The metric system sucks
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From: Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr. on 13 Feb 2010 05:58 On Feb 12, 6:02 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: > Andrew Usher wrote: > > Darwin123 wrote: > > >>> The truth is, the leftist machine has gotten people's minds to feel > >>> sorry for our measuring system, just like they've gotten white men to > >>> feel sorry for being white and male. > >> Your metaphors are gang raping the English language. > > > My assertion is not a metaphor here. It's entirely literal: Americans > > now feel they must apologise for having a 'backward' system of > > measure. > > I'm an American and I have never felt the need to apologize. Why > do you? > I think he is referring to the famous demand from Bin Laden: "America must apologise for having a backward system of measure - or else we shall blow up the Rockafeller Center!".
From: J. Clarke on 13 Feb 2010 07:35 Matt wrote: > On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 03:19:04 -0800 (PST), Andrew Usher wrote: > >> On Feb 8, 8:56 pm, Matt <30d...(a)net.net> wrote: >> >>>> It can't have been that useful, as it became obsolete. Is there >>>> even a cubit in English units? I suppose it would just be half a >>>> yard, following the Romans. >>> >>> If the pro-metric crowd gets their way, English units will become >>> obsolete. Would their demise mean they "can't have been that >>> useful?" >> >> I meant that it became obsolete without any bureaucratic compulsion. > > Do you have a cite for that? > > Perhaps not so many bureaucrats when the cubit was abandoned. If it > became obsolete through a royal edict, does that affect its historical > utility? If some egomaniac king wanted to change everyone else's way > of measuring things for his convenience, that says nothing about how > useful others found the cubit to be. It became officially obsolete when various European governments imposed their systems of measurement on the Arabs, as for example the French imposing the metric system on the Tunisians in 1885.
From: jmfbahciv on 13 Feb 2010 10:02 J. Clarke wrote: > jmfbahciv wrote: >> Andrew Usher wrote: >>> Bob Myers wrote: >>> >>>>> Drills already have interchangeable bits, >>>> Ah, another person who's never seen the inside of >>>> a machine shop... >>> OK, perhaps I didn't use the right terminology; I used that which I >>> am familiar. Nevertheless, my point stands that you don't normally >>> need a different machine for each different size of drilling. >> Now ask the question why that is so. > > I'm not sure I see the point of this particular discussion. Most drills > have three-jaw chucks that don't really require much of the drill bit other > than that it be round and not so big that it won't fit in the hole or so > small that the jaws won't close on it (typically about a 20:1 range). > Certainly no drill press I have owned or worked with has had any trouble > with bits that are fractional inch sizes, metric sizes, or sizes that are > pretty much arbitrary. > > There are machines that require bits with tapered shanks or that use collets > that require shanks of a specified dimension and form, or that require > threaded shanks, but they are relatively rare--most drilling is done with > the bits secured in a 3-jaw chuck and 3-jaw chucks are measurement-system > agnostic. The reason that 3-jaw chuck exists is to adapt to any system: US, si or Sears. > > Now if you're dealing with very small drills, circuit board drills, and the > like, they do often have a standard shank diameter, mainly because their > small diameter would make them difficult to handle otherwise (like you'd > need tweezers and a magnifier to change bits) and there the measurement > system does matter, but swapping out a collet takes seconds. > Thus, the specification of the drills included adapting to any size. The reason for the generic is becuase there were more than one flavor. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 13 Feb 2010 10:04 Michael Stemper wrote: > In article <joo1n55f1f4is2notocvi6elvku27ar5q9(a)4ax.com>, Matt <30days(a)net.net> writes: >> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:39:37 -0500, jmfbahciv wrote: > >> Electricity and fields don't care what units we use. >> >> The engineers who design the equipment may care; or they may be more >> interested in the project than a religious war about systems of units. > > Of course, all electrical engineering units are metric. Volts are > joules/coulomb, and a joule is a kg-m^2/s^2. An Ampere is (or was) > defined in terms of Newtons of force per meter on conductors separated > by one meter. > > No pounds, slugs, or BTUs involved. > >> They may dismiss the metric crusaders as noise. > > Electrical engineering is already metric. We look with pity upon our > brother (and sister) mechanical engineers, who through no fault of > their own, still need to deal with BTUs and Farenheit degrees. > <grin> My complaint about the EE world is everything is based on bassackwards w.r.t. charge. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 13 Feb 2010 10:08
On Feb 12, 8:02 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv(a)aol> wrote: > > My assertion is not a metaphor here. It's entirely literal: Americans > > now feel they must apologise for having a 'backward' system of > > measure. > > I'm an American and I have never felt the need to apologize. Well, that's because you're a woman and so never feel the need to apologise. Oh, here we go again. I've used both systems. You, obviously, have not. > Why do you? _I_ don't, obviously! But you just stated that you do feel you have apologize. Your whole theme is based on your unwillingness to do that action. /BAH |