Text 16433, 88 rader
Skriven 2008-11-15 12:30:38 av Glen Jamieson
     Kommentar till en text av Dave Sacerdote
Ärende: CELCIUS 81115
=====================
 -=> Quoting Dave Sacerdote to Glen Jamieson <=-

 GJ> What is good in a system which uses different portions of a 
 GJ> dead king's anatomy as measurement standards?  

 DS> Hahahaha, silly Glen.  We don't use "imperial" measurements.  We
 DS> use "US" measurements.  No Kings were harmed in the formation of
 DS> our ounces.

You did use as near as you could get to King Henry's inches and feet,
and then just re-labelled the Pommy ones "Made in USA".  You went part
of the way towards sanity by making your little tons only 2000 pounds
instead of the big, 2240 pound ones which in fact, the metric tonnes
finished up very close to.  Where you, and the Poms, got your differing
liquid and solid ounces from, I have no idea, as they appear to bear
no relationship to any traditional measureable volume and mass.
 
 DS> In the meantime, cups and quarts and bushels and pecks are
 DS> just fine with me.
 GJ> Maybe, but you are of an older generation, who has had to learn all
 GJ> those achaic measures, and now want to justify that learning. 

 DS> We still teach real measurements in school, where our kids aren't too 
 DS> lazy to learn more than one system.
 
Our kids are lazier than yours, and much prefer to play video games or
watch soap operas than to learn how many links in a chain, or the
length of a rod, pole or perch in inches, like I had to do (although
that was before TV).

 DS> It would cost average Joes millions of dollars, because the bastards
 DS> would round everything up.
 GJ> The way around that, which works, is to round totals to the nearest 5
 GJ> cents.  The cash register does it automagically.  In fact, Joe can make
 GJ> a small gain if he wishes.  Shelf prices are shown as, "$2.99" each, so
 GJ> if Joe buys 2 of them, the $5.98 total is rounded to $6.00 and he would
 GJ> lose 2c.  Otoh, if he buys 3 of 'em, the $8.97 is rounded to $8.95 and
 GJ> he comes out 2c to the better.  In practice, very few people bother to
 GJ> do that, over a mere 2c per total purchase.

 DS> In the US, $8.97 would get rounded UP to $9.00 - consumers would
 DS> WANT to round down, but businesses and tax collectors etc. would
 DS> universally round UP.  You can call it a "mere" 2c per total 
 DS> purchase if you want, but that's just a lawyerly red herring to
 DS> distract from the real issue, which is: Multiply that 2c by a few
 DS> million transactions, and Average Joe is out millions of dollars.

We have electronic machines called cash registers, which do that
rounding up and down in the manner described.  If a customer found his
print-out had been rounded the wrong way, he would justifiably round on
the store-keeper and complain bitterly.

As an aside, I was buying a bottle of vino tinto recently in a
Barcelona wine shop, and saw it had a real, old, brass, cash register
on the counter - as well as a computer screen connected to a bar code
scanner.  The man checked the cost of my purchase with the scanner,
then rang it up on the cash register, which went, "Ching!" in the
traditional manner.  Needless to say, it was a metric machine.

 DS> Do you ever get headaches from those rose-colored glasses?

No, as they do not incorporate the blinkers which appear to be commonly
fitted to glasses worn in some other countries.

 ->  The local potters make olive bowls,
 -> which are shallow bowls, pear shaped in plan, with a division between
 -> the smaller end and the larger part, so that the two compartments are
 -> in the ratio 4:1.  Their application is immediately obvious, as olives
 -> are put in the larger section, and the stones put back in the small
 -> part.  In an olive-eating society, that solves the problem of what to
 -> do with your stones.  If you have any potter friends, they might be
 -> interested in making some, which would make ideal Christmas gifts.

 DS> It is traditional in America to stealthily secret one's olive stones
 DS> in the host's houseplants, atop tall furniture, beneath uneaten
 DS> vegetables, &c.

That is also often done in Australia.  In a take-away eatery in Madrid
I went to once, a bowl of olives was put out on the counter for the
benefit of waiting customers, but as there was no receptical for the
stones, some people put them back in the bowl with the uneaten olives.
I was not impressed, so I feel I have a mission to convert the
olive-eating world to use the Evora style olive bowls.  Once I have
sorted out my photos I shall endeavour to send you a picture.
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR]

--- FLAME v2.0/b
 * Origin: Braintap BBS Adelaide Australia (3:800/449)