To
become official, "hella" would have to jump through quite a few
bureaucratic hoops. It would have to pass through the Consultative
Committee for Units (CCU), one of 10 advisory committees of the
International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM). If the CCU
recommends it the CIPM, that board must then decide whether to advance
the cause to the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), the
official authority that can make changes to the SI system.
That international organization, based in France, includes members from 81 countries.
"I
think that for a number of reasons it's a long shot," said Ben Stein, a
spokesperson for the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
the U.S. organization that handles measurements. "The types of things
they would consider are is it needed, does it add or reduce confusion,
are the names consistent with other names associated with the prefixes?"
Sendek
argues that the name would honor the scientific contributions of
Northern Californians, who have famously popularized the phrase "hella"
to mean "a whole lot."
Erich Feldmeier on 24 Jan 13"My link was shared by Bora Zivkovic, whose network is immense. And in turn, the link was shared by Twitter users in Greece, Germany, Belgium and throughout the United States. In the end, the blogpost wound up with 109 readers on January 22nd - with about 50 via Twitter, 26 via Facebook, and others via LinkedIn and elsewhere. When each person shared the link with her or his network, the momentum is carried forward, pushing out to new networks and new degrees of separation. Social sharing is a bit like the emails you would get forwarded by your relatives (you know, those emails). The deeper you scroll down the thread, the less sender names you recognize. But with Twitter, and using analytics like WordPress or Google, you can actually trace how a little link travels through different social networks, and eventually back to your website. Also, because many people embed a small bio or website link in their Twitter profile, I can quickly see who has retweeted and read my link. I can read their tweets to get an idea of their profession and passions,"
