Metric ! :realpisse

Big deal about the tens. And Asians can communicate with their pictographs internationally although they may not understand one another verbally. Does that make either a great system?

How far can you go on a liter of gasoline? I'll take gallons thank you.

100km/hr just ain't as fast as 100 should be. But, 100MPH is.

How much for that kg of bananas? That is way to many bananas.

In daily life proper, GOD given units, (aka American units as the Brits abandoned GOD's system,) are so much more applicable.

In Science, okay - have your metric because no one really centers their life around what those applications anyways.

Moi

Moi,

The US cheated by adopting a decimal system for currency. Prior to 1776 American kids would have known the answers to the following money questions:

1. If eggs cost a penny three farthings each, how much a dozen?

2. How many (old) pennies in a pound?

3. If you are paying income tax at the standard rate of 6/8d in the pound, how much better off will you be if you get a raise of £60 a year?

4. If you buy items for a total of 7/6d how much change will you get from a ten shilling note?

And just to be a bit more scientific:

In the Imperial system the universal gas constant R is 53 ft lbs/lb/degree K. What is it in mks units? (I admit that I do not know the answer but I am sure that someone here does)

I liked metric. I had to use it in that communist thing known as the US Army. Once I learned how to use it, it was easy to estimate distance, calculate fractions of lengths, volumes, etc. Much easier to use than calculating quarters and sixty-fourths.

My brother has a motorcycle that can travel at 300 Kph. I had it up to 210 Kph once. That sure was fast. I took it home and parked it and have not ridden it since. It's very dangerous to ride a motorcycle that fast.

When I was in South Africa, the speed limit on the highway was 120. That's roughly the same as it is out here in the western US, but it sure sounds a lot faster.

Thanks to the 10km foot race that went past my childhood home each year, when I got to the military I had reference to just how far 10km is. I knew it was 10,000 meters, but it's somewhere around 390,000 inches. Not a very round or easily divisible number.

I use the imperial system because it is what is widely used where I live, but I do prefer metric.

--LT

moi621 (imported) wrote: Mon May 09, 2011 8:20 pm Metric ! :realpisse

Big deal about the tens. And Asians can communicate with their pictographs internationally although they may not understand one another verbally. Does that make either a great system?

How far can you go on a liter of gasoline? I'll take gallons thank you.

100km/hr just ain't as fast as 100 should be. But, 100MPH is.

How much for that kg of bananas? That is way to many bananas.

In daily life proper, GOD given units, (aka American units as the Brits abandoned GOD's system,) are so much more applicable.

In Science, okay - have your metric because no one really centers their life around what those applications anyways.

Moi

I am german and I hate your system because of the same reasons...

Its natural to dislike something you are not used to. I still know when we gut the euro currency. Everything seemed to be tooo cheap, but really it wasnt. On the contrary.

And since when are your american units god given?

Well. Doesnt matter really. The metric system will win... Almost the whole world have it. I guess the USA will have to import the metric system...

tim_nullo (imported) wrote: Mon May 09, 2011 10:48 pm I am german and I hate your system because of the same reasons...

Its natural to dislike something you are not used to. I still know when we gut the euro currency. Everything seemed to be tooo cheap, but really it wasnt. On the contrary.

And since when are your american units god given?

Well. Doesnt matter really. The metric system will win... Almost the whole world have it. I guess the USA will have to import the metric system...

Because we won the big one against YOU, twice.

A best buddy and I discuss all sorts of stuff. One time we pondered evidence of divine intervention as to favor a historical outcome as always favors America because GOD is on our side. Just a fixed game, no cake walk.

Well I invoked the Battle of Midway, too much good luck.

He invoked the Battle of Trenton, the American Revolution when General Washington led American forces to a Hessian (fierce Germans) camp and creamed them with minimal American losses. More to cold then fighting I believe.

And then there is the Battle of the Bulge, maybe just a slug fest like Kursk but maybe a little luck too. Nuts!

The Russian winters as defeated you guys and the Frenchies 150 years before were unusually harsh. Not the normal. Makes me believe GOD prefers even the Russkies over Heinies and Frenchies.

I do hope the above enlightens you there in Germanland.

And if you have any examples of exemplary luck in history for the German peoples as might qualify as divine influence, please share. Hitler said, the best Germans came to America. Those with spirit, strength, etc.

I always said, if they want foreign aid, let them ask for it in pounds, feet and gallons.

Moi

BTW the Dollar was founded on the currency of Spain as to become more independent from the British banking system. It was also a common currency in the Caribbean where Alexander Hamilton was educated, at Jewish school 'cause the Christians would not educate a bastard. The American Caribbean trade made America a coffee drinking nation that did not lack for sugar or rum either.

One of the things I find humourous about this is that even when, say, the US and Canada both use metric to measure something, they still aren't necessarily measuring the same way.

Testosterone levels are the perfect example of this. In the states, it's measured in a metric format: ng/dL, nanograms per decilitre. However in Canada (at least for my tests), it's measured in a completely different metric form: nmol/L, nanomoles per litre. I'm not a chemist, so I'm not sure exactly how they differ, just that you have to look up the molecular weight of whatever chemical you're dealing with to do the conversion.

Don't ask why... I have no idea.

Aside from that, I tend to use both systems to a certain degree. I'm used to reading temps in both scales, yet can't readily convert between them in my head. My own height and weight I know in Imperial, but not metric. Speed and distance, I'm better with metric.

And if 1 kilo of bananas is too much, why not just by a hectogram of bananas, or even buy them by the decagram. Plus, I'd honestly rather not even think about what the Imperial version of bytes would have been. ("How many halobytes are there in an iffibyte again? 212 or 214? Ok, now we multiply that by 60 to get jittabytes..." And before you complain, yes, I know technically bytes are powers of 2 rather than powers of 10, but if the drive manufacturers can market powers of 10, I can use them for this argument.)

Ten is an awkward number, divisible by two and five; twelve is so much better, and logrithms with base ten are a mess. Natural logrithms use e as the base. Metric is another bit of silliness from the French revolution.

Losethem (imported) wrote: Mon May 09, 2011 10:33 pm I liked metric. I had to use it in that communist thing known as the US Army. Once I learned how to use it, it was easy to estimate distance, calculate fractions of lengths, volumes, etc. Much easier to use than calculating quarters and sixty-fourths.

--LT

I was an involuntary slave in the army once and they stuck me in artillery. It was my job to shoot guns. We had small ones, M-16 which were some caliber I don't remember, plus 30 and 50 caliber machine guns. Caliber is an inch dimension-50 caliber is 1/2 inch in diameter. We had a bunch of different medium sized things that were all metric- 105 mm howitzer & 155mm howitzer. And then we had the big guns- a 175 mm gun and an 8 inch howitzer.

All the metric stuff was fine and dandy but when you really wanted to wreak stuff, you always brought out the inch stuff, I really liked playing with the 50 caliber machine gun and watching tracers go for well over a mile of their over 4 mile range. It was amazing. The other was the big 8 incher. It was very powerful but work to shoot. It shook the ground with every shot and raised dust for many yards around- not sure how many meters that would be. ( it made me wonder how neat a 16 inch battleship gun would be to shoot) Anyway, I figured it was just how f---ed up the army was that they couldn't even decide to use english or metric in making guns.

And after a hard day of shooting this stuff or painting rocks white for a border along some sidewalk, there was always time for a cold beer in 12 ounce cans!

I've long contended that if the U.S. adopted metric, the only people to profit would be wrench and ruler manufacturers.

I have no problem with metric, base 10 is a lot easier then base 12, but in the computer field which I lived for so long everything was base 2, 8, 16 which if you think about it is so much easier then 10 or 12.

Metric is a fine system, my biggest problem with it is that it has no meaning for me. Example, if I need a 1/2" open end wrench I know just about what it looks like, how big it should be, now if that nut is a metric nut, what metric wrench do I look for?

You see it all the time on TV, they have been trying for years to convert the USA over to metric and keep failing and for good reason. This hole is about 14 meters deep, which is what? what they should have said is this hole is 14 meters deep or about ? feet deep so I can start to make that conversion because I have a good idea how deep ? is, and I have no clue how deep 14 meters is. Its the same with every measurement that they try it with for the exception of 2 liters, that we know the reason is that we buy 2 liter cokes so we have that visual reference of what 2 liters is. I know a yard is 3 ft, and 5280 are in a mile, but I have no clue what that would be in meters. I know a section of land is a square mile, and there are 36 sections of land in a township, I even understand Base Line and Meridian but how many hectors are in a section of land? NO CLUE, because there has never been anything to compare one to the other and that is the problem and that is the reason MOI has no clue.

When I was in school we ran the 100 yard dash, the 220 the 440 the 880 the 1320 and the mile races. Today only the Mile remains a relic from the past. Today they run the 100 meter, 200, 400, 800 I think?

A couple things have not changed world wide, that is the Mile run and the Marathon, which was always a strange measurement anyway. Which brings me to the Triathlon : Swim 2.4 Miles, Bike 112 Miles, Run 26.2 Miles.

Maybe Metric would be easier.

The Triathlon would be a 4.023 K swim, 180.2 K bike ride and a 42.16K run

Yes much easier and I feel better already.

Maybe you would prefer a biblical measurement of 8448 Cubits for the swim and, no lets not go there.

River