The metric system sucks
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From: J. Clarke on 4 Feb 2010 09:23 Bart Goddard wrote: > nospam(a)nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote in news:hke34s$n19$13 > @reader2.panix.com: > >> >> In article <Xns9D149007B59A1goddardbenetscapenet(a)74.209.136.91>, >> Bart Goddard <goddardbe(a)netscape.net> wrote: >>> >>>> So, while the rest of the world marches on, Americans >>>> are certainly free to remain behind. >>> >>> Right, people who use your preferred system are "ahead" >>> while anyone else is "behind". This is an odd definition >>> of "ahead" and "behind", and is, in fact, just a >>> restatement of the original, unsupported thesis. >> >> No, a nation of people who insist that the world is only 6,000 years >> old, and refuse to teach their teenage children anything about birth >> control or even the most basic facts about human reproduction are >> behind. > > Maybe. But the point above is that one's measuring system > is NOT the reason one is "behind". > > (And, really, our children seem to know all about reproduction, > and are quite skilled at it. It seems odd that you think > your kids are "ahead" in this when you have to teach them > how to do what ours seems to know inately.) In any case, I want to know to what nation he is referring.
From: J. Clarke on 4 Feb 2010 09:58 jmfbahciv wrote: > 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. Just a comment but pinch, smidgen, and dash are becoming defacto standard units--some outfit started making joke measuring spoons of 1/32, 1/16, and 1/8 teaspoon capacity with those markings, and another outfit picked up on it, and now I'm seeing them all over the place. > 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: Marshall on 4 Feb 2010 10:03 On Feb 4, 4:56 am, "Mike Dworetsky" <platinum...(a)pants.btinternet.com> wrote: > Aatu Koskensilta wrote: > > "Mike Dworetsky" <platinum...(a)pants.btinternet.com> writes: > > >> Marshall wrote: > > >>> And mad props to Lord Rutherford for it! Of course the USA was the > >>> first country to make it go BOOM, plus we still have that whole > >>> "moon" and "internet" thing going. > > >> Using refugee European physicists who all worked in metric units. > >> Most American physics (certainly nuclear physics) was also done in > >> metric, even then, and all of it is done in metric now everywhere, as > >> is nearly all science. Some American engineering is for obscure > >> reasons done in Imperial, hence the Mars probe disaster. > > > I doubt Marshall was trying to argue against the metric system, or for > > the Imperial system. He was, I take it, simply valiantly defending the > > good name of American and British engineering. > > >> American engineers invented Darpanet, a communications network for > >> defense purposes that leaked out as Arpanet to civilian applications > >> such as email and ftp; a British scientist at CERN came up with the > >> hypertext protocols that led directly to the internet, a way to use > >> the interconnected network for passing, storing and creating > >> information content quickly and easily. > > > Well, no. > > I was using the term internet a bit loosely. That's not correct. "Loosely" is not a synonym for "wrong." Marshall
From: Androcles on 4 Feb 2010 11:30 "Cwatters" <colin.wattersNOSPAM(a)TurnersOakNOSPAM.plus.com> wrote in message news:RNidnbNg2rtvX_fWnZ2dnUVZ8tqdnZ2d(a)brightview.co.uk... > > "Bart Goddard" <goddardbe(a)netscape.net> wrote in message > news:Xns9D14516084083goddardbenetscapenet(a)74.209.136.90... >> Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18(a)verizon.invalid> wrote in >> news:hkbrpu$e0j$1(a)news- >> int2.gatech.edu: >> >>> Woah. You're basically saying here "the U.S. uses Imperial units, so the >>> rest of the world should too. >> >> Yet isn't that the argument the other side gives as well? >> "We all use Metric, so the US should too, and by the way, >> if they don't, then they're just stoopid." >> >> B. > > I was a schoolboy when the UK went metric so I had to learn both. > Metric/SI units are a lot easier to work with. There are fewer different > constants you have to remember. > > I just wish we'd gone the whole way. We buy gasoline in Liters but most > people still work out fuel consumption in miles to the gallon. We write "4 > Pints of milk" on our shopping list but it's sold in 2L bottles at the > supermarket. I'll bet many people haven't noticed and now have a warped > sense of how big a pint is/was. The UK has never gone metric. I've just bought 1.136 litres of milk at the Coop because the UK pays lip service to Brussels legislation and two pints has to be written up in foreign. Our speed limits are in miles per hour and posted as such. The UK will not be metric until the last Englishman, Margaret Thatcher, is moslem and it becomes the United Sheikdom. You do realise Prime Minister Gordon Clown is Scottish?
From: Paul Ciszek on 4 Feb 2010 12:18
In article <Xns9D15464AACB40goddardbenetscapenet(a)74.209.136.93>, Bart Goddard <goddardbe(a)netscape.net> wrote: >nospam(a)nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote in >news:hke1bi$n19$6(a)reader2.panix.com: > >> What is the density of water in pounds per cubic foot? > >As usual, the decimaphile offers us a calculation that >1. is already known and 2. nobody ever does. Against If you mean non-technical people, they get through most of their lives without doing any calculations at all. Engineers, on the other hand, have to deal with the density of water quite a bit. Things get submerged in it, containers are built empty and later filled with it, it can end up standing on the roofs of buildings if you didn't design them right, etc. -- Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice." Autoreply is disabled | |