We Went to the Moon on Feet and Inches

In article ,
Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer
wrote:

The Saturn V Moon Rocket was constructed to the U.S. Common Measurement
system, wasn't it? I don't know about SpaceShipOne, but its record setting
altitude was reported in feet or miles, not in millimeters.

Reported by whom? The official measurements were all in meters (or
kilometers). And you'll note that the required altitude is 100 km, not
62 (or 62.5) miles as many American media reported it.

The moral of the story? Don't trust the media if you care about getting
the details right.

As for your Ludditism: get over it. Metric units are used everywhere in
the world except the U.S. and a tiny country in Africa whose name I
can't remember. It's not just a vastly easier, better, and more
sensible measurement system; it's the global standard.

Quick, how many cm in one Dm?

1000. This is trivial; who can't multiply 100 times 10 in their head?

If you can't cough it up without your reference book, I'm right again.

You're wrong. Please go away.

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Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote in message o...
The Saturn V Moon Rocket was constructed to the U.S. Common Measurement
system, wasn't it? I don't know about SpaceShipOne, but its record setting
altitude was reported in feet or miles, not in millimeters.

snip

I'm sorry but this message wasn't ISO 9000 compliant. Please resubmit
after attaining compliance.


Karl Hallowell

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004, Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer
wrote:
The Saturn V Moon Rocket was constructed to the U.S. Common Measurement
system, wasn't it? I don't know about SpaceShipOne, but its record setting
altitude was reported in feet or miles, not in millimeters.

If inches and feet are good enough for going to the Moon, isn't it good
enough for building stuff we use every day? The Government is trying here
and there to go metric. Listen to modern day soldiers talk about "meters"
or "two clicks" almost as if its intuitive. But I say its regugicated
rote, forced on to them by unlearned commanders, because every soldier
still estimates in yards and then converts 1:1 to meters, inducing an
automatic error of 9%. About the only way he gets meters correctly is if
he uses a rangefinder calibrated in meters. I have tested scientifically
trained people extemporaneously for metric knowledge and they fail
miserably. Just ask your doctor, who works day in and day out with his
metric sized medicines to estimate his weight in kilos. He will reach for
a calculator! Even physicists in the U.S. will do the same. You have to
grow up with the metric system to think metric. There is no way to get the
U.S. to switch. It can't be done.

Damn right! Let's all start using rods and chains again!

In article ,
(Karl Hallowell) writes:
Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote in message o...
The Saturn V Moon Rocket was constructed to the U.S. Common Measurement
system, wasn't it? I don't know about SpaceShipOne, but its record setting
altitude was reported in feet or miles, not in millimeters.

snip

I'm sorry but this message wasn't ISO 9000 compliant. Please resubmit
after attaining compliance.

You don't know that - ISO 900x doesn't ensure a Standard of Quality,
it ensures a Standard of Documentation. You set your own standards
and procedures, write 'em down in a Big Honkin' Binder, and pay lots
of money to get it all registered. (Often with the help of High Priced
Coonsultants to walk you through the process) Then you print up a
zillion Big Honkin' Binders, and use them to store your Dust
Collections. Then, once a year, Other High Proced Consultants stop by
to find new ways that you aren't following what they think your
procedures are. (As with nearly every other European-driven
Bureaucratic system, the result is not at all relevant, only the
process).

So, if you say that you make your product out of still-wet bat****,
and test it by flinging it at the wall and rejecting all that sticks,
that's perfectly O.K. for ISO 9000 compliance.

We'll need to see his Standards and Procedures book. Hmm... and we'd
better pull an ISO audit too. (Knock up another one, Jocko! ka-ching!)

--
Pete Stickney (Occasional High Priced Consultant)
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster