Petition to make USA Metric

[SSSnail]

Finally, something we can agree on.

Other than that, "didn't think so".

Yeah, the sky is plaid like you said dude, and that tree just gave you attitude. Go fight the power...

D:

 

[the DRIZZLE]

metric system is random shit?

IMO the idea that the metric system is more intuitive than the Imperial system is somewhat overstated, but the date thing is 100% true. I remember when I was a kid I would always write dates as day/month/year because it just seemed to be the right way to do it. Now I usually write them them as year/month/day because almost everything I do is electronic and it's easier to sort that way.

 

[Train]

Ok. I thought you were saying you would start using base 10 for time.

The idea has been proposed... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time

Yet dies everytime because no one wants to change. Go figure.

I always use the fact that metric failed to convert time to a base 10 system as part of it's inconsistency, and to point out that the existence of non metric forms of measurement is juuuuuust fine.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

The idea has been proposed... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time

Yet dies everytime because no one wants to change. Go figure.

I always use the fact that metric failed to convert time to a base 10 system as part of it's inconsistency, and to point out that the existence of non metric forms of measurement is juuuuuust fine.

Facepalm.

 

[IronWing]

I'm torn on deciding whom I should troll in this thread. Ya'll could use a dram of the cure.

 

[Jeff7]

IMO the idea that the metric system is more intuitive than the Imperial system is somewhat overstated, but the date thing is 100% true. I remember when I was a kid I would always write dates as day/month/year because it just seemed to be the right way to do it. Now I usually write them them as year/month/day because almost everything I do is electronic and it's easier to sort that way.

XKCD hath shown the way once again.

ISO 8601.

I hadn't heard of that until then, but yeah, that sure makes sense.

 

[adlep]

The Fahrenheit scale needs to fuck off and die

 

[randomrogue]

This better be a joke aswell.

You must have just woke up to not catch my sarcasm there.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

You must have just woke up to not catch my sarcasm there.

 

[KillerCharlie]

The country that flew to the moon, walked around, then flew back can use whatever the hell units they want. It seemed to work just fine back then.

 

[randomrogue]

The country that flew to the moon, walked around, then flew back can use whatever the hell units they want. It seemed to work just fine back then.

How is it that we can have 2 people say something so stupid in one thread?

 

[DrPizza]

You've... only answered 20% of the question, and you want me to take your post seriously?

Gee, I'm sorry - I didn't think typing the answer in would matter, since then you'd just, "well, you probably googled it." So, I simply pointed out where I've seen the conversion once a week for decades. On your stick of butter, the wrapper has shorter lines for teaspoons. There are 3 lines per line which are the tablespoons. There are 8 tablespoons in a stick of butter, which is clearly labeled as 1/2 a cup. It also has "4 tbsp = 1/4 cup" for stupid people who can't handle fractions, as well as 5 1/3 tbsp = 1/3 cup." So, I'll point out the obvious, less you also think for a moment that I couldn't figure it out. 8tbsp = 1/2 cup means 16 tablespoons in a cup. (Which is also labeled as 1/4 pound on the stick of butter, but since a stick of butter isn't quite the same density as water (it's close), it's often made me wonder which measurement is the more accurate.) Oh, and now we know that a cup is half a pound, and "a pint a pound..." so a pint is 2 cups. 2 pints to a quart (same logic), and 4 quarts to a gallon.

Then again, with people purchasing all those margarines and spreads that come in those big bowl things - it's possible that some people don't see this frequently. And, they've missed out on the taste of real butter.

 

[DrPizza]

The country that flew to the moon, walked around, then flew back can use whatever the hell units they want. It seemed to work just fine back then.

The Apollo computers stored the data in metric units.

 

[mnewsham]

So imperial vs. metric is apparently right up there with tipping threads as grade A troll bait.

 

[skimple]

What is your profession?

I'm an EE. Not what I'm doing right now - but that's where I came from.

SSSnail - the fact that you think what frame of reference a scientist uses dictates their creativity, shows what an stellar example of intellect you are.

Tell me how the electronvolt fits into your great metric system. Wouldn't the most fundamental "universal constants" be energy values at the atomic level?

Or doesn't particle physics count as a scientific achievement?

 

[nehalem256]

IMO the idea that the metric system is more intuitive than the Imperial system is somewhat overstated, but the date thing is 100% true. I remember when I was a kid I would always write dates as day/month/year because it just seemed to be the right way to do it. Now I usually write them them as year/month/day because almost everything I do is electronic and it's easier to sort that way.

year/month/day is the "correct" form. "Bigger" numbers go to the left. Years are the biggest. It also makes sorting easy for computers.

Or you can go month/day/year, which also matches how people commonly say dates as in September 5th, 2005.

 

[nehalem256]

The metric system doesn't change how clocks work.

The metric system doesnt change how clocks work... YET!

That is what you meant right? After all base 10 is the way to go

We should have 10 seconds to the minute. 10 minutes to the hour. 10 hours to the day. 10 days to the week. 10 weeks to the month. And 10 months to the year.

Wouldn't that be much simpler than

60 seconds to the minute. 60 minutes to the hour. 12+12 hours to the day. 7 days to the week. 4.0-4.428 weeks to the month. And 12 months to the year.

 

[SagaLore]

The metric system doesnt change how clocks work... YET!

That is what you meant right? After all base 10 is the way to go

We should have 10 seconds to the minute. 10 minutes to the hour. 10 hours to the day. 10 days to the week. 10 weeks to the month. And 10 months to the year.

Wouldn't that be much simpler than

60 seconds to the minute. 60 minutes to the hour. 12+12 hours to the day. 7 days to the week. 4.0-4.428 weeks to the month. And 12 months to the year.

It actually wouldn't be much simpler. You have to look at how we use it.

60 is a really good number for cleanly dividing equal parts:

60 / 2 = 30
60 / 3 = 20
60 / 4 = 15
60 / 5 = 12
60 / 6 = 10

And then those can be further broken up if you needed to. When you do that with 10, you get:

10 / 2 = 5
10 / 3 = 3.33333333333...
10 / 4 = 2.5
10 / 5 = 2
10 / 6 = 1.66666666666....

Base 10 decimal system can get really messy really fast when you start with a number then divide. It is great when you start with a number and then increase with multiples of itself. So stuff like distance, weight, volume - great, let's use metric. But with stuff that is circular, systems that use 12 and/or 60 are actually better. There is a very good reason why a circle is represented in 360 degrees.

 

[nehalem256]

It actually wouldn't be much simpler. You have to look at how we use it.

60 is a really good number for cleanly dividing equal parts:

60 / 2 = 30
60 / 3 = 20
60 / 4 = 15
60 / 5 = 12
60 / 6 = 10

And then those can be further broken up if you needed to. When you do that with 10, you get:

10 / 2 = 5
10 / 3 = 3.33333333333...
10 / 4 = 2.5
10 / 5 = 2
10 / 6 = 1.66666666666....

Base 10 decimal system can get really messy really fast when you start with a number then divide. It is great when you start with a number and then increase with multiples of itself. So stuff like distance, weight, volume - great, let's use metric. But with stuff that is circular, systems that use 12 and/or 60 are actually better. There is a very good reason why a circle is represented in 360 degrees.

Same problem occurs if you try to divide a meter into 1/3.

Although I realize you may have been confused by my use of the outdated imperial time units like days.

Days should have been referred to as kiloseconds

 

[SunnyD]

XKCD hath shown the way once again.

ISO 8601.

I hadn't heard of that until then, but yeah, that sure makes sense.

To be honest, it does make absolute sense considering the way we "count" time units anyway, we go from largest to smallest. In a way, I don't quite understand why it isn't nominally represented as:

YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.ttmm...

But again, arbitrary is arbitrary. When converting it into spoken language, at least for English, it SOUNDS a lot better saying Month-Day-Year or Day-Month-Year.

Yeah, the sky is plaid like you said dude, and that tree just gave you attitude. Go fight the power...

D:

*shrug* I'd like some of whatever it is you're on. I'm unsure of what power it is you'd like me to fight, but okay. I'll do my best, just for you! :thumbsup:

 

[Train]

year/month/day is the "correct" form. "Bigger" numbers go to the left. Years are the biggest. It also makes sorting easy for computers.

Uhh no it doesn't. Computers store dates internally as integers. The format you enter it is irrelevant, unless you are storing it in a text field. Usually the integer is a count of seconds, microseconds, or even ticks, from an "epoc" date such as 1970-01-01 00:00.00 or 0001-01-01

 

[nehalem256]

Uhh no it doesn't. Computers store dates internally as integers. The format you enter it is irrelevant, unless you are storing it in a text field. Usually the integer is a count of seconds, microseconds, or even ticks, from an "epoc" date such as 1970-01-01 00:00.00 or 0001-01-01

So metric time would work better for computers then

And I was thinking of the text field. Like file names.

 

[zinfamous]

The country that flew to the moon, walked around, then flew back can use whatever the hell units they want. It seemed to work just fine back then.

As an American, this is funny to me...and a bit embarrassing.

 

[supremor]

I always find it hilarious when people resort to past achievements to somehow try and justify some completely unrelated shit, WW2 and the moon landing see a lot of use in these posts.

 

[yuchai]

They're both man made systems - so obviously both are pretty arbitrary. You can argue this till the end of time and you wouldn't be able to come to an agreement as to which one is more "arbitrary".

However, the important thing I think is that the world only uses one system. Given that everyone has already gone metric except for the US, Burma, and Liberia, those 3 countries should just switch so that everyone can be on 1 system.