Minor things that bother you

[elsmere241]

My digital kitchen scale, a cheap, not-particularly-accurate thing I got from Walmart, lets me convert between pounds, ounces, and grams. It's not that unusual, is it?

You'd think it wouldn't be here, where different things are measured differently, often by different people.

[Bruce]

Translating recipes between countries is a pain.  Many British and European cookbooks measure in grams.  Many US cookbooks measure volume instead and hope for the best.  If a US kitchen has a scale at all it's probably in ounces.  A lot of ingredients have different names from their US name, or they have the same name but differ somehow.  Is British "plain flour" like US all purpose flour or pastry flour or bread flour?  Are their eggs the same size as ours? 

Have to also watch for the US pint/British pint difference. Having units of different sizes share the same name is very dumb.

[kkt]

I have a massively built cast iron baker's scale with a pan for what you're measuring and a plate for counterweights.  At the moment I have weights totalling 7 pounds, plus the fine adjustment arm gives ounces up to 8 pounds, but if I wanted to improvise more counterweights it could weigh more.

It was my mom's when I was a baby.  I was small as a baby, and my pediatrician wanted to be sure I was gaining weight, so mom weighed me on that scale every week.

[J N Winkler]

Is British "plain flour" like US all purpose flour or pastry flour or bread flour?  Are their eggs the same size as ours?

I think "plain flour" is used in contradistinction to self-raising flour.  The Wikipedia article on chicken egg sizes has details of sizing standards by country; the UK now uses European sizes (the old classes, from 0 to 7, are now obsolete), and they are close enough to those in the US that I would not worry about any differences for recipe purposes.

[Big John]

Also Britian uses different definitions for large numbers.  Million is the largest number which have the same definition.  1,000,000,000 is billion in America and milliard in Britain, then to confuse even more, 1,000,000,000,000 is trillion in America and billion in Britain.

[hotdogPi]

Also Britian uses different definitions for large numbers.  Million is the largest number which have the same definition.  1,000,000,000 is billion in America and milliard in Britain, then to confuse even more, 1,000,000,000,000 is trillion in America and billion in Britain.

Not anymore. However, mainland Europe still does what you described.

[J N Winkler]

This is the distinction between short and long scales.  The only real complication (when having to deal with documents that report currency amounts) is having to differentiate between foreign-language abbreviations for million and milliard (short-scale billion)--in German these are Mio. and Mrd. respectively.

[kkt]

Also Britian uses different definitions for large numbers.  Million is the largest number which have the same definition.  1,000,000,000 is billion in America and milliard in Britain, then to confuse even more, 1,000,000,000,000 is trillion in America and billion in Britain.

Pretty sure the special British use of Billion etc. is antique now.  The UK Treasury abandoned it sometime in the 1980s, if I remember right, and everyone else followed.

[zachary_amaryllis]

This is more specific to me:

I grab imagery from 3 radio towers near me, to assemble timelapse videos. To do this properly, the camera has to be pointed at the same thing, at the same time of day. I don't own these cameras, so I can't bitch a lot (or at all) but the people who own them periodically move them around, thus causing up-f--kage in my video.

[JoePCool14]

When I need to get into a CAD file, but my co-worker leaves it open on his computer overnight.

[skluth]

Translating recipes between countries is a pain.  Many British and European cookbooks measure in grams.  Many US cookbooks measure volume instead and hope for the best.  If a US kitchen has a scale at all it's probably in ounces.  A lot of ingredients have different names from their US name, or they have the same name but differ somehow.  Is British "plain flour" like US all purpose flour or pastry flour or bread flour?  Are their eggs the same size as ours? 

Have to also watch for the US pint/British pint difference. Having units of different sizes share the same name is very dumb.

I had no idea about this and I've ordered pints a couple times in pubs. Makes Merry even more a partier in LotR when he says "This, my friend, is a pint" to Pippin in the Prancing Pony.

[kkt]

Translating recipes between countries is a pain.  Many British and European cookbooks measure in grams.  Many US cookbooks measure volume instead and hope for the best.  If a US kitchen has a scale at all it's probably in ounces.  A lot of ingredients have different names from their US name, or they have the same name but differ somehow.  Is British "plain flour" like US all purpose flour or pastry flour or bread flour?  Are their eggs the same size as ours? 

Have to also watch for the US pint/British pint difference. Having units of different sizes share the same name is very dumb.

I had no idea about this and I've ordered pints a couple times in pubs. Makes Merry even more a partier in LotR when he says "This, my friend, is a pint" to Pippin in the Prancing Pony.

Yes.... after visiting England for the first time, returning home to the 12 US Oz. beers I was wondering who took the other half of my beer.

[Scott5114]

When I need to get into a CAD file, but my co-worker leaves it open on his computer overnight.

Wait, your OS locks the file for reading when someone else has it open? Not just writing?

Or is it the CAD program doing that? If the latter, you could use the OS file manager to copy it to a clean file name and access that. (Unless there's some sort of lock flag in the file itself, which would be a horribly botched design–suppose the coworker's computer loses power without ever releasing the file lock?)

[kurumi]

When I need to get into a CAD file, but my co-worker leaves it open on his computer overnight.

Wait, your OS locks the file for reading when someone else has it open? Not just writing?

Or is it the CAD program doing that? If the latter, you could use the OS file manager to copy it to a clean file name and access that. (Unless there's some sort of lock flag in the file itself, which would be a horribly botched design–suppose the coworker's computer loses power without ever releasing the file lock?)

Is the file under a revision control system? ISTR Microsoft SourceSafe was like that -- you check out a file for editing and no one else can check it in (this was about 20 years ago though). In that case, if the coworker spontaneously retires* with the laptop, a sysadmin can flip that bit on the server.

\* this did happen a few jobs ago -- a finance guy went to Mexico over the holidays and didn't come back. I assume he was OK and it wasn't like an Ambrose Bierce situation

[Scott5114]

Source control has improved so much over the last 20 years that I would hope nobody's using a system as mindless as that in the year 2022...

[LilianaUwU]

This is the distinction between short and long scales.  The only real complication (when having to deal with documents that report currency amounts) is having to differentiate between foreign-language abbreviations for million and milliard (short-scale billion)--in German these are Mio. and Mrd. respectively.

Meanwhile, the abbreviation for milliard (billion in French) is G. Whyyyyyyy?

[CNGL-Leudimin]

It comes from Giga, the SI prefix for billion.

[Scott5114]

Meanwhile, in the US, you sometimes see G as an abbreviation for 1000, from the slang term grand. This used to be more common in the past; nowadays K for kilo is more common.

[JoePCool14]

When I need to get into a CAD file, but my co-worker leaves it open on his computer overnight.

Wait, your OS locks the file for reading when someone else has it open? Not just writing?

Or is it the CAD program doing that? If the latter, you could use the OS file manager to copy it to a clean file name and access that. (Unless there's some sort of lock flag in the file itself, which would be a horribly botched design–suppose the coworker's computer loses power without ever releasing the file lock?)

No, we can still open files to read and save an extra copy if we really wanted to. When I said getting into, I meant actually editing.

[vdeane]

When I need to get into a CAD file, but my co-worker leaves it open on his computer overnight.

Wait, your OS locks the file for reading when someone else has it open? Not just writing?

Or is it the CAD program doing that? If the latter, you could use the OS file manager to copy it to a clean file name and access that. (Unless there's some sort of lock flag in the file itself, which would be a horribly botched design–suppose the coworker's computer loses power without ever releasing the file lock?)

Is the file under a revision control system? ISTR Microsoft SourceSafe was like that -- you check out a file for editing and no one else can check it in (this was about 20 years ago though). In that case, if the coworker spontaneously retires* with the laptop, a sysadmin can flip that bit on the server.

\* this did happen a few jobs ago -- a finance guy went to Mexico over the holidays and didn't come back. I assume he was OK and it wasn't like an Ambrose Bierce situation

Reminds me of ProjectWise.

[Scott5114]

When I need to get into a CAD file, but my co-worker leaves it open on his computer overnight.

Wait, your OS locks the file for reading when someone else has it open? Not just writing?

Or is it the CAD program doing that? If the latter, you could use the OS file manager to copy it to a clean file name and access that. (Unless there's some sort of lock flag in the file itself, which would be a horribly botched design–suppose the coworker's computer loses power without ever releasing the file lock?)

No, we can still open files to read and save an extra copy if we really wanted to. When I said getting into, I meant actually editing.

I'd be really tempted to just work on a local copy of the file to do what I need to do and clobber the other dude's changes as soon as he releases the file lock. Serves him right for leaving the file locked overnight.

[Scott5114]

I went to Taco Bell the other day and the total for two people was over $20.

Taco Bell isn't worth $20.

So I guess that was the last time I'll have Taco Bell.

The 21st century sucks.

[jakeroot]

I'm noticing USD getting weaker, or the Yen getting stronger. Exchange rate has not been in my favor the last week. Mid October, 1USD = 150 yen, now it's closer to 140 yen.

So, minor thing that bothers me: paying rent in another currency than the one you get paid in.

[Max Rockatansky]

I went to Taco Bell the other day and the total for two people was over $20.

Taco Bell isn't worth $20.

So I guess that was the last time I'll have Taco Bell.

The 21st century sucks.

Didn't back the future claim some stupid level of inflation where a quarter in 1985 became the equivalent to $100 by 2015?

[kkt]

I went to Taco Bell the other day and the total for two people was over $20.

Taco Bell isn't worth $20.

So I guess that was the last time I'll have Taco Bell.

The 21st century sucks.

Didn't back the future claim some stupid level of inflation where a quarter in 1985 became the equivalent to $100 by 2015?

The other direction is seeming more likely now...