These are the colloquial, sub-edital, and rather eccentric ways to measure cutting-edge items of current technology.

An alternative alternative, I’ll dub them AAGM units. Or V3.0 if you prefer, to add a false degree of specificity… Here are the AAGM units:

1. Matchstick-sized transducer. This one is from 62 years ago, though, in Electronics Weekly’s edition of April 5th 1961. The article was entitled “Matchstick-Sized Blood Pressure Transducer”. It began: “A blood pressure transducer the size of a match-stick and an ultrasonic blood flow measuring device were among topics discussed at a meeting between leading British heart surgeons and engineers in London last week…

2. Smaller than a pack of cards, but larger than a fifty-pence piece, how about sized like a box of Tic-Tacs? Only we’re not talking mints, but digital guitar amps! “The Fender Mustang Micro is a tiny amp with an articulating guitar plug on one end and a headphone port on the other.”

3. Credit cards. As in “credit card sized micro:bit educational computers”. An obvious one, I reckon, hiding in plain sight!

4. Talking of packs. Pack of Cards, as in playing cards. Another obvious one, but – so far – only referenced in this Raspberry Pi VNC competition winner.

5. And there’s a shirt-pocket-sized optical storage device, courtesy of NASA.

6. Wallet-sized. As in the STMicroelectronics 316Mpixel 18K image sensor at the heart of Sphere Entertainment’s Big Sky camera system. “The die, which measures 9.92cm x 8.31cm (82.4 cm2), is twice as large as a wallet-sized photograph, and only four full die fit on a 300mm wafer.”

7. And why did I not think of this one before. Technology being used to measure technology. Self-referential, as it were. I’m talking cell phone measurements. As in a phone-sized quantum magnetometer.

8. Washing-machine sized – ClearSpace’s CLEAR mission is funded as part of the UK Space Agency’s national debris removal programme. It will use ClearSpace’s robotic capture system to safely remove two dead, washing-machine-sized, UK satellites from orbit.

9. Tennis court sized! The Northrop Grumman full-scale model of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope graces the skyline of Austin, Texas in 2013. The model is the length of a tennis court and approximately 3 stories tall.

10. Finally, where I traditionally consider countries, regions or continents, how about Planet Earth? Old Not-So-Big Blue, sadly overlooked and taken for granted so often in the world of computing…

And also, as before, please do contribute further alternate alternative GM units of scale, via the Comments box below. There must be Gadget Master scale measurements I’ve still missed.