Yikes, meara, that's awful! I hope you are off the plane and far away from that guy now.
Natter 68: Bork Bork Bork
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
WTF, meara?
I think I would have been tempted to alert a stewttendant. Threatening you? Um, no. Air marshall!
But I thought it was three! Why does Oz measure differently?
It's three most places aside from Oz. The reason is because you define it on an imperial measure, fluid ounces, and when we went decimal, we went hard-core. Or something like that.
I thought about it, but didn't want to, from the window seat, call one over and get Into it. Nor did I want to ask him and his girlfriend to move so I could get to the lav and attendants.
The latest Oatmeal is relevant to this conversation.
I would argue that the imperial system is more practical for some applications. Say, for example, you have a recipe that calls for a cup of water and makes 6 servings of whatever, and you want to cut it down to 1 serving. So you need 1/6 of a cup, or 8 teaspoons. But if a similar recipe calls for 250 ml of water, you'd cut it down to 41.67 ml. Sure, you could round down to what is apparently 2 metric tablespoons and it would probably be fine, but that's not more precise and logical, is it?
I would argue that the imperial system is more practical for some applications. Say, for example, you have a recipe that calls for a cup of water and makes 6 servings of whatever, and you want to cut it down to 1 serving. So you need 1/6 of a cup, or 8 teaspoons. But if a similar recipe calls for 250 ml of water, you'd cut it down to 41.67 ml. Sure, you could round down to what is apparently 2 metric tablespoons and it would probably be fine, but that's not more precise and logical, is it?
That's not for a different application though, just for dividing by a different number. That cuts both ways. If you needed to cut it down to a fifth, metric would be easier. If you needed a seventh, neither one divides that neatly.
A better question is, which more easily handles the cases where it doesn't divide so neatly? I'd say the answer is metric, simply because we have a decimal system. Either system, you could try to approximate, with varying degrees of success. If you want a greater degree of precision, however, it's easier to work that out in the decimal-based system. (Which I imagine is why grams and millimeters seem to dominate in science-related areas, even in America).
I'd say the answer is metric, simply because we have a decimal system.
Base ten, man, base ten. So much easier. I wish we used it. That's math I can always do in my head.
Well,I'm not really meaning to make the case that the imperial system is superior, just that it's not ridiculous. The metric system is fantastic for anything very large or very small, and I can't really think about physics using imperial measurements, myself, but for every day usage they both serve pretty much equally well.
I prefer to give my weight in stones.