It looks like you are catching the bug! -----Original Message----- From: "Jim Elwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 08:41:25 -0600 To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [USMA:14238] Metric in New York: the Ugly, the Bad and the Good > I spent about 3 hours in a grocery store (Hannaford's) and 2 > hours in a hardware store (Lowe's) in Middletown, New York last > week (about 110 km north of New York City), looking for > metric-labeled stuff. > > 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)". This is beyond stupid: (a) incorrect conversion > (should be 207.01 mL), (b) ludicrous precision (207 would be > fine), and (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. > > Like Brian White's 227 kg of cheese: a bottle of Pastene brand > sliced peppers, "8 FL. OZ. (237L)". > > THE BAD: > > The dairy companies are really missing the boat. Numerous new > types of packaging (beyond the traditional cardboard or plastic > half-gallon or gallon containers) are being made, none of which > are hard-metric. The closest I found was a bottle of Simply > Orange orange juice in a 1.75 L container. > > No sign of 3 L milk containers. > > A Lowe's yardstick (49 cents): this has numerous > colloquial-to-metric conversions, NONE the other way. The bad: > conversion factors are given in six to eight significant digits > (e.g. sq yrd x 0.83612736 -> square meter). > > 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 Elwell > > > > > > -- _______________________________________________ FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup FREE PC-to-Phone calls with Net2Phone http://www.net2phone.com/cgi-bin/link.cgi?121
