dewinter@cft.philips.nl (Rob de Winter) (02/28/90)
i I am happy that the new newsgroup is going to be founded. There is only one thing that bothers me. Since the group is going to be moderated will it be possible to make sure that everybody all over the world will be able to use the recipes. I mean the measures used in most recipes so far are mostly american. I do not know how to interpret them in the metric system. Will it be possible to have the measures and weights either expressed in two different systems (American and Metric) or translated into the metric system if a majority so desires. Rob de Winter. Reply-To: dewinter@philtis.UUCP (Rob de Winter) Followup-To: Distribution: world Organization: Philips CFT Keywords:
dveditz@dbase.A-T.COM (Dan Veditz) (03/02/90)
dewinter@cft.philips.nl (Rob de Winter) writes: [discussing the new recipes group] > I mean the measures used in most recipes so far > are mostly american. I do not know how to interpret them in the metric > system. > > Will it be possible to have the measures and weights either expressed in > two different systems (American and Metric) or translated into the > metric system if a majority so desires. I understand the problem because I know how useless a metric recipe is to me. Printing everything in both systems would be too much work for the moderator (it's extremely unlikely that postings would be submitted that way -- by your own admission you couldn't put the Imperial units in, and I couldn't do the metric). As for converting everything to the majority system -- I'd imagine that readers are roughly proportional to posters, so if most postings are in Imperial units and we picked a single system, you'd be out of luck. Perhaps the moderator could post a periodic article on conversions, and leave the units as they were submitted. -Dan Veditz dveditz@dbase.A-T.com { uunet | ncar!cepu }!ashtate!dveditz
lori@hacgate.scg.hac.com (Lori + 8/9) (03/02/90)
>dewinter@cft.philips.nl (Rob de Winter) writes: > [discussing the new recipes group] >> Will it be possible to have the measures and weights either expressed in >> two different systems (American and Metric) or translated into the >> metric system if a majority so desires. In article <448@dbase.A-T.COM> dveditz@dbase.A-T.COM (Dan Veditz) writes: >[...] >Perhaps the moderator could post a periodic article on conversions, >and leave the units as they were submitted. How about just asking that the recipes be submitted in a format that a simple conversion program will be able to read? Then post the (tiny) source file regularly. The format requirement could be really simple, like requiring that a system identifier be enclosed in [] before each measure: [M] 2 ml ingredient [M] 1 cl ingredient or [E] 1 t ingredient [E] 4 c ingredient Abbreviations for measurements already have strict standards and are unique. A program like this could also automatically double or treble recipes as well. Now the question: Is a "pinch of salt" English or Metric? How about "a dash of pepper?" :-) ...lori Who only comes close to measuring ingredients when she says "no, gimme a large order of fries with that."
karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) (03/03/90)
In article <7512@hacgate.scg.hac.com> lori@hacgate.hac.com writes: >In article <448@dbase.A-T.COM> dveditz@dbase.A-T.COM (Dan Veditz) writes: >>[...] >>Perhaps the moderator could post a periodic article on conversions, >>and leave the units as they were submitted. > >[How about using a machine-readable format?] The problem is more subtle than that. Recipes in America commonly use volume ("1 cup"), while those in Europe often use mass ("500 g"). A table of densities of common ingredients would be a big help. If the moderators are willing to do a little work, they could use such a table to publish the recipies in dual-unit format: [50 g; 1 tsp] ingredient Karl Heuer karl@haddock.ima.isc.com rutgers!harvard!ima!haddock!karl ***> Followup cautiously; this article is still cross-posted! <***
aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) (03/04/90)
In article <16081@haddock.ima.isc.com> karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes: >The problem is more subtle than that. Recipes in America commonly use volume >("1 cup"), while those in Europe often use mass ("500 g"). A table of >densities of common ingredients would be a big help. If the moderators are >willing to do a little work, they could use such a table to publish the >recipies in dual-unit format: > [50 g; 1 tsp] ingredient What you're talking about is not called moderation, it's called editing, and rewriting. If people want dual-unit format, they should submit articles that way. If I were to undertake this type of editing in the guise of moderation, I would average the number of alt.gourmand postings over the last year. aem -- a.e.mossberg / aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu / aem@umiami.BITNET / Pahayokee Bioregion There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true. - Niels Bohr