Typical for Britain our weights and measures are an absurd hodgepodge - like the language.
The most absurd of absurd is "Miles per Gallon" when we stopped selling road fuels in gallons an eternity ago. We managed to get our heads around the gallons to litres switch, but didn't at the same time adopt Miles per Litre.
Miles are an odd one. I definitely use them for driving / travel, but when doing exercise its kilometers.
And yet, even before I was born, the grid on Ordnance Survey maps was based on metres and multiples thereof.
Well, the metre was originally defined as an even fraction of the distance from the pole to equator, so that kind of makes sense. The yard, believed to originate from the human pace, is just random in relation to geography. You'd end up with a bit left over.
The nautical mile was also originally based on a fraction of the distance from pole to equator, as 1 minute of arc. So by definition, 10,000 km = (60 x 90) = 5400 nautical miles.
You'd imagine a unit that varies with latitude would be a recipe for chaos but somehow it seems to work. Am I right in thinking that 10,000 km = 5400 NM only at the equator and not when paddling around Spitzbergen?
Mixed radix measurements are generally for gammons except nautical miles which are very useful for dead reckoning and estimated positions due to the 6-3-1 minute rules.
6 minutes: distance travelled in nm = 1/10 speed in knots 3 minutes: distance travelled in hundreds of yards = speed in knots 1 minute: distance travelled in hundreds of feet = speed in knots
Fuckin' hell aren't there computers for this kind of thing.
Not when you sit the written exam for your sailor’s (or pilot’s) licence.
You have to know where you are, when all the modern technology runs out of batteries.
Quick update on the PB Predictions Competition: The following 45 posters have entered so far, if you think you have entered and are not on the list either PM me or post on here. Cheers!
(Snip)
I'll aim to post a summary update after the entry closing (end of Saturday 6 January).
I missed the competition, what is it please so I can enter?
If it IS Biden vs Haley then I'd confidently predict Haley.
I think I disagree on the former and agree on the latter. IMHO if Biden had any intention of withdrawing in favour of somebody else under any contingencies, he would have played the last year or so differently. As it is we are in a position where there is no even halfway plausible alternative or obvious successor to him on the D side, because nobody else has felt able to try to put their case (understandable since running against a sitting President is disruptive to the party). If Biden had had "maybe I won't run" seriously in mind I think he would have been preparing the party to be in reasonable shape for that transition. And the timetable doesn't work for the D party to wait until the R candidate is clear to pick their candidate, because none of the even remotely possible alternatives are on the primary ballot, so it won't be a "Biden drops out and the second placed runner takes over" situation. (Entry for the South Carolina primary closed way back in early November, for example.)
Agreed that if it ends up that way Haley is favourite, though I'm not super confident -- mostly working on the basis that as a comparative unknown she gets the benefit of not being widely disliked and a big turnout motivator the way Trump is.
What if it were Harris versus Haley ?
Haley by a country mile (insert km equiv.)
My long-held belief is that in the US a female candidate from the right is far more readily accepted than one from the left.
A generation ago the same was suggested that the first black President would come from the GOP, with talk of Colin Powell etc, but then Obama came along.
The issue isn't that America isn't ready for a female Democratic President, its that all the potential female Democratic candidates are shit.
Could 2024 be the Roe v Wade election? Haley as well as Trump could have problems with half the electorate.
""As much as I'm pro-life, I don't judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don't want them to judge me for being pro-life," Haley said at the time, while also making it clear that she'd sign a GOP-crafted national abortion ban into law if she were elected president."
Quick update on the PB Predictions Competition: The following 45 posters have entered so far, if you think you have entered and are not on the list either PM me or post on here. Cheers!
(Snip)
I'll aim to post a summary update after the entry closing (end of Saturday 6 January).
I missed the competition, what is it please so I can enter?
If it IS Biden vs Haley then I'd confidently predict Haley.
I think I disagree on the former and agree on the latter. IMHO if Biden had any intention of withdrawing in favour of somebody else under any contingencies, he would have played the last year or so differently. As it is we are in a position where there is no even halfway plausible alternative or obvious successor to him on the D side, because nobody else has felt able to try to put their case (understandable since running against a sitting President is disruptive to the party). If Biden had had "maybe I won't run" seriously in mind I think he would have been preparing the party to be in reasonable shape for that transition. And the timetable doesn't work for the D party to wait until the R candidate is clear to pick their candidate, because none of the even remotely possible alternatives are on the primary ballot, so it won't be a "Biden drops out and the second placed runner takes over" situation. (Entry for the South Carolina primary closed way back in early November, for example.)
Agreed that if it ends up that way Haley is favourite, though I'm not super confident -- mostly working on the basis that as a comparative unknown she gets the benefit of not being widely disliked and a big turnout motivator the way Trump is.
What if it were Harris versus Haley ?
Haley by a country mile (insert km equiv.).
My long-held belief is that in the US a female candidate from the right is far more readily accepted than one from the left.
The only time a female candidate appeared on a Presidential ticket for the GOP, she lost and was seen to be a bit of a drag on the campaign in the end. Clinton at least won the popular vote. In both cases you can probably argue they'd have gained more acceptance had they been men, although in both cases they were also flawed candidates regardless of gender.
I think we can exempt Geraldine Ferraro from the debate - whilst she was part of a doomed ticket, it was 40 years ago and her contribution to Mondale's failure was pretty limited.
In terms of wider acceptance of female candidates, perhaps worth noting that Nancy Pelosi won four elections as House Speaker. Clearly, that's indirect election - but so is our own PM.
Indeed, if carbs are THAT bad for you, how DO you explain the Japanese?
They stuff themselves with rice. They obsess about it. They eat it all the time and when they're not gorging on rice they eat noodles by the ton
Yet virtually no one is obese and they live until they're 110
It's like the supposed dangers of processed meats - hams, chorizos, salamis. How then do the Spanish have one of the highest life expectancies in the developed world?
I have never been to Japan, but the actual portions of rice that they consume seem pretty modest to me - in the media portrayals I've seen.
Watching the Japanese eat rice on film and TV seems a most spectacularly inadequate research methodology to me?
First client day of 2024 (as we use the English calendar not Scottish...). Amongst other things I am determined to shed the excess weight I am carrying - need to drop an exciting 32kg to get back to my fighting weight of summer 2020.
Debilitating cough doesn't help!
Well done, that makes me feel better about only having to lose 22kg. Going to make a real effort this year, just as soon as the Christmas chocolates are finished.
That all stopped as the piper welcomed the new year. We have *loads* left, but all with long dates. So it can all stay in the pantry for now...
Your fortitude makes you a hero in my eyes, talking of which, thanks very much, one of the last remaining fudges.
'Tablet' surely: unless it's imported fudge from south of the border.
I'm more concerned about where these imported 'kilos' are coming from. Who measures their weight in kilos? You either need to lose half a stone, a stone, or several stone - thems the options.
Electronic bathroom scales can be set to show kilograms, stones and pounds, or just pounds for any visiting Americans. I suspect most people do not know this and just use whatever is the manufacturer's default. Reading product manuals is for girly swots.
The only time I switch our bathroom scales to kilos is when weighing suitcases ahead of a holiday.
Otherwise stones and pounds. It is the only unit for people's weight* where I have any idea if they are light or heavy. It appears that I weigh 82 kg. I will no doubt have forgotten this by teatime.
*Strictly mass, but this isn't a physics class.
You are right of course, but it is only habit. if you leave them on kilos it will become the new norm (and it will be stones/pounds you will forget) and then it become convenient for doing the stuff where you have to weigh things in kilos by holding them and stepping on the scales (for us this is suitcases and the dog)
I used to use stones for weight but defaulted to kilos after having my BMI calculated a few times in medicals. It was just easier then to stick with kilos. I hover between 66 and 70kg. 70 acts as a useful ceiling.
I don’t have a strong preference either way, like language you use what you’re most familiar with. I have a random mix as do most Brits: kg and g for cooking, km for walking, miles for driving, MPG, pint of beer, ml for wine, C for temperature, both feet and inches and centimetres for height etc.
I really don’t think many people can be arsed to make a culture war battle out of weights and measures.
Agree. I am metric for just about everything except where doing so would be silly eg miles on the road, mpg, pints in the pub. However I do have a quirk in that I only know my height is in feet and inches. No idea what it is in metric, even though I measure everything else in millimetres, metres and kilometres. I suspect that is because I stopped growing when feet and inches were used for height so it has stuck with me and frankly I don't care.
Just bemused that @Luckyguy1983 thinks it is not old fashioned to stick with imperial. My grandparents were horrified when the currency went metric. I thought they were dinosaurs then. They couldn't see how stuff would become much easier. That was 70 years ago and @Luckyguy1983 still doesn't think that making such a change is moving with the times.
The only advantage of pounds over kilograms is that its easier to notice small changes without using decimals. Losing a kilo a week is improbable, but losing a pound or two a week is quite attainable. I've lost twenty pounds feels better to say than I've lost nine kilos, even if they're the same thing.
But I use pounds in a metric fashion, without any of that stones nonsense, I simply weigh how many pounds I am and note the change. Otherwise I'd definitely stick with kilos over converting stones into pounds and then noting the change.
Using pounds only is just American nonsense.
British stone for British bodies!
Quite. If you need to lose a stone, you need to lose a stone - no amount of poncing around with kilos is going to change that fact.
Americans are even worse for using pounds as their *largest* unit of weight - so that a lorry might weigh seventy thousand pounds. Why?! This is what 'tons' are for (even if they don't use proper tons either.
Mind you, the documentary on the 1947 big freeze that was on C5 yesterday had a classic of that type, commenting that 61 billion litres of water flowed [somewhere, sometime] during the thaw. What is that supposed to look like?! This is why 'Olympic swimming pools' and 'Lake Ullswater's were invented.
And, of course, the principal gift that Wales has given to our planet.
Anyone interested in understanding longevity should learn about the Hispanic Paradox: "The Hispanic paradox is an epidemiological finding that Hispanic Americans tend to have health outcomes that "paradoxically" are comparable to, or in some cases better than, those of their U.S. non-Hispanic White counterparts, even though Hispanics have lower average income and education, higher rates of disability, as well as a higher incidence of various cardiovascular risk factors and metabolic diseases." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_paradox
(In my semi-informed opinion, stronger families and communities explain the "paradox'.)
Maybe they don’t drive thru MaccyD’s quite so often?
Anyone interested in understanding longevity should learn about the Hispanic Paradox: "The Hispanic paradox is an epidemiological finding that Hispanic Americans tend to have health outcomes that "paradoxically" are comparable to, or in some cases better than, those of their U.S. non-Hispanic White counterparts, even though Hispanics have lower average income and education, higher rates of disability, as well as a higher incidence of various cardiovascular risk factors and metabolic diseases." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_paradox
(In my semi-informed opinion, stronger families and communities explain the "paradox'.)
They probably have a better diet than many non-Hispanics.
Anybody else in that post Christmas/New Year hell of trying to work out when the bloody recycling next gets collected? It's been so windy for so long, you can't just take a punt, cuz the designated boxes will be somewhere in Somerset by teatime...
Does your council not have a "put the address in and it tells you the collection dates" website page?
It does, but.... It is saying the collection will be Saturday. Now, never having seen any weekend collections, ever, it is asking me to believe in one impossible thing before breakfast.
Comments
The PM's barefaced lie that he has cleared the asylum backlog would be laughable if it wasn't such an insult to the public's intelligence.
Statistics puplished this morning by his own Govt show there are still around 100,000 cases languishing in the Tories' never-ending backlog.
https://x.com/SKinnock/status/1742162507483979993?s=20
Haley as well as Trump could have problems with half the electorate.
""As much as I'm pro-life, I don't judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don't want them to judge me for being pro-life," Haley said at the time, while also making it clear that she'd sign a GOP-crafted national abortion ban into law if she were elected president."
I think we can exempt Geraldine Ferraro from the debate - whilst she was part of a doomed ticket, it was 40 years ago and her contribution to Mondale's failure was pretty limited.
In terms of wider acceptance of female candidates, perhaps worth noting that Nancy Pelosi won four elections as House Speaker. Clearly, that's indirect election - but so is our own PM.