I'm not ready for this

'Hottest chilli sauce' launched.

Blair Lazar has now done a "16 Million Reserve", registered at 6,000,000 Scoville. Since his 2 A.M. sauce is already insanely hot at 600,000, this would seem over the top.

Happily for the safety of the world, it's limited edition - 999 bottles of an ounce each, or a total production of just over 62 pounds. At $300 per ounce, that's also pretty expensive, but given that it's not actually a sauce at all - it's purified, crystalline capsaicin for use as a food additive - this should be the end of the escalating heat wars.

EDIT: as drplokta points out, this is actually hardly news, being an article that's bubbled back onto the BBC site front page by dint of suddenly being emailed a lot.

EDIT: That may be because of this new article: Chillies heated ancient cuisine, apparently showing Ancient Ecuadorans of 400BC using the spice.

I'm not ready for this

'Hottest chilli sauce' launched.

Blair Lazar has now done a "16 Million Reserve", registered at 6,000,000 Scoville. Since his 2 A.M. sauce is already insanely hot at 600,000, this would seem over the top.

Happily for the safety of the world, it's limited edition - 999 bottles of an ounce each, or a total production of just over 62 pounds. At $300 per ounce, that's also pretty expensive, but given that it's not actually a sauce at all - it's purified, crystalline capsaicin for use as a food additive - this should be the end of the escalating heat wars.

EDIT: as drplokta points out, this is actually hardly news, being an article that's bubbled back onto the BBC site front page by dint of suddenly being emailed a lot.

EDIT: That may be because of this new article: Chillies heated ancient cuisine, apparently showing Ancient Ecuadorans of 400BC using the spice.

Inappropriate use of conversion

From this article

The departure terminal was evacuated and a 656ft (200m) cordon put in place as a precautionary measure.

Err, did the police really measure the distance out to the nearest foot? I think not.

Better in such a case to list it as 200 yards (200m).

EDIT: oldbloke suggests "about a furlong", which has the double advantages of implying less actual accuracy, and of being little more than 0.5% different from the metric distance.

Inappropriate use of conversion

From this article

The departure terminal was evacuated and a 656ft (200m) cordon put in place as a precautionary measure.

Err, did the police really measure the distance out to the nearest foot? I think not.

Better in such a case to list it as 200 yards (200m).

EDIT: oldbloke suggests "about a furlong", which has the double advantages of implying less actual accuracy, and of being little more than 0.5% different from the metric distance.