431–440 of 547 posts
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Does your father change units each time he needs to divide something?
Only between feet and inches, but usually, he's working solely in inches (and fractions of an inch) for his projects.
ISO 216 paper sizes while you're at it, please!
The 'A' system for paper has many advantages, and actually would be something that could be accessibly changed (all printers and scanners handle it just fine).
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Pretty weak argument for Celsius. Why should people care that the boiling and freezing points are simple? That is almost irrelevant for the most common uses of temperature reporting. People care about the ambient outside temperature (which Fahrenheit seems optimized for), not the effect it has on the state of one particular compound.
People care for various temperatures: - weather (Celcius has the advantage that just from the temperature you know if there will be snow and ice/will snow melt, or no) And you won't know the difference of 1 C anyway, so no point in having so small degrees. - temperature of human body (are you sick or not - it's 36.6 C for healthy human, 40 C for dangerous temperature) - here Fahrenheit has slight advantage, because h…
Also, you can tell just as easily if something melts using Fahrenheit, you check whether it's above or below 32. Sure, it might seem a little arbitrary, but it's just as arbitrary as "36.6 C is healthy" or "cakes bake at 220", which people seem to remember just fine.
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Sorry, but how is that picture evidence that the US system sucks? I don't disagree that we have a poor system, but "everyone else is doing it" has never been a justification to do anything!
I'm guessing you're quite unfamiliar with the metric system. The different types of measurements are defined in relation to one another and are thus easy to figure out, unlike the imperial system where everything is odds and ends. A kilogram is (almost exactly, but slightly different) to the mass of one litre of water. The force required to accelerate this mass at one metre per second squared is one Newton. One Newto…
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I remember during the influx of Polish workers in the UK, that a pub got into some trouble because it sold a certain Polish beer in a 1 litre glass.
I remember during the influx of Polish workers in the UK, that a pub got into some trouble because it sold a certain Polish beer in a 1 litre glass. From what I recall, it was more that they were using Żywiec-branded glasses, which hold 0.3 and 0.5-litres respectively. UK law only allows beer to be sold in pint units. I doubt they were doing it on purpose, but the small difference adds up quite quickly: serve 10 drin…
I guess being worried that you might not get your full ~5.68 litres of beer when drinking ten pints is very British indeed ;-)
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Half a quart = one cup.
Cool, now what is a third of a quart? Suppose I am recounting a dish I made to someone over the phone in two realities, one with Imperial and the other with metric. Imperial universe: "Okay, now add... say... a third of a gallon of milk" "...third of a gallon.. eehh.. half a pint of milk. Metric universe: "Okay, now add... say... 2/3rds of a liter." "Two thirds of a liter... 666 ml it is then." In the imperial univer…
I've never heard anyone say a third gallon, but just convert to ounces. 128 / 3 = 48. That's 3 pints, btw.
Of all the "math is hard" arguments, I think the kitchen measures are the least convincing. Everything is a power of two. You can halve or double a recipe without even thinking.
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"the imprecise Imperial Unit" The word "imprecise" is also factually incorrect. AFAIK, all Imperial units are now defined in metric. An inch is not "approximately" 2.54 centimeters, it is defined to be 2.54 centimeters, or, if you prefer, 2.540000000000... centimeters. A pound is defined as 0.45359237 kilograms. It may be very precise specification of a value that is unpleasant and hard to work with, but there is no…
As long as you aren't a surveyor, that is... that industry has stuck with the previous American standard of 1/39.37 meters, for obvious reasons.
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Cool, now what is a third of a quart? Suppose I am recounting a dish I made to someone over the phone in two realities, one with Imperial and the other with metric. Imperial universe: "Okay, now add... say... a third of a gallon of milk" "...third of a gallon.. eehh.. half a pint of milk. Metric universe: "Okay, now add... say... 2/3rds of a liter." "Two thirds of a liter... 666 ml it is then." In the imperial univer…
One third quart = 2/3 cup. I have a 2/3 measuring cup in my kitchen. I've never heard anyone say a third gallon, but just convert to ounces. 128 / 3 = 48. That's 3 pints, btw. Of all the "math is hard" arguments, I think the kitchen measures are the least convincing. Everything is a power of two. You can halve or double a recipe without even thinking.
You can think the arguments for metric are weak (most of the world disagrees...), but the arguments against it are nonexistent.
(Dividing by two is just easy in a decimal numbering system as it is in a hybridized decimal system, so give me a break)
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When someone says "half a quart" who the fuck knows how much that is? I sure don't, and I'm American. Hell, even a regular quart throws me, all I have there is a vague notion that milk is sold in that amount. When someone says "half a liter" you can be sure they mean 500ml, and you can instantly know how much that is in any kitchen measuring device you have.
Half a quart = one cup.