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Americans can't handle the metric system

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Fanatical Meat said:
its funny that we have metric money but we refuse to consider metric measurements.
Click to expand...
Nickel: 5 cents
Quarter: 25 cents
2 bits: 50 cents
A buck: One dollar
'Bout Tree Fiddy: Undefined



And we do some metric anyway.
Power consumption for lightbulbs is given in watts, not horsepower.
Pills are typically measured in milligrams.
Liquid medication is dispensed by milliliter.
Soda is commonly sold in 2-liter bottles.
 
Imp said:
Doubtful. Those jackasses who designed my computer had to work with on/off switches.

Someone just really liked to halve things with inches.
Click to expand...

So if you're going to represent values on [0,1], and all you have are on/off switches how do you do it? Well, you say everything past a certain on/off switch (the radix point, a decimal point is a radix point for base 10) is the fractional part. The first switch is 1/2, the next switch is 1/4, then 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, etc...

This is fundamental to all fixed point computation on binary machines, and a necessary part of floating point as well, though the handling and representation are different. If the people who designed your computer were not quite familiar with negative powers of 2 then your computer would be massively less functional and some things like smartphones would not be functional.
 
Jeff7 said:
Nickel: 5 cents
Quarter: 25 cents
2 bits: 50 cents
A buck: One dollar
'Bout Tree Fiddy: Undefined
Click to expand...

2 bits is 25 cents

Just like in computers a "bit" was an eighth of a larger monetary unit, that's where pieces of eight came from. An eighth of a dollar was one bit, 12 1/2 cents and 2 bits was a quarter.
 
Redoing all those MilSpec standards from over the last 50 years into metric might have something to do with it.

Not sure.

25.4
 
We still get the occasional metric blueprint at work. Last one i worked on a few weeks ago was already converted to inches by whoever drew it up so i didn't have to. And they were generous on rounding too 🙂
 
GagHalfrunt said:
2 bits is 25 cents

Just like in computers a "bit" was an eighth of a larger monetary unit, that's where pieces of eight came from. An eighth of a dollar was one bit, 12 1/2 cents and 2 bits was a quarter.
Click to expand...
See? I messed up a units conversion already.
 
Belegost said:
Maybe the same jackasses that designed the computer you wrote that on...

I would be a lot happier moving to metric if it had used a dexonal (base 12) or sexagesimal (base 60) system. Decimal having only 2 and 5 as non trivial prime factors is grating when one wants to split something into thirds. I honestly think deciding on a numeral system based on how many fingers an average person has is ridiculous, perhaps it made a lot of sense for medieval Arabic scholars, but it's laughably archaic at this point.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Belegost said:
Maybe the same jackasses that designed the computer you wrote that on...

I would be a lot happier moving to metric if it had used a dexonal (base 12) or sexagesimal (base 60) system. Decimal having only 2 and 5 as non trivial prime factors is grating when one wants to split something into thirds. I honestly think deciding on a numeral system based on how many fingers an average person has is ridiculous, perhaps it made a lot of sense for medieval Arabic scholars, but it's laughably archaic at this point.
Click to expand...
I want a number system base that's a prime number, just to screw with people.
 
Just because it is better doesn't mean we use it; When I was a kid, working as a mechanic, you needed 3 different kinds of wrenches. The one no one uses today makes the most sense; Whitworth wrenches.

I use both meters and yards; always buy a meter-stick because the back side hads inches. I agree; hogsheads, rods and even furlongs don't make sense if you can count past 100. If you work with both you understand a what a ton and a long ton are. If we teach both in our schools, the best will win out but then we don't measure the speed of light as furlongs per fortnight.
 
DrPizza said:
Americans don't even know their own supposedly "superior" system. They're idiots to think it's better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7x-RGfd0Yk

And, that's just units of length.
Click to expand...

Americans understand some units of length very well. Like "our missiles fly farther than your missiles and if you don't like our system of measurement we can fly them 10 feet up your ass". Wanna know why we don't care how many centimeters that is? Because it's not our ass.
 
We don't have to use metric, so some do, some don't, its OUR choice as we don't allow the government to run our lives.
 
GagHalfrunt said:
Americans understand some units of length very well. Like "our missiles fly farther than your missiles and if you don't like our system of measurement we can fly them 10 feet up your ass". Wanna know why we don't care how many centimeters that is? Because it's not our ass.
Click to expand...

:sneaky:
 
Best comeback I've seen yet has been "There are two types of countries. Those that use the metric system and those that have walked on the moon."
 
destrekor said:
I never knew the majority of that.

I enjoyed it! :awe:
Click to expand...

GagHalfrunt said:
Americans understand some units of length very well. Like "our missiles fly farther than your missiles and if you don't like our system of measurement we can fly them 10 feet up your ass". Wanna know why we don't care how many centimeters that is? Because it's not our ass.
Click to expand...
What's even funnier is that Americans don't even know that their system of measurement is now based on the metric system. How long is an inch? What's the standard for an inch? Answer: Exactly 2.54 centimeters.
 
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