On Mon, 9 Jul 2001 08:41:25 Jim Elwell wrote: ... >THE UGLY: > >Nomination for the WORST dual-unit label ever printed (see >dixie3.jpg): package of paper drink cups, labeled as "7 oz >(206.99mL)"... (c) given that it is not a volume of product being >listed, but merely the capacity of a paper cup, it should have >been listed as 200 mL. > Agreed 100%. ...THE BAD: >... >No sign of 3 L milk containers. > Perhaps that was more a local experience somewhere else. It may take time until it spills over to other regions. >A Lowe's yardstick (49 cents): this has numerous >colloquial-to-metric conversions, NONE the other way. Good! Let's keep it that way. When folks see metric let them understand what they are by themselves. The bad: >conversion factors are given in six to eight significant digits >(e.g. sq yrd x 0.83612736 -> square meter). > Given that people would have to use a calculator anyways let this also be that way. On the other hand I guess I understand where you're coming from, that it would be nice for such factors to be "short and sweet", which, it's assumed, would lift the burden of conversion on the consumer. One other point is that it would hinder people's memorization process of such factors, thus potentially hindering their willingness to go over such exercises. However, perhaps precision may outweigh such benefits. >THE GOOD: > >You guys are going to love this! Promoting a hard-metric, 500 g >box of pasta as having ONE EXTRA SERVING! over a 1 lb. box (see >pasta3.jpg). > >(However, you purists will certainly object: the extra 46 grams >is not quite a serving (specified as 55 g on the nutrition >label). Damn marketers!) >... Jim, I think they were using the term "serving" in the nutrition sense. Please remember that nutrition labels almost always refer to a "serving" as being ~30 g! Marcus Get 250 color business cards for FREE! http://businesscards.lycos.com/vp/fastpath/
