There used to be road signs that would say something like "Chicago: 100km (62 miles)." I always thought, "Fuck you, sign. If I want to learn, I'll stop the car."
In Arizona they have those kilometer signs from Tucson south on all the roads. I always figured it was Spanish.
2: If I recall correctly, the federally built roads in Puerto Rico give distances in miles, but the mile markers are actually kilometer markers, because of the Spanish.
I'm fine with being sensitive to other cultures. I just don't want them trying to make me learn conversion factors inadvertently. For example, "56km (35 miles)" is fine.
There used to be road signs that would say something like "Chicago: 100km (62 miles)."
Wow, really? I had no idea the US had ever flirted with the metric system. When was this?
In Canada, the butter is sold in 454g packages. Which sort of suggests an incomplete conversion to metric to me: why not 500 grams? or 400? Because people are still thinking of a pound of butter, that's why.
The machines that make sticks of butter are probably tricky to change.
5: The part I'm thinking of was late '80s. There's a history, though.
In the sixties and seventies, until Reagan put the kibosh on it.
Do younger people say "750ml" instead of a "a fifth"?
Canadian food labels fairly regularly show nutrition information in serving sizes that leave a remainder if you try to calculate the number of servings in the package. Why yes, I regularly eat 2.12342245425365436* servings of soup from a can.
*Note: not the actual number.
And some copy machines show cm instead of inches on the electronic display for your standard 8.5 x 11 letter size copying needs. At least the tick marks on the physical surface usually show the paper sizes, and you can change the display settings.
Do younger people say "750ml" instead of a "a fifth"?
Yes we do. Is that what a fifth is? I thought it was one of those small portable bottles.
70 degrees Fahrenheit is 21.1 degrees Celsius, 16.8 degrees Réaumur, 294.11 degrees Kelvin, or 529.2 degrees Rankine.
Thank you.
So did I. But I guess those are pints.
The Réaumur scale is only used in Italian cheesemaking now, though it used to be widespread. The Rankine scale survives in some thermodynamic engineering applications, though its used is generally discouraged. The Kelvin scale should be used by everybody but is used by almost nobody except goddamn scientists.
I was weird to go to Mexico from Canada because everything was in metric - and fake metric like beer being 341 ml. I was ordering groceries and had to figure our how many grams of some herb I wanted and then I realized I hadn't done nearly enough drugs. I also had no idea of my height or weight in cm/kg.
I always though the fake metric was a result of manufactures not wanting to change their equipment between making things for the US and Canada.
You can ask for milk in liters or pop in 2L in the US right?
Forgot a 'not' between the 'and' and the 'fake'
In Canada, people still think and speak of the distance between two places in terms of miles, but now think and speak of the speed at which to travel between those two places in terms of kilometres per hour.
Also: at the grocery, you might pick up a pound of butter (in a 454g package), and a litre of milk (nobody says "quart" anymore, but almost everyone still says "pound").
It's confusing.
You can ask for milk in liters or pop in 2L in the US right?
You can ask, sure.
In Canada, ex-convicts, sociopaths, and war veterans with PTS can be known by their 914.4 meter stare.
9: I also didn't know what size "a fifth" means. 750ml I know, but mostly in the context of wine where you'd just call it a bottle.
The Kelvin scale is daft. Celsius is conceptually coherent: we take the phase diagram of water at sea level, and define a scale using that. 0 is freezing, and 100 is boiling. It's nice, and thankfully simple. Kelvin loses that niceness.
I am charmed by the English who, surrounded and more by metric stuff still have cooking quantities like teacup and coffee cup as well as the true story of teaspoons - not the codified versions used here in the US of A.
In shooting and reloading everything's still done in grains for weight. 7000 grains to a pound. This will be on the test, hippies.
Ugh. Phase diagram at sea level makes no sense. But you know what I mean.
There's a Kelvin-Centigrade composite. Starting from absolute zero means you don't have to have negative numbers.
I note that the opponents of the Kelvin scale dare not sign their names.
Aren't furlongs still used in horse racing? They were used in American track and field until a few decades ago (220 yd.) In the US acres are still used, but I think that rods are extinct.
A rod is the same length as a perch or a pole. In old English, the term lug is also used.
But you can't let freezing be zero and hundred be boiling if zero is already nabbed for Absolute Zero.
I like baffling foreigners with our measures. If a firkin of wine was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you.
People still buy firewood in cords, right?
I recall hearing, in very early childhood, local farmers talking about bushels.
If a firkin of wine was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you.
"What's a cubit?"
Nothing comes between me and my Kelvins.
In my youth, we bought fruit at fruit stands by the bushel. In the mid-60's crawfish were sold in New Orleans for $2 a bushel. Horses are still measured in hands.
I have a half-baked theory that part of American Exceptionalism is the sense that we've never needed anyone's help. It's a false sense, of course. We've had help various times from the French, the British, the people who lived here before Europe showed up.
But we've not been invaded in a long, long time. And I can't see that we're going to be invaded anytime soon.
That makes America swagger. Embarrassingly.
But you can't let freezing be zero and hundred be boiling if zero is already nabbed for Absolute Zero.
True, but so what?
38: Yeah, why should water get all the glory? 0 Kelvin is by god frozen frozen.
people still think and speak of the distance between two places in terms of miles
Maybe old people.
Wheat is priced by the bushel. Oil by the barrel. Gold by the ounce. Land by the acre. Pickled peppers by the peck. Where do you people live?
because the point of the Celsius scale is that it is based on the phases of water (a very useful element to base it upon). We understand Celsius in relation to water. So to lose the connection with water makes Celsius pretty useless.
I'm just thrilled that hydrobatidae drinks "pop."
So to lose the connection with water makes Celsius pretty useless.
I guess, but Fahrenheit's completely useless in that sense and it still works fine.
We understand Celsius in relation to water. So to lose the connection with water makes Celsius pretty useless.
But, you know, most of us don't really understand the unit of measurement in relation to any natural element whatsoever. We just want to know what to wear on any given day (should I wear my down-filled coat? or can I get away with my woollen jacket?).
I can convert Celsius to Fahrenheit in the blink of an eye (times 2, minus 10 percent, plus 32), but have no idea how to quickly convert the other way.
Wheat is priced by the bushel. Oil by the barrel. Gold by the ounce. Land by the acre. Pickled peppers by the peck. Where do you people live?
I live in a place where the local newspaper regularly posts the current prices of oil, gas, gold, and zinc.
Really? I use Celsius in relation to water all the time: cooking, frosts, snow. Knowing that it'll be below zero is a particularly useful line. And it is quite easy to learn Celsius by thinking of boiling and freezing -- or at least, that is how I remember learning it.
Like a lot of people my age in the UK, I'm imperfectly metric. Metric for most things except driving speeds, and the height and weight of people. Even driving speeds and distances I'm getting more metric [via the influence of the satnav, I think]. Given a choice, when cooking I'll always use metric measurements, and I find American recipes insane.
'What's a fucking cup? And is a cup of water the same size as a cup of flour? In volume? Or in weight? Oh, and it's not the same size as an imperial cup? Oh fuck, maybe someone has this somewhere in metric.'
I won't even try to defend the various measurements used in American recipes. They drive me crazy too.
Hey, ttaM, do you have any advice for things to do in Prague?
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I doubt I'll either stay up or get up to see the lunar eclipse in a few hours, but I just looked out the window and saw the full moon. It's pretty bright.
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re: 51
There's the usual stuff. The two castles, the main 'Prague Castle' one at Hradčany, and the other one at Vyšehrad, which has the national cemetery. It's worth taking a good walk around on both sides of the river. The usual things to see would be the Old Town and Charles Bridge, the Mala Strana [other side of the river from Charles Bridge], and bits of the New Town. Prague's a good sized city for just walking about looking at architecture.
Up around Vyšehrad there's some Cubist architecture. Some of which is cool, and some I found a bit underwhelming. There's a Cubist Museum at the House of the Black Madonna. In the Old Town there's the Jewish Quarter/Josefov, including the various synagogues which the Nazis didn't destroy. There's the National Theatre, and the Anezsky klaster [Convent of St. Agnes], and Strahov. There's the usual stuff, like the National Gallery (e.g. the 20th c. one at Veletržní palác [the pronunciation of which is a good test of your Czech language skills]), and National Museum, although I've never been in the latter. Also, the big status of Žižka on the hill, with the mausoleum, which is worth a visit but isn't very central.
As per the advice everyone would give, pubs actually _on_ Old Town Square are over-priced traps for tourists. You only have to walk 100 metres to find places with good food and cheap(ish) beer that cater to locals and tourists. If you are there soon there'll be Christmas markets, and lots of stalls around the place selling snacks and hot wine, which are good even on the main square. Wenceslas Square is a shit-hole, though, and it's a mystery to me why some tourists get accommodation there, or hang out there.
Depending how long you stay it might be worth getting a public transport pass, although the little books of tickets are cheap anyway and the tram and metro network is good [and the internal architecture of a lot of the metro stations is cool in a Communist-era futurist sort of way]. If there's anything specific you have a mind to see, I can probably recommend something, or ask my wife. The beer and food are good (if you stick to Czech classics and don't mind meat). If you are veggie you'll find yourself eating a lot of deep-fried cheese (smažený sýr) which is nice, but samey. Czech restaurants serving non-Czech food are shit in my experience.
I can probably recommend pubs, too, if you want. Although we tend to be fairly undiscerning, and my wife's mates often drink in hipster-y type places that aren't especially touristy or traditional.
Cheers, that's pretty helpful. We're there in a week or so, so. Sadly, I doubt pubs will feature too much!
(pilgrimage to the ancestral home, including a traditional Scottish Christmas in darkest Paisley, and new year's at Avimore. I said to someone we were going to be in Scotland for New Year's, and they said ooh, that really goes off, doesn't it? I could barely disillusion them, could I?)
re: 55.1
Re: pubs. They can be good places to get warmed up, and food. Proper restaurants in Prague can be quite pricey for what they are, in my experience. Admittedly, I'm a cheap skate when there, though.
Heh. Yeah. Although I suppose it's a fairly big deal in Edinburgh. In Glasgow it was usually nothing more dramatic than crawling a few pubs and then house parties [or soul/indie clubs].
Yeah, Edinburgh would be decent. The cairngorms? Another kettle of fish.
A Fifth is a fifth of a gallon, surely? 750ml is actually 0.19xxx... pre-imperial gallons, but close enough.
From Julia Child's Kitchen talks about how soon, we'll all be on the metric system and everything will be so much easier. It's from 1975, I think.
I'm quite happy to use the metric system when cooking, and have everything in weight. I have a nice scale and it's fun to use! But what drives me nuts as I adjust to the metric system is that routinely British recipes give weights in pounds, ounces, etc, but the stores only label in metric. And half the measurements will be weighed, but the other half are still in 'teaspoons' or what have you, and the liquid measurements are in ml, which is great with large amounts, awful with small ones. The American system, so long as you have a liquid measuring cup, dry measuring cups, and a set of measuring spoons, seems far easier to deal with. Then again, it's what I'm used to, so I'm sure that's a big part of it.
59: Yeah. I was baffled that Stanley remembers the proposed switch from first grade, since I remember it from first grade and I'm more than a decade older. I was given a wacky "Let's Learn the Metric System!" board game at about that time. In my (faulty no doubt) recollection, this was one of those optimistic Carter things that Reagan shitcanned tout de suite.
re: 60
British recipes would only (exclusively) use pounds and ounces if they were old, I think. Typically they'd either be metric, or give both. So, for example, the BBC gives both, Delia Smith gives both, the Guardian is metric. Grabbing a few cookbooks from the shelf: Margaret Costa's Four Seasons, both; Gordon Ramsay, metric only, etc. I don't think I've any books published since I've started buying them that are imperial only.
Working with a modern British recipe would require, normally, a liquid measuring jug, a set of measuring spoons, and some scales. There's a certain consistency in measuring liquid ingredients by volume and dry ingredients by weight. Measuring spoons used for small quantities of either.
61: I'm guessing that my cosmopolitan mother was still holding out for the switch, even in year eight of the Reagan Administration, and my childhood was skewed thusly.
62: I'm pulling from a bookshelf that includes books published in the 60s, so that might well be part of it. Jamie Oliver is also really bad at using standard measurements, but that's sort of his schtick. And it doesn't help that I am often making something from an American recipe and something from a British one, so I'm likely adding to my own confusion.
(Also, I just realized that where they give both, I'm immediately responding to my comfort zone and writing down the non-metric measurements. Self-improvement is necessary.)
re: 65
Well the UK didn't go metric until the 70s.* So not having metric equivalents (or being all metric) is understandable. I have 1960s and 70s cookbooks, but they are reprints, so include metric measurements alongside the original imperial. Come to think of it, I have one 70s anthology of old [medieval through Victorian] recipes which is, I think, completely imperial. [checks] No. 1977 printing of a 1974 edition, and it has both.
* although it's an imperfect process that began earlier and isn't fully complete to this day (in terms of what ordinary people use).
At work, everything is metric because of Science! I have no trouble at all, but I will never be able to "think" in metric for daily life without quietly converting in my head.
When your my age the change came too late for it ever to be automatic, but like ttaM I work with most sizes and weights in metric, but human beings and speeds in imperial (including weights in stones). I also think of 50 pence as 10 bob, which I bet ttaM doesn't.
We're pretty solidly metric in Australia. I know about miles etc from living in Britain (60 miles = slightly further than you expect), but fahrenheit, pounds, quarts etc make no sense, and never will.
re: 68
No re: ten-bob, but the 'bob' was a universal unit of currency when I was a kid, but in a 'Scottish' sort of way, rather than a holdover from L/S/D.
I've become quite good with weights for people in kilograms through the sport I do, where the weight categories are all in kilos, and I can now sort of roughly guess weights in kilos, and convert back and forth without much thought. But I do still have to convert in my head with heights. Which sort of goes 'I'm 177/178. That person is 155, which is 22cm shorter, er, (divides by approx 2.5), er, which is about 8 inches, which makes them 5ft 2 - 5ft 3'.
So not having metric equivalents (or being all metric) is understandable.
Oh yes, I wasn't trying to present it as completely mystifying. I'm using my mother-in-law's collection, so that's why many are quite old. (Including the classic Delia books.) Really, I'm just grousing; I'll get used to it all quick enough, and there certainly is a method to it all.
And, that calculation would, in fact, be wrong [rounding].
re: 71
That's right. I forgot, you're here now, isn't that right?
73: Yep. Thus, I complain about the metric system in standard American-style. That, and the drivers. (The weather, I actually rather like. So far.)
70.2 is more or less how I work, although the other person is usually taller than me.
I remember my height in feet and inches (assuming I haven't grown since the late-80s), but my kids have never been measured using them. I vaguely remember the use of stone and pounds, but couldn't guess at what they mean wrt the weight of a human now.
re: 74
UK drivers, at least as far as I can tell compared to mainland Europe, are actually OK. Very low rate of fatal accidents here by global standards. Lower than the US, which is itself not particularly high by global standards.
There are a lot of wankers, though.
77: Oh, they're safe enough; I just find driving here mildly terrifying at times as I'm used to much wider roads, no parking in the street (thus forcing one to drive in the middle and play chicken), and much slower speed limits on curves and in town (which means I drive slowly until I really know the road and thus am subjected to a lot of (understandable) tail-gating). I need something to complain about because otherwise it's just too gosh-darned nice here.
If American cheesemakers used the Réaumur scale American cheese would taste as good as Italian cheese.
Today's culinary adventure. Blend up chocolate and sugar syrup to make a chocolate sorbet. Open freezer. Discover it's full.
51: My two favorite places in Prague are the Strahov Monastery and the Mucha museum. For a quick, relatively affordable, not at all Czech place to eat and check your e-mail, go to Bohemian Bagel.
re: 81
Yeah, but don't get confused. There used to be two Bohemia Bagels. One across the river at Ujezd, and one in the Old Town at Masna. The one at Ujezd has moved a bit into the Mala Strana proper, and there's a third one in Holesovice, which is more a bar and doesn't do the internet. It's an OK bar, though. Attractive looking hipster-Czech types, rather than the usual American tourists, when I was there last.
The main Old Town one is the internet/bagel one.
25 - tea cups and coffee cups? No idea what you're talking about!
I find working to American recipes quite annoying, when you have something like a cup of, I dunno, grated carrot - am I supposed to squash it down? Loosely pack? But then I also get annoyed by 100g grated carrot - all recipes should just say grate one medium carrot.
84: Yeah, the Old Town one is the one of which I was thinking. Funnily enough, the first time I was in Prague I went to Bohemian Bagel on the advice of a friend, and ran into someone else I knew (who encouraged me to go to the Mucha museum, which is when I feel in love with Mucha's paintings).
Of course, when I hear that someone is planning to visit Prague, I usually recommend that they skip it and go to Krakow or Ljubljana instead. Barring that, I ask them to bring me back a bottle of becherowka.
85: Elizabeth David classics contain such measurements, and I know I've seen them elsewhere, too.
(But not in anything particularly recent, I should note.)
Be the change you want to see in the world, Stanley. The set of posters about six items down on that reflects the era I first associate with it. Growing momentum through the '60s (especially after the Brits caved) and the '70s, and although it was ostensibly alive (and advanced) in the '80s the ideological tide had turned and it eventually became a bit of a cause célèbre of the fuckpigs of American exceptionalism.
89: For instance this set of dueling bills introduced in the 103rd Congress ('93-'94):
1 . To prohibit the expenditure of Federal funds on metric system highway signing. (Introduced in House - IH)[H.R.502.IH]
2 . To prohibit the expenditure of Federal funds on metric system highway signing, and for other purposes. (Introduced in House - IH)[H.R.3343.IH]
3 . To prohibit the expenditure of Federal funds for constructing, positioning, or modifying highway signs that are expressed in metric system measurements. (Introduced in House - IH)[H.R.1043.IH]
4 . To prohibit the expenditure of Federal funds for constructing or modifying highway signs that are expressed only in metric system measurements. (Introduced in House - IH)[H.R.412.IH]
5 . To affirm the national policy of metric conversion benefiting the United States. (Introduced in Senate - IS)[S.J.RES.100.IS]
6 . To prohibit the departments and agencies of the Federal Government from requiring that any State, or political subdivision thereof, utilize a metric system of measurement. (Introduced in Senate - IS)[S.2076.IS]
I can't remember if it was here or if it was one of my Canadian friends, but I recently heard someone - from a metric-using country - saying that the one thing you can say about Fahrenheit as a scale for telling you what the temperature is like outside is that 0 is "pretty fucking cold" and 100 is "pretty fucking hot." In Celsius, you're obviously not going to get anywhere close to 100 and in certain norther countries 0 isn't a particularly remarkable outdoor temp.
According to report, Mr. Fahrenheit set his zero by waiting until it was pretty goddamn cold and calling it zero. He may have set his 100 the same way.
If a recipe tells you to get your chocolate to 100 degrees, not let it boil and test it on the inside of your wrist to see if it's too hot - that's Fahrenheit.
92: It appears that the original scale was based on the temperature of ice, water, and ammonium chloride at 0°, Ice and water at 32° and body heat at 96°--so there were 64=26 degrees between the latter two, Later adjusted to make 180 degrees between freezing and boiling.
The set of posters about six items down
WANT.
That mug should read "THINK METRIC, ACT IMPERIAL" and show the progress of the metric system TAKING OVER THE WORLD (United States not included).
Probably ammonium chloride brine had a greater importance in the Germany of that time than it does nowadays.
96: Don't forget Burma and Liberia.
They were too chicken to invent a metric second slightly different than the crappy old traditional second and decimally organized. Hijinks would have ensued for sure.
100 sec/min, 100 min/hr, 25 hr/day, 8 days/week. 4 1/2 weeks/mo, ~12 mos./yr. The day, month, and year are just messy, but the weeks, hours, minutes, and seconds could be cleaned up.
In Taiwan when I was there they had 3 measures of weight: kilo, city jin, country jin. The city jin might have been quasi-metric at .6 kilos or maybe .5 kilos. I'm not sure that pounds were used at all.
On the mainland they just redefined jin as 500 g.
France did have metric time for a period in during the Revolution. Maybe again?
Can't really add much to the Prague recommendations, but I love the city. Nice people, great museums and arhitecture, and good, hearty food, especially in the winter. Be sure to get some Pilsner Urquell or similar good local beer on draught. Trained in drinking in the States, I had always thought of the pilsner style as designed to quench a thirst on a hot sweaty summer day. But a tall class of cold classic Czech pilsner in the winter, staring out the pub window at snow falling on the Vtlava, is a lovely lovely thing. Also, Becherovka is delicious.
92, 94: I'd been meaning to find this article from the Straight Dope.
I was thinking it sounded implausible that it never gets below zero in Denmark, but it appears to be true.
105: -24.2°F. Your table is for Copenhagen.
Or more snarkily, only in the months of November, December, January, February, March and April. (Although the Copenhagen numbers are pretty uncanny.)
105: Fair enough, but Copenhagen was apparently where Rømer made his observations.
104: I'd say not one of Cecil's better columns, more plausible that the brine was the lowest temperature that could be reliably reproduced* in a lab at the time.
*It is a frigorific** mixture.
**Great word I just learned, but turns out Dinosaur Comics was on it nearly three years ago.
See, Reaumur really is the only way to go. Fucking Fahrenheit.
According to Wikipedia, Farenheit's parents died from eating poisonous mushrooms, so he had that going for him.