Things that get your goat!!

[right-clicking]

I know it has only been 40 years since the Uk adopted the metric system but one might have thought the food industry would have sorted this farce out by now!

Why do I have to buy my coffee in 227g packets Jam in 230g etc. Does my head in!!

The rest of the continent standardises it thus 250, 500 750, 1KG or 330 and 660!!

[Salsaboy]

Does the odd 3 grams make a difference to you?

[DulwichFox]

Because 227g is 8 ounces and we can no longer use ounces

Foxy

[aquarius moon]

I don't even look at the amount of grams on coffee or jam.........or packets for that matter.

All I know is that they've got much smaller.

[Drxyster]

Visit a timber yard and try to buy one metre of timber, or two metres, or even four metres.

Standard sizes sold 1.2 metres = just under four feet.

2.4 metres just under eight feet

3.0 metres just under 10 feet

3.6 metres just under 12 feet

4.2 metres just under 14 feet

All are about two to three inches short of the imperial measurement.

In my view not properly metric or imperial.

[womanofdulwich]

but to make a Victoria sponge you have to have 4 oz flour, 4 oz butter and 4 oz sugar ( as a large egg weighs 2oz). I am never going to change this.Grrr

[KidKruger]

Before grams what weights were used for cocaine ?

0.0352 ounces ??!!

[BrandNewGuy]

KidKruger Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Before grams what weights were used for cocaine ?

>

> 0.0352 ounces ??!!

In the 70s? The 'bowlful' was the unit, I believe.

[KidKruger]

Not the sort of bowl you'd want your cornflake(s) in then !

[DulwichFox]

Grain 1 gram = 15.4 grain

DulwichFox

[Jah Lush]

BrandNewGuy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> KidKruger Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Before grams what weights were used for cocaine

> ?

> >

> > 0.0352 ounces ??!!

>

> In the 70s? The 'bowlful' was the unit, I believe.

I remember it came in little medicine bottles or vials not in wraps like nowadays and of course it was one helluva lot purer then too but it was bloody expensive. Hence it was called the champagne drug.

[alice]

an eighth, a quarter, half an eighth and so on

[WarriorBug]

Hahaha, I never even thought about the matter and I'm amused how pissed off you are about it :D

[tfwsoll]

If anyone is interested in why we have ended up with such an odd mish-mash of weights and measures, I can recommend Andro Linklater's measuring America. It doesn't make it any less irritating but it's an entertaining read...

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jul/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview5

[Loz]

Australia had a 'Metric Day' back in the mid-seventies and pretty much everything went metric on that day. In fact, for quite a few years afterwards you couldn't buy tape measures, etc, in imperial, which really annoyed my father. But, even he got used to it and after a while worked out it was actually easier and more accurate to work with something like 5mm rather than 3/16".

Milk was sold in 600ml, rather than the silly 568ml. Everything else went to the nearest rounded amount as well. Sometimes the British show an unusually stubborn determination to be stuck in their ways.

And we still somehow manage to make sponge cakes, WoD! (And we even occasionally cut them into squares, roll them in chocolate and coconut and call them 'Lamingtons'.)

[miga]

Non-SI measurements are pervasive where you wouldn't expect them, e.g. pressure in psi in all kinds of engineering applications, air speed etc.

But my recent discovery is that according to S.I. my conception of a kilobyte is wrong. The commonly accepted usage is 1024 bytes (a power of two, natch), but S.I. rather weirdly insists even this should be decimal and therefore a 1000, fitting with all other uses of the kilo- prefix. They've even come up with a prefix for the more common usage: "kibi". Needless to say, I'm yet to hear anyone use the newspeak.

[right-clicking]

Miga To clarify your confusion a computer BIT is either on or off, basic binary code of zero or 1 , a Nibble is 4 BITS, a Byte is 8 BITS, so therefore a KILOBYTE is 1024 BYTES

[miga]

Yes, I'm well aware of that. Except, a kilobyte according to S.I. is 1000 bytes. Hence mine, and presumably 99.99% techies', usage is not S.I

compliant.

[Loz]

Actually, RC, it changed a while ago according to the SI. A kilobytes is 1000 bytes and kibibyte is 1024. Same with most prefixes.

Having said that, most techies do still us 1024. Get up to tera and peta and they soon fall back to 1000, though!

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I'm sure I will kill someone with roast chicken one day. Twenty minutes per pound plus 20 minutes cooking time is so simple. Half an hour per 450g does my head in.

[Loz]

450g (well, 453g) IS a pound, so you are cooking it for too long. Most people just use 25 min per 500g plus 25.

Anyway, do what I did and buy one of these - you get perfect roast meat every time. (65C to 70C for chicken)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003ARNMD2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00