good, england... let the imperial flow through you!

[WelshBloke]

No, I don't want a 1 liter bottle, or 3.786546549816 of them, or any other number of them. i want one bottle with one gallon in it, period. LOL, this is not a difficult concept, some things are just easier using measuring quantities that exist because of HISTORICAL PRACTICE, not because they are some 10 multiple of some randomly determined number LOL...

But why? Unless you have a recipe that calls for exactly a gallon of fucking milk you're going to be pouring out arbitrary amounts anyway!
You're just buying a big arse container of cow titty juice, as long as the amount is bigger that you need why does it matter?

 

[Torn Mind]

back in my dairy days, we'd go through a gallon a day

it was cheap and times were tough, so i would just chug the stuff. 2 big glasses of whole unpasteurized at a meal.

Farm boy or something? Or did the milkman have a relationship with someone?

 

[Torn Mind]

But why? Unless you have a recipe that calls for exactly a gallon of fucking milk you're going to be pouring out arbitrary amounts anyway!
You're just buying a big arse container of cow titty juice, as long as the amount is bigger that you need why does it matter?

If you Euros are charging 3 EUR for a liter....when its $4 for a gallon here in the states.....(local Walmart sells it as a loss leader at $1.49)

 

[pmv]

I can't imagine choosing to drink a glass of milk as an adult! I cook with the stuff occasionally and there's some in the fridge if someone wants a spot in their tea but the idea of getting through 5 litres a day is fucking weird!

That is quite a lot. I think I consume most of mine in yoghurt form!

 

[Zorba]

Ok, so there's 10 tenths to the inch, so that must mean there's 10 inches to the foot. Wait a minute. That doesn't sound right :^/

Multiples of 12s were easier to do calculations without calculators than 10. 12 has 2, 3, 4, and 6 as multiples, while 10 just has 2 and 5. Pretty sure that is the same reason reason English was traditionally fractional, without a calculator its easier to deal with 1/64ths as opposed to decimals.

With a calculator, decimals are obviously much easier.

When you really dive into English units there is a lot of functionality in their history. Like a mile, Surveying chains used to be 88 feet long, 60 paces with a chain, is a mile or 5280 feet. People see the 5280 feet/mi and say WTF, though.

A meter is 1/1,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole along the median passing through Paris. A very practical unit.

 

[Torn Mind]

Multiples of 12s were easier to do calculations without calculators than 10. 12 has 2, 3, 4, and 6 as multiples, while 10 just has 2 and 5. Pretty sure that is the same reason reason English was traditionally fractional, without a calculator its easier to deal with 1/64ths as opposed to decimals.

With a calculator, decimals are obviously much easier.

When you really dive into English units there is a lot of functionality in their history. Like a mile, Surveying chains used to be 88 feet long, 60 paces with a chain, is a mile or 5280 feet. People see the 5280 feet/mi and say WTF, though.

A meter is 1/1,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole along the median passing through Paris. A very practical unit.

No longer the case as of 1983.

Metre (m)

Metre (m), in measurement, fundamental unit of length in the metric system and in the International Systems of Units (SI). It is equal to approximately 39.37 inches in the British Imperial and United States Customary systems. The metre was historically defined by the French Academy of Sciences in

www.britannica.com

By the 1980s, advances in laser measurement techniques had yielded values for the speed of light in a vacuum of an unprecedented accuracy, and it was decided in 1983 by the General Conference on Weights and Measures that the accepted value for this constant would be exactly 299,792,458 metres per second. The metre is now thus defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

This thread got me googling "Queen Anne's law gallon".

 

[Zorba]

No longer the case as of 1983.

Metre (m)

Metre (m), in measurement, fundamental unit of length in the metric system and in the International Systems of Units (SI). It is equal to approximately 39.37 inches in the British Imperial and United States Customary systems. The metre was historically defined by the French Academy of Sciences in

www.britannica.com

By the 1980s, advances in laser measurement techniques had yielded values for the speed of light in a vacuum of an unprecedented accuracy, and it was decided in 1983 by the General Conference on Weights and Measures that the accepted value for this constant would be exactly 299,792,458 metres per second. The metre is now thus defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

This thread got me googling "Queen Anne's law gallon".

Yeah, that is how it is calibrated today, but that is not what it was originally based on. Technically nowadays an inch is defined as 25.4 mm, exactly, but that doesn't change it's history.

A meter is also now circularly defined, because the speed of light is measured in meters per second. So if the speed of light ever changed we could not measure that it had changed.

 

[MrSquished]

If I couldn't buy a liter of smartwater I wouldn't know how to buy water! @SaltyNuts

 

[pmv]

Yeah, that is how it is calibrated today, but that is not what it was originally based on. Technically nowadays an inch is defined as 25.4 mm, exactly, but that doesn't change it's history.

A meter is also now circularly defined, because the speed of light is measured in meters per second. So if the speed of light ever changed we could not measure that it had changed.

Lord, that last point does my head in! I mean, surely in practice we'd know something had happened, as all our recorded distances and measurements would suddenly be wrong. It would mean either everything we've measured has suddenly changed length, all our records of those lengths have been changed, or c had changed. All seem about equally unlikely, though.

 

[sdifox]

What gets me is the whole stupidity of people that think that having each measurement based on a multiple of 10 of some other measurement is somehow necessary superior, when the most common numbers people buy/use are not whole numbers under that system. A GALLON of milk is what people are used to buying, and want to buy. They don't want to go to the store and buy 4.5463791294395559 liters or 3.7852223176769 liters or whatever, and have to worry about the exact numbers and if someone is trying to change of the decimal amounts they are selling to try and screw them over. They want to find and purchase ONE GALLON of milk, nothing more, noting less - so easy, so simple. Get over it, the existing measurement system uses the numbers/amounts they do because that is what people USE and want to SEE. Metric system is for chumps UNLESS you grew up using it, and you are used to going to the store and buying like, whatever, 4 liters or 5 liters or whatever of milk. But quit trying to change a system that works just fine and that people grew up using and want to keep using because it ain't broke by any stretch and makes life easier...

Good on you UK!!!

It may come as a shock to you, but milk does come in metric quantities in non crazy countries. Like one or two litre cartons. Or 4 litre bag (with smaller bags inside).



Oh and guess who introduced milk in bags to Canada? It was DuPont.

Why America’s Milk Is Sold in Cartons, Not Bags

Canada’s preferred method of dairy delivery has its pros and cons

www.eater.com

 

[sdifox]

Farm boy or something? Or did the milkman have a relationship with someone?

He turned gigolo for milk?

 

[lxskllr]

When you really dive into English units there is a lot of functionality in their history. Like a mile, Surveying chains used to be 88 feet long, 60 paces with a chain, is a mile or 5280 feet. People see the 5280 feet/mi and say WTF, though.

A survey chain is 66' divided into 100 links which are 7.92"(of course) each. All for antiquated reasons. Also, it's HIGHLY debatable whether or not fractions are easier, especially when you start mixing them, and have to do math, and by math I mean simple addition and subtraction. Do any real work, and fractions turn into a complete clusterfuck.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Lord, that last point does my head in! I mean, surely in practice we'd know something had happened, as all our recorded distances and measurements would suddenly be wrong. It would mean either everything we've measured has suddenly changed length, all our records of those lengths have been changed, or c had changed. All seem about equally unlikely, though.

Just wait til you find out that time and space are connected, and that one can influence the other. Even math cannot save you from that.

 

[Zorba]

A survey chain is 66' divided into 100 links which are 7.92"(of course) each. All for antiquated reasons. Also, it's HIGHLY debatable whether or not fractions are easier, especially when you start mixing them, and have to do math, and by math I mean simple addition and subtraction. Do any real work, and fractions turn into a complete clusterfuck.

Crap, been too long since I looked into unit history, it is 80 lengths of a 66 foot chain, not 60 of an 88.

I agree fraction a PITA for how we do math nowadays, if you get good at them and they are all use a common denominator or multiples of a common denominator they can be very quick to add and subtract manually.

 

[sdifox]

ahahahaha now UK is trying to get into NAFTA.

 

[K1052]

ahahahaha now UK is trying to get into NAFTA.

US response so far is basically "Thats nice. Don't call us, we'll call you".

 

[lxskllr]

I wouldn't mind seeing more stuff from UK.

 

[sdifox]

US response so far is basically "Thats nice. Don't call us, we'll call you".

Canada should demand UK buy back the Diesel Turds they sold us first.

 

[dullard]

Also, it's HIGHLY debatable whether or not fractions are easier, especially when you start mixing them, and have to do math, and by math I mean simple addition and subtraction. Do any real work, and fractions turn into a complete clusterfuck.

Base 2 (mostly): English units
Base 10: Metric units

There isn't a right or wrong. It just really depends on if you are doing a lot of doubling/halving or not.

With base 2 English units, recipes are easy and mathless to double when guests come over: just grab the next size up measuring container. Or, once your kids are out of the house, recipes are mathless to cut in half: just grab the next size down measuring container.*

Same goes with construction, base 2 English units make is very easy to know where the center of a wall or center of a beam is. Same goes with where to put supports such as trusses (1/4 or 1/3rd distance usually).

Base 10 has lots of good points too. They just happen to more more useful in scientific or engineering work than everyday work like cooking or building.



* Except teaspoons. F the teaspoon.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Base 2 (mostly): English units
Base 10: Metric units

There isn't a right or wrong. It just really depends on if you are doing a lot of doubling/halving or not.

With base 2 English units, recipes are easy and mathless to double when guests come over: just grab the next size up measuring container. Or, once your kids are out of the house, recipes are mathless to cut in half: just grab the next size down measuring container.*

Same goes with construction, base 2 English units make is very easy to know where the center of a wall or center of a beam is. Same goes with where to put supports such as trusses (1/4 or 1/3rd distance usually).

Base 10 has lots of good points too. They just happen to more more useful in scientific or engineering work than everyday work like cooking or building.



* Except teaspoons. F the teaspoon.

It'd be nice to move all 'normal person' measurements to base 6 or 12, then eventually transition computers to trinary so they'd be on the same field. So much more useful than binary and base10.

 

[dullard]

It'd be nice to move all 'normal person' measurements to base 6 or 12

Can we start with clocks and calendars?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Can we start with clocks and calendars?

Which calendars and clocks do you work with that aren't already base 12?

 

[dullard]

Which calendars and clocks do you work with that aren't already base 12?

I think my sarcasm didn't come through.

But, I'll take you up on the question. I'd like to start with a 6-day week: 4 workdays and 2 weekend days. Get rid of Monday, cause Mondays suck. That gives us 60 weeks of 6 days (plus one holiday week of 5 or 6 days depending on leap year). If we keep our 12-month calendar, that leaves exactly 5 weeks per month. Each 30 day month would start with Tuesday being the 1st, so all non-celestial-based holidays are on the same numerical day each year.

Yes, theoretical 10-based calendars exist, but that concept is just silly.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I think my sarcasm didn't come through.

But, I'll take you up on the question. I'd like to start with a 6-day week: 4 workdays and 2 weekend days. Get rid of Monday, cause Mondays suck. That gives us 60 weeks of 6 days (plus one holiday week of 5 or 6 days depending on leap year). If we keep our 12-month calendar, that leaves exactly 5 weeks per month. Each 30 day month would start with Tuesday being the 1st, so all non-celestial-based holidays are on the same numerical day each year.

Yes, theoretical 10-based calendars exist, but that concept is just silly.

I fucking love it, sign me up.

 

[KMFJD]

I wouldn't mind seeing more stuff from UK.

We recently got a British store , they sell excellent Steak&Mushroom pies, some decent british style bacon and sausages...i need to stock back up