what's with the wacky US unit system?

[Elledan]

<<

<< Or just stubborn/stupid >>



I find it rather humorous when someone from the Netherlands accuses someone else of being stubborn. >>


*raises eyebrow*

Say what?

 

[Halogen]

seems like he's making an allusion to a stereotype that people in Netherlands are stubborn. it's funny how nobody has ever heard of this before...

seriously i don't get it.

 

[Beau]

<< Metric, w00t! >>

Wonderful Loot

 

[killface]

I guess we're just set in our ways. It's unfortunate, but until the schools start teaching both, and keep teaching both (not just dedicate 1 class a year to it) then we'll never change.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

<< I have a US unit. It's bigger than yours. >>




Bwhaaaaahaaahaaaha

That was funny

Part if the problem is it is what we are used to. Driving at 100 kph? ummm is that fast? Conceptually it's easier to switch to newton meters or pascals or whatever because these things are abstract. Even the US ft/lb is somewhat abstract. You know what it means, but to "see" it is impossible. Now everyone here instinctively know about how far a mile is, or how much a gallon is etc. It is the familiarity with those tangible units that make coversion difficult. It's 25 C? Ummm do I reach for a coat or not? That's the problem

 

[rahvin]

<<Empirical measurements are quickly becoming obsolete>>

Elledan,

You need to look up the definition of the word in bold. The name for the english system is the Imperial system of units, not empirical.

 

[Illusio]

"The Metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogs head and thats the way i like it!"

 

[Asha'man]

<< You know what it means, but to "see" it is impossible. Now everyone here instinctively know about how far a mile is, or how much a gallon is etc. >>



heh no not EVERYbODY knows that

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Wondered if someone would catch that. I mean US citizens.

 

[db]

Fahrenheit had only been married a few months when he determined that 0 is the coldest it could get in his bedroom, and there was no way it could get colder..
Obviously, he had a lot to learn

 

[Infos]

Metric sucks big times for living

For scientists I can understand using it but the imperial system is much much MUCH
more user friendly for human beings and daily living

I admire the americans for standing up to the metric monolith
canadians unfortunately could learn a lot from americans about standing up for individual rights

we just roll over for whatever the govt wants :disgust:

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

I had a PE teacher who, in order to displine noisy students would say "go run a mile"

Everyone in the class would emulate this later on in the day by telling annoying people to "go run a mile"

Now if the PE teacher said go run a kilometer or a kilo... well, it just wouldn't sound right...

 

[reitz]

<< oh and as for how a greman invented it and we use it is probilly due to the fact the way back when we decided to make a standard language for this great new land of ours german missed being our national language by 1 vote to english of corse. >>

It's a good thing you aren't a History major...

 

[piku]

If I want a cup of sugar and 2 cups of flour, I know exactly how much sugar and how much flour that is. Anyone does, regardless of what system they use - you take a cup measure and scoop out a cup of sugar and two cups of flour, that easily.

Now, measure me out 100 grams of sugar and 100 grams of flour.



<< the US uses feet and yards instead of meters, ounces and pounds instead of grams and kilograms, degrees ferenheit (it's hard to spell) instead of celcius
how can you actually figure crap out if everything is against you? >>


Or you could flip it the other way. The only reason metric seems better is because every other nation uses it, and its ~easy to figure out. Thats it. Had metric never been invented its not like we could all be clamoring daily for someone to invent a new system, we would get along just fine.

 

[CocaCola5]

My view is the US system is fine for common usage and references but for things like manuals and documents stuff, they should all be in metric.

 

[PsychoAndy]

It makes us unique. Besides, in Physics, i find everything in Newton/Meters, grams, centimeters, celcius, etc. We don't (most of the time) do major scientific stuff with imperial, and they teach us how to convert between the two, so i don't see how you can say that all of our measurements for physics are in imperial. But, why should we change our regular life? We all know of everything in gallons, pounds, miles, etc. Just like all y'all know of everything in liters, grams (actually, grams is a measurement of mass, not weight. bet ya didn't know that), kilometers, etc...

 

[Maetryx]

I'm a civil engineer and (almost) NONE of our work is done in metric. Everything is cubic yards, tons, etc. Accept when we collect environmental samples for a laboratory. Then we need 40mL or 25g.

Engineers are so hardcore that we have metric imperial: tenths of a foot (like 1.7 feet) and kips (kilopounds = 1000lbs).

 

[jjones]

I use both systems in daily life and I have no problem with using either or converting between the two when I need to. Both oare okay by me. The only thing I hate about the US system is when it comes to dates. It's always mm/dd/yy and the rest of the world seems to use dd/mm/yy. It gets confusing trying to figure out dates sometimes when it's all numerical and you don't know what system the person is using.

 

[Halogen]

dd/mm/yy makes more sense because it is decending order of how specific it is. yy/mm/dd would make just as much sense but nobody uses that