AG: Aunt Granny's Advice, or How to become an elderly cyclist:

- Joy Beeson / Mon, 14 Dec 2015 17:16:53 +0100


I finally got around to eating the almond butter, and it turned out
that it would have been a poor choice for packing in a lunch: I
required a smooth, flat table and a plastic table knife to squeeze the
last tablespoon out of the envelope.

I wonder what metric people would say?

As we are used to computers more than to soup
(or at least don't eat solids by using a spoon),
we'd say »the last bit« (or: bite).

In daily life, one would say »the last couple of grams«,
as well.


Cubic centimeter and
milliliter are too small, and deciliter is too big; ...

According to cooking literature, a tea-spoon is about 5 ml,
and a table-spoon 15 ml.

An american cup is about 1/4 liter (250 g of water).

As a liter (l) of water weighs 1 kg, 1 milliliter (ml) weighs
1 gram (g). As liter is a derived measurement (1/1000 m³ =
1/1000 cube meter), 1 cube centimeter (cm³ or cc) is exactly
1 ml. So, it isn't that complicated.

Centiliters and deciliters are not commonly used
(on some drinking glasses for strong stuff, you find the filling mark
labeled '2 cl' or '4 cl' - that's about the only place to find 'cl').
For fluids, small amounts are either calculated in milliliter or
liter numbers, big amounts are calculates in cube meters.


... if I haven't
misremembered somewhere, a deciliter would be about two-fifths of a
cup, and the whole 326-gram (1.15 oz.) envelope was only a tad more
than an eighth of a cup, assuming that almond butter isn't a whole
bunch less dense than water.

No. We got rid of all these ancient measuring units and introduced
the metric system exactly to stop this harrasment.

Almond butter and similar fats have a density of ~ .9, so a
glass containing 362 gram has a volume of about .4 liters,
which makes about 1.6 US kitchen-cups or 27 table-spoons.


Calculating: a cc is a microstere, a liter is a millistere ...
dekamike? (I once wrote a story in which the vernacular term for cc
was "mike".) (Perhaps liter would have been "milly", but nobody had
occasion to say it, so we will never know.)

Sorry, in Europe, 'Ster' is a cube meter of stacked forest wood
(which is less than a cube meter of full material, because of the
gaps in the stack). Nobody uses these expressions except when
dealing with firewood.

A 'cc' (better: cm³) is 1/1000 liter or 1/1000000 m³, and the
expression is mainly used for car engines.


Metric system is very easy; smaller units are broken down from
bigger (or main) units by factors of 10. So a millimeter is
1/1000 meter, and a kilometer is 1000 meters.

Wtf is good about calculating with multiples of 1/64 inch,
while an inch is 1/12 foot, and a foot 1/3 yard,
a yard 1/1760 mile (which is 1/55*32 - incoherent as can be),
while a nautical mile makes 6076 feet 125�64 inch?

Not talking about a foot with a foot length. While an average
male foot is about 10 1/2" long, a foot with a foot length
needs size 13 or 13 1/2, already considered as over-sized.

Or weight: The lowest unit, 'dram' is 1/16 ounce (why not
stay concludent in 1/12 grid like with length?), and an
ounce is 1/16 pound (gratulations!!! twice 1/16), and a
pound is 1/14 stone, a stone 1/2 quarter or 1/8 hundredweight
(which makes 100 pounds - the first decimal factor, very good),
which is 1/20 ton.


Sorry, using such a messed-up system, there is no reason
to ridicule the metric one.


A kilometer (walking / driving unit) is 10000 centimeters
(desk ruler unit). A mile (land, not sea / air) makes
63360 inches. Whow, how simple to handle is this?




Our bike screws have 5, 6, 8, or 10 mm thread diameter,
[not 3/16", 1/4", 5/16", 3/8"]
the fitting wrench tools have 8, 10, 13, 17 mm opening width
[not 3/8" - 7/16" - 1/2" - 9/16" ...
why aren't they signed 6/16" - 7/16" - 8/16" - 9/16" ...
that would be a little bit coherent, at least].



Rumor says, US congress has opposed introducing the metric
system »because it was made by atheists«.

In fact, it was made-up by very very catholic French guys.
All they opposed was their emperor's claim to have received
absolute power by god himself - what for the others was
shere blasphemy, and this lead to French revolution.




jk



--
no sig