The metric system sucks

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote in message
...
Bruce wrote:
"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in
:

On Feb 3, 2:28 pm, Bruce wrote:
Uncle Al wrote in news:4B68D95B.3E30E7C5
@hate.spam.net:

Andrew Usher wrote:

How many 64ths of an inch are in a mile, idiot?

64*12*5280...big effin deal.

Now tell me what the speed of light is in furlongs per fortnight. No
such interesting abilities in the bland world of metric.....then you
can build me an exact 1/6 scale model of a 1957 Chevy in metric.

It's too bad the metrical's were born with 5 fingers and two
hands, rendering they're base 10...next universe we should
evolve with 6 fingers then we can be on base 12.
(Note to God...improve your math skills).

I fully support your point Bruce.
To each his/her own.
Ken


Ya know, both have their merit, one is not necessarily better than the
other. The "engish" system at least has a long rich history of
development.

These days they don't teach much history either. I'm not very interested
in how they based the yard

Those that are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.
I'm not very interested in your wilful ignorance either.

(Paul Ciszek) wrote in news:hkevh2$i0c$1
@reader2.panix.com:


In article 3,
Bart Goddard wrote:
(Paul Ciszek) wrote in
:

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.

"Deal with" is not "calculate." Nobody calculates the
density of water. I have this piece of plywood which
is 1 foot by 1 foot. Now I'm going to calculate
the area in English units while you calculate it in
metric. On you mark...get set....GO! I'm done. Let
me know when you get your answer. And remember:
people "deal with" the areas of wood all the time.

B.

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in message
...
(snip)

Thanks Heidi, that looks nice, your hubby must be
quite talented.

Well...he wanted a challenge, so I gave it to him. ;-)

Actually, the real reason he wanted to build the family
home was to prove to himself he could do just as
his own father and my father had done. If they
could do it, so could he.

He had no clue as to how to go about it. So,
I gave him a project to practice on. Build a
dog house. And what a beauty that turned
out to be. The next step was for him to build
a large garage and workshop. This provided
him with more learning opportunities. The
only problem: the garage was larger than the
house and it look odd. So, then he felt confident
enough to build a huge two-story addition. It
turned out awesome.

But then, with that large garage and house, we
didn't have much room left for the boys to play
in the yard. So, then we sold that, moved out
into the boonies, bought acreage and built that
house from scratch. We've lived in it for the
past 20 years. It was the perfect family home.
4 bedrooms all large and airy.

Our plan now is to portion off a section of that
house to create a suite for one son, while the
other son can take over the rest of the house.
But, on that same acreage, we will be building
our retirement home.

There is a good group "alt.architecture" I'd like to invite you
to peruse.

Oooh...sounds interesting. I take a peek.


We just completed a nice cozy guest cottage,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dynamics/

wifey finds nice.

I'm glad your wife likes it. I, however, would
have gone with a slightly more interesting
design, something similar to this:

http://www.ucmycabins.com/cottages.html

Thanks Heidi, we'll see what materializes.
Regards
Ken

Be sure to keep me informed as to your
progress, I'm sincerely interested.

Take care,
Heidi

I can't believe this is being seriously discussed in supposedly
science-oriented newsgroups.

ALL such systems of measurement are to some degree
arbitrary; there is no inherent advantage in that regard,
for most applications, to either system. But if we're talking
about what system to use in the future, I would submit the
following:

1. The current situation, wherein persons (mostly in "English unit"
countries) basically HAVE to keep tools, etc., in both
versions, is not optimal. It leads to inefficencies and errors
(as in the famous case of the "Gimli glider," in which an
airliner ran out of fuel in mid-flight, in large part due to confusion
between the two systems of units).

2. It is admittedly costly to switch from a "both systems"
situation to using one only, or to switch from one to the
other. But tools and tooling does wear out and have to
be replaced over time, and you can take advantage of
this to minimize the cost of transition either way. We
should also note that many, many currently available
electronic measuring devices (scales, calipers, etc.)
are easily switched from one system to the other by the
press of a button. And we have to look at the cost
of the transition vs. the costs inherent in the inefficiencies
and errors noted above.

3. The question, then, assuming that we do not wish to
continue using two systems in parallel forever (and I have
yet to see any justification for doing THAT) is simply
which one makes more sense to switch to, worldwide,
for the future. It is readily apparent that the "metric"
or "SI" system is the logical choice here, as it is already
the most popular system worldwide (and thus the overall
cost of transition is minimum going in that direction), plus
it has the advantage of being, once learned, a simpler
and more intuitive set of units.

Given the above, there would have to be a significant
justification for continuing with the "English" system, and
again, I have seen nothing offered here beyond "it's just
too hard for me to learn a new system."

Bob M.

J. Clarke wrote:
Mike Dworetsky wrote:
Andrew Usher wrote:
On Feb 3, 5:13 pm, Joshua Cranmer wrote:

The Internet was developed by researchers in the U.S. working under
the ARPA program to link up the various research universities. Why
do you think IANA was originally controlled by the U.S. Department
of Defense (and is now run by a company who does it on a contract
with the U.S. Department of Commerce).

Yes. And what does it have to do with units?

The Internet, by its nature, doesn't care what units are used.
Going to the moon was done very largely with English units.

So how is this supposed to be an argument for metric?

Andrew Usher

I don't know, but all the other space countries and consortia such as
ESA are using metric, and they are highly successful at launching
commercial and scientific satellites. Even India is getting in on
the space industry. The difference is that none of them are having
to prove themselves better than the Russians.

I don't see any signs lately that the US is going back to the moon,
regardless of units, so at best your comment is an irrelevance. If
it ever does, the astronauts may have to bring passports with valid
Chinese visas.

Yeah, like the Chinese are going to the Moon anytime soon.


It was a sort of joke and not meant seriously. But only sort of; I do think
one of their long term goals is to land a man on the Moon, if for no other
reason than prestige. It may be sooner than you think. Compare where
America was in 1960 with 1969. It only took 9 years. If they put their
minds to it, don't you think they will find a way?

In any case, China is a signatory of the Outer Space Treaty.

Well, I am greatly relieved to learn that.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

"Bob Myers" wrote in news:hkf3e6$drh$1
@usenet01.boi.hp.com:

Given the above, there would have to be a significant
justification for continuing with the "English" system,

I need justification for continuing what I've always
been doing? I don't think so.

Usually it's the changer, not the non-changer, who needs to
justify his plans. Is there a justification for using
more than one language in the world? If not, then I
guess we're honor-bound to pick one and insist that
everyone learn it.

What I'd like to see is some sort of justification for
sucking the soul out of the world for the sake of
"easier" and "cheaper." Until then, I'm sticking with
my interesting measurements, my curvy, twisty streets,
my ethnically different friends, and my non-rectangular
house. And if it costs me my life because the
ambulance had trouble finding the place, then it
was worth it.

(The point being, as it has always been, the arguments
put forth in burden the world with the metric system
would never be tolerated if applied to any other
aspect of our lives. That's a pretty good indication
that the logic is deeply flawed.)

B.

Mike Dworetsky wrote:
Heidi Graw wrote:

[snip]

Common units work extremely well, but if you want your house
built in MeTric I'll add 25% to the cost, and you've got it.

No need. I wouldn't be hiring you anyway. My husband
built the house I designed. Custom? Very...and rather
quite unique.

Take care,
Heidi ...whose house is a mishmash of German metric and British
standard.

About 35 years ago I moved to a new (to me) older house in London and
needed to replace some damaged floorboards. When all the houses in
my area were built they were done in Imperial measurement with
boards, as I recall, 5-5/8 inches wide (finished size), or 143 mm.

But when it came to buying some new replacement boards, I couldn't
find any because timber had been decreed to be in metric cuts a few
years earlier. They literally would not fit. So I had to have the
merchant trim about 5 mm off the edges of all the 150-mm boards I
bought so I could fit them in. (Floorboards have a small gap between
them in most houses; normally you would lay your interior flooring on
top of them.)
My point is that it should have been perfectly possible to measure in
metric, but retain the same historic physical size as a stock option,
because the vast majority of housing stock used the old size, however
you measure it. None of this made any sense to me but some
government official had decreed it because he liked round numbers, or
because 150mm was some sort of standard continental timber size.

Thinking back on this, "obviously" the 5-5/8 dimension was probably called 6
inches the same way that a 2x4 is not really 2 by 4 inches but rather less
in trimmed, planed form. Someone in the Ministry of Annoying Decisions, who
had probably never in his life built anything with his own hands, decided
that as 150mm was close to 6 inches, and Britain Had to Go Metric, a decree
was issued to timber merchants to sell timber in this size, without
realising that this would be the final planed width dimension.

If anyone knows the true story though, I'd be grateful for that information.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

In article , jmfbahciv jmfbahciv@aol
wrote:

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. :-)

Probably because of those metric Canadian hours, what with
each one being 100 minutes long.

--
Gerry Myerson ) (i - u for email)

Bart Goddard wrote:
"Bob Myers" wrote in news:hkf3e6$drh$1
@usenet01.boi.hp.com:

Given the above, there would have to be a significant
justification for continuing with the "English" system,

I need justification for continuing what I've always
been doing? I don't think so.

You personally, of course not. But if I'm in charge
of outfitting a new production line, maintenance
department, etc., I'm pretty strongly motivated to
eliminate inefficiencies. Having to carry duplicate
tools, etc., in both metric and English is most definitely
one of those inefficiencies, and having to convert
back and forth makes for further time wasting and
potential errors. So I need to pick one, and frankly,
the "English" system winds up being at a disadvantage
there - and yes, I would have to have some justification
for continuing to use it.

(The point being, as it has always been, the arguments
put forth in burden the world with the metric system
would never be tolerated if applied to any other
aspect of our lives.

Except that picking a system of measurements really
doesn't have much to do with "any other aspect of
our lives," and trying to compare such arguments across
these boundaries is pretty much guaranteed to wind up
an apples-and-watermelons sort of situation.

Bob M.

In article a89073d0-cecf-465e-8ec5-
,
says...
On Feb 4, 11:18*am, (Paul Ciszek) wrote:

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.

I can't believe he couldn't tell you. The density of water (I know in
my head) is about 62.4 pounds per cubic foot; 62.3 if correcting for
the bouyancy of air (a detail the metric-philes always omit!).

If you're really talking about density, (mass per unit volume) the
buoyancy of air has nothing to do with the result. If you're talking
about the WEIGHT of a unit volume, then, in some cases, you
may need to correct for the buoyancy of air---which is, of course,
a function of altitude.



Of
course it changes with temperature as well; it's rather fortunate that
water has a much lower thermal expansion than any other liquid at
normal temperatures.

(unless, of course, you go below 32F! ;-)


Andrew Usher