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“That is roughly comparable to the amount of sugar in 32 billion cans of Coke!” That's a unique unit of measure I've not seen before. I know in one of Gary Lar
by blakesterz 4y ago
“That is roughly comparable to the amount of sugar in 32 billion cans of Coke!”
That's a unique unit of measure I've not seen before. I know in one of Gary Larson's old books he had a comment on his "skeletonize a cow in less than a minute" comic about how he loves weird units of measurement like this.
https://ifunny.co/picture/MMQBLmZr5 https://ifunny.co/picture/MMQBLmZr5
- yetihehe 4y agoThere's a meme that americans will use anything to avoid metric system. Typically with examples like "hole in the road with the size of 2 washing machines".
- tmountain 4y agoThere's a great Simpsons joke where Grandpa says, "the metric system is the tool of the devil, my car gets 40 rods to the hog's head, and that's the way I like it!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5-s-4KPtD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5-s-4KPtD8
- chucksta 4y agoThose are/were real units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogshead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogshead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_(unit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_(unit)
- kelseyfrog 4y agoAre there, by chance, any fake units that exist?
- buttocks 4y agoI’m fond of the shit ton. The Canadian metric equivalent is the metric crap tonne.
- dwighttk 4y agoButtload is not fake however
- thedrbrian 4y agoUs brits have “shed load”
- cwillu 4y agoThe shit tonne and the fuck load come to mind.
- selimthegrim 4y agoF**stick?
- AaronM 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_meas...
- ars 4y agoYes, the smoot
- gostsamo 4y agoDoes the Register's measurement converter count? https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-conver...
- quantified 4y agoThat's why it's Grandpa and funny.
- Sebb767 4y agoSo his car takes roughly 300l to move 200m in SI units, or 45000l/100km.
- gen220 4y agoFor those who are curious, 1 rod is 0.003125 miles. Thus, 40 rods is 0.125 miles. 1 hogshead is 1/63 of a US gallon. Thus, 40 rods to the hog's head is 7.875 miles per gallon, 29.87 L/100km, or 3.348 km/L. EDIT: sorry, 1 hogshead is 63 US gallons. This comes to about 0.002 miles per gallon... yikes! (divide all the numbers in the previous paragraph by 63^2)
- dwighttk 4y agoHuh. Why is a hogshead so small? If you had asked me to guess I would have said like 3 1/32nd (or some weird small additional amount) gallons. Wait. I’m seeing that hogshead is like 63 “wine” gallons, not 1/63 gallon. (Not sure conversion of wine gallons to usual gallons though.)
- gen220 4y agoOoh you're totally right, thank you for pointing it out! I think my brain was subconsciously seeking a miles-per-gallon result in a "reasonable" order of magnitude. Edited original comment.
- dwighttk 4y agoThey don’t make hogs like they used to
- BizarroLand 4y agoFrom a quick search it seems both a normal gallon and a wine gallon are measured at 231 cubic cm of liquid, so they're the same. There is a proof gallon which only counts the ethanol content of the liquid towards the gallon, so a 100 proof alcohol would require 2 gallons of liquid to equal 1 proof gallon of liquor.
- cossatot 4y agoThe greatest Simpsons car-and-measurement-unit bit is of course this one: "She'll go 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene" which maybe makes sense if you're plowing a field... Part of a pretty amazing 20 second bit. Pure old Simpsons gold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07vdtBMG4Kg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07vdtBMG4Kg
- drewzero1 4y agoIf you wish that 20 seconds would last a little longer, and also be remixed into a song, check out "Put it in H" by Dankmus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HXT7fDkf9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HXT7fDkf9I
- deaps 4y agoI mean that's easier to visualize than saying a "hole in the road that is about 92 cubic centimeters."
- Zababa 4y agoI think that's because they're not really equivalent. At least for me, a hole the size of 2 washing machines is something that will look close to two washing machines put together. That limits the shape it can have. On the other hand, 92 cubic centimeters doesn't. It could be a 1cm x 1cm x 92cm hole, which wouldn't be possible with 2 washing machines. If we assume that the two washing machines are side to side, and that the average washing machine is 60cm x 60cm x 85 cm (height), that would be a hole 1.20m width x 60 cm depth x 85 cm height. The washing machine example is still easier to visualize, but it's also better than "a 612 000 cubic centimeters hole".
- OJFord 4y agoI think 'hole in the road' comes with its own visualisation more likely to be accurate than anything you get from 'two washing machines'.
- harry8 4y agoHow do you accurately visualize whether "hole in the road" means you saying "what was that?" And driving on without slowing. Or whether the hole will require a crane to get your car to a place where it can be towed if you, possibly inadvertently, attempt to drive over it?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- donthellbanme 4y ago
- sandworm101 4y agoIt can get more extremes than memes. Some government agencies have policies specifically avoiding the metric system in public announcements. Issue a statement about a 30 centimeter wave event and a good percentage of people in coastal areas might panic. Trial attorneys also coach witnesses to never speak in metric as at least one person on every jury won't be able to follow ... and two more will hate you for forcing them to remember words they last heard in highschool.
- badwolf 4y agoI like the "Large boulder the size of a small boulder" measurement system by the San Miguel Sheriff. - https://twitter.com/SheriffAlert/status/1221881862244749315 https://twitter.com/SheriffAlert/status/1221881862244749315
- xeromal 4y agoThis is great lol
- titzer 4y agoAmerican here, lived in Europe a while, but back. I got decent with meters. Recently, I've been thinking about ways to visualize a billion. Here's one: There's a billion cubic millimeters in a cubic meter (cubic yard). If you take a meter (yardstick) and visualize the 1000 millimeters in it, then make a plane of that 1000x1000, i.e. a million, then stack a thousand of those, that's a billion. I still can't get my head around it, TBH. A billion is a lot! But "billion cubes" are a nice unit; you can stack up a lot of them to get more billions.
- temp0826 4y agoHow many libraries of congresses is that?
- AaronM 4y agoI wonder if folks do that because its easier to picture a hole the size of two washing machines. That would be like 4-6 sq ft which can be more difficult to visualize.
- irrational 4y agoDoesn’t “avoid” imply that Americans are actually giving the metric system any thought?
- ajmurmann 4y agoPutting it that way made me immediately think that that's less than 4 cans per person. I would have thought that more actual cans of coke were in circulation.
- postingawayonhn 4y agoWell they apparently sell nearly 2 billion bottles a day.
- flint 4y agoDid you see where OP changed the units of measure from cans to bottles...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dhosek 4y agoI’m fond of odd measures. I like to say that something is the size of a ⸻'s head, for example, “that burger is the size of a cat’s head.” I also will describe a date as being a week and a half from some arbitrary date.
- johncoltrane 4y agoI dread my coming house move because of how many billies of books I have :-).
- Wohlf 4y agoWhen it comes to moving books I measure in how many days it will take to stop being sore.
- dhosek 4y agoMy problem with moving is always that once I've unpacked the books and the music stuff, I tend to lose interest so I end up with boxes of stuff lurking for months afterwards. Being married helps a bit, but my wife has her own blind spots and we still have boxes in the basement eleven years later that have yet to be unpacked.
- marssaxman 4y agoIf you threw them all out unopened, how many more years would it take before anyone noticed?
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoI used to work in a produce department, so I do the same thing but with fruits and veggies.
- somishere 4y agoV. useful for your next pregnancy
- cobbal 4y ago
- memling 4y ago> That's a unique unit of measure I've not seen before. There are some fun Wikipedia entries on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_meas...
- jvanderbot 4y agoOne evening as the sun went down And the basalt fire was burning Down the track came a mermaid swimming and he say "Boys I'm not turning" I'm headed for a pond that's far away beside the seagrass fountains so come with me and we'll go and see The big rock candy mountains.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoA billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth. A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged. A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music. A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning. —Robert Goizueta, chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company, April 1997
- slim 4y agoso that represents between 32 and 64 days of coca cola production of 1997.