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It's a gas gauge? I thought it was a weight scale, as in "eating lots of carbs makes you gain weight".

derefr 9y ago
I had to work through it by a process of elimination, like a Sudoku puzzle: the "fat" symbol is definitely evoking "tape measure around the waist" iconography, perhaps implying (falsely) that "fat is the thing that makes you fat"—but more likely just putting people in mind of their weight and then saying "yeah, that stuff, that's what's in this." Given that, it'd be redundant for the carbs icon to also be about weight. It's a meter of some sort, though. To me, it's either temperature—or pressure in a storage tank. Temperature would somewhat make sense, in the idea that carbs are the simplest thing that the body burns, and eating more carbs literally makes you hotter. But there are more common icons for temperatue (e.g. an old mercury thermometer with the teardrop base), so it's probably not temperature. Pressure it is. Given that the referent is carbs, what would the storage tank be filled with? Probably a liquid. Liquid sugar? Sugar isn't green. What's a green liquid? Most hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are like carbohydrates, and serve many of the same functions for machines that carbs do for humans. What's a common hydrocarbon pressure gauge? A car's gas gauge.
- scott_s 9y ago
  That one was actually clear to me. "That looks like a fuel gauge. Carbs are our main energy source - fuel." But I paid no attention to the colors. Fat, on the other hand, made no sense to me. And I had to go back and read the text to see if they really did intend it as "measuring tape to measure how fat you are", and yeesh, they did. That's... bad.
- cperciva 9y ago
  Gas gauge still doesn't make sense to me, based on the orientation. Every gas gauge I've seen has the "empty-full" axis being vertical.
  - Rebelgecko 9y ago
    You've never seen a gas gauge with E on the left and F on the right? Or am I misunderstanding?
    - cperciva 9y ago
      Pretty sure I've always seen them vertical. Maybe because I've always driven Japanese cars?
      - toast0 9y ago
        Here's a nice horizontal one for you :) https://scoutparts.com/products/photos/18520_237275.jpg https://scoutparts.com/products/photos/18520_237275.jpg

I had to work through it by a process of elimination, like a Sudoku puzzle: the "fat" symbol is definitely evoking "tape measure around the waist" iconography, perhaps implying (falsely) that "fat is the thing that makes you fat"—but more likely just putting people in mind of their weight and then saying "yeah, that stuff, that's what's in this." Given that, it'd be redundant for the carbs icon to also be about weight. It's a meter of some sort, though. To me, it's either temperature—or pressure in a storage tank. Temperature would somewhat make sense, in the idea that carbs are the simplest thing that the body burns, and eating more carbs literally makes you hotter. But there are more common icons for temperatue (e.g. an old mercury thermometer with the teardrop base), so it's probably not temperature. Pressure it is. Given that the referent is carbs, what would the storage tank be filled with? Probably a liquid. Liquid sugar? Sugar isn't green. What's a green liquid? Most hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are like carbohydrates, and serve many of the same functions for machines that carbs do for humans. What's a common hydrocarbon pressure gauge? A car's gas gauge.

scott_s 9y ago
That one was actually clear to me. "That looks like a fuel gauge. Carbs are our main energy source - fuel." But I paid no attention to the colors. Fat, on the other hand, made no sense to me. And I had to go back and read the text to see if they really did intend it as "measuring tape to measure how fat you are", and yeesh, they did. That's... bad.
cperciva 9y ago
Gas gauge still doesn't make sense to me, based on the orientation. Every gas gauge I've seen has the "empty-full" axis being vertical.
- Rebelgecko 9y ago
  You've never seen a gas gauge with E on the left and F on the right? Or am I misunderstanding?
  - cperciva 9y ago
    Pretty sure I've always seen them vertical. Maybe because I've always driven Japanese cars?
    - toast0 9y ago
      Here's a nice horizontal one for you :) https://scoutparts.com/products/photos/18520_237275.jpg https://scoutparts.com/products/photos/18520_237275.jpg