Chris Wagner wrote:
<snip>Several English units are binary. ounce 2^0 cup 2^3 I was just hoping this very off topic (Debian ISPs <> metric/imperial measurements) would go away, but I feel I need to correct this. An American cup is indeed 2^3 (8 fl. oz), however a British cup is 10 fl. oz (where the definition of fluid ounces also differ). More definitions of the "cup" unit are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_%28unit%29 Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_weights_and_measures#Metric_measures - I'd feel a bit short changed here in the UK if I was given a US gallon of liquid when I was expecting a UK gallon... So while I agree that all units have an arbitrary, man made basis, the issue is that your cup isn't the same size as my cup. I have a bread-maker based on US measurements, and thankfully comes with US measures to use, but if I accidentally used a British cup of water instead of the American one, then my bread would end up rather sloppy... So to me, while we only partly use the metric system here in the UK, the advantage of metric units is that my litre is the same as your litre (or liter)... Gavin --
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