I live in a converted world. When I grew up in Ohio in the 1960s, I
measured space in inches, feet, yards, and miles. We set the thermostat to 70
degrees F. in winter (and we didn't have an air conditioner to adjust in the
summer). I learned how to make chili with a pound and a half of hamburger, a
no. 2 can of tomatoes and another of kidney beans, a cup of diced onions, and
as many teaspoons (or tablespoons) of chili powder as I could sneak in. My
father carefully computed the fuel economy of our Ford Falcon in miles per
gallon and the cost per mile (and he was not above driving on to the next gas
station to save 2 cents per gallon).
Now I live in Spain, where the natural
temperature can vary between 15 degrees C. in my kitchen and 28 C. in the
sunroom. I can sometimes throw a petanque ball within a single centimeter of
the jack, which is good, but I am at a loss if my teammate tries to direct my
shot by telling me that there are 5, or 15, or 25 centimeters behind the ball
that is hiding the jack. I make Spanish stews with 600 grams of dried beans,
soaked overnight, and when I want a cooking break I put two frozen Chicken Kievs
into the oven at 200 degrees C. for 30 minutes. I spend about €1.44 per liter for gas and get about 20
kilometers per liter in our Ford Fusion--but until recently I had no idea of
how to compare that to miles per gallon.
So when I went searching for a measurement translation site
that is comprehensive but simple to use, I was glad to find OnlineConversion.com
(www.onlineconversion.com) where you can "convert
just about anything to anything else" in over 5,000 units of measurement.
I'm not the only one whose world has been converted. As globalization shrinks our
world, it becomes increasingly impossible to do research, read for pleasure,
and compare purchase prices online without making, or checking, conversions
between different currencies and units of measure. OnlineConversion.com is a one-stop
measurement conversion site that can save time for everyone.
Popular Conversions
Near the top of its simple homepage are links to the
"Most Popular Conversion Pages." These are Length, Temperature,
Speed, Volume, Weight, Cooking, Area, Fuel Economy, and Currency. Clicking on
Currency brings up a finance page (www.onlineconversion.com/finance.htm)
with additional categories, including a tip calculator; paycheck, savings, and
income calculators; sales tax and monthly cost calculators; and adjusted cost
base and stock price calculators. The Currency Converter (www.onlineconversion.com/currency_conversion.htm)
is provided by OANDA. The default set-up that I see allows me to enter U.S.
dollars, which then are automatically converted to euros, even without
clicking. I can flip the display with a click to convert from euros to USD.
It's an easy way for me to check the rate and see how much I paid in dollars
(my earnings currency) when I bought something in euros (my usual spending
currency). You can change the date and
look backwards, which is useful for checking purchases on a credit card
statement; this opens the complete OANDA site in a separate window. On
OnlineConversion.com, however, you can convert using today's rate between what
must be every currency in the world, including the Falkland Island Pound (FKP),
Zimbabwe Dollar (ZWD), and the Hong Kong Dollar (HKD). You can also check the
price of gold and platinum.
Length and Distance Conversions (www.onlineconversion.com/length.htm)
offers three separate conversion pages: Common Length Conversions, All Length
Conversions, and Metric Length Conversions. The Common page has only ten basic
metric and English units (centimeter, inch, millimeter, mile) to keep it
simple. Still I learned something. 20,000 leagues is equal to 60,000.120546
miles, but 20,000 leagues under the sea (I think this would be nautical
leagues) are equal to 69,046.766881 miles. I was not familiar with microinches,
either, but one is equal to 0.000001 inches.
Use the All Length Conversion page (www.onlineconversion.com/length_all.htm)
to get to 300 units of length measure; here it gets interesting, because there
are units unique to specific geographic areas that you may find in foreign
novels or in international purchase specs or bills of lading. A braza, I
learned, is a measurement in Spain,
but the Spanish braza is not the same as the Argentine braza, nor the Texas braza, though they are all a little over five
international, U.S.
feet. According to this site, city blocks measure 88 yards in the eastern U.S., 110 in the Midwest,
and 176 in the South and West.
The Metric Length page (www.onlineconversion.com/length_metric.htm)
is useful if you forget the meaning of various Latin prefixes and want to know
whether a decimeter or a dekameter is larger, or what the relationship is
between a picometer and a nanometer. Here, however, you may need some
additional help in the form of a tutorial on measurement systems or scientific
notation. Scientific notation is covered briefly in a FAQ (www.onlineconversion.com/faq_06.htm);
this site uses "e" notation to express expomential notation. Viewing
this little chart made several conversions more meaningful for me. The basic
FAQ page (www.onlineconversion.com/faq.htm)
also offers links to helpful articles,
reprinted from Wikipedia, on SI (the International System of Units, also known
as the "modern" metric system); the Metric System, telling of the
history and differences among metric systems; the Meter; Traditional U.S.
Units; and the Imperial System.
The Temperature page (www.onlineconversion.com/temperature.htm)
converts instantaneously between degrees Celsius, Fahrenheit, Rankine, Reaumurm
and kelvin. As with Lengths, the Speed page and the Weight page both offer subpages
for common conversions and more comprehensive pages for "all" speed or
weight units. The Area and Volume pages both introduced me to some units unique
to particular countries; some of these are so unusual that when you Google them
for a definition the most obvious results are discussing whether the word is
acceptable in Scrabble or not. It would, by the way, be very helpful if a
definition function were incorporated within the OnlineConversion.com site
itself.
Other Conversions
There are still more conversion pages beyond the "most
popular" ones. Many of these are more scientific than I will normally use,
except for the odd reference request or research need, but areas such as
Acceleration, Angles, Astronomical, Density, Energy, Mapping, Power, Torque, and
Viscosity are essential for some. Date/Time, however, is essential for all; its
converters include Time Zones throughout
the world (factoring in Daylight Savings Time), 12 Hour to 24 Hour, Leap Years,
and Lead Time (for project scheduling).
Regarding personal interest, I have benefitted from the
Clothing page; it gives conversions between sizes worldwide for men's and
women's clothing, shoes, and ring sizes, as well as three informative articles.
I became stuck for days in the Cooking site (www.onlineconversion.com/cooking.htm),
where I finally understood the "gas mark" oven temperatures from a
cookbook I have had for 40 years. In
Common Cooking Conversions (www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_volume.htm)
you can find all sorts of units--barrels, buckets, a dram, a drop, a fifth, a
hogshead, a jigger, a pinch, a pony, and a shot--and convert them to your
choice of more standard measurements. Finally, there is even a Fun Stuff
category, where, among other things, you can reveal your age down to the
second, get a basic Body Mass Index or Blood Alcohol Content estimate, convert
Roman numerals, find out the current world population, or take a simple typing
speed test.
Still Useful after 15
Years
OnlineConversion.com has been around since 1997 (CyberSkeptic first mentioned it in 2001)
and is the work of a single individual, Robert Fogt. A What's New link provides a succinct record
of frequent updates back as far as 2003. I wrote Mr. Fogt, wondering if he is
working on an app or mobile version of the site. I got a reply, but so far,
only to tell me that he gets more than 200 email queries a day and it would
take awhile for him to get to mine.
The site shows its age in some ways: the Download Speed
chart displays speeds for 9.6 and 56 Kb modems, the design is simple and not
flashy, and there are frequent requests to contribute using Paypal. There are
also ads, powered by Ad Choices, that are extremely fast and effective in
offering links pertinent to the conversion area you are exploring--some of
these can be surprisingly helpful. OnlineConversion.com also provides a Search
link, which searches either or both the conversion pages and a Message forum to
pose and answer questions, free to users.
There are other, smaller, conversion sites for specific
types of measurements. Nevertheless, OnlineConversion.com offers the most
answers in the least real estate and is a good place to check when you have to
do any sort of a conversion.
Susanne Bjørner
provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers
from a base in Spain, where her Ford Fusion (pre-hybrid) seems to get ca. 47 mpg.
Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net
or www.bjorner.info.
No comments:
Post a Comment