Re: Metric

Too bad it's wrong. A pint is 1/8 of a gallon

Correct

or 20 ounces.

Or 16 ounces.

A gallon of water (a real one, not the wimpy American kind) is 10 lbs., so one eighth of 10 lbs is not one pound.

No you are wimpy. ;~) You muscles are so weak you think a gallon of water feel like 10 lbs. We Americans are so strong a gallon of water only feel like about 8 pounds.

Same goes for the silly Yankee gallon, which is eight point something pounds.

I'll give yo a little there, the Yanks gallons are mostly from NEW YORK CITY. We Southerners think a gallon feels like 7.8 pounds.

Actually, volume and weight is where the metric system really shines. For linear distances, it doesn't really matter what you use: inches, mm, cm, feet, cubits, whatever.

Cuz it is easier for the "challenged" to figger out? ;~)

I was trying to figure out how much rain on my roof it took to fill a

It would take, ummm 45 gallons I bet'cha

How many cubic inches in a gallon??? While translated in to metric system, it was all straightforward once I knew how many litres in a gallon.

How many cubic mm's in a gallon? ;~)

Just yankin your chain. ;~)

Really? What is the metric unit for weight?

Bakatcha :)

Hey it was the other guy that said

Actually, volume and weight is where the metric system really shines.

So he did. Sorry - attributions got all screwed up somehow.

Morris Dovey snipped-for-privacy@iedu.com wrote in news:h86pk1$fp6$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

Newtons. But no one uses Newtons (except certain PDA users). Mass is usually confused for weight. Just wait until we find life on other planets and go there, just wait!

We'll probably be using a different measuring system by then. :-)

Puckdropper

Depends on where you live. Up here in the great white north, metric is and has been invading most everything. That is, except for the food that we export up from the US. And, considering that 90% of our food comes from the US, it's a wonder we don't all starve deciding how to allocated all those pounds and quarts of food.

Blame it on your news reader! LOL... I blame my news reader and it's Spell Checker, that only works when I spell words correctly, and does not when I don't.

On 9/8/2009 6:27 PM Puckdropper spake thus:

I know there's a certain amount of chain-yanking going on here, and that I myself am contributing to it. Nonetheless, it seems to me that this distinction here between weight and mass is a bunch of irrelevant nitpicking by pointy-headed scientist types. To *most* human critters on the planet, they're the same thing, practically speaking. Sheesh.

Who cares how much a bucket of cement weighs on the planet Snorlax?

a snorlaxian?

Many places in engineering you care about the mass, not the weight--most fluid dynamic calculations for example require knowing the density of the fluid in mass/volume.

Try and stop a submarine at flank speed and you'll care a lot about mass vs weight.

Ditto figuring out the acceleration of a blimp.

Chris

The Snorlaxian Labor Union! ;-)

On 9/8/2009 6:27 PM Upscale spake thus:

Interesting (that most of your food comes from here); seems like a lot of the food I buy here in the U.S. comes from Canada. I buy most of my food at Traitor Joe's, and it's surprising how much stuff says "product of Canada".

Well, much of it is true, but maybe not as much as I intimated. I think it depends on the type of food. I notice many of the fruits I eat originate from Florida or California while vegetables and beef often come from somewhere in Canada. Obviously a climate thing. I've also noticed a significant amount of fruits coming from South America. There's a march on to advance home grown foods with the advertising lauding how fresh Canadian produce is because it gets to the dinner table faster because it doesn't have to travel so far to get here. But it seems like there's a whole lot of inter-country food commerce going on when there doesn't really need to be. Maybe it advances trade in other areas where bigger profits are made.

When you see Canadian grown food, is it measured in metric? Your US food comes here in quarts, pints, pounds and ounces.

Whattsamatter, you don't like Joe very much?

No matter where is comes from, it is usually sold that way here, with a few expectations for pre-packed stuff.

The big controversy, IMO, comes down to resistance to change. If you fear the change it will be difficult. Travel to another country and you'll be amazed at how you can adapt. I can buy food using Euros per kilo just as easily as dollars per pound. I either learned how or starved for a couple of weeks.

On 9/9/2009 6:36 PM Upscale spake thus:

Nope; typical packaging. F'rinstance, some crackers I regularly buy: "Wheat Crisps"; 9 oz. (255 g.). Customary units first, pretend units second.

On 9/9/2009 7:02 PM Doug Miller spake thus:

I shop there every week. It's just a funny way of referring to them (plus an antidote to how their stores seems to be metastasizing all over the goddamn place).

Keeps shortening the trip to pick up "$2 Chuck".

Lew