SI Units - Systeme Internationale or Systematic Insanity?

SI units or metrification as many of you will know it resulted in the overall adoption of seconds, grams, metres, litres and Pascals in place of the commonly used minutes, pounds/ounces, feet/inches, pints and pounds per square inch. Okay so some parts of the world have developed a certain reluctance in the uptake of these units despite their development way back in 1960 - the UK for one clinging to miles and pounds of fruit and veg. Aren't we backwards ;)

The reason for blogging has been the recent absolute frustration at the overlaps in the system. In this case it concerns the use of the letter k. k as everyone should know represents 1000. However this substitution takes place for one thousand metres (km), grams (kg) and bytes (kb) to mention just a few, but it also gets placed into the number (£3k) as well.  Once the idea that something might be wrong gets into my head then I have great trouble proving to myself what the correct way actually is, despite probably using it without thinking for years. In the current situation I have been happily converting km2 to m2 (square kilometres to square metres -  1:1,000,000) for absolutely weeks.. until the idea got into my head (thanks guys...) that km2 could actually mean 1000m2 - i.e 1000 square metres rather than 1 million.

Believe me it messes with your head and the more you think the more you doubt!

The consequences, bar the inevitable overestimating in this case jellyfish abundances and biomass - x grams per m3 suddenly reduces to 1000x less grams per m3..., is that I have been doubting the validity of all the other sources of data I have been using. "Maybe they meant 1 thousand instead of 1 million, maybe they meant something else, how can I tell?". The answer to the later bit is simply that I can't. I have to trust that the published figures are as they were meant to be. Arrrghhh.

All I can say is that at some point in my thesis I am going to define and write in words Exactly what I mean by g 100m3 and km2 so that there can be no confusion with my interpretation of the presumably-correct published history.

What a week!

By the way.. 1 Tonne of jellyfish in a square kilometre is exactly the same density as 1 gram in a square metre.  Now convert from T km-2 to g 100m-3 using the web to work out the depth of the water where the samples were taken from... or even better from grams of Carbon m-3 to grams of wet weight per m-3 when the authors haven't provided an equation between one and the other. Good luck!

Don't Despair, take The Chair!

When all seems wrong with the world, your life, anything and everything, I can highly recommend a dose of The Chair.  These Orcadians are the ultimate band to dance to and they have so much passion and energy for their music. It should lift any situation and is certainly better than sliced bread.

Here is a track online to get you started, although a live session  or two (5.30 in.. ;)) is much better.
The rest of the album listing is as follows and any respectable search engine should bring them up:
1. The Folky Gibbon
2. Planet Ork
3. Rhythm Impossible
4. Lily & Diana's
5. Cluck Old Hen
6. The Biscuit Set.
7. The Jigs
8. Et Dodium
9. Slow Reels
10. The Muillean Dubh
11. Beef
12. The Lazy Boy Chant (live)
13. The Folky Gibbon (live)

Enjoy and I wish you luck banishing Depression to the farthest corner of the cupboard.