949
TIL to keep track of units (cdn.ebaumsworld.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by idiomaddict@lemmy.world to c/tumblr@lemmy.world
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[-] garfaagel@sh.itjust.works 163 points 1 month ago

cal≠kcal

1 gallon gasoline contains 31 million small calories, while the human caloric requirements are given in large calories. 1000 small calories = 1 large calorie. So the calculations are off by a factor of 1000. The confusion stems from the fact that both are commonly referred to as "calories", for some stupid reason.

So in reality you would have to drink another gallon in just 2-3 weeks.

[-] franklin@lemmy.world 48 points 1 month ago

Assuming you could process it without ill effects.

If you thought having Nestle was bad, Can you imagine if BP was involved in food?

[-] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago

What makes you think that oil is not involved in food?

[-] franklin@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Fair point, but I meant mostly in the context of wholesale products derived mainly from Petroleum.

[-] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago
[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Sir, please put down the spatula and step away from the kitchen slowly, and no one has to get hurt.

[-] flicker@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

no one has to get hurt

Wise of you to lie to someone you want to do something.

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[-] jballs@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 month ago

Everything you said was correct, except the last sentence. Still pretty sure drinking a gallon of gasoline would be enough to last you your entire life.

That life would just be less than 2-3 weeks.

[-] muix 10 points 1 month ago

Fun fact: Most people can drink about a liter of gasoline and not die (short term), about 8500 kcal.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose#Examples

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Damn. I definitely don’t do more work than a car in 12-20 days. I guess that makes sense

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[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 month ago

The maths a little off, it wont last him 30+ years; but he's absolutely correct with that final statment. If he chugs a gallon of gasoline; he won't need to eat for the rest of his life.

[-] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Build a man a fire, keep him warm for a day. Set a man on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life.

[-] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 month ago

"large calories"?!? The name is kilocalories

[-] Tja@programming.dev 17 points 1 month ago

Are you trying to make Americans use the metric system? They have started wars for less, dude!

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[-] eleitl@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago

Fats and oils have about the same energy density as gasoline.

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[-] frank@sopuli.xyz 50 points 1 month ago

Obviously a good joke, and of course obligatory cal/kcal discrepancy here. This just seems like a good place to put this info:

Calories on labels are for calories absorbed, not for calories in the food (same with the 4/9/4 rule). So it'd be much less for gasoline, if it were possible to label with nutritional info.

[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

I was about to ask if they properly converted to kcals used in dietary measurements and here your comment is.

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[-] HeyJoe@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago

Is this trying to trick AI so it's used in searches for info? I hope so.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

I’m not ai, just dumb 🥰

[-] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Seems the same to me.

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[-] workerONE@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago

Gasoline has about 31,000 calories not 31 million calories

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Hence the title :)

[-] SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

So just 31kcal in one gallon? That doesn't seem a whole lot.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'm assuming 31k kcal, which confusingly everyone calls a calorie. There's no way it's only 31kcal.

[-] schnapsman@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

This is correct. Everyone in the US calls a kcal a calorie. I learned to distinguish them with big "C" and little "c", but I've just looked it up and this is apparently not so common. I guess ppl who are aware of these things just go with the SI unit of kJ.

[-] general_kitten@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Gasoline has the energy content comparable to cooking oil (biodiesel among other things is made from used frying oil from restaurants at least where i live)

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[-] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago

People here talk so much shit about reddit, but post shit from reddit, copy reddit, and talk like redditors.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

I didn’t do the math, but a person’s got to do more lifting in those 34 years than a car traveling 30 miles at 60 mph carrying 4000 lbs, right?

[-] thedarkfly@feddit.nl 11 points 1 month ago

Without a doubt! Humans and life in general is uber efficient in terms of energy use. Most of the energy of a car is not directly spent for the work. Work is done when moving mass from a lower to a higher place and accelerating it to a higher speed. But once you have accelerated the mass to the cruise speed, it actually does not require any energy to maintain. Rather, the energy is spent by the car to heat up the air, move it around, wear the road and the tires, and make noise.

We use cars because they are muuuch more powerful than humans, at the cost of wasing a lot of energy. Try to push a car uphill, you won't ever succeed without pullies which makes it even slower. Doesn't matter how efficient you are if you cannot output the minimum power required to overcome friction etc.

[-] mkwt@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

On the other hand a human on a bicycle is way more effective at moving around than a human on foot. Somehow the bicycle has created a lot of efficiency.

[-] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

A bicycle allows us to use our strength to go faster, rather than having to move our muscles faster, we can just push harder. It also more directly converts the energy we are consuming into forward momentum than our walking style does. We are pretty efficient at processing the energy out of what we eat and into work done by our muscles, but beyond that, there are certainly locomotion styles that haven't naturally evolved yet that would singnificantly improve how fast we could travel using that energy. Until then, we got smart instead, which really helped.

There are technically types of wheels in nature, but not in animals, the way alot of bacterial flagella operate is basically a wheel. Or more accurately a biological chemical/electric motor, but it spins anyway. And some of them can rotate either direction by engaging a protein cluster that effectively acts as a "reverse gear" like a transmission.

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes, and gasoline actually has less energy density than body fat at approx. 33 MJ/L vs. 35 MJ/L : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

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[-] zephorah@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago

I feel there’s a Pratchett quote in here somewhere.

[-] Protoknuckles@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Got you fam -

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life."

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

So apparently they're starting to create machines with biological parts. I wonder how long until we get artificial stomachs capable of using anything not explodey or caustic for fuel?

[-] BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

We used to have self driving vehicles running on water and hay.

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[-] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago

It would already be awesome if we could hack or genetically engineer our gut biome to produce all needed vitamins and proteins out of carbohydrates and fats. Theoretically then we could live just off of sugar or oil. Plus some minerals.

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[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

In order of worst to best case scenario the human body will reject, wear down, or scar around any and all implanted foreign materials or objects. Implants of every type have a shelf life, some long enough to never worry about removal. The best method to secure implants are to bones, but the only nearby bones for the stomach are the hips and spine, with organ cavity linings being problematically in the way for most attachments. For the digestive system it would need to be extremely resistant to corrosion and it would also need to be nontoxic as it would inevitably enter the bloodstream. Even teeth fillings are only rated for about a decade at most.

So, to be blunt, no such technology exists on this earth nor any speculation on how it ever might.

[-] bitfucker@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

I think the commenter mean using artificial stomach for machinery to convert food into energy that the machine can use

[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Oh that makes a little more sense, but not entirely sure why you would do that. We have Anaerobic Digestor Machinery already but they always lead into a combustion engine rather than making an artificial stomach keep an artificial heart pumping.

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[-] bcgm3@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

SO LET'S GET A PARTY GOIN'

[-] ozoned@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

WHEN IT'S TIME TO PARTY WE'LL ALL PARTY HARD!

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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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