Watching the coverage of the men's Downhill in the Olympics tonight has inspired this outburst.

Slope of a hill is often described in a percentage, for engineering purposes, because percentages are much easier to deal with mathematicaly than degrees. They are two separate and distinct scales, and once you learn the difference between the two, it is quite laughable that one could get the two confused. I'm sure a lot of you are saying "I know what the difference is, jackass," but it is apparent to me that NBC commentators don't know the difference, and I wonder how many of YOU do.

I kept hearing that the slope of the top of the Downhill run was "74 degrees." Well, what if I told you that there is no one in history, or will ever be born, that could ski down a 74 degree slope. You would FALL down a 74 deg. slope, and you may very well happen to fall down that hill with skis on, but you could not SKI down something that steep. As we all know, vertical would be 90 degrees -- and if you were standing at the top of a 74 deg slope, it would pretty much look vertical to you.

Engineers prefer to use rise/run, expressed in a decimal or percentage. A slope that rises (or falls) 1 foot for every 2 feet horizontally, would, of course, have a grade of .5, or 50%. If you saw a hill that steep, you would think, "wow, that's a pretty steep hill." that slope would be 22.5 degrees. A highway with a 10% grade (4.5 degrees) would be very steep, and have all sorts of warning signs and maybe even a special lane for trucks. A 100% (rise of 1 with run of 1) grade is 45 degrees, and I seriously doubt anyone could walk up that steep a hill without using their hands.

So, obviously, this vaunted "74 degree slope" is really a 74% slope, which works out to about 33 degrees. If you don't think that's very steep, go get some skis on and stand on top of a slope that steep. Obviously, this doesn't sound nearly as exciting as "74 degrees!" but I suppose we are supposed to succumb to hype.