526: Converting to Metric

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Converting to Metric

[edit] Explanation


[edit] Temperature

  • Earth's hottest: 60⁠°C [140 °F]: The hottest temperature recorded on earth is actually "only" 56.7. There have been reports of ten-twenty degrees higher (70-80⁠°C) but these measurements are not verified or accepted as world records.
  • 30°C [86 °F]: A little too hot so perfect for a trip to the beach.
  • 20°C [68 °F]: Is defined as room temperature in many experimental settings. For some this would feel a little cool. But 25°C [77°] would as mentioned be too warm for room temperature...
  • 10°C [50 °F]: Definitely wear a jacket. Especially if there is just a little breeze.
  • 0⁠°C [32 °F]: The freezing point of water (32°⁠F)
  • -5 to -10°C: In Moscow -10°C is not really that cold - it can go "spit goes clink" cold in Moscow, whereas -5°C [23 °F] in Boston may be very cold...
  • -20°C: FuckFuckFuckCold and -30°C - Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!: This is implied to be basically what some people would say when they step outside at this temperature. In reality, it would be best to keep ones's mouth firmly closed. At -30°C, without taking wind chill into account, exposed skin will feel painful in under a minute and frostbite could begin in as little as ten minutes [1]. The differing statements seem to imply that at -20°C, the user would be saying "fuck" repeatedly, whereas at -30°, the user is incapable of closing their mouth after starting the first "fuck", and so extends it into one long one.
  • -40⁠°C: Spit goes "clink": As shown in the drawing your spit would freeze before it hits the ground. This is the crossing point of the two temperature scales i.e. -40°C = -40 °F.

[edit] Length

  • 12 cm [almost 5 inches]: CD-ROM is a common object so nice to know it is a dozen centimeters.
  • 15 cm [almost 6 inches]: A Bic pen
  • 1 m [39.37 inches]: Lightsaber blade: Refers the weapon used in the Star Wars movie franchise. Canonically, the length of a lightsaber's blade varies greatly depending on the setting of the weapon, but "one meter" is by no means a bad approximation.
  • 2.5 m [a little over 8 feet]: Ceiling - of course very much depending on which type of building you are in!
  • 5 m [a little over 16 feet]: Car length - also very much depending on the car...
    • The other five members of the crew should also be stacked on top of these four to reach the 16m height - giving them an average height of 1.82 m (12 cm more than Summer Glaus height!)

[edit] Speed

Here both the SI unit m/s as well as the more used unit kph (km per hour) is given.
  • 75 kph [46.6 mph] - 20 m/s: Raptor: It's a comic written by Randall, of course a reference to the velociraptors from Jurassic Park was going to be here.
  • 100 kph - 25 m/s: A slow highway (62 mph).
  • 110 kph [68.35 mph] - 30 m/s: Interstate (65 mph): Refers to the American highway system. (65 mph would actually be only 104.6 kph.)
  • 140 kph - 40 m/s (87-89mph): Raptor on hoverboard: The hoverboard is probably a reference to the Back to the Future Part II, though it's a fairly common trope in older science fiction stories. Randall obviously did a lot of google searching on this subject the week before - see 522: Google Trends.

[edit] Volume

  • 3 ml: The amount of blood in a fieldmouse. A similar amount is used in comic 434: xkcd Goes to the Airport, but instead of a fieldmouse, the measurement of blood is of a churchmouse, an imaginary animal created by Lewis Carroll. Click here for a more on comic 434.
  • 5 ml: A teaspoon - a very common measure.
  • 30 mL: Nasal passages and 40mL - Shot glass: The comic points out that you could just about fill a shot glass using the mucus from your nose. Since shot glasses are usually used for mixed drinks, the comic jokes that this mucus could constitute a new, disgusting drink - and this is depictured in the drawing.
  • 350 ml: Soda can (this is roughly correct for the cans used in the U.S., which hold 12 fluid ounces; in Europe, soda cans commonly hold 330ml or 500 ml).
  • 3 L: Two-liter bottle: Refers to a bottle which contains two liters (in the US usually soda). There is debate as to the reason for the discrepancy in volume. It may be a reference to stereotypical Americans consuming a lot of high-calorie foods and drinks.
  • 30 L: Milk crate: Refers to a type of small box originally used to transport milk but now often in demand to be used as bicycle basket, storage spaces, etc.
  • 200 L: Volume of refrigerator.
  • As shown in the drawing of this part of the comic, the three persons mentioned above - Glau, Kucinich and Paul (summing up to 195 L) - could in principle all fit inside a standard refrigerator. Cueball thus attempts to push them all inside of one - though it would obviously be very uncomfortable for all parties involved to be trapped in such a small space with not much room between them.

[edit] Mass

  • 5 kg [11 lb.]: LCD monitor: A modern flat-screen-style monitor.
  • 15 kg: CRT monitor: An older-style, cathode ray tube-based monitor.
    • This ends the section on computer screens, which overrode the normal sequence by weight as the next two feline inspired entries are lighter than the two before. This was presumably done so that the reader's eye will be confused or amused at seeing (in the comic's caseless captioning font) CRT immediately followed by CAT in the vertical text column.
  • 4 kg: Cat and 4.1 kg - Cat (with caption): Refers to the internet's love of putting captions on cats. Usually, this is done in a graphics program, but here the cat is actually physically carrying around his caption. The "with caption" part is most likely a reference to 262: IN UR REALITY, where Black Hat glues captions to cats, after running out of staples.
  • 200 kg [440 lb.]: Your mom
  • 220 kg: Your mom (incl. 20 kg of cheap jewelry) and
  • 223 kg: Your mom (also incl. 3 kg of makeup)
  • These last refers to a common type of Your mom joking insult whereby someone insults someone else's mother in a creative way. Here, the comic slyly calls your mom fat, then implies she wears way too much jewelry and finally also almost 7 pounds of makeup. This is a common theme in xkcd. (Twenty kg of "cheap" jewelry has several times the volume than 20 kg of gold jewelry, because of the difference in density.)

[edit] Title text

The title text refers once again to Summer Glau's Firefly character, River Tam, who (after being subjected to a long series of medical experiments) is severely mentally ill and often comes out with macabre — though scientifically accurate — pronouncements.

[edit] Transcript

Guide to Converting to Metric

[There are five frames with tables for different units. Between the two upper frames is the following text:]
The key to converting to metric is establishing
new reference points. When you hear "26°C",
instead of thinking "That's 79°F" you should think,
"that's warmer than a house but cool for swimming."
Here are some helpful tables of reference points:

[The frame to the left of the above text:]
60°C Earth's hottest
45°C Dubai heat wave
40°C Southern US heat wave
35°C Northern US heat wave
30°C Beach weather
25°C Warm room
20°C Room temperature
10°C Jacket weather
0°C Snow!
-5°C Cold day (Boston)
-10°C Cold day (Moscow)
-20°C Fuckfuckfuckcold
-30°C Fuuuuuuuuuuck!
-40°C Spit goes "clink"
[Next to the last three entries we see Cueball spitting on the ground. The spit bounces.]
Cueball: Ptoo
Spit: Clink!

[The frame to the right of the above text:]
1 cm Width of microSD card
3 cm Length of SD card
12 cm CD diameter
14 cm Penis
15 cm BIC pen
80 cm Doorway width
1 m Lightsaber blade
170 cm Summer Glau
200 cm Darth Vader
2.5 m Ceiling
5 m Car-length
16 m 4 cm Human tower of Serenity crew
[To the right of the table is a human tower of four of the people from the Serenity crew. The head of the upper person is right below the first entry.]

[The frame below to the left:]
kph m/s
5 1.5 Walking
13 3.5 Jogging
25 7 Sprinting
35 10 Fastest human
45 13 Housecat
55 15 Rabbit
75 20 Raptor
100 25 Slow highway
110 30 Interstate (65 mph)
120 35 Speed you actually go when it says “65”
140 40 Raptor on hoverboard

[The frame below in the middle:]
3 mL Blood in a fieldmouse
5 mL Teaspoon
30 mL Nasal passages
40 mL Shot glass
350 mL Soda can
500 mL Water bottle
3 L Two-liter bottle
5 L Blood in a human male
30 L Milk crate
55 L Summer Glau
65 L Dennis Kucinich
75 L Ron Paul
200 L Fridge
[Next to the entry on nasal passages and shoot glass (starting one entry higher and finishing one entry lower) are the following text:]
So, when it's blocked
the mucus in your
nose could about
fill a shot glass.
[Below this text is a drawing of a mucus filled shot glass.]
Related: I've
invented the
worst mixed
drink ever.
[Below this next to the four last entries we see Cueball shoving Summer Glau, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul into an open fridge. Above the fridge in a loosely drawn ellipse are the following text:]

[The frame below to the right:]
3 g Peanut M&M
100 g Cell phone
500 g Bottled water
1 kg Ultraportable laptop
2 kg Light-medium laptop
3 kg Heavy laptop
5 kg LCD monitor
15 kg CRT monitor
4 kg Cat
4.1 kg Cat (with caption)
60 kg Lady
70 kg Dude
150 kg Shaq
200 kg Your mom
220 kg Your mom (incl. cheap jewelry)
223 kg Your mom (also incl. makeup)
[Next to the entries of cat and cat (with caption) are two drawings of cats. The second one has a caption across its chest.]
Cat (with caption): Mrowl?
[Below this and next to the lady and dude entries (and the Shaq entry) are drawings of Megan and Cueball.]
















It refers to Shaq, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Summer Glau, your mom... --Pudder (talk) 08:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Ron Paul is not a republican though. Yourlifeisalie (talk) 16:33, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

kph got me confused, because "km/h" is the usual way of displaying kilometers per hour.

As a Maine resident I concur with this sentiment: "at -30°, the user is incapable of closing their mouth after starting the first "fuck", and so extends it into one long one." However, try uttering the word "fuck" without closing your mouth... uck-uck-uck... Npsych (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
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