The metric system sucks
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From: Bart Goddard on 4 Feb 2010 08:15 "Cwatters" <colin.wattersNOSPAM(a)TurnersOakNOSPAM.plus.com> wrote in news:RNidnbNg2rtvX_fWnZ2dnUVZ8tqdnZ2d(a)brightview.co.uk: > I was a schoolboy when the UK went metric so I had to learn both. > Metric/SI units are a lot easier to work with. There are fewer > different constants you have to remember. We have to learn both in the US. I was in 6th grade in 1972 and we were using it then. I remain unimpressed. The acrobatics that are done to convince people that metric is easier are silly. First they have you convert meters to centimeters (a calculation nobody ever does) and then they have you add 6 tons 50 pounds 9 ounces to 2 tons 742 pounds 13 ounces (also a calculation nobody does.) It is a fact that in almost all real calculations in English units, one unit is chosen and it is decimated. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head is that carpenters like their denominators to be powers of 2. Otherwise, most people would calculate using number like 15.53 feet. Every bit as easy as the same calculation in the metric system. B. -- Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
From: jmfbahciv on 4 Feb 2010 08:43 Andrew Usher wrote: > On Feb 3, 11:30 am, Uncle Al <Uncle...(a)hate.spam.net> wrote: > >>> http://www.google.com/search?q=1+cubic+mile+in+fluid+ounces >>> 1 (cubic mile) = 1.40942995 � 10^14 US fluid ounces >>> We have machines for tasks like this. >> What makes you think that is the correct number? An axiomatic system >> is no better than its weakest axiom. When the Pentium with a >> defective math look-up table was circculated, were its answers correct >> because they appeared on a screen? > > If it absolutely must be correct, one should calculate it more than > once, of course. I verified that number correct. > The pharmacist did just that with his calculator for a drug JMF had to take 8 hours before chemo. The pharmacist thought the answer was wrong and repeated the calculation several times. The calculator gave the same answer each time so the pharmacist finally packaged the dose. JMF got an overdose. Not everybody knows how to emulate RPN on a non-RPN calculator. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 4 Feb 2010 08:49 Heidi Graw wrote: > > >> "Andrew Usher" <k_over_hbarc(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message >> news:285479b4-f90d-445b-824a-> >> In that case, there's no benefit from going metric either. >> >> Andrew Usher > > ...and it also means that going metric doesn't necessarily mean > it sucks. Given today's computerization of virtually everything, > if the programming is done right, one just needs to dial in > and the machine will cut to whatever measure it has been > programmed for. If you want an ark using the cubits measure, > dial in, and be done with it. > > Anyway, I don't really care what measure is used. All I want > is something that works and what will weather a storm, etc. > > As for cooking, I use a pinch of this and a pinch of that. > A handful of this or that, add a dollop and a splash... > voila! A Heidi Graw special that can never be repeated > in exactly the same way. LOL... > <grin> Then you don't plan to write a cookbook which will reproduce the same taste and nutrition. Cooking and baking are acts of chemistry. Canning is also chemistry plus a dash of physics and a large dose of microbiology. Personally, I'd rather be in a chem lab than the kitchen. I grew up in the US and cannot think in metric terms so I always have to do a conversion to make guesstimates. For some strange reason, kilometers seem to take "longer" to drive than miles when I drove from Buffalo to Port Huron, Michigan. :-) /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 4 Feb 2010 08:56 Paul Ciszek wrote: > In article <hkbrpu$e0j$1(a)news-int2.gatech.edu>, > Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18(a)verizon.invalid> wrote: >> On 02/02/2010 11:53 PM, Andrew Usher wrote: >> >>>> How often do you measure stuff in terms of 10^21? >>> Not often, I suppose. But how do you specify, say, the mass of the >>> Earth? >> Why would people use that in everyday usage? > > I happen to be reading this thread in sci.geo.geology, FWIW. > What system do geologists use? There was an argument in sci.physics about 12 years ago w.r.t. which system was preferred in doing physics work. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 4 Feb 2010 09:09
Paul Ciszek wrote: > In article <7e4ca67f-208b-48e5-827f-b7380357befd(a)s12g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>, > Andrew Usher <k_over_hbarc(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> that are officially metric. But so what of the numbers? The US clearly >> has a heck of a lot of power to impose its will on the rest of the >> world. > > But not as much as it thinks it has. > > Sometimes I think it would do the US a world of good if the rest of > the world would stage an "intervention" and stop loaning us money > or selling us oil until we admitted our addiction to both. > That's happening already. It won't help. The key is for people to begin to exercise self-responsibility. I don't think will happen. /BAH |