. To my dismay, the biggest pool I found was only 17.55 yards in length. When I went to find another pool to measure, I just scrolled through the units of measurement, which ended with smoots. Having never heard of this before, I decided to investigate (via Wikipedia).

A smoot is a non-standard unit of measurement (shocking) that was created by an MIT fraternity. They used Oliver smoot to measure the distance across some bridge somewhere. He would lay down, his frat brothers would mark off his length, and then he'd get up and move exactly one smoot to get the next marking. For the curious, 1 smoot = 5 feet and 7 inches = 1.70 meters.

The shocking part of all of this is the fact that Google Earth included as an option for measuring distances.

Another appalling aspect of Google Earth that I just found is that the dot for Bexley is right on CSG (Columbus School for Girls/Goats).