Author:
Thoughts on the latest Covid 19 lunacies in the UK. I thought I’d share these. They are not my work, but unattributed material I have found in various places.
Sign outside a pub, “Beer shortage imminent, panic buy here.”
BBC news reporter doing a piece from a petrol station forecourt with the ominous name of Phil McCann.
Average intelligence in UK going down rapidly as even those who don’t own cars are panic buying petrol.
And so it begins, the toilet roll panic buyers declare war on fuel stations.
“We have no fuel for this bus, but don’t worry because till we get a driver it doesn’t matter.”
This will be us soon on TV adverts overseas. “Adopt a British family for just £3 a month.” What a joke we’ve become.
.
Do feel free to send any more you find to me or at least post them yourselves.
Comments
Snicker
Uh isn’t uk supposed to be metric? Seems kind of silly to use metric if your currency is in pounds…
Pounds
I love the idea of having so much money that I would have to weigh the notes rather than count them, but alas it's not likely to ever happen.
Regards,
Eolwaen
Eolwaen
Metric
We are messed up. My generation were taught both. I think in yards and feet, miles, pounds, stone and gallons(not the same as a US gallon One imperial gallon is equivalent to approximately 1.2 U.S. liquid gallons) .
Small stuff is easier in mm. Fractions were a pain. When the Euro came out all the UK shops were meant to accept it as legal tender. It was on supermarket prices for about a month. We never actually changed to it though.
An old pound was 20 shillings, and there were 12 pence in a shilling. Now there are 100 pennies to a pound. So that is metric.
Leeanna
Metric
We also use both systems. The rest of the world seems to think that we don't know a meter from a kilogram.
Imagine the cost and confusion caused by changing all that signage. Speed limit 121. Lots more
milekilometer marker signs. Renumbered Interstate exit signs.for all intents and purposes
Most of the world does use one system - metric. Canada and the US use some form of Imperial and the UK uses a mixture of both systems.
Going to school from the late '6o's into the 70's I was never taught the Imperial system, the use of fl Oz etc is a mystery to me and I have to look up conversions when someone uses stone or lbs. I can predict a km but without a measure I invariably get miles wrong. School children in the UK have only been taught metric for decades.
Tbh as long as everywhere uses the same system/sizes i'm not that bothered as i'll be measuring for cooking/cutting anyhow so 2lbs of sugar or a kilo, who cares, the recipe says 200g so that'll be weighed and so on.
As for the memes, the toilet paper hoarder calling out the petrol panic buyers pretty much sums up middle England atm
Madeline Anafrid Bell
One imperial gallon
Imperial gallons are used in Canada as well as the UK. The easy way I make the conversion is that the US gallon is equal to four quarts, and an Imperial gallon is equal to 5 US quarts. I believe the the actual case is an imperial gallon is equal to 4 liters. A liter is equal to 33.814 ounces as apposed to 32 ounces per quart.
Mind you that's a "US liter."
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Not quite
The Imperial gallon is four Imperial quarts each of which is 20 Imperial fluid ounces. The Imperial fluid ounce is virtually the same as the US fluid ounce, they differ by about 0.01%, mostly because they are defined differently. Four liters is more than a US gallon, less than an Imperial gallon.
The easy thing for converion is to think of the Imperial gallon (80 Imp. fl,oz.) as being five US quarts (80 US fl.oz.) since the ounces are identical for practical purposes.
The difference came about because of differences in how whiskey, wine and rum were shipped and is much more absurd in the telling than the admittedly absurd result. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
US ounces are 4 percent bigger than UK ounces
Your statement that the UK and US ounce differ by 'about 0.01%' surprised me, as I sort of remembered a more significant difference, so I checked various unit conversion sites on-line.
These sites say that a UK fluid ounce is 28.41 ml, and a US fluid ounce is larger, 29.57 ml. That is the US ounce is 4.1% bigger than the UK ounce, not 0.01%.
An 80 UK fluid ounce gallon, therefore, is the same volume as 76.9 US ounces.
This is just another example of why I hate the 'British imperial' system of measurements that I learned as a child, and why I wish that the entire world would convert (very quickly) to one system, used by everyone, everywhere.
Note that none of the above conversion factors are "exact", but the fractions don't seem to ever work out exactly, and we don't need ten decimal points.
Also, what I said above could be wrong, or the on-line information I found could be wrong, so there's a second reason I hate this measurement system confusion we have today.
Lindsay
Added later - OOPS! We both messed up. A UK gallon is 160 UK ounces, not 80, and the US quart is 32 US ounces, so 5 US quarts is 160 US ounces.
Lindsay
This should help
Most engines take five litres or one gallon of oil, in cars. Some take six but for most engines it’s five. This is why oil is sold in one us gallon / five litre containers.
Gas cans are sold as 20 litre or five gallon pails, kinda hard to miss as it part of the melded plastic. Gas tanks for vehicles are still manufacturer by gallon sizing often converted to metric.
Roadways in many areas were made in a square mile grid pattern, hence the term mile roads.
Most metal products are manufactured in rough imperial sizes, for metric they are machined. Not a big deal as long lengths of metal rod for example can vary quite a bit as it is rolled and stretched steel process. Wood 2x4 and others refers to rough cut of wood and they really are two inches by four inches cut green, drying causes shrinkage and they are planned about a 1/4 inch off all sides. The variance on wood is mainly due to shrinkage as it dries.
I like metric temp system since it’s based on water and is easy to remember. The rest of metric system isn’t really based on anything specific and seems more randomly chosen to be different from imperial standard.
When it comes to rough measurements can’t beat foot. One foot in front of other will generally give you good idea what the length of something in feet is. Two fingers are roughly an inch. Unless you carry around tape measures all the time, there is no simple easy way to measure length in metric.
But my original post was a pun on the term pound. A uk slang of weight is stone.
Future of measurements…well the current fad is metric..but that may not last. We humans seem to change things to suit us better.
Actually...
Yes... I'm going to be that person for a moment.
"I like metric temp system since it’s based on water and is easy to remember."
The Fahrenheit system of temperature is also based on water... it's just not zero based or base 100. There are 100°C difference between the freezing and boiling point of water at standard pressure. The only difference with Imperial is that there are 180°F difference... 32° to 212°.
Note that 180°? What's half a circle? What's another way to say, "completely the opposite of"? The reason they're called degrees to begin with is because they were divided up into 180 units between the two opposite states... the same as two opposing sides of a circle. The only difference is the addition of 32° to the absolute scale.
Interesting side note: 90°F above the freezing point of water... 122°F... is the temperature that will kill most microbial life... so life exists mostly in the first 90°F of the 180°F scale of water.
"The rest of metric system isn’t really based on anything specific and seems more randomly chosen to be different from imperial standard."
Mass, distance, and volume are all defined by water. One cubic centimeter of water is equal to 1 milliliter of water... which is equal to 1 gram of water at standard temperature and pressure. Since length and mass are defined by water, so is energy. Newtons, joules, calories, etc. are all based on water. (1 calorie is the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C) Density is also water based.
The only seemingly arbitrary value is the second, being 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyper-fine levels of the fundamental unperturbed ground-state of the caesium-133 atom. Now that is arbitrary, just to try and get close to 1/86,400th of a solar day... without using that definition since it's actually slightly variable.
OK.. I'm done now! :^Þ
Disagreement
I'm sorry to disagree, but a US fluid ounce is the same as a UK fluid ounce, 29.73Ml. The US has 16 of them to the US pint, and the UK has 20 of them to the Imperial pint, so UK pints (and gallons) are 1.25 times larger than those of the US. If you have a problem accepting that I suggest you check the historical prices of aviation fuel paid by planes flying across the US / Canadian border. The US system makes more sense as it makes fluid measure equivalent to mass (actually weight, there is a difference) measurements, but we live with the systems of our folk. It only matters to those who are not bright enough to understand the difference. The rest rest of us have no issues with the difference, for we are more than capable of instant mental translations from one perfectly valid system of units to the other it is only a matter of diving or multi plying by 1.25 or 0.8 depending on what one regards as the standard.
Regards,
Eowaen.
Eolwaen
Definitions
From Wikipedia:
The difference is larger than I remembered, but I knew it existed. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Imperial Measures
Dear Erin,
This is YOUR website and you are entitled to post erroneous information if you so please. Wiki has this information on Imperial Measurements that might clear things up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units
sincerely,
an avid reader
:)
Nothing on that site contradicts what I said. :) It didn't address WHY the British Imperial measures were chosen or WHY the US chose a different standard. Those decisions were in part political and economic and were tied up in the shipment of various fluids. The WHY is fascinating in its own right and the article above says nothing about that.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Erin,
Erin,
As to the size of the Imperial Gallon; it is 160 floz. NOT 80 oz as you posted.
~ The easy thing for converion is to think of the Imperial gallon (80 Imp. fl,oz.) as being five US quarts (80 US fl.oz.) since the ounces are identical for practical purposes. ~
You were HALF right anyway.
sincerely,
An Avid Reader
Yeah
I was thinking pints instead of quarts. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Never let...
Never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste.
A Pound of Pennies?
That would be one way of weighing your wealth.
I noted that the presentation of the former currency system in the UK was somewhat simplified.
Large amounts used be stated in Guineas and the farthing was still used in living memory (no, I never used it myself even though I have seen them in the family coin hoard).
Using different measure systems can be problematic at times. The Mars Climate Orbiter is a prime example.
Mars Climate Orbiter
Is? Or was?
When I teach the first semester of physics, I use both the foot-pound system and SI. I want the students to pay attention to units. I use the SI definition of inch? foot? I forget which. It doesn't matter, since both definitions are equivalent. One inch = 2.54 cm, and one foot = .3048 meters, exactly.
In the summer of 2018, SI redefined its units, although to five or six figures, the units are identical.
-- Daphne Xu
Metric
Seen for months on the back of Kellogg's Cornflake packets back in the sixties.
A metre measures three feet three - It’s longer than a yard you see
Two and a quarter pounds of jam weighs about a kilogram
A litre of water’s a pint and three quarters
Was it helpful? I doubt it.
I grew up using Imperial, CGS - centimetre/gram/second, MKS - metre/ kilogram/ second and SI - system idiotique (an expression coined in the seventies as distinct from idioteque which is a much more recent arrival) and am happy to use any of them including degrees Réaumur. I don’t get hung up about any system being better than any other, though I consider it interesting that most systems now take their ultimate definitions from some form of SI derived unit.
What does matter (to me) is that effort is made to make it clear what system is being used so others can follow any discussion, or written paper, involved.
I like Daphne Xu’s approach to units. As a student of the dimensionless numbers involved in fluid dynamics and heat transfer I realised that consideration of dimensions (units) was a powerful technique for dealing with any problem I had not yet fully understood. If one merely processed the numbers involved the answer one arrived at told you nothing, however, if one processed all the units involved and the answer came out with the wrong units - to give a simple example an answer that should have been energy came back with units of power - the numerical answer had to be incorrect and consideration of the units provided clues as to what one should have done with the numbers.
Regards,
Eolwaen
Eolwaen
What really pisses me off
Is Canada selling gasoline in liters rather than imperial gallons, making conversion a real pain.
Liz
It's been interesting for sure.
You think the UK may be weird in all of this, but we here in the USA have got all of you where ever in the World beat hands down with the weird.
We have people here who actually believe that the Government is actually putting tracking devices into the Vaccines. They don't realize that every vehicle made since 1985 has some sort of tracking device installed in it. Plus cell phones can track your movements within the millimeter. Oh and it's still Trump's Fault as everything else that has gone wrong within our borders for the past 20 years or so.
Yes, we definitely have everyone beat for weirdness.
Miyata312
'Do or Do Not, There is no Try' - Yoda
I was brought up with the imperial system
but have adapted to the metric. In the old days, I remember being told a gallon of water at room temperature at sea level weighed ten pounds at the same time, I remember being told that the metre was created by French mathematicians during the Napoleonic period as being part of a measure by those mathematicians of the circumference of the Earth. It was also later demonstrated to be wrong.
A yard was the measure from the nose to the end of the arm, a foot is obvious, and an inch was the measure of the top joint of a thumb. It used to make me smile that we used to buy packs of orthopaedic felt that were 18" x 5mm, a bit like the Mars orbiter thing which mixed apples and oranges.
Let's face it humans have the ability to cock up anything, it's one of our most persistent traits, along with lying and self-delusion. If we stopped our hubris and remembered we are just clever apes, it may help. As far as I know, dormice don't suffer from any of these problems.
Angharad