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So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby Freaker on Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:20 pm

Guys, come to China! I believe the law says you have to be 18 to drink - but nobody will refuse to sell you booze as long as you look old enough to hold a bottle. There are no pints. Then again, the standard size beer bottles are 660ml anyway, and cost about 40p, cold from any 24-hour kiosk, which are all over the place. Naturally, drinking on the street is encouraged as you sit on shaky camping chairs and have some cheap bbq fare from the street vendors at any hour of the afternoon or night.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby schmod on Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:35 am

orudge wrote:I on the other hand should be moving to the US, Minnesota to be precise, and it seems their alcohol laws are pretty reasonable (except the whole over-21 thing, but that won't be an issue for me anyway) - quite comparable to the UK if nothing else. Although the US doesn't know what size a proper pint should be.


Actually, the US adopted the Imperial measurement system that was in place at the time of the revolution, although the two systems diverged from that point onward. What is now known as the American pint is indeed the historically correct definition.

A base-10 system was actually proposed for American units of measure shortly after the revolution (and before France's adoption of metric units) that used the old British system's base-units. For unknown reasons, it was never adopted.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby exnihilo on Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:11 am

orudge wrote:Have fun trying to buy a pint there, it seems there is quite a variation in what a pint is depending on where you go. Luckily though, a jug seems to be universal! ;)


I think they pretty much agree on what a pint is, it's a pint (except that they round it up by 2ml to 570ml, IIRC). Yes, there are different glasses with different sizes and names in different states, but a pint's a pint's a pint.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby eagle on Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:27 pm

1 US pint = 473.176473 milliliters (from Google CalculatorizorZ)
1 UK pint = 568 ml
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby exnihilo on Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:43 pm

Yes. And Australian pints are 570ml. Anyone want to complain about getting 2mls more beer than they asked for?
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby exnihilo on Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:45 pm

schmod wrote:A base-10 system was actually proposed for American units of measure shortly after the revolution (and before France's adoption of metric units) that used the old British system's base-units. For unknown reasons, it was never adopted.


Precisely the same reason that German was never adopted as the national language. A break with Britain is all well and good, but entirely new systems with which people were utterly unfamiliar, and implemented by a Government with little power over the individual States, would have been a complete non-starter.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby orudge on Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:46 pm

1 UK pint is 20 fl oz, whereas 1 US pint is 16 fl oz. However, the UK and US fluid ounces are different, too, with the UK one being some 28.41ml, and the US one being 29.57ml. Isn't the imperial system great? ;)
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby Power Metal Dom on Wed Jun 03, 2009 2:04 pm

orudge wrote:Isn't the imperial system great? ;)


Without wanting to get completely off-topic, I quite like the silly mix of metric and imperial measurements that make up the average British life. I'm happy knowing roughly how far 1 mile is while 1 km confuses me but happy with weighing 200g of flour while 200 oz confuses me. Everything just sort of balances out so that it doesn't matter ;) And if it's still distressing that's what Google is for.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby orudge on Wed Jun 03, 2009 2:13 pm

Mmh. It's a bit silly in some ways though, I buy my fuel in litres (I know my tank holds 45 litres, I have no idea how many gallons my tank holds), yet I measure my car's efficiency in miles per gallon (and would have no idea how many litres per 100km my car does). I'm probably more comfortable with metric measurements in general than imperial - if I go to a cinema in the US, for instance, and they ask me if I'd like a 16, 20 or 24oz drink, I'd have no real idea how much those quantities actually were, whereas if they'd asked me if I wanted 330ml or 500ml, for instance, I'd know immediately what those were. But on the other hand, if somebody told me they were 185cm tall, that wouldn't really mean a thing to me. We're kind of stuck between two systems, and it doesn't look like we're getting rid of the Imperial system any time soon (despite the fact it, legally speaking, only exists on the road and in the pub these days, I think). A nice, and in many ways uniquely British, mess. :)
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby Cinema on Wed Jun 03, 2009 6:04 pm

orudge wrote:if I go to a cinema in the US, for instance, and they ask me if I'd like a 16, 20 or 24oz drink


Of course, if you went to the cinema in the US, they'd be asking you if you wanted a 20, 40, or 60oz drink... o.O

I don't often go to big theaters in the US, but I went to see Star Trek the other day, ordered a 'medium' soda, and was handed a 40oz 'two-hander' for $5. o.o
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby exnihilo on Wed Jun 03, 2009 6:08 pm

Never having actually been to a cinematographic presentation in the US, presumably such large drinks lead to an epic amount of traffic during the film?
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby orudge on Wed Jun 03, 2009 6:21 pm

Cinema wrote:I don't often go to big theaters in the US, but I went to see Star Trek the other day, ordered a 'medium' soda, and was handed a 40oz 'two-hander' for $5. o.o


Mmh, I went to the cinema in Boston a couple of years ago, asked for a medium coke, and I think it was larger than what you'd get if you asked for a "large" over here, and for about the same price. It was a relatively short film, too... that was fun!
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby Cinema on Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:45 am

exnihilo wrote:Never having actually been to a cinematographic presentation in the US, presumably such large drinks lead to an epic amount of traffic during the film?


Haha! You'd think so. Perhaps people's bladders have grown to compensate.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby LonelyPilgrim on Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:20 am

More likely the quantity of salt on the massive bucket of popcorn most people get to go with their massive drink counteracts the effects. At least for awhile.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby Cinema on Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:39 pm

LonelyPilgrim wrote:More likely the quantity of salt on the massive bucket of popcorn most people get to go with their massive drink counteracts the effects. At least for awhile.


Haha! Oh yes, let us not forget the massive popcorn accompaniment (complete with fake soy butter - the non-soy fake butter must have been killing too many people).
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby schmod on Sat Jun 06, 2009 4:09 am

Indeed! I was shocked to discover that the NPH sold inexpensive snacks in reasonably-sized portions.

I've never understood the British system for measuring fuel economy. Certainly miles per liter would make the most sense for the current state of affairs? (British MPG is also not equal to American MPG, as the American gallon is smaller. Incidentally, the definition of a mile over land used in Britain and the US is (almost) the same.)

Even the european "Liters per 100km" measurement makes very little sense to me, as it's a more difficult calculation to determine the cost of a given journey.

(The Republic of Ireland's system of measures was even more convoluted, using kilometers for distances on road signs since the 1970s, but miles/hour on speed limit signs until 2005)

Going back to the pint debate, it's also worth noting that a US Pint is equal to 16 US ounces (as opposed to 20 Imperial ounces for a UK Pint). Naturally, it's not even that simple, as the US fluid ounce is about 1ml larger than the Imperial ounce.

A bag of flour in the US would either be sold in (kilo)grams or pounds. Very rarely would you see a weight greater than 2lbs expressed in ounces alone. Virtually all US packaging includes both metric and customary measurements. 'Stones' are not used at all as a unit of weight in the US, and very few Americans would even know what one is, let alone the conversion factor.

As a rule of thumb, feet are used for any measure above 24 inches, gallons are used for any measure greater than 2 quarts (1/2 gallon), miles are used for any measure greater or equal to 0.1mi, and pounds used for any measure above 16 ounces (although the half-pound is very common).
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby schmod on Sat Jun 06, 2009 4:19 am

exnihilo wrote:
schmod wrote:A base-10 system was actually proposed for American units of measure shortly after the revolution (and before France's adoption of metric units) that used the old British system's base-units. For unknown reasons, it was never adopted.


Precisely the same reason that German was never adopted as the national language. A break with Britain is all well and good, but entirely new systems with which people were utterly unfamiliar, and implemented by a Government with little power over the individual States, would have been a complete non-starter.


I believe there was a suggestion to adopt French at one point. France was a very strong advocate of American independence, and aided the revolution quite extensively.

In any event, the same proposal included the system of decimalized currency that is still in use today. The UK finally caught up in 1971. Today, it's hard to imagine non-decimalized currency. The constitutional government was formed largely to ensure a consistent currency and system of measures. It's still unclear why the other parts of the proposal were not adopted, as they would have retained the Imperial base units, and thus preserved a reasonable level of familiarity.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby exnihilo on Sat Jun 06, 2009 9:37 am

I'd be interested in a source for much of that, particularly the French part, because it's just not true. Congress never seriously considered any other language than English and never made any provision for an official language, even the German thing was a suggestion that laws be promulgated in both German and English as an aid to German speaking areas. French was simply not spoken beyond the borders of Louisiana.

As for the introduction of decimal currency, also not convinced as countries around the world were already using it and the Bill which defined the currency did so in terms of the silver content of the dollar and the divisions thereof. Also, worth noting, is that quarter dollars are not really in the spirit of decimalisation.

Finally, it's not even remotely difficult to imagine pre-decimalised currency, it's perfectly easy.
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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby Cain on Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:35 am

LonelyPilgrim wrote:More likely the quantity of salt on the massive bucket of popcorn most people get to go with their massive drink counteracts the effects. At least for awhile.


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Re: So I hear Aikmans has gone Bankrupt?

Postby Haunted on Fri Jun 12, 2009 4:41 pm

Hello everyone,

Sorry it has taken me so long to send this, but life has been a little bit more than hectic recently.

Firstly, may I thank all of you for your amazing show of support for both Barbara and the pub. If there is anything any of you can do, I will let you know immediately.

I spoke to Barbara on Thursday night, and she has informed me that the pub shall be saved. A loan has been arranged, and on Friday she went to see her solicitor to sort everything out for the process to begin the reversal of the sequestration!

As we stand at the moment, the pub SHOULD be reopening, however, due to legal processes, time wasting tactics and red tape (several miles of it by the sound of things) it could take months.

However, keeping fingers crossed for a speedy return, I have to run right now, but will keep you up to date. If I can

Susan x
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