Weights and Measures

I was thinking about corn this morning and came to the realization that while I had the vague notion that corn commodities were measured in bushels, I hadn't thought about what that meant until I looked it up online. As it turns out, when the tv news channel reports about bushels of wheat or bushels of corn, they aren't referring to the same measurement. Corn used to be measured by volume, where one U.S. bushel of corn was equivalent to eight dry gallons of kernels.

One bushel of measurement is not the same for different types of grains and seeds. These differ from corn in that they are also measured by weight and moisture content. To understand how moisture content affects unit, pricing, and weight, let's use fresh chestnuts as an example. It takes roughly six weeks (according to Allen Creek Farms) to convert freshly harvested chestnuts into dried chestnuts (less than 15% moisture content) in order to store dried chestnuts or to grind it into flour. One pound of whole dried chestnuts can then be reconstituted into two pounds six ounces of rehydrated chestnuts, for culinary purposes.

Here is a basic guide to how other bushels are measured:

• oats: 32 lbs (in the US) or 34 lbs (in Canada)
• barley: 48 lbs
• malted barley: 34 lbs
• shelled corn at 15.5% moisture by weight: 56 lbs
• wheat at 13.5% moisture by weight: 60 lbs
• soybeans at 13% moisture by weight 60 lbs

That said, the next time you are in a discussion about weights and measures or someone casually asks for your definition of an "order of magnitude", it is best to ask what definitions are being used.

Cloud-based data can be interesting...

...especially when it's not mapped or indexed properly. Surely, someone wise in the ways of data at Facebook would have seen this one coming long before the feature got implemented. To get to this drop-down list, pick one of your friends that has a viewable Friends list, and then change the category selector to filter the list. It doesn't matter what category you choose (other than by Name), all other categories will result in the same un-targeted category results.

Example. A search by "hometown" yields these sample selections, where the match is based on any letter match, say "*a*" versus "a*". It makes a big world of difference to start the match based on criteria that comes after the first letter that a user keys in than what it is today, a match based on any placement in a phrase or word. See image below:

Dear Valued Customer

In some messaging campaigns, it is appropriate to use this addressing moniker when a customer's name is not know. Many small and large sized businesses are afflicted by incomplete customer profiles. While using "Dear Valued Customer" as a salutation within a bulk email is indirect and lacks the connectivity marketers strive for with their customers, it still has value when used appropriately. Consider these two bulk email examples where the customer's name is not known. One used "Valued Customer" in the subject line of the email. In the other example, no data validation was used prior to the send. If the salutation or subject line is the first impression a customer sees in their digital inbox, the email could be less personalized if those details aren't known. Frankly, both of these emails are unappealing, impersonal, and simply not the kind of email that conjures up warm, fuzzy feelings about their respective firms.