Dave Gorman - America Unchained

toasterman

rdwarr wrote: »

As this thread has demonstrated few people really understand what a "gallon" is! I only know the difference between a US gallon and a UK one because I used to work in the oil industry.

Metric is so much easier. For example, a cubic metre of water ways a tonne. Anybody know (without working it out) what a cubic yard of water weighs in Imperial?

Someone tried to sell me on the benefit of metric last night. I think most people use both systems - drinks in pints, but oil (cooking or car) in litres, height in ft.
When there's a drugs bust, the amount the police find.. if it's cocaine it's in grams, and if it's marijuana it's in ounces.

I think it works keeping both because nobody converts from one to the other. People I know who enjoy cooking have about 8 different types of measurement devices for the different systems.
Plus I don't think anyone does imperial accurately..a pint of beer is measured by eye, people will say they're "about 6ft", it's "a couple of hundred yards to the junction", and if you buy apples...how much do they weigh? "2lb as near as makes no difference". If you wanted it accurately, you'd use metric.

And I had no idea what a us or uk gallon was.
As fuel is measured in litres, and fuel tank size is measured in litres, I find it annoying that how economical a car is, is measured in miles per gallon.
I reckon they just do it to make it sound better. 8 miles to the litre sounds rubbish.. but 36 miles to the gallon sounds...well.. its a bigger number, even if I had no idea what a gallon was.

On that note, when manufacturers release cars and quote an MPG, which system are they using? imperial or us?

CrustyMcMuffin

Any idea if this program will be repeated any time soon?

epninety

toasterman wrote: »

Ok, so if thats US gallons, a 20 gallon tank is 74 litres. I've never been in an estate car with bigger than about a 50 litre tank. It'd be huge.
Whereas 20 gallons UK, is 90 litres...which...well thats massive.

IIRC, Mk1 Land Rover Discovery has a 79 litre tank, and it's physically not *that* big.
Volumes can be deceptive too - your 50L tank might be 30cm x 30cm x 55cm (=49.5L), but changing to a 79L tank only makes it 36cm x 36cm 61cm so only 6cm bigger in each direction.

Modern tanks are often plastic and moulded into complex shapes making use of wasted space where it's expensive to make a metal tank fit.

toasterman

CrustyMcMuffin wrote: »

Any idea if this program will be repeated any time soon?

It was on more4, so normally I'd say yes, BUT they're releasing it on dvd on Monday, so maybe not in this case.

goldspanners

i though the big wigs in brussels were going to outlaw the use of imperial measurement?

LandyAndy

How many people know their fuel consumption in litres/100km or what would be a good or bad figure?

Keep to good old mpg.

toasterman

LandyAndy wrote: »

How many people know their fuel consumption in litres/100km or what would be a good or bad figure?

Keep to good old mpg.

So long as all cars are measured the same, I guess it doesn't really matter what its measured in.
But as gallons don't seem to be used to measure anything else car related, it'd surely make more sense to measure it in litres.. even if it's miles per litre.. thats what people really want to know - how far they get on a tank of fuel, and how many miles they can go for how much.

Redhouse

The point of US/UK gallons to me was irrelevant...more to the point was that when he got stuck in Idaho (?) for a week awaiting a new cameraman he went to a Best Western and ate in McDonalds...therefore defeating the object of the challenge and as such despite his self-congratulory back-slapping on the beach on the East Coast, he had in fact failed. So there.

(Entertaining program though )

toasterman

Well theres some spoilers for people who didn't see it.
He did go a bit mental there, yes..I don't really understand why out of frustration you would do that.

And he might have ate the McDonalds, but as he vomited it all back up again, I'm not sure that counts. Technically he paid for it and gave money to "the man".. I suppose.
I was amazed at how well that bit was filmed actually - from the side so you knew he was vomiting, but you didn't actually see any vomit.. considering he didn't have anyone to hold the camera for him! If I'm throwing up, the last thing I'd be able to concentrate on was how much of my face was in shot.

I must admit I thought it sounded quite boring from the tv listings..but it was entertaining. I should have guessed as much - Gorman always finds ways to make something that could be dull, interesting.

tomstickland

toasterman wrote: »

Someone tried to sell me on the benefit of metric last night.

In terms of measuring a single quantity then no measurement system can have benefit over another. They are simply an aribtrary definition of a single unit.

Personally I prefer to use metric measures because they're what I'm used to.

I don't think anyone does imperial accurately..a pint of beer is measured by eye, people will say they're "about 6ft", it's "a couple of hundred yards to the junction", and if you buy apples...how much do they weigh? "2lb as near as makes no difference". If you wanted it accurately, you'd use metric.

You can be just as inaccurate with both methods. There's nothing wrong with approximation though.