XKCD: It's more than a comic

Cooking recipes do occasionally use ounces, which is frustrating because they convey nothing to me.

Teaspoons and tablespoons don't convey all that much, either. There are multiple ways of filling a spoon, after all.

Sure but it gives you a rough idea, scales based on things you have around you work because you will normally have a thing there to check with. That’s why feet and teaspoons are probably some of the more logical imperial measurements.

A yard though, that’s just confusing.

I’m British though, so I set my heating to 21 because I like it warm compared to my girlfriend, I put litres of fuel in my motorbike and it does a certain number of gallons to the mile, I measure in inches, feet, meters, and miles and I’ll often buy 2 pints of milks or order a pint at the pub.

edited 2nd Dec '17 1:45:29 PM by Silasw

A few years ago I put an old family recipe online. I tried to make it as universal as possible, giving gram amounts for all ingredients (as well as trying to find equivalents/substitutes for ingredients not common outside the US) and I was very surprised to learn that "tablespoon" is a nigh-universal unit of volume.

(The most difficult substitution was corn syrup. Followed by all-purpose baking flour.)

I learned that too on this very thread a few months ago, and was equally surprised. I had been griping for years about recipes that gave quantities as spoons, half cups, glasses and so on because I found these awfully vague (and I'm pretty sure I completely screwed up at least one recipe because of that). I mean spoons of a liquid I can understand, but as soon as it's something like flour or sugar you can never know how full you are supposed to have them, and glasses or cups come in so many different sizes that I am never sure what it means.

Tablespoon is a good measure if you don't need to be precise. It's intuitive and you can apply it pretty quickly. You won't say "2.456 teaspoons" though. If you are doing calculations, then metric is way more practical though, because unit conversions are much simpler.

What's weird to me as an American is hearing recipes from Europe talk about adding "30 milligrams of this spice". I'm not sure I've ever seen a kitchen scale in person.

edited 2nd Dec '17 3:17:40 PM by TParadox

I don't remember having seen many recipes like this. My scale has a precision of 1 gram, and most recipes I know use multiple of ten grams. However, it can happen when the ingredient in question is sold in small quantities, and the quantity required by the recipe happens to be the same as those quantities, so you know that 30 milligrams is exactly one little bag for instance.

Isn't 30 milligrams something on the order of a few dozen grains? Like, a pinch?

Wait, you guys dont know that tablespoons and teaspoons are precise amounts?

I'm not sure if they don't know that or are pointing out that teaspoon and tablespoon don't sound like units of measurement. Or something.

There's some mild ambiguity with how far up the spoon you fill it (in some cases, it's to the top, sometimes to a line) and whether you gather, loosely pack, or tightly pack. I know that most meal replacement powders have someone commenting on how "the scoop isn't really accurate. I use a kitchen scale to make sure I get the right amount of protein and calories" as if the difference isn't a small fraction of the total amount...

The only spoons I've seen where you fill to a line inside the spoon are the ones that are "fill to the line for a tablespoon, to the top for four teaspoons (1 tbsp + 1 tsp).

Though some recipes call for "heaping tablespoons" and "heaping cups", which are supposed to be overflowing a bit.

edited 2nd Dec '17 7:54:05 PM by TParadox

I took it to mean ordinary table and teaspoons, without markings, which are not precise. The shape and depth of spoons can vary, and do you fill them flat, or in a little heap?

This is precisely why I never thought that tablespoons could be considered a precise measure of quantity, except for liquids. And yeah, I know that there is little difference between a flat tablespoon and a really full tablespoon is minute, but when a recipe asks for 5 or 6 of those, the differences can add up to significantly change the amount you are using.

Ah. Yeah, that's like the issue of assuming a foot is the length of an actual foot or that a meter is measured against the width of a gas meter.

Although, in a pinch, you can do alright with regular and tea spoons.

The measuring cups I have in my kitchen are labeled in both metric and imperial. 1 cup is 250 mL, 1 tablespoon is 15 mL, and 1 teaspoon is 5 mL. I suspect that they were made in metric to approximate the imperial units, but I really don't like how they have a red base and clear lip. I'm still confused about whether to fill to the top of the cup or the top of the red

My family has the big cups that are marked at all the intermediate levels which are marked in both, I think. But for most ingredients, the one-size cups out of the sets of graduated cups (1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 1 cup, maybe 1 1/4 cup in some sets) work better.

I also possess measuring cups marked as a teaspoon and a tablespoon, or fractions thereof. You are supposed to fill them level with the brim.

Yep, standard baking measures here in Canada, despite us using metric, are in tsp, tbsp, and cups. We have several sets (little measuring spoons on a ring) which give us those measurements or fractions of them.

#1924: Solar Panels

One of my fellow actors manages to consistently get money back on his solar panels here in PA. I'm not quite as sunny about my chances.

Why would it be a bad idea to put solar panels on things that run hot, like jets and cars? Aren't there cars with solar panels already?

I'm going to offer that it has to do with temperature gradients, but I don't know enough about the technology to say precisely why that's bad.

edited 4th Dec '17 8:50:18 AM by Fighteer

I think it's because something that runs hot requires a lot of power, much more than solar panels could deliver.

Also, this flowchart doesn't work for satellites/probes at all!

Well, asphalt doesn't require power, so that logic doesn't hold. The solar panels on satellites are generally held well away from the main body, too, so radiated heat must be a concern.

Solar panels do lose efficiency at higher temperatures. Most are rated for power efficiency at 25 C and lose a percentage per degree over that. A very hot surface like asphalt would naturally reduce the efficiency of any panels installed on it. Not sure why it's an automatic deal breaker though.

edited 4th Dec '17 9:13:44 AM by Fighteer