That’s the only temp I know exactly in Fahrenheit. Weird, huh?
Ok, here’s what I think happened.
Imagine a bustling, noisy, news room.
Reporter: “Hey Joe, I’m doing this story about a cow, but it’s weight is in kilos, do you know how to convert metric to US.”
Joe: “Na, hang on I’ll find out… Bob! How do you convert from metric?”
Bob: “From meters? Ah it’s 3.2 something, I think it’s 3.29!”
Joe: “It’s 3.29!”
Reporter: “Ok, cool”
Reporter then divides 871.2 by 3.29 to get 265 pounds and thinks, that can’t be right, that’s a small cow (he’s not a complete idiot.) He then multiplies 871.2 by 3.29 and gets 2866 pounds. Finally, when reading his report for recording he misreads 871.2 either on the film or from his own writing and says 8712 kilos.
That, my friends, is how you get a conversion of 8712 kilos to 2866 pounds.
They don’t even have to be precise. How hard is it to remember “2” as the rough conversion factor from kilos to pounds?
“This cow weighs 870 kilos, that’s over 1700 pounds!”
And “3” for meters to feet.
“That oil tanker is 500 meters long, that’s over 1500 feet!”
That last one is so damn big it’s got six legs 
Obviously, I hadn’t seen the clip, replace “he” with “she” as appropriate.
So…in your scenario the entire news team is full of retards?
I was trying to lay the blame on just the reporter.
Kilo = 2.2 pounds. Yes, if it wasn’t for drug references I wouldn’t know that. Anyway…
Even if you only do a rough estimate using kilo = 2 pounds, you’ll be in the ballpark. Sheesh.
If reporters were good at math, they wouldn’t have gone to journalism school.
Just sayin’.
Robin
Somehow marijuana is still measured in the British system, while all others are in metric. How very strange.
“It was so cold up north that the outside thermometer read Minus Forty.”
“Oh? Izzat Fahrenheit or Centigrade?”
:rolleyes: “Neither – Kelvin!”
This is an excellent example of another really clueless reporter (well, anchor). Good job for the co-anchor holding himself together - I would have lost it.
Here in Ontario I know how to convert Hwy 61’s number.
That’s a whole lotta hamburger. If anyone says, “Where’s the beef?” they need their eyes checked.
Actually, we’re talking about a 9.5+ ton cow, going with the 8,712 kg story.
I’m an adult–one who used to be a chemistry major, no less–and I don’t know the conversion for kilos to pounds. It’s one of those things you learn to forget after grade school, like the more irritating cursive letters.
It’s not that strange. Marijuana is the only drug commonly sold (in the US) in plant form, meaning that its mass is much higher for the same price/value, making small measures like grams pretty useless.
ETA: It probably helps that the better weed is domestic. If your dealer buys coke from Mexicans in metric, and they bought it from Venezuelans in metric, and they bought it from Colombians in metric…
Speaking as a reporter, I agree that better anti-retard filters are needed. But seeing as no such thing exists and that reporters, anchors, producers, editors and other staff handle incredible amounts of information in very little time and that staffs are being cut back and that everyone in every profession makes mistakes, I’m inclined to just chuckle at this and move one.
YMMV.
This is not nearly as bad as the reporter/commentator/blithering Nightline dude that claimed Obama is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white man from Kansas.
“Whatever your politics, that’s one for the history books” indeed.
I remember a news report screen caption declaring that Columbia was moving at “18 times the speed of light” when it broke up.
That’s one for the conspiracy thread.
That’s priceless.
Unfortunately for reporters, their work is on display for all the public to see so any mistake is ripe for attack. For most of us, when we make a mistake at work, no one but us and our close colleagues know about it.
That was actually a nod to their affiliate in Alternate Universes 23X and 23Y, where Kurt Vonnegut had already discovered faster-than-light travel using an ingenious method involving massive quantities of soap. 23X and 23Y were essentially the same, except that Columbia only broke up in 23X. Needless to say, 23Y is totally different now. For one thing, Barack Obama actually is the son of two men over there.
And I do mean biologically. Don’t ask. Trust me.