I propose that the "obf" shall be a unit of volume based on the total volume of beer consumed during a typical Oktoberfest. Statistics indicate that a reasonable equivalent would be about 6 million litres or about 1.5 million gallons (or about 5 acre-feet). The purpose is to equate large, abstract volumes of liquid into something more comprehensible.

Example: According to the link, the average per-capita "water footprint" in the USA was 2480 cubic meters or about 650,000 gallons. Somewhat abstract, is it not? That would equate to a little under 0.5 obf. So a North American couple has a "water footprint" almost as large as all the beer consumed during Oktoberfest!

Other candidates not chosen for use as a unit of volume were the "mardigras" (abbr. "mdg") and the "Saint Patrick's day" (abbr. "SPd").
-- Gamma48, Jun 06 2009

Water footprint data, circa 2007 http://www.waterfoo..._Chapagain_2007.pdf
Intended for use as an example of how the "obf" could be employed. [Gamma48, Jun 06 2009]

2499329.82944 litres in an olympic swimming pool http://www.weirdconverter.com/index.php
I don't know about one Oktoberfest, though... [fridge duck, Jun 07 2009]

a fraction.
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 07 2009


Usually one refers to a unit that is imaginable : a litre, one is familiar with, so 5.5 liters become imaginable too. To describe something not easily imagined (yearly consumption of water) by a fraction of something equally hard to imagine (octoberfest consumption of all attendants, during the whole time - how should one relate?). So either you have to make huge numbers imaginable (see my idea about a numbers implant), or you have to use a volume that is imaginable, as [bigsleep] did mentioning the olympic swimming pool.
-- loonquawl, Jun 07 2009


Does this unit change from year to year?
-- sninctown, Jun 07 2009


So it's roughly two and a half Olympic swimming pools.
-- nineteenthly, Jun 07 2009



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