Petition to make USA Metric

[skimple]

Not if you're using 20 centimeters as the basis of your measurement, and all things that you measure henceforth will be based on your arbitrary minimum of 20 centimeters.

I shall call it the "tweenimeter". And 3 tweenimeters shall be called the seximeter. And so on and so forth.

Congratulations, you have now been taught where and how fundamental units of measurement have been created. (Hint: They're ALL arbitrary, including metric. Just because the zeroes line up in certain places to make your mathematically challenged brain not work so hard doesn't make them any less arbitrary.)

Awesome-ness!

 

[ElFenix]

nautical miles > kilometers

 

[Ben90]

Base 10 is no better or worse than any other system.

Base12 has its advantages. It starts getting relevant around 3 minutes.

 

[Dumac]

A $2 bill is not an increment of 1/10th of the next magnitude. People don't measure in increments of 2 centimeters.

Base 10 is no better or worse than any other system. "Everybody else is doing it" is argument of convenience. It's not because one system is better than another.

And saying to "just move a decimal" gets back to my first comment about people being bad at math.

But base 10 is at least better than no base at all (imperial).

Plus, base ten has its advantages in that the math is simple and fractions easily recognizable since we use base10 in math.

If I have a 1000mL container and need 333mL, I know I can fill the container up 1/3 of the way, approximately.

With a Binary System, it is a bit harder. For example, what is 1/3 of a 512 container? If I need 347/512, approximately how much is that?

 

[skimple]

nautical miles > kilometers

Ooooooo - nautical miles!

1 knot = 1.85 kph = 1.15 mph

Now THERE'S a system of measurement!

 

[gorcorps]

Still behind the times, Brandon.



Post 3

I have embedded images disabled so never saw it. Oh well... I was still first in my own mind

 

[mnewsham]

nautical miles > kilometers

League > nautical miles

 

[Puppies04]

be an Englishman, use C when it's cold and F when it's hot so each side sounds more impressive.

Bullshit. I'm English and I never in my entire existence heard anyone use fahrenheit to describe the temperature of anything in this country. Mainly because it is the most retarded unit of measurement out of all of them.

 

[mnewsham]

Bullshit. I'm English and I never in my entire existence heard anyone use fahrenheit to describe the temperature of anything in this country. Mainly because it is the most retarded unit of measurement out of all of them.

odd, it's all my Aunt and nephews use in the summer on facebook when they bitch about weather, in the winter they suddenly start bitching about temps in C.

My dad did the same thing for awhile (about 15 years in this country when he finally stopped)


Also the BBC uses C and F in summer/spring/fall weather reports but only use C in winter reports, care to explain that one away?

 

[highland145]

I have embedded images disabled so never saw it. Oh well... I was still first in my own mind

Just ribbing you. I'll take your word for it.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Bullshit. I'm English and I never in my entire existence heard anyone use fahrenheit to describe the temperature of anything in this country. Mainly because it is the most retarded unit of measurement out of all of them.

No, the most retarded unit of all of them is stone. I mean, where the hell did that one come from? "Well, can't say that fellow is 150 pounds on account of he'll sound like a cheap whore. And we don't want to use kilograms, because fuck France. How about we weigh this here rock and use that from now on?" Talk about arbitrary.

 

[mnewsham]

No, the most retarded unit of all of them is stone. I mean, where the hell did that one come from? "Well, can't say that fellow is 150 pounds on account of he'll sound like a cheap whore. And we don't want to use kilograms, because fuck France. How about we weigh this here rock and use that from now on?" Talk about arbitrary.

I'm about 9 stone (just a shade under)

 

[highland145]

I'm about 9 stone (just a pebble under)

fixed

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I'm about 9 stone (just a shade under)

Jesus, that's nearly 0.065 short tons! Lightweight.

 

[KeithP]

Whats the reason not to switch?

Reason not to switch? How about because there is no good reason to "switch". But the rest of the world is using it? LOL, that is right up there with "because the cool kids are doing it" for reasons to do something.

Of course, there is nothing stopping you from using it yourself. Or starting a business and using it there. Or raising a family and teaching your kids to use it.

Maybe the real question should be why is it you seem to be unable to use and understand both at the same time?

-KeithP

 

[mnewsham]

fixed

:thumbsup:

 

[mnewsham]

Jesus, that's nearly 0.065 short tons! Lightweight.

0.0625 actually

 

[zinfamous]

my professional life is governed by the metric system and temperature = celsius.

It honestly baffles my mind that the collective will of this country seems bound and determined to retain such archaic and useless systems of measurement. One would think we'd stopped sucking the cock of our Imperialist British masters, but some habits die hard.

 

[gorcorps]

Refining our measurements to be more exact is not the issue at hand here. I doubt there are any here complaining about that at all. They are talking about the everyday use of these measurements. If I am measuring something it makes more sense in metric. When I lived in the USA I did business internationally and it was such a royal pain in the ass to have to deal with two different systems. You get used to it but it is really unnecessary. On one hand I could sell my widget overseas in metric but I had to buy it in imperial. I had to deal with it internally in both. Was annoying. If you ever deal with the ton in a business setting you have to be very careful what you're talking about since there are essentially a bunch of different ones. One is 2000 lbs and one is 2240 lbs. They can be both called a ton. Then there's the long ton and short ton that are hopefully used to clarify which one you're dealing with but almost nobody uses it. You just have to hope that when they say ton they're talking about the same one you are. People have gotten better and now say ton and metric ton which helps. Then add in currency conversions so that if you're buying something in $/lb but then selling it in Yen/kilo. It's glorious.

Firstly, if your company can't differentiate between tons then that's their own fault. I have to work with both metric and imperial tons. Metric is always referred to as mton or tonne.

Secondly, out of the two tons you mention neither of them are metric. The short ton is the US measurement and the long ton is the UK measurement, but still is an IMPERIAL measure. The metric ton is ~2204lbs.

Learning opportunity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_ton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne

 

[Daedalus685]

People sure like to argue...

Yes, the base choice is sort of arbitrarily chosen. So is the actual magnitude of the units in metric.

But perhaps metric is in base ten because our general numbering system is in base ten? Wouldn't that be weird if someone thought it was a good idea for the unit's base to line up with the number system's base? Yeah, other bases have an advantage over 10, but no one learns how to use them in general education and every advantage you get from using metric goes away if you use base 12 math.

Go ahead and use an inch or what have you, but for as long as one is working in a base ten number system, using a unit with base 10 divisions is easier. I don't think anyone will tell you that a cm is better than an inch, the magnitude is irrelevant, the problem is that there is no logical conversion up the chain form inch.

No, its not hard to convert 56,789" to miles (even if I new the ratio off hand I doubt I'd ever be able to do that instantly in my head though). But you'd have to be intentionally obtuse to say that was easier than 56,789cm to kilometers.

Obviously normal people very rarely have to use scales as small as nano or micro where metric is far superior (only because the units have names:sneaky though appropriately enough you usually see imperial done in base ten at that point too with thousandths and millionths of an inch. And in the normal folks life one rarely has to change unit reference frames (i can get away with only using inches and feet, and almost never have to go up to miles in the same conversation). But having a systematic unit base sure is helpful for those of us in the sciences and tech industry!

So clearly the USA should go to an imperic system. 10 inches in a foot, 10foot in a something, 10 something in a something else, 10 something else in a mile. Then they can have a base 10 system and be different!

 

[WelshBloke]

Bullshit. I'm English and I never in my entire existence heard anyone use fahrenheit to describe the temperature of anything in this country. Mainly because it is the most retarded unit of measurement out of all of them.

Old people.

Have you never met any?

 

[Atomic Playboy]

my professional life is governed by the metric system and temperature = celsius.

It honestly baffles my mind that the collective will of this country seems bound and determined to retain such archaic and useless systems of measurement. One would think we'd stopped sucking the cock of our Imperialist British masters, but some habits die hard.

Why? Fahrenheit is more useful for everyday application than Celsius. Celsius has a real "usable" normal area of between -15 and 42 or so. You're not going to be talking about 65 degrees Celsius outside of applications in science. Fahrenheit has a useful scale between 0 and 110 or so. That makes it nicer for daily application. If I'm talking about the weather, 100 degrees just immediately sounds hot; 38 doesn't. 45 sounds brisk; 7 sounds fucking freezing. It obviously depends on where you were raised and what you're comfortable with, but normalizing your scale to average daily temperatures is a lot easier to immediately understand than normalizing your scale to the boiling point of water, as we experience daily weather more often than we boil water. It's all arbitrary.

 

[WelshBloke]

Why? Fahrenheit is more useful for everyday application than Celsius. Celsius has a real "usable" normal area of between -15 and 42 or so. You're not going to be talking about 65 degrees Celsius outside of applications in science. Fahrenheit has a useful scale between 0 and 110 or so. That makes it nicer for daily application. If I'm talking about the weather, 100 degrees just immediately sounds hot; 38 doesn't. 45 sounds brisk; 7 sounds fucking freezing. It obviously depends on where you were raised and what you're comfortable with, but normalizing your scale to average daily temperatures is a lot easier to immediately understand than normalizing your scale to the boiling point of water, as we experience daily weather more often than we boil water. It's all arbitrary.

Like you said it's totally what you're used to. I have no idea what any fahrenheit temperatures feel like unless I convert them into Celsius.

0c is cold and frosty, 30c is fucking hot. It's winter here so having one end of the scale at freezing point seems apt actually.

 

[ElFenix]

my professional life is governed by the metric system and temperature = celsius.

It honestly baffles my mind that the collective will of this country seems bound and determined to retain such archaic and useless systems of measurement. One would think we'd stopped sucking the cock of our Imperialist British masters, but some habits die hard.

better successful british imperialists than failed french imperialists!

30c is fucking hot.

wuss

 

[Zeze]

I grew up in Korea. And I was raised using metric system. It was a great standard.

Then I moved to US and had to learn this piece of crap Imperial system. I still don't know how many feet is a mile, despite reading it few seconds ago here.

Now US has bastardized me into this arbitrary garbage system. Now I don't know the general feel of cm & kg when it comes to height and weight.