The U.S. should switch to the Metric System. Discuss. No reason. Just interested in opinions.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.
You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.
Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.
How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.
Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.
Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.
You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.
Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.
The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris
Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.
People are weird.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Optimism opens the door to great things.
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”
How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?
Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.
In after Baud. Damn.
Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.
It’s a doggy dog world.
myiq2xu
Best Reason To Switch Ever: In Germany, beer comes in .5 liter bottles, here, the most common size is 12 oz.
Imagine six-packs of .5 liter bottles!
Weee Doggies!
double-plus-ungood
And leave Burma and Liberia as the only other nations not using it?
Mike
And give up my Quarter-Pounder?
Michael D.
Would you not rather have a Quarter Kilogramer?
Jon H
If we used the ” symbol for centimeters, guys would proudly switch in order to have a penis 2.54 times as large.
Chris
Absolutely.
In the year 2100, well after I’m dead.
(I dunno, I’m in Comp. Sci. even and those units just don’t process correctly in my head)
LarryB
Hey, the important parts of the economy have already made the switch! As any dealer on the street.
LarryB
Wups! As == Ask
SPIIDERWEB™
Of course we should, but Americans have to be “independent”.
sidereal
I’m tentatively in favor, just on the grounds of simplicity and rationality.
But metric length units don’t have a good sweet spot like the foot. The foot is great. I often want to build things a couple feet wide or stand a foot away from something.
40 centimeters? Not so much.
For a while my buddies and I made up an alternate system of measurement based on adding very large or very small prefixes to very large or small measurements to make them everyday.
For example, a picoAU is about 15 centimeters. A megasecond is about 14 days. A megadyne is about 2 and a quarter pounds.
Similar to the FFF system which uses furlongs, fortnights, and firkins as base units.
Good times.
Jeff
Yes, and we should get rid of paper dollar bills, too.
I remember all of the hoopla when I was in grade school in the 1970’s, learning how to use the metric system …
Bubblegum Tate
The Metric system leads to single-payer health care, which leads to communism, which leads to genocide. Do you want genocide, Michael? Huh, do ya?
dslak
The UK still uses the imperial system, although not exclusively.
El Cruzado
The UK just couldn’t get itself to fully move to metric. They keep mph on the road signs and I’ve seen the newspapers talk in terms of pounds and stones (who the hell uses stones anymore?) but other than that it’s all metric.
maxbaer (not the original)
It would be a Royale.
RSA
Using English measurements isn’t a real handicap, as far as I can tell. The main problems, I think, are the cost of maintaining a separate system and the potential cost of a switch over. I’m fine knowing that I’m about 1.8 meters tall and weigh about 75 kilos, and getting a feel for personal distances in centimeters and landmark distances in kilometers is no big deal (Celsius temperatures are also no biggie). The biggest difficulty I’ve ever run into (in moving between the U.S. and Europe) is translating recipes. Lots of stuff tends to be measured by weight rather than volume (e.g., 200g of flour rather than however many cups that is), which makes things a bit more complicated.
There is one interesting thing related to metric measurements that I brought up on Matt Yglesias’s blog a while back: Europeans measure automobile fuel efficiency by liters per 100 kilometers rather than, for example, kilograms per liter. The advantage of doing the former is that it makes it obvious that the goal is to get between locations using as little gas as possible, rather than going as far as you can on a given amount of gas.
calipygian
I was temporary duty at an RAF base outside of Lincoln, England 10 years ago. I walked off base and saw a sign that said that “Sleaford 11”. I assumed that meant that Sleaford was 11 km away and started walking, figuring it would take me about 2 hours. Imagine my suprise after about two hours of walking and I was no where near Sleaford, the 11 meaning miles.
Jon H
If Huckabee wins in November, we’re more likely to switch to cubits and rods and pi=3.
dslak
You can still buy beer by the pint!
calipygian
RSA – It is a big disadvantage. We lost a Mars probe because scientists sent instructions for thrust to the probe in Newtons when they should have used foot/pounds and the probe crashed. True story.
Plus manufacturers have to make products with two measurement standards – one for us and one for the rest of the world. That has got to cost.
brendancalling
my 2-inch penis would then be a respectable 5.08!
well, centimeters that is. The girls would still point and laugh. :(
Funkula
Yeah, but a half-liter is 16.9 oz. Switch!
In all seriousness though, switch. We need to enter the twentieth goddamn century.
Jay
I can always remember that 50 miles = 80 kilometers because the increments on the speedometer line up that way.
Knowing that there are 28 grams to an ounce and 3.5 grams is an eighth of an ounce has different origins, however.
Walker
The metric system is elegant because it favors base 10 calculations. But while this is nice for mathematical calculations, it is not particularly ideal for measuring and cutting. In particular, 10 is not evenly divisible by 3 or even 4, which are commonly desired subdivisions. There is a natural reason to have 12 subdivisions (inches in a foot), as 12 is divisible by 2, 3, and 4.
This is part of the reason Babylonians used the elegant (but unwieldy) Sexagesimal system. 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. It is why we still use the sexagesimal system for time and degree measurements.
myiq2xu
How many Fig Newtons in 1 foot/pound?
myiq2xu
How many kilos are in a shitload? I can’t find a conversion for that.
RSA
Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
Ravi
What? Surrender to the French?
canuckistani
The are A Fucking Lot Of kilos in a shitload.
4tehlulz
Metric shitload or Imperial shitload?
Bob In Pacifica
I can take it or leave it. The Forty-Niners can’t seem to make ten yards in four downs. So what if it’s ten meters?
Some guy named Matt
I believe the conversion factor is 3.25 Shitloads = 1 Metric Ass Ton. And from the the conversion to Kilo’s is elementary.
Some guy named Matt
The first the should be there in my comment above this. Confused? good!
Brady Bonk
Screw that! The metric system should switch to the U.S.!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
Four beers. Why?
ThymeZone
Forty three years later, and we are still debating this.
What a powerful, powerful idea. Really. I’m 5/8ths convinced.
GrayGaffer
When England made the switch, grocery stores were selling what used to be 1 or 2 oz packages for the same price, but now “to make things easier” they were 25 or 50 grams. That is, an immediate 10% pure profit. (for those who quail at the math, 1oz = 28.34952 g). Took me a while to notice that my 2oz tobacco cans were actually smaller. So metricification (!sic!) is instant inflation.
UnkyT
Is there a metric equivalent of suck?
myiq2xu
AKA: Imperial Wizard
UnkyT
Pittsburgh might also be interested in this. And yes, I did just blockquote myself
skippy
you can have my miles when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
myiq2xu
Look at the bright side, if we switch we can drive 100 on the freeways legally!
MaryS-NJ
Why not? I learned the metric system measurements in grade school. In… 1970-ish? I thought we were moving in that direction. Wonder what happened?
I’m too old and wine-soaked to remember the conversions now except that a meter is something like 39 inches.
I am rather fond of miles and MPH, but otherwise I’m open to change.
RSA
750ml = 1 bottle. It’s easy!
demimondian
The problem is that the metric form is the
. ALways remember that teh Google, like The Computer, is your friend.
demimondian
Fixed that for me.
Kirk Spencer
shrug – I got comfortable with metric when I was in the army. After seeing some of the peer I had in basic master it, I think the fears of difficulty learning are a bit overblown. Well, and a human desire to prevent change.
Oh, as an “odds and ends” response… Sidereal, given the approximation in ‘want a foot or two’, half a meter works well (call it 20 inches for comparison sake).
JWW
Should we aslo adopt the Euro?
Ass!!
Dave_Violence
Modulus of Elasticity just doesn’t seem right in metric. Neither do area loads.
Dave_Violence
…and another thing
IT’S FUCKING “KILL-OH-METER” NOT “KI-LOM-ETER” BITCHES.
That is all.
myiq2xu
Here are some other measurements that don’t seem to convert well: country mile, snoot full, pantload, hank, mouthful, arms length, pace, scoop, stone’s throw, earshot, eyeful, and block.
I won’t even start on time measurements.
Tokyoite
***The biggest difficulty I’ve ever run into (in moving between the U.S. and Europe) is translating recipes. Lots of stuff tends to be measured by weight rather than volume (e.g., 200g of flour rather than however many cups that is), which makes things a bit more complicated.
Hah, metric also has volumetric (ml) units, so that doesn’t wash. I live in Japan and after 30 years have aclimatized fully to the metric system; what I find really upsetting about the avoirdupois and other such systems for recipies is the unit “ounces”; it can refer to either weight or volume, and no recipe ever makes it clear which is meant!
Punchy
Oh. My. God. I have seen Pure Unadulterated Geekdom, and here it is.
That said, in college we used to make fun of fat chicks by refering to their size in Svedberg units. We also once debated whether the band Telsa would have been better if they’d gone with “Gauss” instead.
Immaturity was (is?) my middle name.
myiq2xu
When I was in the Army we used beer as a measurement of unattractiveness. The fuglier a girl was, the more beers required, as in “I would need at least ___ beers first.”
On our scale, a “10” wasn’t a good thing.
RSA
When I was a cubicle drone we would refer to people’s height in HMUs: Herman Miller Units. One of my friends was exactly 1 HMU tall (about 5’2″), which meant you could only barely see the top of his hair bobbing above the cubicle walls as he walked through the office.
incontrolados
I started putting together a garden shed today. I am tool rich, but the nuts don’t fit either of my tool’s measures. The shed is American made, but is some sort of third measuring system. Thankfully, the shed will exist within a lager garage and so if I don’t get all the bolts tight, well nothing will blow it over.
I didn’t start drinking before I started putting it together either.
Doesn’t someone need a puppy? Please consider the newly named pups. The worms are gone. I’m training them. They are cute.
Ivan Renko
Fuck that. It’s klick.
Oh– just offhand, how many cups are in a pint? I swear-to-God, I love cooking but figuring out the damn mesurements drives me to drink (granted it’s not a long trip).
myiq2xu
You’re training cute worms?
myiq2xu
That’s pronounced “click”
demimondian
Sheesh, myiq. Didn’t they teach you anything in the public school of yours?
country mile = 1.63 union kilomtre
snoot full = zwei Bieren
pantload = .76 doughies
hank = 2.71 gumps
mouthful = 0.16 phallus
arms length = 2 fars
pace = 1 metre
scoop = 0.5 stories
stone’s throw = .663 chuck’s chokes
earshot = 2 wax-splatters
eyeful = 2 breasts
block = 27 apartments
demimondian
Oh, sorry, I got that wrong
1 stone’s throw = 2.26 conspiracy theories
myiq2xu
Sorry, I was tome schooled.
myiq2xu
Ok Demi, howzabout “a hop, skip and a jump?”
The Grand Panjandrum
That trumps my 9/16ths.
Planck or Avogadro would work for me, but only because a band named Bohr would just be to tough to pay any attention.
myiq2xu
Watt?
incontrolados
myiqwhatever, you are mighty proud of your pointing out that I trained nasty worms.
I think you are Jeffy.
So there.
demimondian
I swear, those puns are Joules. (Erg!)
demimondian
a hop, skip and a jump = one triple-jump
demimondian
At Gollum, we have a unit of computational power: the kilobox. (Used in the form “implementing that algorithm will require about 2.2 kiloboxen.”) Unlike the other geeky units, it’s actually a useful measure.
DP
We should have gone metric long ago, not doing so is stupid (although the divisible by 3 and 4 argument actually got me a bit).
Otherwise this is the funniest goddamn comment thread I have read in a long, long time.
ChristieS
2 cups = 1 pint if you are talking about US system liquid conversions. Here’s a link for a handy conversion tool for both dry and liquid, US and international. link
demimondian
Imperial units are binary (unlike length, it’s very hard to subdivide volumes evenly, so large factors don’t help.) So it’s 2s = 1pt, 2 pt = 1 qt, 4 qt = 1 gal.
Now, how many oz. Troy are in one oz. Avoirdupois?
Warren Terra
We’ll never switch, because of intertia. But we should. English units are just clumsy.
It’s not even length that’s really the issue, though in those rare occasions when you have to convert between yards and miles you realize that base 1760 is not terribly convenient; it’s the interoperability of metric units among length, volume, and mass. 1 milliliter is one cubic centimeter, and 1 milliliter of water is 1 gram. And suddenly things become a lot easier …
Aren’t you sick of comparison shopping in the grocery store and dividing by 16? Of trying to remember the conversions among teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, pints, etcetera?
(that said, as we have not switched, surely it’s unpatriotic to buy a two-liter bottle of cola?)
Randolph Fritz
Yes. They make our exports more competitive, and enable us to purchase more sorts of manufactured goods.
Warren Terra
Is it too egregiously nerdy to approvingly cite an excellent sci-fi novel that used just such time measurements?
They actually work surprisingly well, especially at the speed of a typical plot (fifteen minutes or a day are useful increments):
1 ksec ~ 15 minutes (16.5 minutes)
100 ksec ~ 1 day (27.8 hours)
1 Msec ~ 2 weeks (10.5 days)
30 Msec ~ 1 year (347 days)
Johnny Pez
Wins.
TheFountainHead
/eyeroll
And here I was beginning to worry you here at Balloon-Juice focused on the trivial and nerd-like.
Chuck Butcher
Take out a tape measure with both scales and then tell me why I want to use a pencil and powersaw on that POS ‘M’ scale. Now, crawl under your car and tell me your eye can tell the difference between 11mm and 12 mm fasteners to put a wrench on. You’re ok if the car follows the conventions of US even and Jap odd (or reverse, I don’t remember) but if it’s a POS Ford with domestic & Jap parts you’re SOL. I loath that system, whether you think it’s logical or not, in practical usage it sucks. Most real life doesn’t involve the levels of precision a base 10 system provides. Civil egr measurements use 0.1 inch which is still usable. Design specs (construction) use x-y-z where x=foot, y=inch, z=16ths and in practice 16ths are generally 1/8s. The only time 16ths get used in carpentry is finish work.
Cuzco
Logically, yes. Intuitively, no.
I think kids would take to it fine but for some (like myself) I have no intuitive grasp of a kilometer. I know it’s roughly .6 of a mile but I always have to translate metric in my head to English to understand how far, how heavy or how much space it takes up.
It’s sort of like learning a foreign language. Some folks have the knack and are able to think in another language with a little practice but others can study for years and never get to that point.
I’m that way with Spanish. I’ve taken immersion courses in Mexico, studied it on my own, make a point to enlist Latin friends to talk to me sometimes in Spanish and all that’s accomplished is that I can translate Spanish to English faster, but I never think “La Tienda es en la esquina” I think “the store is on the corner” and translate.
Metric is the same way for me.
cmoreNC
I’ll raise Ein Stein of beer to all of that (!)
I do note that somehow units of *time* have so far been left out of the metric system – we don’t have e.g.
100 metric seconds == 1 metric minute
100 metric minutes == 1 metric hour
100 metric hours == 1 metric day.
…it would kinda break down at trying to do metric years, wouldn’t it?
tBone
The ladies just tell you that to make you feel better.
Re: the metric system – “2 Girls, 236.59 Milliliters” would be much less tempting to click on than the English equivalent. Metric wins.
joel hanes
The standard unit of bogosity is the microLenat
For a closer look at the labwork involved in measuring the precise value of one Lenat, read Richard Powers’ excellent
Galatea 2.2
Robert Johnston
I don’t think so. We should go to Newfoundlandian measures, not Metric. “In Newfoundland, a tub of coal was formerly equal to 100 pounds.” (http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictT.html). In an internet ruled by such measures, tubgirl would be a bit skinny, but all things considered I’d take “a bit skinny” given the alternative.
LiberalTarian
Metric baby. My life would get a hell of a lot easier. As a scientist, you are always trying to convert in your head, and it bites ass.
Funny thing though, in the old literature, people say “roughly 100 feet” and “roughly 100 meters.” Bullshit. 100 meters ~ 300 feet. Bastards. They should be stipped naked and sprayed with soda on a cold day. Sticky and cold, that’s what they deserve!!!
And, besides, we might not lose as many fucking Mars mission landers, wot?
croatoan
using English measurements made us lose an orbiter on Mars.
myiq2xu
Not sure, but there’s 2 cups in a bra, and one in a jock.
Oh, yeah, and about 6-8 cups in a pot.
skip
Metric system! We’re lucky if we get GOP preisidential candidates who believe in post-Ptolemaic celestial mechanics.
myiq2xu
Good, now let’s try some units of small measurement:
Smidgen, tad, dollop, and teensy bit.
And for ultrafine measurement: a c#nt hair (as in “if yer off by just a c#nt hair it won’t work.”
tBone
Good point. Both Metric and Newfoundlandism have points in their favor.
Unfortunately, neither are exempt from the one universal measurement: a goatse.
myiq2xu
“Johnny likes skinny girls, but he never turns down a fattie.”
Robert Johnston
Johnny would turn down tubgirl. Google is not your friend. It is your enemy, and its existence will lead to immeasurable pain. You’ve been warned.
The Other Steve
New Sharp 46″ LCD 1080p
+ Toshiba HD-DVD A35
+ Bourne Identity
——————–
= 1080p/24 Goodness
It all arrived today. I’m in HD heaven.
Llelldorin
Is the difficulty of switching to metric really just the difficulty of learning to think in the measures? I’d always gotten the impression that the cost of retooling industry (which has an imperial shitload of equipment desgined to mill, press, bend, cut, and otherwise manipulate material to precise fractions of an inch) was more the stopping point.
myiq2xu
Penis enlargement surgery is no reason to keep the old system.
But I must admit, I have considered getting retooled.
Goseph Gerbils
myiq2xu: red or blonde?
myiq2xu
Red, cuz with the other kind the carpet rarely matches the drapes.
If there is any carpet.
Delaney
Seriously? And here I haven’t even recovered from Pluto’s demotion yet. Don’t break my heart, guys!
dbrown
News flash – we have.
besides the fact that in all science and most engineering, metric is the rule, all Americans really use the metric system – our so-called English uints are METRIC equivalent: unlike the real (and long gone) English units, our American English units can EXACTly be converted into metric: ie 1″ = 2.54 cm exactly; 2.2 lbs = 1 Kg exactly; true, not clean like metric but our system is really in a one-to-one realtionship to metric
calipygian
I kind of like the idea that my member is a fear inducing mighty 12.5 CMer rather than a pathetic, limp 5 inchers.
myiq2xu
Watt? 1 = 2.54 and 2.2 = 1?
How is that 1 to 1? Didn’t we lose .34 somewhere?
Shygetz
Nope, sorry; the pound is just an estimate. 1 pound = 453.59237 g.
myiq2xu
todays exchange rate is:
1 pound = $.50615
Darkness
Metric is great except for Centigrade/Celsius. Who ever measures the temperature of a boiling pot of water? I mean, really, you know what temperature it is… it’s boiling, so who gives a rat’s pyjama what number that equates to? It makes for a pointless upper end of the scale. (unless you are trying to estimate your altitude by doing so, that I could understand).
Fahrenheit was designed for outdoor temperatures, it was carfully calibrated over a decade (admittedly in a temperate zone) so that the normal range would be 0 to 100. And guess what we overwhelmingly use temperature for, most of us?
The celsius range is too gross. 1 degree is a major difference in feel. Which is why when you get in a car in Europe, it clumsily has to let you set the temp up and down using 22, 22.5, 23, 23.5. Sheesh, if you used Fahrenheit, the system intended for ambient temperatures rather than chemists, you could ditch the decimal.
myiq2xu
So “normal” wouldn’t be 98.6 anymore?
calipygian
@Darkness – When it is -40, it doesn’t matter. Literally. Minus 40 is -40, whether it is Farenheit or Celcius. Neat, huh?
Krista
If you guys tried to switch, you’d probably end up like us — using both.
I can’t speak for the whole country, but as a general rule, here are some of the units we use.
Height: feet and inches
Weight: pounds
Distance: kilometres
Length (be it penis size or anything to do with carpentry): feet and inches
Temperature: Celsius
I guess we just use whatever seems most appropriate to whatever we’re doing. For carpentry, feet and inches just works better, due to the whole “divisible by three or four” rule. But when I do any sort of desktop publishing, I measure everything in picas. Any small measurements work better for me in metric — I can picture a centimetre (it’s the width of the tip of my pinky). I can’t picture 1/8 of an inch. Fractions fuck me up — give me good old decimal places. Fahrenheit is complete gobbledygook to me, but don’t ask me how tall I am in metres — I have absolutely no idea.
And when you go to the grocery store, the prices are given both in amount per pound and amount per kilogram.
I believe that Quebec is farther along in a complete adoption of the metric system than is the rest of the country, if I’m not mistaken — I’ve heard Quebecers refer to their height and weight in metric. One thing that’s neat is that in Europe, they measure beverages in centilitres. We don’t even use that measurement here — it’s either milliletres (i.e. 500 mililetres in a bottle of pop), or it’s litres (2 litres for the big-ass bottle of pop.) But with beer, even though right on the bottle it says “330 ml”, if you order beer on tap, the sizes are offered in ounces.
Wow…we’re really screwed up, aren’t we?
myiq2xu
The guys up there measure their wangs in “feet and inches?”
Damn!
Darkness
Are we talking evolution here (in that mammalian body temperature is related to ambient temperature) or just the decimal? 36.8 isn’t any better…
The -40 matching up is an excellent convenience. Because when you are telling some very naïve, recently arrived student in a light jacket that it is -12 out, they say, oh that’s not so bad. I find it quicker to do the 9:5 conversion using -40 as the baseline to give them a number they will grasp. Like Cuzco, I must always translate, and it’s hazardous to let a rounding error in because the gap between bathing weather and freezing your arse off is some mere five or so degrees.
Celsius wasn’t designed for what the average person uses it for. Fahrenheit was. That’s all I have say.
Krista
Heh. Make that feet and inches for carpentry, and inches for peckers.
André Kenji
Errr. I live in country that speaks a Latin Language(Portuguese) and that uses a Metric System. I think that to me Englih Metrics is a pain in the ass because everytime that I get some number in a American Magazine I have to use some conversion. If I see somekind of number(Like serve speed) in a Tennis Match played on the US I don´t know what it means.
But I also think that it would be complicated for Americans to learn it. The best solution is what Wikipedia does: ir uses both systems. That´s what most companies and even highway signs should do.
(And yes, if you have a Latin Language is very difficult to speak English properly, and vice-versa).
bobbob
I hate fucking fractions. I could not get it in school. It was not until I became an industrial mechanic in a plant that used foriegn built equipment that I learned the metric system. It is so easy. The US is the only country that still uses the King’s Foot as a measure. Insane.
skip
“So “normal” wouldn’t be 98.6 anymore?”
Actually, that hasn’t be correct for years— ever since some college kids went ahead and took a myriad healthy temperatures. I forget the right answer, but 98.6 is wrong on ANY scale.
Needless to say, no one has jumped to be first to correct the thermometers. To be accurate would require re-tooling.
grumpy realist
1. It would help those of us science geeks who figure out all our equipment using metric and then have to translate everything into imperial units so we can get the guys down in the shop to actually build it.
2. No need to carry around a load of metric tools in the back of one’s (imported) car (which is what one of my friends regularly has to do)
3. Am surprised no one has yet mentioned the milliHelen, a “unit of beauty sufficient to launch one ship.”
4. Furlongs per fortnight, anyone?
5. The closer we go to nanotech, the less useful imperial units are gonna be, anyway. After enough work with an AFM and imaging stuff like DNA and carbon nanotubes, I’ve started to think of microns as being huuuuge….
Space Captain
For everyone who believes the American system is better than the metric system, answer these 2 questions quickly:
What’s bigger 2 13/16 or 2 7/8?
What’s bigger, 7 mm or 8 mm?
For those who work with wood, how many times have you had to re-cut something because you could not remember if it was 1 ft 4 5/8 inches long or 1 ft 5 5/16?
Metrics is simpler and much more practical.
libarbarian
I’d like to remind all the traitors that the French use the metric system.
Enough said.
Steven Taylor
I think we should adopt the Klingon Kellicam.
Jon Karak
yes.
Chuck Butcher
“What’s bigger 2 13/16 or 2 7/8?”
You aren’t going to use 1/16 unless you’re cutting finish work. If you don’t know off the top of your head get a different job, it really is exactly how hard to do 2×7=14 off the top of your head. Do you make some assumption that carpenters are stupid? Look at that tape again and the divisions and then take a look at a carpenter’s pencil. A cm is too big a division and a mm is too small.
Now hop under your car a take a look at that fastener, at a glance I can tell 1/2 from 9/16, try it with 10mm & 11mm. Geekdom is great where applicable. I took enough college physics and chemistry (major- BSME/BSEP) to understand the difference and the importance in that world, the problem is it does not conveniently translate. The standard numbers were developed for real world convenience and utility, not scientific accuracy, that does not make them inferior, simply useful in a different context and practical utility is not scientific scaled.
Now as expressions which numbers have a more immediate meaning to you 327/5.3, 350/5.7, 400/6 (Chev-GM) and derivatives like 283, 302, 307, 383, 396, 427, 454, 500? A 302 and a 307 are completely dissimilar engins, no performance relationship but in L they are exactly the same.
The fact that much of the world uses scientific measurements for every day usage does not make it either reasonable nor convenient. Not a single one of you tech oriented folks has a problem working in the metric scale in your specialized applications, so do it and leave the rest of us alone. In a part of my work I use the expression squares which is meaningless to most of you, but amongst roofers it is a meaningful expression referring to an important and easy to use measurement. (100sq ft) It is of no import to the rest of you, but a square is typically 3 or 4 bundles of composition shingles and a roofer will get paid for 20 1/3 sq not 2028 sq ft, your accuracy is meaningless just as my term is in your world. A metric shingle is only meaningful in that it is gauged at 5 5/8 exposure, the 39 1/4 length is immaterial, it get’s cut at the end of the roof and 5 5/8 works for any patterning.
A. W. Brown
This is a great topic. Two Points:
1. We use a base 10 numerical system.
2. We use a base 12 measuring system.
So metric supporters wish to change the measuring system to match the numerical system. I have a much, much, better idea;
Change the numerical system to base 12!
Seriously, base 10 is vastly inferior to base 12, as anyone knows who has used it. Just for starters, 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. Both 3 and 4 are especially handy, as 4 is the most commonly used number in construction (walls, corners, sides, etc) and 3 is also very, very, handy.
So why did we ever start using base 10 anyway? Myth says because you can count on your digits, for the math challenged. No problem – you can still use your fingers in base 12 if you add the fist! Easy as pie.
So let’s switch our number system to the vastly superior base 12, and leave the measuring system the way it is.
We just need to come up with two more symbols for the numbers ten and eleven.
No one ever suggests this, but we made a big mistake switching to metric, we should have done it then.
myiq2xu
Watt?
stuck in 200
We’re lucky if we get GOP presidential candidates who believe in post-Ptolemaic celestial mechanics.
Leader in the clubhouse for POTY.
Don’t forget the decibet – the metric alphabet. SNL transcript here:
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rdecabet.phtml
prufrock
Actually, we could call it a Newton Burger (1 Newton ~ 1/4 lbs).
Tehanu
I guess I could get used to meters, liters, & so on, but Celsius temps suck. When I hear the weather report, I want to know that temperatures will be coolish — (in the 50’s or 60’s), pleasant (70’s), warm (80’s), etc. — not “highs of 22-24” as opposed to “highs of 23-25”; how the hell can you tell what that means? Somebody else suggested using both old & new together, all the time, and I think that’s the only realistic course, until fossils like me die out anyway.
GrayGaffer
1: small units used in cooking – pinch and dash. I have no idea what either are in any system of measurement and avoid recipes that use them like the plague.
2: Rods, poles, perches, acres, Horsepower, BTU’s, barrels, fathoms, leagues, gnat’s whisker, government work (as in: close enough). And American names same as Brit but different sizes? wtf? (1 us lb = 16 oz, UK lb = 20 oz)
3: skip Says:
Metric system! We’re lucky if we get GOP preisidential candidates who believe in post-Ptolemaic celestial mechanics.
really. <rant>At least they (post-Ptolemaic) knew the Earth was spherical and knew its size, and that the Sun ws a looong way away. The RCC decided keeping the peasants ignorant was a Good Thing ™ hence the Flat Earthers and ID. </rant>
grumpy realist
GreyGaffer, I think the “pinch” and “dash” are the same for “roughly 1/8 tsp”.
I remember my mother bitching about grocery shopping in the U.K. back in the early 1980s: meat was measured in grams, veggies in pounds, and certain vegetables like potatoes in….stones.
michael
for the “metric units aren’t useful for everyday use”: how exactly do you imagine the average French/German/Italian/Austrian/Swiss/whatehaveyou housewife does her shopping and cooking, or listening to the weather-report, for that matter? Well of course, just fine. This argument is exactly the same as the one that claims that a windows system is inherently more user-friendly and accessible than a linux system. It isn’t. It’s just that most people have grown up with one system and are used to it, so the other one doesn’t conform to their expectations. If you enter the field without expectations, i.e. as a child, whatever you learn first will seem “natural” to you. I, frex, find the “imperial” units just .. completely weird, almost Lovecraftian in their weirdness. As for the person complaining about the temperature scale: 18 degrees is a slightly coldish bedroom (recommended sleeping temperature). 20-22 degrees is nice “feel-nice” temperature. 25 degrees is getting warmish, 30 is hot, 35 is HOT, 40 is ugh. -15 to -20 is when your face starts hurting. Now recalibrate for the climate you find normal, of course. The ones I mentioned are for central Europe (german speaking area). I remember when I was in Ireland 6-7 years ago, there was some “heat wave” going on at 25 degrees in the summer, and everyone was running around practically in bathing clothes, complaining about the intense heat. Whilst I feld it was the most comfortable not-hot summer temperature.
michael
fuck no, I wasn’t in ireland 67 years ago, that meant 6 to 7 years.