Gummy bears as a unit of measure? The Reg Standards Soviet will not stand for this sort of silliness

A new potential contribution to the world's sole source of approved units of measure has emerged – the Haribo gummy bear. The Register's Standards Bureau has been forwarded a curious YouTube video in which the use of gelatinous ursine miniatures as a metric is featured and frankly we're not sure what to make of this. YouTube …

[Anonymous Coward]

Disappointing

I find the DC Rainmaker reviews informative and worthwhile, but how can I now take him seriously after such a breach :-(

[Khaptain]

Re: Disappointing

DCRainmaker is like the David Attenborough of reviews. If he states that a camera measures 2 gummy bears then I know that that camera measures 2 gummy bears.

Gummy bears also have the advantage that they can be bought in places where other measuring devices can't be found. And they also act as a lovely introduction for the very young into the world of metrics.

[ThatOne]

Re: Disappointing

Yes, but are we talking standard or giant gummy bears?...

_{Didn't really compare, but IIRC the size ratio looks like about 1.5x.}

[Korev]

Re: Disappointing

I know, the bear cheek of it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Disappointing

And are the sugar-free ones the same size? They certainly have different - erm - effects:

https://www.amazon.com/review/R3P35NL8AIA3GS

[macjules]

Re: Disappointing

I find it abhorrent that children could learn that instruments of measurement might be edible. I mean, would you want your children trying to eat an alligator when it should be eating them? It is a protected species for God’s sake.

[Khaptain]

Re: Disappointing

That depends on whether you mean the yellow or the reds ones...

[Vulch]

A measure of difficulty

As anyone with a Prusa 3d printer knows well, the Gummy Bear is a unit of difficulty. For instance assembling one of their Mk3S printers involves steps ranging from a mere four bears right up to eight.

[Boo Radley]

Football Fields

Nothing annoys me quite as much as a building or other construction as being x football fields in length or area. I have only a vague idea of the length or area of said field, and does this vary if one is using a soccer field? I dont think they're the same size.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Football Fields

When something I recognise is quoted in football fields my reaction, should I be interested enough to have one, is along the lines of "so that's the size of a football field".

[sbt]

Re: I don't think they're the same size

Spot on. Anyway, it can't be soccer; I'm pretty sure they play on pitches, not fields. And they vary in length from 90 to 120m. While the American version is played on a field of standard length, it's arguable whether it's football; they seem to mostly run with and throw the pill and it's not really ball shaped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Football Fields

I find 'olympic sized swimming pools' even worse. I don't need to be reminded that I'm not one of the elite media or architects who has one of these in their mansion.

Still, in our ever shrinking world, perhaps adding a shorter measure might make sense. What is the width of ERII's thumb?

[don't you hate it when you lose your account]

Re: Football Fields

If I remember rightly the Olympic swimming pool built in Leeds turned out to be too small to be classed as an Olympic pool.

[ThatOne]

Re: Football Fields

Bah. A small private swimming pool in original Olympia, Greece, Is bound to count as an "Olympic swimming pool" too, so this is definitely not a very trustworthy unit.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Football Fields

>Olympic swimming pool built in Leeds turned out to be too small to be classed as an Olympic pool.

Could this harm Leed's chances to host the next Olympics ?

I quite fancy a Yorkshire Olympics

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Football Fields

The old international pool was demolished in 2009, but the Leeds aquatic centre is the proper size. The Dutch and Chinese swimming teams apparently trained there in the run up to the London games.

Not sure Leeds would be daft enough to bid for the money pit that is the Olympics though.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Football Fields

>Not sure Leeds would be daft enough to bid for the money pit that is the Olympics though

But if wer run in Yorksha it mek a profit.

No fancy stadium, just run to the other end of the carpark, cross-country is the wasteground next to school

Marathon would be around the ring road, not closed to traffic to give you a bit of a boost

Rowing in the Canal

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Football Fields

"cross-country is the wasteground next to school"

We used to do sport on the wasteground near the school. The site of the old Quarry Hill flats. After they were demolished there was a field my school used for a few years. Then they built the DSS HQ on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Football Fields

I quite fancy a Yorkshire Olympics

When I were a lad we had to run t' Olympic marathon wi' hundredweight o' tripe down our trousers, then we 'ad to do t' cycling with nowt for wheels while being chased by packs o' starving whippets.

Kids these days...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Football Fields

Of course we ad it tough....

[Lucy in the Sky (with Diamonds)]

Re: Football Fields

Football fields are funny. You put two school bags on the ground a few meters apart at one end of a space. There's a goal. At the other end, you put down two more bags, and that is the other. In between is the football field. Size, for a lack of a better word, does not matter in this context.

Olympic sized pools are different, you do not mark them on an empty piece of land, they are more standardised in a way. When your parents send you off to swim three days a week after school, and they make you do lengths hours at a time, it will be engrained pretty fast that it is fifty metres long. Yes, it is more then two metres deep, but hey, you can swim, so that matters not. How wide, well, I have no clue. Eight lanes wide, but then no idea how wide is a lane...

So an Olympic pool (Remember, the original Olympics had no swimming) is exactly fifty metres long, over two metres deep and precisely eight lanes accross.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Football Fields

Olympic size swimming pools used to be eight lanes across until swimmers in the outer lanes (rightfully) complained they suffered more from waves returning from the sides. New Olympic sized swimming pools are now ten lanes wide and to keep the counting of the traditional eight as it was, the new lanes are numbered zero and nine.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Football Fields

>New Olympic sized swimming pools are now ten lanes wide and to keep the counting of the traditional eight as it was, the new lanes are numbered zero and nine

An off-by-one error on both ends ?

[Already?]

Re: Football Fields

Clearly it's a zero-based index of lanes, where Lane[0] and Lane[9] set Lane.IsEmptyOrNull() = true by default.

[BackToTheFuture]

Re: Football Fields

Well, assuming we're talking about a British soccer field (anything else is likely to be just a wannabee imitation), which according to Wiki can be between 90m and 120m long to meet the regs, so let's say 100m, and the length of a gummy bear (source Wiki again) is around 2cm, give or take a suck or two, this means a football field will be approx 5,000 gummy bears in length.

Nice round number. Much tastier than"The Size of Wales".

No gummy bears were harmed during the completion of this calculation.

Afterwards though - Mmmmmmmm......chomp.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Football Fields

Not being into sports at all, I find that football* field is not really a tangible unit.

If you were to mention it to me, all I can think of is PE lessons at school running back and forth trying to chase the ball in a muddy field in the middle of winter wearing shorts.... so as far as I'm concerned TOO BLOODY BIG! And if the weather was too bad, we had to go cross country running over heathland which we were told to avoid due to poisonous (vemonous?) snakes.

* Limey, so talking soccer fields

[Rol]

Re: Football Fields

The standard football field is in fact nothing like standard enough to be used as a comparative dimension.

It's width can vary from between 45 and 90 metres and its length between 90 and 120 metres, and still be classed as a FIFA standard pitch.

The variance is so huge, that a trajectory to Mars measured in Turf Moor pitches and accomplished in Memorial Ground pitches would be at least several thousnad Main Road pitches short of reaching its destination.

Thank God we have inches and centimetres, and NASA engineers capable of mashing them both together, as it would be a shame to blame FIFA for every space disaster.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Football Fields

> 45 and 90 metres and its length between 90 and 120 metres,

So we could in theory have a square pitch?

You could change ends every quarter

[Already?]

Re: Football Fields

No. Square pitches are explicitly not allowed in the laws of the game. Pitches are also different sizes for different age groups, but the aspect ratio has to be maintained regardless of size.

https://www.football-stadiums.co.uk/articles/are-all-football-pitches-the-same-size/

[Doctor Syntax]

Stability of standards is essential. Thank goodness nobody has tried to eat Wales.

[MrBanana]

Eating Wales

Isn't it the Japanese who eat wales - oh wait, I see my mistake.

Mines the one with a big harpoon in the pocket.

[genghis_uk]

Re: Eating Wales

Oh, it's a harpoon...

[Korev]

>Thank goodness nobody has tried to eat Wales.

Meghan? Is that you?

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Meghan? Is that you?

Camilla's had a damn good go over the years.

[sanmigueelbeer]

I presume no one has tried Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears before?

(Hint: Read the reviews.)

[TimMaher]

Hackers

Aren’t the “Gummy Bears” some sort of Russian malware crew?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Hackers

Well, fancy that!

[jonha]

the sheer deliciousness of gummy bears, Haribo or otherwise

OTHERWISE?

Oh the H E R E S Y!

(Bah... worse than heresy. The Missus has seen this and has told me that El Reg is from now on FORBIDDEN!)

[DJV]

Re: the sheer deliciousness of gummy bears, Haribo or otherwise

Woohoo, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when your Missus discovers you broke her rule in order to come and comment about it!

[J.G.Harston]

Edibility is a flaw. Many many years ago I was buying some Jelly Babies in a store where you measure them yourself into the scales. I got to something like 105g, so picked one up to put back to get to 100g, and automatically popped it in my mouth.

Do'h!

So I picked another one to put back, and automatically popped it in my mouth.

DOH!

It took a strong effort of will to remove a jelly baby from the scales and put it back in the hopper.

[Spoonsinger]

and how Woolworths went bankrupt becomes all too clear.

You fiend!

[heyrick]

I see you still think linguine is 14cm...

I demonstrate that this isn't the case on my blog, and introduce a more enjoyable unit of measurement, a popular chocolate confection named after a planet...

[Jan 0]

Re: I see you still think linguine is 14cm...

There is nothing standard about Mars bar lengths, even 'though there is only one manufacturer.

On occasion their length has changed to keep the price the same, at other times the marketing department changes the dimensions.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I see you still think linguine is 14cm...

Not to mention that they have tiny ones in the Celebrations packs, packs of "fun size", so-called "standard" size", extra-large and then the smaller than standard in the "Duo" packs. Oh, the humanity!!

[heyrick]

Re: I see you still think linguine is 14cm...

It's fine. I'll eat them all...

( where's a Cookie Monster icon when you need one? )

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I see you still think linguine is 14cm...

Downvoted - only because the length of the chocolate bar is not constant. Over the years, confectionary has shrunk, also you could be refering to funsize, standard or the dual pack of Mars bars???

Edited to add - oh, sod it, someone already posted something similar. My point still stands though!

[NXM]

Re: I see you still think linguine is 14cm...

Seconded.

I can remember Curly Wurlies being about four foot long when I was a kid, and they're tiny now. Nothing to do with me being bigger of course.

[Stuart Halliday]

Is this the American Gummy or the British Gummy?

[TimMaher]

Brit or Yank?

It’s the Russian gummy.

See earlier post.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Money...

I would like to propose the "(Dido) Harding" dH - handy to quantify billions of government waste. The Pogba unfortunately is too little these days.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Money...

In support of the case...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/14/the-record-beating-cost-to-the-taxpayer-of-boris-johnson-wasteful-government

[FlippingGerman]

Brontosaurus

I'm confused as to how a brontosaurus can be half the length of an aircraft carrier, generally several hundred metres long.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Brontosaurus

The BBC article has a graphic that shows the length of the carrier as 300m.

That according to the standards converter is 13.64 brontosauruses (2142 linguine).

The Devon Fatberg gives the nearest numerical reg unit value of 4.65

Just wondering if there was a mixup in the original article with 2100 linguine being transcribed incorrectly and assigned to brontosaurus.

[Marco Fontani]

Re: Brontosaurus

The original article introducing the Brontosaurus as a unit of measurement was flat-out wrong, and we fixed the converter in 2017-04-28.

It used to be 987.751 linguine to a brontosaurus, but it's really only 157 linguine long, or 2.3842 double-decker buses long, or about 11 Osmans.

[chivo243]

Gummy to Jub cup ratio?

See title!

[GlenP]

The Osman

Or even the Osman, inducted into the Reg Standards Converter last year and named after the tallest human being ever filmed by a BBC camera.

I know at least two former international rugby players who would dispute the last part of that statement.

Martin Bayfield features regularly and is 6' 10", Richard Metcalfe (aka TooTall) was around 7' and would have been filmed playing for Scotland. I once stood next to the former in a bar, he was stooping and I still got a crick in my neck talking to him.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Osman

>> Or even the Osman, inducted into the Reg Standards Converter last year and named after the tallest human being ever filmed by a BBC camera.

> I know at least two former international rugby players who would dispute the last part of that statement.

Yes, but that would be Pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Osman

the Osman was useful as it's the min distance you should be from Boris Johnson to prevent him shaking hands with you (or currently, bumping elbows)

[Mips]

Queen Elizabeth

If you’re going to introduce a Queen Elizabeth unit of length then you need to be clear if this is QE1 or QE2. As we cannot be clear how big the QE1 would be but the QE2 is less nebulous (if possibly a bit shorter) so the question is how big is HMS Queen Elizabeth in QE2s?

[Relativehumility]

One time in Australia I discovered that the distance from Melbourne to Sydney on my map was exactly one Vodaphone Mobile. Just thought I'd mention this

[Anonymous Coward]

Deliciousness not a flaw...

As anyone knows, you can measure length end to end, and then remove all but the first and last and still maintain the limits of your measurement. I'd advise against the 3-bear bunny hop measurement technique though as it only takes one mouthward hop to render the task incompletable.

[Sam_B.]

Regardless of edibility, the gummy bear is a useless unit of measurement as it is flexible so can be stretched or squashed to falsify measurements. The (uncooked) linguine has the proper attribute of not being variable in length, although as with the gummy bear a brand, country and possibly date of manufacture need to be included in the standard, as it has been pointed out that these may change the exact size. Luckily within normal (human bearable) temperature variations the Linguine is pretty stable.

Is there a "standard" Linguine stored in stable conditions somewhere in the vaults deep below Reg central ?

[Nick Ryan]

Is there a "standard" Linguine stored in stable conditions somewhere in the vaults deep below Reg central ?

This is El'Reg... of course it is. It's stored in a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard'. Do not look at what is at the bottom of this cabinet.

[Just A Quick Comment]

Obsolete unit?

How many Jelly Babies are there in a Gummy Bear? Yes, I know, it depends on how hungry the bear is...

[Not previously required]

Desirability of standards

Having standards is clearly very important to all of us, so I think we should have several that people can choose from.

Lab coat to represent international bureau of variable standards - and hope they won't charge the exorbitant fees of the ISO

[Keith Oborn]

Even El Reg is guilty of ignoring prior art.

As a physicist, I am well versed in the FFF (Furlong, Firkin, Fortnight) system

A good unit if pressure is megapascals per barn (the unit of atomic cross-section). This is excellent as an example of a units system where the answer to any question is "not many". This makes for vastly simplified calculations.

And where, pray, is the Smoot? After all, this is not only a universal standard, but also has a fully-maintained reference in Boston.

[Tim Bergel]

Re: Even El Reg is guilty of ignoring prior art.

I would like to second the suggestion that the Smoot, a well established unit of length, is added to the accepted Reg standards.

[Blackjack]

At least is not Toblerone chocolate bars

That's a unit of measure that keeps shrinking.

[mevets]

A unit of height...

We have used standard gummy bears as an indication of how high we are for years. 3 Gummies up is fairly incoherent.