Meme Thread... no politics

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

Oh gosh, especially though the Chicken Sandwich Shortage of 2020!

I haven't checked the accuracy of this, comments welcome.

bobzilla said:

I expect the  guy in the picture is in Greer SC. I think all the X5s & X7s are built there.

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

Iirc, and someone please correct me, but it's less of a "we have this because that's how they did it" and more of a "they did it this way because they knew more than we assume"

there's a deep rabbit hole in mathematics  through history and our understanding of geometry and trig, at least seems to me, we don't do things this way because some smart guy figured it out, rather we do things this way because that's how we see nature acting. If that makes sense. Fibonacci didn't invent the tool, he defined it. Time is measured the way it is because of trig and is explained through the unit circle, but we didn't invent pi, we observed it. If any of that makes sense. 

barefootcyborg5000 said:

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

Iirc, and someone please correct me, but it's less of a "we have this because that's how they did it" and more of a "they did it this way because they knew more than we assume"

there's a deep rabbit hole in mathematics  through history and our understanding of geometry and trig, at least seems to me, we don't do things this way because some smart guy figured it out, rather we do things this way because that's how we see nature acting. If that makes sense. Fibonacci didn't invent the tool, he defined it. Time is measured the way it is because of trig and is explained through the unit circle, but we didn't invent pi, we observed it. If any of that makes sense. 

Humans naturally like to divide things up by 2 and 3 - also by 4. 12 is handy, because is it neatly divisible by 3 and 4. So if we need to know how long something will take - half-hour, quarter-hour, third-hour work.

I point this out to people who say that U.S. standard measurements are inferior to metric. They're not. They are bad for measuring really small or really big things, but they're really convenient for measuring everyday sized things with moderate tolerances. I.e. it's great for cooking or wood working, not for chemistry or machining.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Beautifully put description of non metric measurements.

In reply to Beer Baron :

It's terrible for cooking though. A cup varies drastically, 300 grams is 300 grams. 

RevRico said:

In reply to Beer Baron :

It's terrible for cooking though. A cup varies drastically, 300 grams is 300 grams.

For everyday, normal-scale use, this is a feature, not a bug.

300 grams is 300 grams, which means that anything else is *not* 300 grams. If you can't accurately and precisely measure 300 grams, you're boned. What do you do if you don't have an accurate scale?

A cup can vary drastically, which means that your tolerances can be quite loose, and still be a cup.

Imagine it's circa 1900 and you are cooking. You probably don't have an accurate scale. But you have cups. You can quickly and easily measure - a cup, a half cup, 1/3 cup, and 1/4 cup. It doesn't matter if that cup is 300 grams, 280 grams, or 338 grams. You only need to keep the *proportions* consistent.

Even today. If I'm making pancakes or something - measuring cups are much faster than scales and good enough. I mean, I'm using "a banana" and "2 eggs", not weighing those out and adjusting the recipe to match. Again... this is different if doing really large or really small batches of food at a commercial or laboratory scale.

NickD said:

I feel like this is very relevant to a lot of angry conversations we've had on the forum lately. Mostly about heated seats. 

Oh, you math boys...

Beer Baron said:

RevRico said:

In reply to Beer Baron :

It's terrible for cooking though. A cup varies drastically, 300 grams is 300 grams.

For everyday, normal-scale use, this is a feature, not a bug.

300 grams is 300 grams, which means that anything else is *not* 300 grams. If you can't accurately and precisely measure 300 grams, you're boned. What do you do if you don't have an accurate scale?

A cup can vary drastically, which means that your tolerances can be quite loose, and still be a cup.

Imagine it's circa 1900 and you are cooking. You probably don't have an accurate scale. But you have cups. You can quickly and easily measure - a cup, a half cup, 1/3 cup, and 1/4 cup. It doesn't matter if that cup is 300 grams, 280 grams, or 338 grams. You only need to keep the *proportions* consistent.

Even today. If I'm making pancakes or something - measuring cups are much faster than scales and good enough. I mean, I'm using "a banana" and "2 eggs", not weighing those out and adjusting the recipe to match. Again... this is different if doing really large or really small batches of food at a commercial or laboratory scale.

I'm not buying "300 grams has to be exact and a cup can be very vague". If you want to be sloppy, you can be sloppy in metric as well. You can say "this container looks like it's about 300 grams, and I can easily tell that half of it will now be 150 grams". The math is much easier in metric, US measurements use base 16 (ounces/pounds and sometimes cups), base 12 (cups, and in fractions only), two different bases of small volume (tablespoons and teaspoons) which are usually identified in quarters or sometimes eighths and then there's the mayhem that is fluid volumes (ounces, pints, quarts, gallons).

And I have a cooking scale that could have been around in 1900 :)  

Beer Baron said:

barefootcyborg5000 said:

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

Iirc, and someone please correct me, but it's less of a "we have this because that's how they did it" and more of a "they did it this way because they knew more than we assume"

there's a deep rabbit hole in mathematics  through history and our understanding of geometry and trig, at least seems to me, we don't do things this way because some smart guy figured it out, rather we do things this way because that's how we see nature acting. If that makes sense. Fibonacci didn't invent the tool, he defined it. Time is measured the way it is because of trig and is explained through the unit circle, but we didn't invent pi, we observed it. If any of that makes sense. 

Humans naturally like to divide things up by 2 and 3 - also by 4. 12 is handy, because is it neatly divisible by 3 and 4. So if we need to know how long something will take - half-hour, quarter-hour, third-hour work.

I point this out to people who say that U.S. standard measurements are inferior to metric. They're not. They are bad for measuring really small or really big things, but they're really convenient for measuring everyday sized things with moderate tolerances. I.e. it's great for cooking or wood working, not for chemistry or machining.

You can also point out that converting from hours to seconds is the same mathematical operation as converting from miles to feet. 

No one complains about one and the other gets lots of grief. I say complaining about one and not the other is an illogical stance.

Fahrenheit is more useful than Celsius for measuring how you will likely need to dress for the weather outside, too.

Edit to add:

someone should probably explain big words like "state" and "Illinois" to Logan.