AARoads Forum

Should US metricate? I think that this should be done because most other countries use metric system and US shouldn't be outlier. Do you think that US will have been fully metricated by 2038?

Anything but metric.

I believe the Smoot is a very useful unit of measure. All nations should Smooticise.

Should the US go metric?  Yes.

Will the US go metric?  No.

The US should absolutely go metric.

I know how to use metric conversions, that's good enough for me.  I don't care what anyone else does, or at least not enough to advocate metric use being standardized.

I wouldn't mind if we went metric, so long as we don't have to use Celsius. Degrees Celsius are large enough that you don't get enough precision without using decimals.

Or, put another way, the "40s" in Celsius cover everything from 104°F (a typical Oklahoma summer day) to 120°F (Death Valley temperatures). That's a ridiculous range of temperatures, covered in only a 9°C spread.

I've found that Celsius increments are better. People talk of setting their thermostat to 68° or 70° or 72°, meaning that 2°F is the smallest meaningful difference.

I will note that we use the metric system for very small amounts (e.g. grams in nutrition labels, 0.7 mm pencil leads, and as a coin collector, millimeters and grams for coin diameter and weight), plus 2L sodas. Conversely, when I was in Quebec City, everything was metric except for picture frame sizes, which were in inches, and "355 mL" soda cans, which are labeled in metric but are really just a conversion from 12 fl oz.

Sure, but in the United States people tend to quote outdoor air temperatures in a 10°F range. "Highs in the 70s" is a lot easier to say than "Highs between 20 and 25 degrees" (or something like "highs around 23°", which implies a level of precision that may not be intended).

You could say "Highs in the lower 20s" with Celsius, but when you do that with Fahrenheit, you get something that's a lot closer to your 2° range when accounting for forecast uncertainty.

My thoughts on this issue are somewhat nuanced. First, I don't think the US will fully convert in my lifetime (which may or may not last beyond 2038).

In general, I favor using metric because I find the US system of measurement largely incomprehensible. No doubt my opinion on that issue reflects when I grew up–during my early grade-school years when you learn measurement, it was the Carter years when the US was supposedly going to be switching soon, so the curriculum was more focused on teaching metric measurement.

A second consideration is commerce and global competition. Some years back, the EU was considering legislation that would ban the sale of products in packaging other than standard metric sizes. For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g). I believe I read that legislation didn't pass. If it had passed, I would have strongly favored the US standardizing consumer packaging using metric units for the simple reason that it would cost American companies more to produce two sizes of every product (a European size and an American size) and I figured it would be reasonable to assume that it would be US consumers who would ultimately bear the cost of the dual sizes–the American producers surely wouldn't make their products less competitive in Europe by charging more due to this issue.

There is no reason, however, why the US standardizing on metric for product sales and the like should have any significant impact on the average consumer's activity at home. If your recipe is in US units, there's no reason to change that. Your existing measuring spoons will continue to work perfectly well. (The measuring cups and spoons we have all have both US and metric units on them anyway, other than one set of dry measuring cups.) Would it be mildly frustrating that the package size you buy at the grocery store doesn't sync up with the units you use at home? Maybe. But on the other hand, (1) most of us are already used to the idea that there's always something left in the package (no doubt intentional to cause you to need to buy some more; or consider the common complaint about the hot dog package containing a different number of hot dogs from the number of buns in the hot dog bun package), and (2) the packaging at the store already doesn't match the units the recipe specifies (produce is not sold by the "cup" or the "tablespoon," for example). It's frustrating how so many US recipes are written by volume, rather than mass, even as to dry ingredients, and switching to metric packaging wouldn't likely change that.

In terms of, say, buying a pound of ground beef at the grocery store, if the deli counter's scale used grams, you can be reasonably certain they'd have a conversion chart posted somewhere (the employees would quickly learn the conversions in their head anyway). Most grocery stores I've visited in Canada over the years have such charts, not just for dealing with American visitors but also for dealing with Canadian customers who grew up using the old measurements and continue to do so.

When it comes to things like the weather forecast on TV, it likewise doesn't much matter. Some industries–the medical industry being a big one–already use metric units to a substantial degree. Your doctor's office most likely uses a Celsius thermometer to take your temperature. If you prefer to use Fahrenheit at home, who cares? Most likely TV weathermen would continue to use whatever their viewers say they prefer. Bear in mind that the government cannot dictate to private broadcasters which units they use on the air because that's a First Amendment issue. I have no idea whether any US TV stations along the Canadian border use dual units in their forecasts due to having a fair number of Canadian viewers, but it's relatively trivial to program your graphics software to display both units. (Regarding learning Celsius gradations, BTW, I heard an old poem that's useful: "0 is freezing, 10 is not. 20 is room temperature and 30 is hot." I might quibble that 30 is "hot"–it's 86°F–but the principle is reasonable on the whole.)

In short, changing over would likely have relatively little impact on most individuals' day-to-day activities UNLESS road signs also changed over. Regarding road signs, once upon a time I favored switching, but the cost of changing the huge number of signs in the US has caused me to rethink that. I've read that Canada changed every speed limit sign in the country over Labour Day weekend in 1977. I can't fathom that being practical nor even possible in the US in such a short amount of time. We simply have too many signs to make that logistically realistic. Another issue has to do with the huge number of overhead signs and whether they would need to be relocated to reflect accurate distances. Using weird distances on signs (1.6 km, etc.) would turn a lot of people off, but moving signs to allow for even distances (2 km) would involve massive expense and disruption. The alternative of relocating signs, and changing the units, when they need replacement would likely be even less reasonable because it would just aggravate what would likely already be a frustrating process for a lot of people.

With that said, the single dumbest argument I ever heard against metric speed limits was from my former boss's secretary. I was just back from a trip to Mont-Tremblant and she said something about she hates driving in Canada: "How do you know how fast you're going?" I replied, "Well, there's this sign on the road. It says 'Maximum 100.' You look at the inner ring on your speedometer and when the needle is pointing at 100 km/h, you're going 100 km/h and you're doing the speed limit." I don't think she was amused, although the other people who heard the comment burst out laughing. She was thinking in the wrong terms by trying to think exclusively in mph. The better way to approach it is, what is the distance in km, what is the prevailing speed limit in km/h for most of your route, and how long will it take you at that speed. In that respect, I definitely concede that miles per hour are more convenient because the use of 60 mph (one mile per minute) is a very convenient way to calculate travel times. I usually estimate travel times based on 60 mph even when I know I'll be going faster than that for most of the trip–it's just too convenient a way to calculate. I suppose with metric you could use 120 km/h to estimate 2 km per minute, but that's somewhat less convenient and it's probably unrealistic in at least the eastern half of the US (not because it's illegal to go 120 km/h in most of the eastern US–while it is, I'm thinking more in terms of there simply being too much traffic in many places to allow you to sustain that speed because sooner or later you either encounter slow-moving trucks or left-lane hogs).

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g).

How exactly does this law work? A few years ago, Triscuits "shrinkflation"ed their family size packages from 13 oz to 12.5 oz. Their flavored ones are currently 11.5 oz. A 0.5 ounce difference is a 14 gram difference. Would the EU prohibit this tiny size change entirely, force it to be twice as large (e.g. 375g to 350g), or what?

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
It's frustrating how so many US recipes are written by volume, rather than mass, even as to dry ingredients, and switching to metric packaging wouldn't likely change that.

Switching requires knowing the density.

Quote from: 1 on July 13, 2023, 09:03:12 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g).

How exactly does this law work? A few years ago, Triscuits "shrinkflation"ed their family size packages from 13 oz to 12.5 oz. Their flavored ones are currently 11.5 oz. A 0.5 ounce difference is a 14 gram difference. Would the EU prohibit this tiny size change entirely, force it to be twice as large (e.g. 375g to 350g), or what?

Insofar as I know, they didn't pass it, so any answer would be purely hypothetical.

There was a requirement that starting in 1996, all highway plans were to be done in metric with the expectation that signs were going to change in the future.  Metric plans were made before the mandate was repealed a couple years later. Then the 2009 MUTCD removed the metric option for signage.

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AMI usually estimate travel times based on 60 mph even when I know I'll be going faster than that for most of the trip–it's just too convenient a way to calculate. I suppose with metric you could use 120 km/h to estimate 2 km per minute, but that's somewhat less convenient and it's probably unrealistic in at least the eastern half of the US.

The simpler metric approximation is to assume 100km/h.

Going 100km will take an hour.
Going 50km will take a half-hour
Going 25km will take a quarter-hour.

It's still not as convenient as the simplicity of 1 mile = 1minute, but since my mental day planner works in quarter-hour increments....it works.

Quote from: 1 on July 13, 2023, 09:03:12 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
For example, a cereal box could contain 500 g of cereal but could not contain a pound of cereal because that's nonstandard (453.59 g).

How exactly does this law work? A few years ago, Triscuits "shrinkflation"ed their family size packages from 13 oz to 12.5 oz. Their flavored ones are currently 11.5 oz. A 0.5 ounce difference is a 14 gram difference. Would the EU prohibit this tiny size change entirely, force it to be twice as large (e.g. 375g to 350g), or what?

I assume that it would have been an extension of this sort of logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_metric_sizes

Maybe then I should stop buying my regular supply of Diet Mountain Dew in 2L bottles or paying my power bills in multiples of joules (1 kilowatt hour is 1000 watts of power over one hour of time, one joule is one watt-second of energy - all 'metric' units).


Mike

We're waiting for the UK to fully metricate first.

You can pry a 4' X 8' sheet of plywood from my cold dead hands.

It helps Big Business but hurts the average person.

So no.

I'm of two minds on this. Is metric logical-yes. Is it practical? Sometimes. Is it better-that's subjective.

In engineering school I learned both conventional and metric terms and conversions. Only a handful of times in the last 23 years have I even been adjacent to metric in construction documents.

To me and many, miles, feet, and inches are more useful than decimal meters, centimeters, and millimeters for day-to-day activity. And the Fahrenheit scale seems to express the gradations of temperature better from a feeling basis. The Celsius scale, in my view, would have worked better had the degree not been calibrated at 1.8 of a Fahrenheit degree. And the original metric time (now called decimal time) died stillborn during the French revolutionary period.

The reason Canada changed to metric was because they forced the conversions with laws. And even in metricized Canada, people still speak colloquially in miles, inches, and feet. Recipes are often printed using cups and ounces. You can still get 2x4s, etc. Temperature seems to be a mixed bag with both Fahrenheit and Celsius being used colloquially.

Here in the US, while science tends to use metric, use of it is optional. That's why we can have 2L bottles of soda along with 12 oz. cans. Mike makes a good point on power where the watt/kilowatt made more sense for electricity and electrical calculations while horsepower is still used for mechanical engines.

Now the US Survey foot and International foot are technically pegged to the international definition of the meter (the US survey foot being 1200/3937m and the international foot being 0.3048m) so there's no getting away from that. But there's no groundswell of people wanting to pass laws to force metrification here which is as it should be in a free society.

Just thinking from a road standpoint, it should have been done 50 years ago. Now there's so much more mileage and accompanying signage that it would be cost- and time-prohibitive.

I've been dealing with the old English form of measurement for six decades now and still have to remind myself what an acre, rod, etc is.  We would get used to the metric system, but unfortunately to really get a transition that occurs, you would have to change everything at once, which forces everyone to get used to the new normal.  Just putting a sign like they did on the interstate in the late 70s that says "Louisville- 100km" makes you think "that's nice" but they you get to the next exit to figure out just how far you are from Louisville.  That doesn't make you learn it any deeper than some obscure head knowledge.

Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2023, 07:06:13 AM
Anything but metric.

Hell yea, brother! Now let's get to the shooting range so we can test our new 9mm pistols!

I'm pro metrication for everything but temperature because Celsius is stupid- the relative freezing and boiling temperature of water is just as arbitrary as anything else and having actual lived temperatures generally be between 0 and 100 both makes more sense than -20 to 40 and offers more precision.

Quote from: Life in Paradise on July 13, 2023, 02:02:00 PM
I've been dealing with the old English form of measurement for six decades now and still have to remind myself what an acre, rod, etc is.  We would get used to the metric system, but unfortunately to really get a transition that occurs, you would have to change everything at once, which forces everyone to get used to the new normal.  Just putting a sign like they did on the interstate in the late 70s that says "Louisville- 100km" makes you think "that's nice" but they you get to the next exit to figure out just how far you are from Louisville.  That doesn't make you learn it any deeper than some obscure head knowledge.

An acre is simple-it's an area of 1 chain by 10 chains. A rod is 1/4 of a chain.

I think that Celsius would be based as: -30s, -20s, -10s, -0s, 0s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s.

Quote from: zzcarp on July 13, 2023, 02:34:40 PM
An acre is simple-it's an area of 1 chain by 10 chains. A rod is 1/4 of a chain.

"The metric system is a tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!"
–Abraham J. Simpson II

Quote from: bandit957 on July 13, 2023, 12:38:37 PM
It helps Big Business but hurts the average person.

So no.

See, I'm of the opinion it's the other way around. I mostly use metric for my own purposes–I cook measuring things in grams and mL whenever convenient, when measuring things for my own purposes I use cm/mm, etc. The math is simpler, and I went to school in Oklahoma so I'm stupid. I have no real problem with this since I'm used to it.

The reason why the rest of the country isn't changing is because some pissbaby CEO, who can't bear the thought of spending any money ever, completely shitting his pants at the thought they might have to change something, because change costs money.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 13, 2023, 02:39:02 PM
I think that Celsius would be based as: -30s, -20s, -10s, -0s, 0s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 13, 2023, 08:48:10 AM
The "40s" in Celsius cover everything from 104°F (a typical Oklahoma summer day) to 120°F (Death Valley temperatures). That's a ridiculous range of temperatures, covered in only a 9°C spread.

Quote from: davewiecking on July 13, 2023, 12:32:20 PM
You can pry a 4' X 8' sheet of plywood from my cold dead hands.

But if you have a 2 x 4 that's actually 2" x 4" I'd like to see it :)

There's U.S., there's Metric, then there's Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

Quote from: kkt on July 13, 2023, 05:56:55 PM

Quote from: davewiecking on July 13, 2023, 12:32:20 PM
You can pry a 4' X 8' sheet of plywood from my cold dead hands.

But if you have a 2 x 4 that's actually 2" x 4" I'd like to see it :)

Granted it's not standard, but allow me to show you the inside of some of the walls of my house (built in 1917)!

This is about on par with putting the entire United States on the same time zone.

Quote from: davewiecking on July 13, 2023, 08:35:40 PM

Quote from: kkt on July 13, 2023, 05:56:55 PM

Quote from: davewiecking on July 13, 2023, 12:32:20 PM
You can pry a 4' X 8' sheet of plywood from my cold dead hands.

But if you have a 2 x 4 that's actually 2" x 4" I'd like to see it :)

Granted it's not standard, but allow me to show you the inside of some of the walls of my house (built in 1917)!

Congratulations!  Sometime I should open up a wall or something and check mine, it was built in 1925.

Definitely in favor of going metric.

I was having trouble with Fahrenheit/Celsius conversions so I switched the readout on my dashboard to Celsius about 20 years ago.  I'm all over it now.  43.5 degrees C in Tucson today.

Why all of the 11's in the Imperial distance measurements?  5280=480 x 11.  43560= 11 x 11 x 360 or 66 x 66 x 10.  Again, why?

If we went metric, the need for an architect's scale would go away.  Instead of, say, 1/4" scale, which is actually 1:48, you'd draw plans at 1:50 and nobody would know the difference.

Building products might or might not change.  Would ceiling tiles be 2' x 4' or 600 x 1200 mm like they are in Europe?  Carpet tiles are 18" square if they're made in the USA but 50 cm x 50 cm if imported.

Plus, almost anything that is sold outside the USA has metric parts, anyway, because very few other countries have Imperial tools.

It would be defensible to use a different measuring system than the rest of the world if our system was better.  It isn't.

Not much point in it.  We already use dual units anyway for a lot of things.  A 2 liter of pop, 1 mile down the road, 50 milligrams of medication, 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside, etc.

As for the system being better, maybe it's just best to use what fits on the ground.  Our current land division system divides everything so we have roads at 1 mile intervals (section line roads), land divided into sections of 640 acres, further divided into quarter sections of 160 acres.  It's one reason why you'll still get distances in western Canada of miles instead of km.  What's also interesting is that a number of Canadian parking garages give maximum heights in feet and inches as well as meters.

Quote from: Brandon on July 14, 2023, 06:20:25 AM
Not much point in it.  We already use dual units anyway for a lot of things.  A 2 liter of pop, 1 mile down the road, 50 milligrams of medication, 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside, etc.

As for the system being better, maybe it's just best to use what fits on the ground.  Our current land division system divides everything so we have roads at 1 mile intervals (section line roads), land divided into sections of 640 acres, further divided into quarter sections of 160 acres.  It's one reason why you'll still get distances in western Canada of miles instead of km.  What's also interesting is that a number of Canadian parking garages give maximum heights in feet and inches as well as meters.

Canada's not a real country, anyway.

While the Netherlands is metric, there are still some other measurement systems in use, to varying degrees.

In weights, pound and ounce are still somewhat common along the older generations, especially for meat or cheese weight in supermarkets. I remember working in a supermarket at age 16 and older people wanted 2 ounces of sliced meat or a pound of cheese. I had no idea what they meant at first.

Inches are still fairly common for the diagonal size of computer monitors, but increasingly less so for TVs, where it has been replaced by centimeters.

In Canada, the area of wildfires is reported in the number of hectares. While hectares are a metric unit, most people don't have a good feeling for it. It's mostly used for agricultural purposes (the size of a farm) or in forest management. I suppose many people cannot really visualize how much 400 or 4,000 hectares is.

Some metric units are dumbed down in the media, instead of using area, volume or weight, they use 'football fields' or 'olympic swimming pools' as units. Or 'millions of kilos' instead of tonnes.

Quote from: Chris on July 14, 2023, 05:00:13 PM
Some metric units are dumbed down in the media, instead of using area, volume or weight, they use 'football fields' or 'olympic swimming pools' as units. Or 'millions of kilos' instead of tonnes.

Which have their own sources of confusion.  People envision a football stadium including the stands, and aren't really sure which swimming pool is Olympic.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 13, 2023, 05:25:53 AM
Should US metricate? I think that this should be done because most other countries use metric system and US shouldn't be outlier. Do you think that US will have been fully metricated by 2038?

I've always said that, if the US Government will simply use metric (and only metric) in ITS products and laws, the rest of the society will soon follow.

Quote from: Rothman on July 14, 2023, 06:47:58 AM

Quote from: Brandon on July 14, 2023, 06:20:25 AM
Not much point in it.  We already use dual units anyway for a lot of things.  A 2 liter of pop, 1 mile down the road, 50 milligrams of medication, 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside, etc.

As for the system being better, maybe it's just best to use what fits on the ground.  Our current land division system divides everything so we have roads at 1 mile intervals (section line roads), land divided into sections of 640 acres, further divided into quarter sections of 160 acres.  It's one reason why you'll still get distances in western Canada of miles instead of km.  What's also interesting is that a number of Canadian parking garages give maximum heights in feet and inches as well as meters.

Canada's not a real country, anyway.

The only real country north of the USA is Québec.

Diagonal size of screens is something that needs to stop regardless of what unit is used in measuring it. It's a fundamentally useless measurement–will a Z-inch TV fit in a space that is X by Y? Should I really have to do trig to find out?

The "football fields"/"swimming pools" units of measure are universal. (These are often sarcastically labeled "Americans will use anything but the metric system to measure things".) I recently saw a humorous exchange in the comments on an article regarding an area of Ukraine quoted to be "the size of Florida". A British reader commented that was a useless comparison for them. So another Brit converted it to a number of Belgiums for them, which is apparently a common reference size in British media.

Quote from: LilianaUwU on July 14, 2023, 09:10:36 PM
The only real country north of the USA is Québec.

Don't forget Alanland (the Great Brown North). Which is also south of the USA, of course.

Quote from: michravera on July 14, 2023, 09:06:42 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 13, 2023, 05:25:53 AM
Should US metricate? I think that this should be done because most other countries use metric system and US shouldn't be outlier. Do you think that US will have been fully metricated by 2038?

I've always said that, if the US Government will simply use metric (and only metric) in ITS products and laws, the rest of the society will soon follow.

Tell that to the Canadians.

I'm kindof wondering when Quebec will start using the 'red circle' on their speed limit signs.

Mike

https://twitter.com/dronkoff/status/1680245004772560904

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 14, 2023, 09:14:10 PM
Diagonal size of screens is something that needs to stop regardless of what unit is used in measuring it. It's a fundamentally useless measurement–will a Z-inch TV fit in a space that is X by Y? Should I really have to do trig to find out?

The "football fields"/"swimming pools" units of measure are universal. (These are often sarcastically labeled "Americans will use anything but the metric system to measure things".) I recently saw a humorous exchange in the comments on an article regarding an area of Ukraine quoted to be "the size of Florida". A British reader commented that was a useless comparison for them. So another Brit converted it to a number of Belgiums for them, which is apparently a common reference size in British media.

I had a bizarre cognitive dissonance recently when I saw a severe thunderstorm warning that mentioned hail "to toonie size".

It is a mistake to describe what the United States uses as the Imperial system.  The United States common measures are based on measures used in the 1700s in England and colonies.  The Imperial system was created in the UK about the 1820s after the Houses of Parliament burned down destroying the primary reference standards, and they simplified them somewhat at the same time thus creating two similar but different units with the same name.  In particular, the Imperial gallon is about 20% larger than the U.S. gallon, so that's enough to screw you over if you forget to allow for it.

Quote from: kkt on July 15, 2023, 05:01:21 PM
It is a mistake to describe what the United States uses as the Imperial system.  The United States common measures are based on measures used in the 1700s in England and colonies.  The Imperial system was created in the UK about the 1820s after the Houses of Parliament burned down destroying the primary reference standards, and they simplified them somewhat at the same time thus creating two similar but different units with the same name.  In particular, the Imperial gallon is about 20% larger than the U.S. gallon, so that's enough to screw you over if you forget to allow for it.

It's actually more complicated than that. The reference standards that the U.S. used through the 1800s were no longer in usable condition by the end of the 1800s, which resulted in the U.S. redefining its units in terms of metric units, which is why an inch is exactly 25.4 mm, for example. And the Imperial gallon being larger than a U.S. gallon isn't because of any standards changes in the 1800s, but because they're based on different units to begin with: the U.S. gallon is based on the wine gallon (originally used, obviously, for measuring wine), while the Imperial gallon is based on the corn gallon (originally used for measuring dry goods like grain).

A big part of the invention of the metric system in the first place is that the medieval unit systems were so disorganized that they were practically useless. In Isaac Newton's works, he had to specify that he was using one particular version of the Parisian foot for distances, because otherwise nobody would be able to verify and reproduce his work.

objectively yes, I honestly don't care though. It's not important enough for the people in charge to really bother with.

I think that temperatures would be better based on Celsius, because it would be uniform.

I found a km marker on a rural highway in Asotin County, WA today:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1ODWw4aIAE8PDM?format=jpg&name=large)

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 16, 2023, 11:53:05 AM
I think that temperatures would be better based on Celsius, because it would be uniform.

Why is being uniform important? It is not like I am going to take my 102°F weather to Finland with me when I travel there.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 16, 2023, 11:53:05 AM
I think that temperatures would be better based on Celsius, because it would be uniform.

That argument holds no logic at all. If all the countries other than the US switched to Fahrenheit, it would also be uniform. Same would be true if every country used Kelvin instead (although I'm not suggesting that would make any sense as a practical matter). You're just spouting off another one of your little one-line comments boiling down to your usual position of, "This is better because I say so."

For average people, what could be simpler than 'water freezes at '0' and (at sea level) boils at '100'?  That's what I first figured out by myself when I was in first grade (and I had to be retaught in 'F' later).

Mike

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 17, 2023, 02:55:39 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 16, 2023, 11:53:05 AM
I think that temperatures would be better based on Celsius, because it would be uniform.

Why is being uniform important? It is not like I am going to take my 102°F weather to Finland with me when I travel there.

The reason is that nearly all other countries use Celsius (and km), and US being an outlier is the thing I don't like. Why it shall be just US and some other country? Celsius is better because it logically puts zero to freezing and temperatures below freezing are always negative. Kilometer is better because smaller units are 1,000ths of it and larger units are it multiplied by 1,000. Also, most countries use DayMonthYear format, but US uses MonthDayYear format instead. The DayMonthYear puts units in order from smallest to largest, unlike MonthDayYear.

Quote from: mgk920 on July 17, 2023, 01:04:39 PM
For average people, what could be simpler than 'water freezes at '0' and (at sea level) boils at '100'?  That's what I first figured out by myself when I was in first grade (and I had to be retaught in 'F' later).

Arguably, Fahrenheit is simple and sensible if you consider the following oversimplifications:
0°F is the temperature below which it is dangerously cold for humans
100°F is the temperature above which it is dangerously hot for humans
Therefore, temperature in °F is the proportion of the way between "dangerously cold" and "dangerously hot".

My late father also used to argue that US customary units of length and area were superior to Metric because they were human-centric:

• An inch is about the length between the tip of a thumb and the knuckle
  
• A foot is about the length of a human foot.
  
• A mile is about the distance you would travel in an hour if you were plowing with a single ox.
  
• A league is about the distance you would travel in an hour at a normal walking pace.
  
• An acre is about the amount of land you can plow with a single ox in a day.
  

I think I once read that a meter was designed to be a certain fraction of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole, but after the meter was established, it turned out it was off by quite a bit.

The average person when measuring lengths was not concerned with how the length compared with the size of the world but with how it compared with neighboring plots of land.

A meter is about arm's reach.

Quote from: 1 on July 17, 2023, 06:53:48 PM
A meter is about arm's reach.

A cubit is from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.

Quote from: bandit957 on July 17, 2023, 05:51:10 PM
I think I once read that a meter was designed to be a certain fraction of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole, but after the meter was established, it turned out it was off by quite a bit.

The average person when measuring lengths was not concerned with how the length compared with the size of the world but with how it compared with neighboring plots of land.

The original concept was one meter = 1 /10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole, through the Paris meridian.  They measured it and their measure was pretty accurate, given the difficulties of surveying a great circle distance over mountains..  Very few purposes would require something more precise - but that is why the meter is now defined using distance light travels in a vacuum.

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on July 17, 2023, 05:47:08 PM

• An inch is about the length between the tip of a thumb and the knuckle
  

I feel the need to mention here that "thumb" and "inch" are both "pouce" in French, hence this comparison.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 17, 2023, 01:43:06 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 17, 2023, 02:55:39 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 16, 2023, 11:53:05 AM
I think that temperatures would be better based on Celsius, because it would be uniform.

Why is being uniform important? It is not like I am going to take my 102°F weather to Finland with me when I travel there.

The reason is that nearly all other countries use Celsius (and km), and US being an outlier is the thing I don't like.

If the best reason you can come up with is "I don't like it", then it only takes one other person who does like it to cancel your opinion out.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 17, 2023, 01:43:06 PMCelsius is better because it logically puts zero to freezing and temperatures below freezing are always negative.

Sure, it's a nice feature of Celsius that you can tell that temperatures below 0 are freezing. However, consider this: at some point you were taught that temperatures below 0 are freezing. At that same point, Americans were taught that temperatures below 32 are freezing. This is something we don't actually have to think about, because it's something we've all known since we were in primary school, and it comes as automatic to us as the times tables or how to use a pencil.

What makes metric great is that you can convert between units very easily (this is why I use cm and mm as much as I can despite being American, because I like that feature). But Celsius doesn't have that ability; there's no millicelsius or centicelsius or whatever. So, really, the only benefits Celsius has is uniformity (not really much of a perk if you don't travel between countries often) and that 0 and 100 have semantic meaning (not really all that useful if you already have the Fahrenheit equivalents of 32 and 212 memorized).

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 17, 2023, 01:43:06 PM
Kilometer is better because smaller units are 1,000ths of it and larger units are it multiplied by 1,000.

This is true (and dividing by 5280 is such a pain in the ass nobody even attempts it; we just say things like "½ mile" rather than "2640 feet"), but the thing that makes km usage in the US unlikely isn't because of the division, but because the country was physically built using a mile-based surveying system.

Take a look at this utterly typical section of rural land south of Woodward, Oklahoma:
(https://i.imgur.com/UG9nFWT.png)

That grid of roads is built exactly 1 mile apart. That means you can easily determine the distance between any two points on it just by counting the grid squares. Of course, you can't do that with kilometers, you have to actually measure.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on July 17, 2023, 01:43:06 PM
Also, most countries use DayMonthYear format, but US uses MonthDayYear format instead. The DayMonthYear puts units in order from smallest to largest, unlike MonthDayYear.

The standard date format is actually ISO 8601 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601), which is YYYY-MM-DD. It puts the units in order from largest to smallest, which has the benefit of an alphabetic sort also sorting the dates in order.

I mentioned an advantage of Celsius before: people in the US mention setting their thermostats to 68°F or 70°F or 72°F – these are approximately 1°C increments; 1°C is approximately the smallest meaningful unit.

(For evidence that is actually the case: Google Image Search (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=AB5stBgLty0Q1uyCG0vewmdgXlgNI_OyLw:1689637046927&q=thermostat+home+temperatures&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjozuy_9JaAAxW1FFkFHfWSDAYQ0pQJegQIZRAB&biw=1264&bih=699&dpr=2) showing many examples; note the lack of 69 and 71)

Nope, the US should not go metric, and should roll back some of the metric uses there are currently.

The big selling point of the metric system was always its supposed superiority for ease of calculations, but we all carry around very powerful calculators today and most calculation is done by machine anyway so who cares at this point.

The Imperial-Standard-Customary-US system is actually a much better system for everyday use. As a system that evolved from human centered units and needs it works much better for things we measure day to day. A foot is a very handy unit, most objects in a room are well described in feet, the number ends up small enough to picture but large enough to avoid the need for decimals or fractions. Same applies to the inch. Metric systems usually have meters which are basically fine as yards, but the centimeter is too small to be good at measuring many every day items and the decimeter has always felt like a redheaded step child.

I love my US system, and I can always use metric if I need to, but there is no benefit of forcing everyone to use a system which is not human oriented for human purposes.

Also, to kill the shrinkflation BS, food should be mandated to be sold in even US units. Sell a gallon, half gallon, quart, pint, or even cup of ice cream, but none of this 3.489546 quarts BS. Get rid of shrinking containers that screw up my recipes too, a can should be 16 oz, 8 oz, 4 oz, or even 2 oz, but never 14.5 oz.

Quote from: HighwayStar on July 17, 2023, 07:56:08 PM
Nope, the US should not go metric, and should roll back some of the metric uses there are currently.

The big selling point of the metric system was always its supposed superiority for ease of calculations, but we all carry around very powerful calculators today and most calculation is done by machine anyway so who cares at this point.

The Imperial-Standard-Customary-US system is actually a much better system for everyday use. As a system that evolved from human centered units and needs it works much better for things we measure day to day. A foot is a very handy unit, most objects in a room are well described in feet, the number ends up small enough to picture but large enough to avoid the need for decimals or fractions. Same applies to the inch. Metric systems usually have meters which are basically fine as yards, but the centimeter is too small to be good at measuring many every day items and the decimeter has always felt like a redheaded step child.

I love my US system, and I can always use metric if I need to, but there is no benefit of forcing everyone to use a system which is not human oriented for human purposes.

Also, to kill the shrinkflation BS, food should be mandated to be sold in even US units. Sell a gallon, half gallon, quart, pint, or even cup of ice cream, but none of this 3.489546 quarts BS. Get rid of shrinking containers that screw up my recipes too, a can should be 16 oz, 8 oz, 4 oz, or even 2 oz, but never 14.5 oz.

The metric system wasn't decided upon by drunk mathematicians rolling dice.

Quote from: HighwayStar on July 17, 2023, 07:56:08 PM
The Imperial-Standard-Customary-US system is actually a much better system for everyday use. As a system that evolved from human centered units and needs it works much better for things we measure day to day. A foot is a very handy unit, most objects in a room are well described in feet, the number ends up small enough to picture but large enough to avoid the need for decimals or fractions. Same applies to the inch. Metric systems usually have meters which are basically fine as yards, but the centimeter is too small to be good at measuring many every day items and the decimeter has always felt like a redheaded step child.

Doesn't "too small" when it comes to measurements just translate to "more accurate"?

I understand off-hand measurements being easier in feet ("this car is roughly 20 feet long") but actual (measured) measurements are almost always going to be in a smaller unit, like inches, cm, or mm. The exception, oddly, being things that are not human-scale, like building height, or length of a bridge... but then even those will be more accurate in a smaller scale.

Keeping feet around for off-hand measurements is also allowed, you know. Here in Japan, we are totally metric, but that doesn't stop people from measuring rooms by tatami's.

Quote from: Rothman on July 17, 2023, 07:00:09 PM

Quote from: 1 on July 17, 2023, 06:53:48 PM
A meter is about arm's reach.

A cubit is from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.

I use cubits to communicate with other drivers.

:bigass:

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 17, 2023, 07:27:15 PM
Take a look at this utterly typical section of rural land south of Woodward, Oklahoma:
(https://i.imgur.com/UG9nFWT.png)

That grid of roads is built exactly 1 mile apart. That means you can easily determine the distance between any two points on it just by counting the grid squares. Of course, you can't do that with kilometers, you have to actually measure.

Even in a metric system, it would be acceptable to measure these survey squares in miles. There is nothing stopping customary units from being used in-tandem with metric units in everyday life.

Most countries have their own local measurement system. That doesn't mean those local units ceased to exist, or that people stopped using them, when metric was adopted. It just became the "other" way of measuring. But for everyone else, having a uniform measurement system that they likely already know (in theory, Metric is understood by 95% of the world's population) is much easier than learning a whole new system.

edit: reworded second paragraph intro.

Doesn't Belize still use miles on its road signs?

Quote from: kkt on July 17, 2023, 07:16:15 PM

Quote from: bandit957 on July 17, 2023, 05:51:10 PM
I think I once read that a meter was designed to be a certain fraction of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole, but after the meter was established, it turned out it was off by quite a bit.

The average person when measuring lengths was not concerned with how the length compared with the size of the world but with how it compared with neighboring plots of land.

The original concept was one meter = 1 /10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole, through the Paris meridian.  They measured it and their measure was pretty accurate, given the difficulties of surveying a great circle distance over mountains..  Very few purposes would require something more precise - but that is why the meter is now defined using distance light travels in a vacuum.

As far as I know, length of 2 second pendulum -1 second for one way swing - was attempted original definition. Unfortunately gravity isn't uniform enough...

Quote from: jakeroot on July 17, 2023, 09:36:28 PM
Even in a metric system, it would be acceptable to measure these survey squares in miles. There is nothing stopping customary units from being used in-tandem with metric units in everyday life.

I think most countries had their own local measurement system before going metric. That doesn't mean those local units ceased to exist, or that people stopped using them. It just became the "other" way of measuring. But for everyone else, having a uniform measurement system that they likely already know (in theory, Metric is understood by 95% of the world's population) is much easier than learning a whole new system.

Sure, but I imagine it would make signage for these grids a little more annoying. (Probably. I haven't touched I-19 yet to see how ADOT does it.)

Anyway, the length units are probably the metric units I use the most (though I do tend to weigh food in grams, and measure liquids in mL because I cannot for the life of me remember the relationships pints/quarts/ounces/drachmas/whatever have to each other)  so if we converted I'd shrug and not a whole lot would change for me. The only metric unit I actively dislike is degrees Celsius.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 13, 2023, 08:53:05 AM
Sure, but in the United States people tend to quote outdoor air temperatures in a 10°F range. "Highs in the 70s" is a lot easier to say than "Highs between 20 and 25 degrees" (or something like "highs around 23°", which implies a level of precision that may not be intended).

You could say "Highs in the lower 20s" with Celsius, but when you do that with Fahrenheit, you get something that's a lot closer to your 2° range when accounting for forecast uncertainty.

But even "the 70's" is a decent range of temperature. Personally I would group Celsius into low, mid, and high, that works fine for me.

I'll admit though Farenheit is probably the most tolerable US measurement since there's no complicated conversion like most of the other units (ex: 5280' in a mile).

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
(Regarding learning Celsius gradations, BTW, I heard an old poem that's useful: "0 is freezing, 10 is not. 20 is room temperature and 30 is hot." I might quibble that 30 is "hot"–it's 86°F–but the principle is reasonable on the whole.)

Nah, 30C is definitely hot.
- Signed by a Canadian :-D

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
(Regarding learning Celsius gradations, BTW, I heard an old poem that's useful: "0 is freezing, 10 is not. 20 is room temperature and 30 is hot." I might quibble that 30 is "hot"–it's 86°F–but the principle is reasonable on the whole.)

Quote
Nah, 30C is definitely hot.
- Signed by a Canadian :-D

And that's when someone from Arizona materializes and screams "YoU hAvEn'T eXpErIeNcEd ReAl HeAt!"  :-D :spin:

Kidding aside, I use a mixture of imperial and metric units routinely. If I'm maintaining a high volume pump system, it's easier to track in gallons per minute, feet of head pressure, pounds per square inch, etc. But in a low volume application such as a grease dispenser it makes more sense to say a bearing is getting fed "2.4 mL every 20 minutes."

Personally, if I get dehydrated, I might say I've lost five pounds of water weight, and in the same breath indicate that my last urine output was dark and less than 200 mL.

I've noticed doctors here tend to record things almost exclusively in metric, converting to imperial to assist patient understanding when needed.

Quote from: jakeroot on July 17, 2023, 09:36:28 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 17, 2023, 07:27:15 PM
Take a look at this utterly typical section of rural land south of Woodward, Oklahoma:
(https://i.imgur.com/UG9nFWT.png)

That grid of roads is built exactly 1 mile apart. That means you can easily determine the distance between any two points on it just by counting the grid squares. Of course, you can't do that with kilometers, you have to actually measure.

Even in a metric system, it would be acceptable to measure these survey squares in miles. There is nothing stopping customary units from being used in-tandem with metric units in everyday life.

Most countries have their own local measurement system. That doesn't mean those local units ceased to exist, or that people stopped using them, when metric was adopted. It just became the "other" way of measuring. But for everyone else, having a uniform measurement system that they likely already know (in theory, Metric is understood by 95% of the world's population) is much easier than learning a whole new system.

edit: reworded second paragraph intro.

Oh, yes, I'm sure our Public Lands Survey System will still be used for as long as there are people who are interested in who owns what land.  They're in millions of deeds all over the country.

However, also be aware that the feet and inches used in land surveys are not exactly the currect feet and inches we use everyday.  Land was surveyed in old feet and inches (and rods and all the rest of it) which are just a tad shorter than the modern feet and inches we agreed upon with the UK as 25.4 mm. 

Frankly at this point the idea of the US formally going metric is in line with the idea of switching to counting in base 12 or of switching keyboards to the Dvorak layout: while there are objective benefits to it, the cost of making the change both in terms of money and in terms of everyone needing to retrain their brains is so high that the effort will not pay for itself (figuratively or literally) in any reasonable time frame, and any suggestions of actually doing it are not taken seriously by any normal people.


One of the biggest arguments in favor of metrication - that it is more efficient for business if the measurements used match those of other countries - doesn't really apply to the US in the same way as it might to somewhere like the Netherlands because the US has 335 million people, more than any other country not named China or India. With 335 million people, we're already a very large market on our own, so there isn't a whole lot of economy of scale benefit to be realized by better synchronizing measurement standards with other countries.

Not to mention that places where there is benefit to be achieved have often quietly gone and metricated of their own accord. The automotive industry, for example, has been specing the sizes of bolts and whatnot in metric for decades so that they can use the same bolts in cars sold in the US as in cars sold in other countries. And the 12 ounce cans we sell beer and soda in? The same exact can design is used in other countries, except you'll find it labeled 350 ml which is close enough (the actual conversion is ~354.9 ml) to be within acceptable rounding errors. The labeling on the cans will be different in different countries anyway so there's nothing to be gained by synchronizing the measurements printed on them.

Quote from: Duke87 on July 18, 2023, 12:28:43 AM
One of the biggest arguments in favor of metrication - that it is more efficient for business if the measurements used match those of other countries - doesn't really apply to the US in the same way as it might to somewhere like the Netherlands because the US has 335 million people, more than any other country not named China or India. With 335 million people, we're already a very large market on our own, so there isn't a whole lot of economy of scale benefit to be realized by better synchronizing measurement standards with other countries.

This got me looking into populations of India and China...

* India adopted the metric system in 1956; population 407 million
* China (ROC) adopted the metric system in 1929; population ~475 million
->> China went fully metric only in 1990; population 1.13 billion
* USA's metric board was disbanded in 1982; population 232 million

India had no official measurement system prior to 1956. China's adoption of metric replaced the local shìzhì ("market") measurement system.

In all three cases (India, China, USA), the GDPs have grown no matter which measurement was being used, although certainly India and China both benefited from going metric; China's final push to limit the "market" measurements in the 1980s was likely influenced by economic growth.

My point with this research is simply to highlight that both India and China, at periods in their history when their populations were far larger than even modern day America, were able to adopt metric. Whether the metric system played a role in their economic growth, I could not say. But both likely benefited from a uniform measurement system that matched those countries with which they traded not only goods, but also workers. This is likely where the US would benefit most: people coming to visit or work not being confused by our system of measurements; Americans themselves are unlikely to see any particular benefit...but then that isn't the point per se.

---

The one annoying thing, honestly? I did not need to learn imperial measurements. If the US adopted metric in the 1980s, we'd be somewhere around halfway to an American population that learned the metric system from birth, rather than incidentally as we aged. But...no. I had to learn some idiotic measurement system because generations of people before me learned it, got used to it, and then forced it on me too.

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 01:40:15 AM
The one annoying thing, honestly? I did not need to learn imperial measurements. If the US adopted metric in the 1980s, we'd be somewhere around halfway to an American population that learned the metric system from birth, rather than incidentally as we aged. But...no. I had to learn some idiotic measurement system because generations of people before me learned it, got used to it, and then forced it on me too.

I have a feeling that imperial measurements would still be taught in schools...but in history class. Or for other legacy items that would still carry imperial measurements in their names.

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 01:40:15 AM
My point with this research is simply to highlight that India and China, with populations far larger than even the US has today, was able to adopt metric. Whether the metric system played a role in their economic growth, I could not say. But both likely benefited from a uniform measurement system that matched those countries with which they traded not only goods, but also workers. This is likely where the US would benefit most: people coming to visit or work not being confused by our system of measurements; Americans themselves are unlikely to see any particular benefit...but then that isn't the point per se.

The big difference here (and with France in the 18th century) is the lack of an internal system of measurement that is consistent throughout the country.  In France, the foot was different, north versus south.  China and India lacked any coherent internal measurement system.  The US, by contrast, has a consistent internal measurement system, using both customary and SI (with customary, oddly enough, based off SI).

I'd love to see the regression analysis that isolated the effect of switching to metric had on India and China's economic growth.  You know, how that was what did it and not massive reforms to their governments... :D

Quote from: Brandon on July 18, 2023, 06:15:36 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 01:40:15 AM
My point with this research is simply to highlight that India and China, with populations far larger than even the US has today, was able to adopt metric. Whether the metric system played a role in their economic growth, I could not say. But both likely benefited from a uniform measurement system that matched those countries with which they traded not only goods, but also workers. This is likely where the US would benefit most: people coming to visit or work not being confused by our system of measurements; Americans themselves are unlikely to see any particular benefit...but then that isn't the point per se.

The big difference here (and with France in the 18th century) is the lack of an internal system of measurement that is consistent throughout the country.  In France, the foot was different, north versus south.  China and India lacked any coherent internal measurement system.  The US, by contrast, has a consistent internal measurement system, using both customary and SI (with customary, oddly enough, based off SI).

I would assume India used British system during colonial times, making it consistent.
Consistency of US system isn't great, though. Nautical and statue miles, fluid ounces and just ounces can add to confusion.
On the other hand, with more things getting computerized, conversion is often just a press of the button.
Biggest inconsistency I see, though, is in nominally inch based pipe threads. Those, as well as wire gauges, can only be memorized

Quote from: jakeroot on July 17, 2023, 09:36:28 PM
.... There is nothing stopping customary units from being used in-tandem with metric units in everyday life.

....

This is a point I made earlier in the thread. It's not as if you would suddenly throw out your existing cookbooks, recipes, measuring spoons, etc. A tablespoon of salt is still a tablespoon of salt, regardless of whether the container from which you pour it says one pound or 500 g. I have a few recipes set in metric units (primarily ones I found online), so I flip the kitchen scale or the oven display to grams or Celsius for those, and if there's a unit for which I don't have an appropriate measuring cup, I either use a conversion app or I ask Siri to convert it.

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 18, 2023, 07:41:40 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on July 17, 2023, 09:36:28 PM
.... There is nothing stopping customary units from being used in-tandem with metric units in everyday life.

....

This is a point I made earlier in the thread. It's not as if you would suddenly throw out your existing cookbooks, recipes, measuring spoons, etc. A tablespoon of salt is still a tablespoon of salt, regardless of whether the container from which you pour it says one pound or 500 g. I have a few recipes set in metric units (primarily ones I found online), so I flip the kitchen scale or the oven display to grams or Celsius for those, and if there's a unit for which I don't have an appropriate measuring cup, I either use a conversion app or I ask Siri to convert it.

In machining, most machines can be switched from metric to inches by a single button. However, step size cannot be totally agnostic to units. Mill I am using once in a while has minimum step of 0.5 mil or 0.01 mm - and I assume it would add or miss a step in one if units. Not the precision I need anyway, but would be a problem for high end machining.

Quote from: Brandon on July 18, 2023, 06:15:36 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 01:40:15 AM
My point with this research is simply to highlight that India and China, with populations far larger than even the US has today, was able to adopt metric. Whether the metric system played a role in their economic growth, I could not say. But both likely benefited from a uniform measurement system that matched those countries with which they traded not only goods, but also workers. This is likely where the US would benefit most: people coming to visit or work not being confused by our system of measurements; Americans themselves are unlikely to see any particular benefit...but then that isn't the point per se.

The big difference here (and with France in the 18th century) is the lack of an internal system of measurement that is consistent throughout the country.  In France, the foot was different, north versus south.  China and India lacked any coherent internal measurement system.  The US, by contrast, has a consistent internal measurement system, using both customary and SI (with customary, oddly enough, based off SI).

I think this is exactly why the United States will never go fully metric: US customary units are beautifully coherent and consistent...within the confines of the United States. This does compare quite favorably to many local systems replaced elsewhere by metric. Still, US customary units are (basically) as much a local system as any other local measurement system, and it's only coherent amongst those that actually have learned and actively use it. To the rest of the world (minus a couple exceptions), US customary units are completely incoherent and totally bizarre.

Here in Japan, my knowledge of US customary units is completely worthless. Zero aspects of daily life use anything but metric.

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 09:09:23 AM

Quote from: Brandon on July 18, 2023, 06:15:36 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 01:40:15 AM
My point with this research is simply to highlight that India and China, with populations far larger than even the US has today, was able to adopt metric. Whether the metric system played a role in their economic growth, I could not say. But both likely benefited from a uniform measurement system that matched those countries with which they traded not only goods, but also workers. This is likely where the US would benefit most: people coming to visit or work not being confused by our system of measurements; Americans themselves are unlikely to see any particular benefit...but then that isn't the point per se.

The big difference here (and with France in the 18th century) is the lack of an internal system of measurement that is consistent throughout the country.  In France, the foot was different, north versus south.  China and India lacked any coherent internal measurement system.  The US, by contrast, has a consistent internal measurement system, using both customary and SI (with customary, oddly enough, based off SI).

I think this is exactly why the United States will never go fully metric: US customary units are beautifully coherent and consistent...within the confines of the United States. This does compare quite favorably to many local systems replaced elsewhere by metric. Still, US customary units are (basically) as much a local system as any other local measurement system, and it's only coherent amongst those that actually have learned and actively use it. To the rest of the world (minus a couple exceptions), US customary units are completely incoherent and totally bizarre.

Here in Japan, my knowledge of US customary units is completely worthless. Zero aspects of daily life use anything but metric.

Well, sometimes world coherency is required. Cars, even US made, are metric these days. Last time I heard Harley Davidson was the last true-to-inch one.
A fun thing  is how semiconductor wafer size evolved (maybe not a full list, what I saw myself):
2", 3". 4" and 100 mm (only see 100 mm now) , 150mm (6"), 200 mm(8"), 300 mm, (stalled so far) 450 mm.

Quote from: Bruce on July 18, 2023, 05:11:08 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 01:40:15 AM
The one annoying thing, honestly? I did not need to learn imperial measurements. If the US adopted metric in the 1980s, we'd be somewhere around halfway to an American population that learned the metric system from birth, rather than incidentally as we aged. But...no. I had to learn some idiotic measurement system because generations of people before me learned it, got used to it, and then forced it on me too.

I have a feeling that imperial measurements would still be taught in schools...but in history class. Or for other legacy items that would still carry imperial measurements in their names.

History class is certainly where it would belong; 95% of the world speaks this one other measurement "language", and a full adoption of the metric system should negate any need to learn US customary units for anything other than being able to communicate with the rest of society that never learned metric.

I will point out that some customary units, typically very small ones, have fallen out of favor and been replaced with metric, even in the US.

A dram is 1/8 fl oz, but anything that small is in mL.

As for non-fluid ounces: the ones we're familiar with don't have anything smaller unless I'm missing something, but troy ounces (used for measuring precious metals) have pennyweights (240 dwt = 1 troy pound, as you would expect if you're familiar with predecimal British currency), and smaller than that, grains (24 to the pennyweight). However, here, anything smaller than 1/4 ounce or so (or even larger if you're reading a nutrition label) is in grams.

As for inches: a pica is 1/12 inch, and a point is 1/72 inch = 1/6 pica. (I've also seen "pixel" for supposedly 1/72, but those are definitely variable.) What we have instead: 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 mm pencil leads. Even those closer to an inch can be metric: "9 mm" for guns. I have seen mils (1/1000 inch) as thickness of paper, cling wrap, aluminum foil, etc., but only on product labels, not in speech or ordinary writing.

---

As for "natural" units:
10 in = foot as in part of the body (most feet are smaller than a foot)
1.5 ft = cubit
3 ft = human reach, also the width of a door
5 ft = eye level, horse height, car height
6 ft = human height, also approximately the maximum height you can fall without getting hurt if you intentionally jump down (rather than slipping and falling) and are not versed in parkour
10 ft = ceiling height
12 ft = car length
15 ft = one-story building height including attic

These are all at least somewhat "natural". You can take any length on a human scale and claim it's natural.

Quote from: kalvado on July 18, 2023, 09:21:21 AM
Well, sometimes world coherency is required. Cars, even US made, are metric these days. Last time I heard Harley Davidson was the last true-to-inch one.

I'm sure a lot of America's daily life is "accidentally" metric. Someone's speedometer may be in miles per hour, the temperate gauge in Fahrenheit, and fuel economy in miles per gallon. But that car was certainly designed in metric units, and the only reason it can display those units is because of the US market.

Quote from: 1 on July 18, 2023, 09:30:01 AM
I will point out that some customary units, typically very small ones, have fallen out of favor and been replaced with metric, even in the US.

A dram is 1/8 fl oz, but anything that small is in mL.

As for non-fluid ounces: the ones we're familiar with don't have anything smaller unless I'm missing something, but troy ounces (used for measuring precious metals) have pennyweights (240 dwt = 1 troy pound, as you would expect if you're familiar with predecimal British currency), and smaller than that, grains (24 to the pennyweight). However, here, anything smaller than 1/4 ounce or so (or even larger if you're reading a nutrition label) is in grams.

As for inches: a pica is 1/12 inch, and a point is 1/72 inch = 1/6 pica. (I've also seen "pixel" for supposedly 1/72, but those are definitely variable.) What we have instead: 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 mm pencil leads. Even those closer to an inch can be metric: "9 mm" for guns. I have seen mils (1/1000 inch) as thickness of paper, cling wrap, aluminum foil, etc., but only on product labels, not in speech or ordinary writing.

---

As for "natural" units:
10 in = foot as in part of the body (most feet are smaller than a foot)
1.5 ft = cubit
3 ft = human reach, also the width of a door
5 ft = eye level, horse height, car height
6 ft = human height, also approximately the maximum height you can fall without getting hurt if you intentionally jump down (rather than slipping and falling) and are not versed in parkour
10 ft = ceiling height
12 ft = car length
15 ft = one-story building height including attic

These are all at least somewhat "natural". You can take any length on a human scale and claim it's natural.

Machinists actively use "mills" - 1/1000 inch.

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 09:32:53 AM

Quote from: kalvado on July 18, 2023, 09:21:21 AM
Well, sometimes world coherency is required. Cars, even US made, are metric these days. Last time I heard Harley Davidson was the last true-to-inch one.

I'm sure a lot of America's daily life is "accidentally" metric. Someone's speedometer may be in miles per hour, the temperate gauge in Fahrenheit, and fuel economy in miles per gallon. But that car was certainly designed in metric units, and the only reason it can display those units is because of the US market.

That's exactly what I mean by "conversion by one button"
It can be implemented better or worse though. My home thermostat offers 1F or 0.5C temperature setpoints. Except for 19 to 20C, where it skips a point to align two scales.
Same with one machine at the gym, where weights are in lbs, and rounded to nearest kg skipping some points.

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 09:32:53 AM
fuel economy in miles per gallon

That's required by law and regulation.

Incidentally, the metric version of fuel economy is in inverse units to the English/American units - liters per 100 km. The lower you get, the better.

Quote from: GaryV on July 18, 2023, 10:23:55 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 09:32:53 AM
fuel economy in miles per gallon

That's required by law and regulation.

Incidentally, the metric version of fuel economy is in inverse units to the English/American units - liters per 100 km. The lower you get, the better.

All this doesn't tell you how things are designed. Internal unit of speed may very well be  "wheel RPM" and distance - "number of wheel turns", with normalization coefficients to human readable miles or km.
Yes, US legislation is written in US units mostly. Doesn't preclude using watts in energy efficiency laws - instead of BTU or therms. There are error bars on most (all? I saw only the document covering retail sales,, but there may be more)  of those values defined by NIST, and those are surprisingly large. So legal  conversion may be pretty lousy.

Quote from: HighwayStar on July 17, 2023, 07:56:08 PM
.... the decimeter has always felt like a redheaded step child.

....

Just because you heard the word "decimeter" in school as a kid doesn't mean anyone actually uses it. I don't think I've ever seen that unit used in real life. (For obvious reasons, the kiloliter is not something ordinary people encounter either–if you took the familiar 2 L soda bottle, for example, a kL would be the equivalent of 500 bottles.) The mere fact that there are units that aren't used often by ordinary people, or that are particularly large or particularly small or rather esoteric, is not a valid argument against a particular system of measurement–if it were, then the US measurement system would suffer from the same failing when you consider seldom-used units like leagues (these days used mainly in fiction writing), rods, or furlongs (used primarily in horse racing).

In engineering school, only groups that were 3 apart were recognized for metric measurement, i,e, micrometers, millimeters, meters, kilometers.  In-between units were not to be used.

If the metric system is based on 10, why are its time measurements based on 60?

Quote from: bandit957 on July 18, 2023, 11:28:53 AM
If the metric system is based on 10, why are its time measurements based on 60?

The French attempted to redefine time to use base 10. It didn't work too well. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar)

Quote from: bandit957 on July 18, 2023, 11:28:53 AM
If the metric system is based on 10, why are its time measurements based on 60?

Because those are way older than metric system. Day was divided into 24 parts in Babylon.
Actually second is the only true metric unit of time.

Quote from: 1 on July 18, 2023, 09:30:01 AM
As for inches: a pica is 1/12 inch, and a point is 1/72 inch = 1/6 pica. (I've also seen "pixel" for supposedly 1/72, but those are definitely variable.) ... I have seen mils (1/1000 inch) as thickness of paper, cling wrap, aluminum foil, etc., but only on product labels, not in speech or ordinary writing.

All of these are still used in the printing industry–points are the unit that the font size drop down in your word processor are set to (theoretically a font size of 72 will get you 1-inch text). Picas are I believe used in page layout in things like newspapers. Mils are used to measure the thickness of non-paper printing substrates (the last run of playing cards I printed, the standard plastic thicknesses available were 10 mil and 15 mil, but I had to custom-order some 13 mil to get the right feel).

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 18, 2023, 07:02:10 PM
All of these are still used in the printing industry—points are the unit that the font size drop down in your word processor are set to (theoretically a font size of 72 will get you 1-inch text).

Almost. The 72 points, 1 inch, is measured from the top of the letters in one line to the top of the letters in the next line. I.e., it includes the spacing between the 2 lines.

Speaking of printing, the weight of paper is expressed in pounds. It's how much a ream (500 sheets) of the paper would weigh. But paper comes in various standard sizes. 20 pound bond is based on 500 sheets of 17x22 inch paper. Other stock sizes are much larger, such as index which has a basis of 25.5 x 30.5 inches, so the pound weight is much higher, 67 and 75 pound.

They all have metric equivalents, gram per square meter, which means the relative weight of each type of paper can be directly compared.

Quote from: GaryV on July 18, 2023, 07:10:53 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 18, 2023, 07:02:10 PM
All of these are still used in the printing industry–points are the unit that the font size drop down in your word processor are set to (theoretically a font size of 72 will get you 1-inch text).

Almost. The 72 points, 1 inch, is measured from the top of the letters in one line to the top of the letters in the next line. I.e., it includes the spacing between the 2 lines.

I used to paginate and that is true, but other factors to account for include descenders where you need to nudge text at least 6 pt of space (I used 7). There are 12 points in a pica and 6 picas in an inch. I avoided heds of greater than 48p unless it was a power hed.

I am of the opinion that there shouldn't be any issue with having multiple measurement systems out there.

But maybe that's because I am a meteorologist, where customary and metric units both see a huge amount of use depending on what quantity you're talking about and what it is you're measuring. Meteorology is perhaps one of the most confusing fields in this regard, because you have to give your output in a form that the people reading it are going to be able to understand. If you're making a public forecast in the US, that means customary units. If you're in research or around scientists from other fields, almost entirely metric. But the #1 application is aviation, which was a huge influence on the development of the field as a whole, and so a lot of their preferred units carried over. And sometimes what's used is simply a matter of what looks good on a map.

Just to get an idea of the huge variety of units and systems we use regularly in American meteorology:

Temperature - Fahrenheit for surface temperature, Celsius for anything upper air. For any sort of thermodynamics equations, we'll use Kelvin, which sometimes gets converted back to Celsius and sometimes does not. I can convert C to F and vice versa to within a degree or two in my head very quickly because I have a bunch of equalities memorized beyond just the freezing/boiling points: 50F=10C, 77F=25C, 104F=40C, etc...

Speed - miles per hour when talking about surface wind that's going to affect populated places that aren't airports. Pure science contexts will use meters per second everywhere. Otherwise, the general unit of wind speed is the knot, which is equal to a nautical mile per hour and was the usual aviation unit before being essentially adopted by most aspects of meteorology. 1 kt is a little more than a mph, and 2 kt is about 1 m/s. I have no concept for how fast a km/hr is.

Height - usually in meters, unless you're talking about snow levels, which are usually in feet because they reference surrounding topography and we usually think of topographic elevation in customary. Stuff like the height of cloud tops or cloud bases are also often in feet because that's what the aviation industry likes. Even at the international scale today, they prefer to measure height in hundreds of feet. Sometimes you'll get decameters because that requires one less digit on an upper-air map when you're rounding to the nearest 10 m anyway.

Horizontal distance - for visibility, statute miles, or feet if you're talking about visual range on a runway in highly impaired visibility conditions. Nautical miles for hurricanes or aviation - a nautical mile is a little more than a regular statute mile, and is supposed to be the distance covered by a minute of latitude (1/60th of a degree) at constant longitude. Kilometers in more pure science contexts.

Pressure - The usual unit in almost all contexts is the millibar, which the general public only seems to ever hear about when the news is talking about hurricanes. In more pure science you'll usually hear of a hectopascal, which it turns out is exactly equal to a millibar by definition, but because the pascal is the official SI unit of pressure it's considered more acceptable to use that name for those contexts. Might be one of the only actual uses for the hecto- SI prefix. In rare cases you might hear of kilopascals. You’ve probably seen inches of mercury on weather reports, but nobody in the field actually uses them…except our good old friends in aviation, who use it to set their altimeters. There’s likely issues with updating instruments or technology in older planes that make metricating altimeter setting a tall order in the US, but I have no concept for what anything in inHg is and I hate when displays make you use them if you want other units to be in customary.

And the list goes on...

Quote from: Brandon on July 18, 2023, 06:15:36 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on July 18, 2023, 01:40:15 AM
My point with this research is simply to highlight that India and China, with populations far larger than even the US has today, was able to adopt metric. Whether the metric system played a role in their economic growth, I could not say. But both likely benefited from a uniform measurement system that matched those countries with which they traded not only goods, but also workers. This is likely where the US would benefit most: people coming to visit or work not being confused by our system of measurements; Americans themselves are unlikely to see any particular benefit...but then that isn't the point per se.

The big difference here (and with France in the 18th century) is the lack of an internal system of measurement that is consistent throughout the country.  In France, the foot was different, north versus south.  China and India lacked any coherent internal measurement system.  The US, by contrast, has a consistent internal measurement system, using both customary and SI (with customary, oddly enough, based off SI).

Are you saying Britain didn't impose Imperial measures throughout India in the 1800s?

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
But maybe that's because I am a meteorologist, where customary and metric units both see a huge amount of use depending on what quantity you're talking about and what it is you're measuring.

This is a feature of having multiple systems that I experience in my field too and it helps keep clarity of what you're talking about because units from different systems are used to describe physically distinct things that nonetheless are dimensionally the same. A motor for example will have a rating in horsepower which is the amount of mechanical power it can put out... which is different from how much electricity it consumes which will be rated in kilowatts. Meanwhile if you have a heating or cooling system its output will be measured in BTU per hour. All three of these things are units of power, but which is used makes it immediately clear whether it's mechanical, electrical, or thermal energy involved.

Likewise, the speed of something physically spinning will be measured in RPM while Hertz is used for the frequency of anything electromagnetic.

When I stumble across foreign spec sheets and see a motor with its output expressed as something like "40 kW at 50 Hz" while the electrical input will be measured in the same units it somehow seems flat and bland in comparison. I like having the diversity of units.

Quote from: bandit957 on July 18, 2023, 11:28:53 AM
If the metric system is based on 10, why are its time measurements based on 60?

The earth rotates 365 1/4 times for each time it revolves. There's nothing anybody can do about that.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. You'd have to redefine the second in order to base the parts of the day entirely on tens. Doing so would cause confusion on a level that is magnitudes higher than converting the US to metric distances.

Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on July 21, 2023, 09:29:51 PM

Quote from: bandit957 on July 18, 2023, 11:28:53 AM
If the metric system is based on 10, why are its time measurements based on 60?

The earth rotates 365 1/4 times for each time it revolves. There's nothing anybody can do about that.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. You'd have to redefine the second in order to base the parts of the day entirely on tens. Doing so would cause confusion on a level that is magnitudes higher than converting the US to metric distances.

On the next level, neither of those 2 numbers is fixed. Noon to noon timing changes throughout the year a bit; revolution around sun also fluctuate. So what was a well defined calendar 200 years ago became an approximation.

We're circling into DST...

You would think liquor drinkers would be very interested in metrication.  After all, vodkas, rums, gins, etc are mainly sold in 750ml, 1L and 1.75L bottles. 

Quote from: kalvado on July 21, 2023, 09:51:21 PM

Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on July 21, 2023, 09:29:51 PM

Quote from: bandit957 on July 18, 2023, 11:28:53 AM
If the metric system is based on 10, why are its time measurements based on 60?

The earth rotates 365 1/4 times for each time it revolves. There's nothing anybody can do about that.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. You'd have to redefine the second in order to base the parts of the day entirely on tens. Doing so would cause confusion on a level that is magnitudes higher than converting the US to metric distances.

On the next level, neither of those 2 numbers is fixed. Noon to noon timing changes throughout the year a bit; revolution around sun also fluctuate. So what was a well defined calendar 200 years ago became an approximation.

Ah, 365 1/4, the reason we have a leap year every four years.

Canada and Mexico may have been metric, but for the sake of familiarity in America, the imperial system simply works better, although once upon a time, we did use metric units as well, like when car engine displacements were measured first in cubic centimeters, and then in liters (the former is still used for motorcycles).

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
I am of the opinion that there shouldn't be any issue with having multiple measurement systems out there.

But maybe that's because I am a meteorologist, where customary and metric units both see a huge amount of use depending on what quantity you're talking about and what it is you're measuring. Meteorology is perhaps one of the most confusing fields in this regard, because you have to give your output in a form that the people reading it are going to be able to understand. If you're making a public forecast in the US, that means customary units. If you're in research or around scientists from other fields, almost entirely metric. But the #1 application is aviation, which was a huge influence on the development of the field as a whole, and so a lot of their preferred units carried over. And sometimes what's used is simply a matter of what looks good on a map.

Define "Customary" - part of "Usual and Customary" in the insurance world for them trying to screw you over

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Just to get an idea of the huge variety of units and systems we use regularly in American meteorology:

Temperature - Fahrenheit for surface temperature, Celsius for anything upper air. For any sort of thermodynamics equations, we'll use Kelvin, which sometimes gets converted back to Celsius and sometimes does not. I can convert C to F and vice versa to within a degree or two in my head very quickly because I have a bunch of equalities memorized beyond just the freezing/boiling points: 50F=10C, 77F=25C, 104F=40C, etc...

I'm confused, For a profession that calls a tornado different terms depending on where it is....

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Speed - miles per hour when talking about surface wind that's going to affect populated places that aren't airports. Pure science contexts will use meters per second everywhere. Otherwise, the general unit of wind speed is the knot, which is equal to a nautical mile per second and was the usual aviation unit before being essentially adopted by most aspects of meteorology. 1 kt is a little more than a mph, and 2 kt is about 1 m/s. I have no concept for how fast a km/hr is.

A knot is used to hold a swing bench up or to keep your shoe from falling off.

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Height - usually in meters, unless you're talking about snow levels, which are usually in feet because they reference surrounding topography and we usually think of topographic elevation in customary. Stuff like the height of cloud tops or cloud bases are also often in feet because that's what the aviation industry likes. Even at the international scale today, they prefer to measure height in hundreds of feet. Sometimes you'll get decameters because that requires one less digit on an upper-air map when you're rounding to the nearest 10 m anyway.

Snow levels can be in meters

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Horizontal distance - for visibility, statute miles, or feet if you're talking about visual range on a runway in highly impaired visibility conditions. Nautical miles for hurricanes or aviation - a nautical mile is a little more than a regular statute mile, and is supposed to be the distance covered by a minute of latitude (1/60th of a degree) at constant longitude. Kilometers in more pure science contexts.

Keep them at 200. 

No, feet </airplane!>

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Pressure - The usual unit in almost all contexts is the millibar, which the general public only seems to ever hear about when the news is talking about hurricanes. In more pure science you'll usually hear of a hectopascal, which it turns out is exactly equal to a millibar by definition, but because the pascal is the official SI unit of pressure it's considered more acceptable to use that name for those contexts. Might be one of the only actual uses for the hecto- SI prefix. In rare cases you might hear of kilopascals. You've probably seen inches of mercury on weather reports, but nobody in the field actually uses them...except our good old friends in aviation, who use it to set their altimeters. There's likely issues with updating instruments or technology in older planes that make metricating altimeter setting a tall order in the US, but I have no concept for what anything in inHg is and I hate when displays make you use them if you want other units to be in customary.

Hence why no 5G at airports...

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
And the list goes on...

Quote from: SSOWorld on July 22, 2023, 05:38:33 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Just to get an idea of the huge variety of units and systems we use regularly in American meteorology:

Temperature - Fahrenheit for surface temperature, Celsius for anything upper air. For any sort of thermodynamics equations, we'll use Kelvin, which sometimes gets converted back to Celsius and sometimes does not. I can convert C to F and vice versa to within a degree or two in my head very quickly because I have a bunch of equalities memorized beyond just the freezing/boiling points: 50F=10C, 77F=25C, 104F=40C, etc...

I'm confused, For a profession that calls a tornado different terms depending on where it is....

Huh? I guess Uncle Bob on his family farm of five generations in Kansas might call them " twisters"  or " cyclones" , but those are not terms any real meteorologist under the age of 70 would ever use unironically.

Quote from: US 89 on July 22, 2023, 08:18:33 AM

Quote from: SSOWorld on July 22, 2023, 05:38:33 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Just to get an idea of the huge variety of units and systems we use regularly in American meteorology:

Temperature - Fahrenheit for surface temperature, Celsius for anything upper air. For any sort of thermodynamics equations, we'll use Kelvin, which sometimes gets converted back to Celsius and sometimes does not. I can convert C to F and vice versa to within a degree or two in my head very quickly because I have a bunch of equalities memorized beyond just the freezing/boiling points: 50F=10C, 77F=25C, 104F=40C, etc...

I'm confused, For a profession that calls a tornado different terms depending on where it is....

Huh? I guess Uncle Bob on his family farm of five generations in Kansas might call them " twisters"  or " cyclones" , but those are not terms any real meteorologist under the age of 70 would ever use unironically.

How about hurricanes then? Cyclones, typhooons, ...

I do like the term Super Typhoon and think that having different terms per ocean is helpful.

Metrification is happening slowly in the U.S., but it is happening in everyday life. Procter & Gamble held out forever but now either sells product in metric units or marks the metric equivalent. Liter Cokes have been around for as long as I can remember. And somebody mentioned the 750 mL liquor bottle, which is almost the equivalent of a "fifth."

The 400 km sign between Dallas and Houston won't happen anytime soon, but most products will eventually be sold in metric units (marketed in SAE units at first). The reason will simply be to reduce costs for marketing to U.S. consumers vs. the rest of the world. The last holdout will be gallons of gas.

Quote from: Road Hog on July 22, 2023, 04:24:41 PM
Metrification is happening slowly in the U.S., but it is happening in everyday life. Procter & Gamble held out forever but now either sells product in metric units or marks the metric equivalent. Liter Cokes have been around for as long as I can remember. And somebody mentioned the 750 mL liquor bottle, which is almost the equivalent of a "fifth."

The 400 km sign between Dallas and Houston won't happen anytime soon, but most products will eventually be sold in metric units (marketed in SAE units at first). The reason will simply be to reduce costs for marketing to U.S. consumers vs. the rest of the world. The last holdout will be gallons of gas.

The liquor biz loved adopting 750 ml bottles, because they're a bit smaller than the traditional 1/5 of a gallon and they got away with selling them at the same price.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 17, 2023, 07:27:15 PM

This is true (and dividing by 5280 is such a pain in the ass nobody even attempts it; we just say things like "½ mile" rather than "2640 feet"), but the thing that makes km usage in the US unlikely isn't because of the division, but because the country was physically built using a mile-based surveying system.

Take a look at this utterly typical section of rural land south of Woodward, Oklahoma:
(https://i.imgur.com/UG9nFWT.png)

That grid of roads is built exactly 1 mile apart. That means you can easily determine the distance between any two points on it just by counting the grid squares. Of course, you can't do that with kilometers, you have to actually measure.

Canada was also surveyed using customary units. Canada only adopted metrics in the 1970s.

However, something funny happened in the Toronto area, where the surveyors decided that each "square" would be 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 miles.
Funnily enough, that translated to 2 km x 2 km when metricated. Therefore metrication actually made it easier to estimate distances simply because surveyors chose a random number back in the day.

(https://i.imgur.com/Qj75iZa.png)

Quote from: GaryV on July 22, 2023, 09:02:12 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 22, 2023, 08:18:33 AM

Quote from: SSOWorld on July 22, 2023, 05:38:33 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 18, 2023, 10:39:10 PM
Just to get an idea of the huge variety of units and systems we use regularly in American meteorology:

Temperature - Fahrenheit for surface temperature, Celsius for anything upper air. For any sort of thermodynamics equations, we'll use Kelvin, which sometimes gets converted back to Celsius and sometimes does not. I can convert C to F and vice versa to within a degree or two in my head very quickly because I have a bunch of equalities memorized beyond just the freezing/boiling points: 50F=10C, 77F=25C, 104F=40C, etc...

I'm confused, For a profession that calls a tornado different terms depending on where it is....

Huh? I guess Uncle Bob on his family farm of five generations in Kansas might call them " twisters"  or " cyclones" , but those are not terms any real meteorologist under the age of 70 would ever use unironically.

How about hurricanes then? Cyclones, typhooons, ...

Quote from: Rothman on July 22, 2023, 10:16:12 AM
I do like the term Super Typhoon and think that having different terms per ocean is helpful.

It's not really per ocean, though, it's per ocean basin. Storms that form in the Northwest Pacific (Pacific north of the equator, west of the international date line) are typhoons, while Central (180-140W) and Eastern (east of 140W) Pacific storms north of the equator are called hurricanes just like the ones in the Atlantic. They're called Cyclonic Storms in the Indian Ocean north of the equator, and Tropical Cyclones (or just Cyclones) in the South Pacific and South Indian oceans.

Why the different terms? Mostly because areas in East Asia and North America already had their own local names that had gained too much traction in those regions. The scientific umbrella term that covers all of them, by the way, is "tropical cyclone" , often abbreviated to TC. In meteorology, a cyclone is any large scale low pressure system, and tropical cyclone refers to the type that form over warm ocean waters usually at tropical latitudes.

Quote from: andrepoiy on July 22, 2023, 04:56:08 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 17, 2023, 07:27:15 PM

This is true (and dividing by 5280 is such a pain in the ass nobody even attempts it; we just say things like "½ mile" rather than "2640 feet"), but the thing that makes km usage in the US unlikely isn't because of the division, but because the country was physically built using a mile-based surveying system.

Take a look at this utterly typical section of rural land south of Woodward, Oklahoma:
(https://i.imgur.com/UG9nFWT.png)

That grid of roads is built exactly 1 mile apart. That means you can easily determine the distance between any two points on it just by counting the grid squares. Of course, you can't do that with kilometers, you have to actually measure.

Canada was also surveyed using customary units. Canada only adopted metrics in the 1970s.

However, something funny happened in the Toronto area, where the surveyors decided that each "square" would be 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 miles.
Funnily enough, that translated to 2 km x 2 km when metricated. Therefore metrication actually made it easier to estimate distances simply because surveyors chose a random number back in the day.

(https://i.imgur.com/Qj75iZa.png)

Similar thing happened in BC. The Lower Mainland is entirely divided up by section-line roads outside of Vancouver. Those sections are numbered eight per mile - so the US border is 0 Av, 660 ft north is 1 Av, 660 ft north of that is 2 Av, etc. You'd think this would become nonsense with metrication, but in fact it didn't - because 660 ft is almost exactly 201 m. It's actually easier to approximate how far away in km you are from the base line, because you've just got to multiply the road number by 2 and divide by 10, and you've got a pretty good estimate, within a few hundred m.

Turns out when you're using metric on a daily basis, there are a lot of these.

Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

old surveying had 66 feet to a rod, and an acre being 1 rod by 10 rods  aka 660 feet

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

I dug a little deeper (meaning I looked at Wikipedia) into the ones in Toronto 1 1/4 mile was chosen because the square would form 1000 acres.

Here's the extract from Wikipedia:

"In a common square grid layout known as a 1,000-Acre Sectional System, adjacent parallel roads were 100 chains or 1+1⁄4 miles (2.0 km) apart, and arranged as ten 100-acre lots each 20 chains by 50 chains[7] so that two consecutive concession roads and two consecutive side roads enclosed a square of 1,000 acres (4.0 km2)."

A chain is a historical unit used by the Brits at that time.

Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concession_road.

As for the math part, I don't know. But I think that these equivalencies are pretty interesting.

I thought of this thread yesterday while watching the Hungarian Grand Prix because David Croft was grumbling about an FIA graphic that used solely km/h (some of their graphics also use mph, but this one didn't). He then said something along the lines of supposing that there are places around the world that don't use mph and Martin Brundle then interjected that some people use furlongs.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

Quote from: TXtoNJ on July 25, 2023, 10:04:20 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:00 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on July 25, 2023, 10:04:20 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

But the world is just a bunch of backyards put together, so just go from one backyard to the next.

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 06:54:46 AM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:00 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on July 25, 2023, 10:04:20 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

But the world is just a bunch of backyards put together, so just go from one backyard to the next.

You are forgetting about roads!

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:59:53 AM

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 06:54:46 AM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:00 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on July 25, 2023, 10:04:20 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

But the world is just a bunch of backyards put together, so just go from one backyard to the next.

You are forgetting about roads!

Euclidean geometry is great for designing one interchange.  Does not scale if you try to design a whole interstate from coast to coast on the same survey.

better?

Quote from: kkt on July 26, 2023, 04:28:42 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:59:53 AM

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 06:54:46 AM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:00 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on July 25, 2023, 10:04:20 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Nice thing about the meter is that the effect is pretty much baked in. Nice thing about the mile is that it's based on the meter.

I am talking about the fact that since the earth is not flat, you cannot use simple Euclidean geometry for land surveying. Works fine for the backyard, but starts to glitch on a city level.
As for miles, you may add that a nautical mile used to be 1 arcminute. That should mean 10 000 km = 5400 nm (the modern definition of a nautical mile is 0.01% different, though)

But the world is just a bunch of backyards put together, so just go from one backyard to the next.

You are forgetting about roads!

Euclidean geometry is great for designing one interchange.  Does not scale if you try to design a whole interstate from coast to coast on the same survey.

better?

But this is "non-road" board!!!111

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Isn't the distance between roads normally measured centerline to centerline? (That's how I do it when I'm using a manual measurement tool on Google Maps or whatever.)

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:24:53 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 24, 2023, 10:33:07 AM

Quote from: US 89 on July 24, 2023, 10:15:39 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 24, 2023, 02:48:58 AM
Are those equivalencies pure luck, or is there some sort of property of the 5:8 mile:km ratio that makes them more likely to happen?

(I might regret asking this, because I suck at math...)

All in the math. If you plan and survey a city with 8 blocks to a mile, each of your blocks is 1/8 of a mile long. If you assume 5 mi = 8 km, then that means that block is also exactly 0.125 mi * 8 km/5 mi = 0.2 km, or exactly 1/5 of a kilometer - so 5 blocks is 1 km.

Of course, this is limited by the accuracy of the 5 mi = 8 km equivalency is, but it's pretty close. 1 mile is equal to about 1.609 km, where the simple 5:8 conversion would give 1.6 km. So for every mile you assume this, your km conversion gets further off by only 9 meters. Not bad.

Remember to add width of the road between blocks, and inevitable effect of earth curvature...

Isn't the distance between roads normally measured centerline to centerline? (That's how I do it when I'm using a manual measurement tool on Google Maps or whatever.)

But if you're talking lot size?
But  thinking about it...  I never lived in the area significantly flat to have a real large-scale uniform grid not interrupted by  terrain and/or water. Probably that's why I am pretty unimpressed when measurement distance by grid is discussed?

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:37:58 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Apparently you're not from NY. Over here, especially on small residential streets, actual pavement takes only part of ROW so 6-10 feet of what you think as being your lawn are actually public property with lot owner having some rights (e.g. campaign signs cannot be posted without permission)

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:37:58 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Guess my part of the country does the opposite. I live on a road that is at best 20' wide yet is 40' wide on paper. Roughly 10' of my front yard isn't really mine.

The curvature of the earth is negligible for areas the size of, say, counties. In terms of distances between fixed meridians, the difference between them 30 miles north and south is a few inches. When you blow out to the state and regional levels, though, the differences become much more apparent. Anyone familiar with USGS topo maps can recognize the problem.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:37:58 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it. :D

Quote from: Road Hog on July 26, 2023, 06:55:25 PM
The curvature of the earth is negligible for areas the size of, say, counties. In terms of distances between fixed meridians, the difference between them 30 miles north and south is a few inches. When you blow out to the state and regional levels, though, the differences become much more apparent. Anyone familiar with USGS topo maps can recognize the problem.

if we talk about 1 degree latitude difference, say between 45 and 44 degrees, the difference between north and south sides of 1 deg = 69 mile "tall"  "rectangle" is 1.8%, or 96' per mile. 
Sweetwater county WY, for one, is significantly more than 1 deg north to south. Here in NY, Lawrence  county is coming close being 0.95 deg "tall". Those are  pretty large for counties, though. 

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 07:01:15 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:37:58 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it. :D

Well, I had a very similar discussion earlier in the year!
At least Saratoga county taxes residential properties per property value, not per acre.  So if I didn't pay for that band along the road, I am not taxed on that.
However, that wasn't articulated when we were buying the property, and many property owners are not aware of exact line. So, I am taxed on whatever I paid for and how much I paid for - and only surveyor may know what I  actually paid for. In fact, assessed land value within the lot in our neighborhood is assigned regardless of lot size - with same number used for our 1.2, next door neighbor 1.8 and across the street 0.46 acre. In all cases that is roughly 10% of total assessment for tax purposes

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 07:14:06 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 07:01:15 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:37:58 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it. :D

Well, I had a very similar discussion earlier in the year!
At least Saratoga county taxes residential properties per property value, not per acre.  So if I didn't pay for that band along the road, I am not taxed on that.
However, that wasn't articulated when we were buying the property, and many property owners are not aware of exact line. So, I am taxed on whatever I paid for and how much I paid for - and only surveyor may know what I  actually paid for. In fact, assessed land value within the lot in our neighborhood is assigned regardless of lot size - with same number used for our 1.2, next door neighbor 1.8 and across the street 0.46 acre. In all cases that is roughly 10% of total assessment for tax purposes

Well, duh.  I live in NY and know how it works here property tax-wise.  I had a house that was involved in a minor dispute, so I know all about the highway boundary and assessed values. :D

That's why I asked Scott. :D

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 09:56:08 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 07:14:06 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 07:01:15 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:37:58 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it. :D

Well, I had a very similar discussion earlier in the year!
At least Saratoga county taxes residential properties per property value, not per acre.  So if I didn't pay for that band along the road, I am not taxed on that.
However, that wasn't articulated when we were buying the property, and many property owners are not aware of exact line. So, I am taxed on whatever I paid for and how much I paid for - and only surveyor may know what I  actually paid for. In fact, assessed land value within the lot in our neighborhood is assigned regardless of lot size - with same number used for our 1.2, next door neighbor 1.8 and across the street 0.46 acre. In all cases that is roughly 10% of total assessment for tax purposes

Well, duh.  I live in NY and know how it works here property tax-wise.  I had a house that was involved in a minor dispute, so I know all about the highway boundary and assessed values. :D

That's why I asked Scott. :D

Well, looks like I need a break....

Salt Lake City is one of those places where the difference between centerline and actual frontage mattered, at least in terms of laying out the downtown grid. One block was designed to be 10 acres of usable land, since the original idea was that a block was supposed to be enough land for a family to live off of with agriculture and such. It turns out that a square of this size is one furlong on each side, or 10 chains, or 660 feet (getting back to the original topic of units). That's exactly 1/8 of a mile, and for this reason I've seen several places claim that this means 8 blocks equals a mile in SLC.

But that doesn't account for the streets, which are a full 2 chains (132 feet) wide. The story goes that Brigham Young wanted the streets wide enough that an ox cart could turn around "without resorting to profanity". So in terms of centerline distance, one block is 12 chains, or 792 feet - which is exactly 0.15 miles. That means a mile is 6 2/3 blocks, and 20 blocks equals exactly 3 miles. Unfortunately that 20:3 exact ratio is generally not usable since traveling this distance in any direction will usually take you far enough that the downtown grid breaks down and approximations take over, either with the original Salt Lake County grid (east valley from 900 S to 4500 S) or federal survey grid (PLSS - west and south valleys).

In several western cities, the PLSS was there first and city grids followed based on top of that, so centerline mileage works out well there. Phoenix, for example, is 14 blocks to a mile exactly for this reason. But Salt Lake City's downtown grid predates the PLSS in the area.

They just need to have a general kWh tax, based on the existing gas tax, that applies to all energy consumption.

Quote from: TXtoNJ on July 28, 2023, 01:36:50 PM
They just need to have a general kWh tax, based on the existing gas tax, that applies to all energy consumption.

Bill Clinton proposed a BTU tax, but it didn't pass the Senate.

Quote from: Rothman on July 26, 2023, 07:01:15 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2023, 06:37:58 PM

Quote from: kalvado on July 26, 2023, 06:37:11 PM
But if you're talking lot size?

Talk about something else instead. Problem solved. :spin:

Actually, now that I think about it, every lot I've lived on extends to the centerline of the street, with an easement for the portion of the lot the street lives on.

Heh.  Are you taxed on the property the easement is on?  That's one way to boost revenues locally, while having a permanent easement that means you really can't do anything else with that property than have the road on it. :D

I went to the county assessor's site to see exactly what they had down for me in terms of square footage to answer this question, and it would seem that the details here are a bit more nuanced than I originally assumed. In most of urbanized Norman the lots are in fact drawn so that the edge of the lot is approximately at the curb line, and the ROW is not part of the lot. I'm on a corner lot, so my lot even has a chamfered corner to prevent me from owning any of the intersection.

However, when I scroll into more rural areas, the lot lines do indeed follow the centerlines of the roads. This comports with my experience growing up in rural McClain County. There, you could even go to the corner of the property and see it marked with a surveyor's spike driven through the pavement. My parents still own that property, but I'm not about to ask how the taxes are assessed on that, since any mention of taxes around my dad would be taken as an invitation to hurl ethnic slurs at Barack Obama. So I'll happily end my line of inquiry there.

Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread: :)
(https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d311c3bf-018b-4d85-b38a-483830462aa1.jpeg)

Quote from: 7/8 on August 04, 2023, 07:31:21 PM
Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread: :)
(https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d311c3bf-018b-4d85-b38a-483830462aa1.jpeg)

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

Quote from: Brandon on August 05, 2023, 07:59:34 AM

Quote from: 7/8 on August 04, 2023, 07:31:21 PM
Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread: :)
(https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d311c3bf-018b-4d85-b38a-483830462aa1.jpeg)

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

People will get used to Kelvins eventually.
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM

Quote from: Brandon on August 05, 2023, 07:59:34 AM

Quote from: 7/8 on August 04, 2023, 07:31:21 PM
Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread: :)
(https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d311c3bf-018b-4d85-b38a-483830462aa1.jpeg)

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

People will get used to Kelvins eventually.
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

In my field, we regularly measure temperatures in microKelvins.

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

Quote from: Brandon on August 05, 2023, 07:59:34 AM

Quote from: 7/8 on August 04, 2023, 07:31:21 PM
Saw this at the top of Lemmy All and thought of this thread: :)
(https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d311c3bf-018b-4d85-b38a-483830462aa1.jpeg)

And there is another system that is base-4 instead of base-10.  And then there's the Celsius scale, which is just weird.

The imperial system is actually based on base-2. Eight ounces in a cup, two cups in a pint, two pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon etc.

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

https://xkcd.com/526/

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

Probably not. It was likely some user of feet and miles who thought they can do same trick as playing tonne vs ton or statue mile vs nautical mile in decimal world.

Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2023, 09:55:17 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

Measuring computer storage, both memory and disc, in multiples of 1024 bytes is the natural unit and was well established by the late 1960s. And there was indeed a large element of saving a few bucks by marketing hard drives in multiples of 1000 bytes.  The spiritual kin of changing the 16-oz cans of beans to 15-oz cans of beans.

Quote from: Road Hog on August 05, 2023, 09:41:19 PM
The imperial system is actually based on base-2. Eight ounces in a cup, two cups in a pint, two pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon etc.

Not entirely of course. There's also 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, 3 feet in a yard, 231 cubic inches in a gallon, and so on.

Quote from: CtrlAltDel on August 05, 2023, 11:17:18 PM
231 cubic inches in a gallon

Well, in the US gallon. The Imperial gallon, which is about 1.2 US gallons, was originally the volume of water that weighed 10 pounds at 62ºF. It's now technically defined in terms of the metric system, but that relationship is still pretty accurate. Because there are 20 fluid ounces in an imperial pint, one imperial fluid ounce of water actually weighs an ounce.

The history here is that a "gallon" was the standard customary volume measurement...but how big it was varied. If you were measuring beer or ale, a gallon was 282 cubic inches, but a gallon of wine had been standardized at 231 cubic inches, and a gallon of corn was 272 cubic inches. As you might expect, this got to be a mess, especially when things other than beer, wine, or corn were being measured. So in 1824, when the UK standardized a bunch of units to be used throughout the British Empire (hence, Imperial units), they abolished all the old gallons and defined a new Imperial gallon that was based on the old ale gallon.

Which makes sense...except the US was of course its own country by that point, so we never used the Imperial system here and it was the wine gallon that became the standard. The corn gallon developed into the dry gallon, which is not used anymore but several units based on it still are. Which has resulted in a messy system where we have liquid and dry volume units with the same name but different actual volumes. A dry pint is about 20% bigger than a liquid pint. At least dry volumes are fairly unusual these days...

Quote from: kkt on August 05, 2023, 11:11:19 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2023, 09:55:17 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

Measuring computer storage, both memory and disc, in multiples of 1024 bytes is the natural unit and was well established by the late 1960s. And there was indeed a large element of saving a few bucks by marketing hard drives in multiples of 1000 bytes.  The spiritual kin of changing the 16-oz cans of beans to 15-oz cans of beans.

That's why "bi" units were introduced.
As for marketing, when did 19200 started to be abbreviated to 19.2? So much for "natural"

"Bi" units were a response to that but much later.  Mid 1980s if I remember correctly.

At least 19.2 kbaud is exactly 19,200 baud :)

For what it's worth, I don't remember seeing the "bi" units in UI until the late 2000s (probably around when KDE 4 came out).

Quote from: US 89 on August 06, 2023, 12:02:03 AM

Quote from: CtrlAltDel on August 05, 2023, 11:17:18 PM
231 cubic inches in a gallon

Well, in the US gallon. The Imperial gallon, which is about 1.2 US gallons, was originally the volume of water that weighed 10 pounds at 62ºF. It's now technically defined in terms of the metric system, but that relationship is still pretty accurate. Because there are 20 fluid ounces in an imperial gallon, one imperial fluid ounce of water actually weighs an ounce.

20 ounces in an imperial pint. That typo aside, that's why, as I suspect you already know, the phrase, "a pint's a pound, the world around," isn't true. Where the imperial gallon is (or was) used, a pint would weigh a pound and a quarter.

Just for clarity's sake, as I also suspect you already know, both gallons are divided into 4 quarts and 8 pints, but the imperial pint has 20 fluid ounces, while the US pint has 16. But the fluid ounces here are different. The Imperial ounce is 28.4 milliliters, while the US ounce is 29.6. Fun!

QuoteThe corn gallon developed into the dry gallon, which is not used anymore but several units based on it still are. Which has resulted in a messy system where we have liquid and dry volume units with the same name but different actual volumes. A dry pint is about 20% bigger than a liquid pint. At least dry volumes are fairly unusual these days...

I've bought strawberries and so on in dry pints, but that is pretty much it.

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 06, 2023, 01:51:23 AM
For what it's worth, I don't remember seeing the "bi" units in UI until the late 2000s (probably around when KDE 4 came out).

I definitely saw those units before 2000, and it was pretty much a curiosity at that point.
As for "capitalist way of doing it".. I bet 1.2 and 1.44 floppy were the first for "1 megabyte = 1000 kilobyte"

Quote from: kalvado on August 06, 2023, 06:24:37 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 06, 2023, 01:51:23 AM
For what it's worth, I don't remember seeing the "bi" units in UI until the late 2000s (probably around when KDE 4 came out).

I definitely saw those units before 2000, and it was pretty much a curiosity at that point.
As for "capitalist way of doing it".. I bet 1.2 and 1.44 floppy were the first for "1 megabyte = 1000 kilobyte"

Either that, or someone got anal that anything with the prefix "kilo"  had to have exactly 1000 of whatever unit to keep the SI unit consistent. Academia tends to attract a lot of that kind of thing.

Quote from: US 89 on August 06, 2023, 08:17:33 AM

Quote from: kalvado on August 06, 2023, 06:24:37 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 06, 2023, 01:51:23 AM
For what it's worth, I don't remember seeing the "bi" units in UI until the late 2000s (probably around when KDE 4 came out).

I definitely saw those units before 2000, and it was pretty much a curiosity at that point.
As for "capitalist way of doing it".. I bet 1.2 and 1.44 floppy were the first for "1 megabyte = 1000 kilobyte"

Either that, or someone got anal that anything with the prefix "kilo"  had to have exactly 1000 of whatever unit to keep the SI unit consistent. Academia tends to attract a lot of that kind of thing.

Next thing you know definitions are all over the place. yes, this is about keeping definitions well defined. "Kilo" means 1000, not 1024 nor 965.

Well, I'm not the one who decreed that most people (and other creatures) have hands with ten fingers in total and feet with ten toes in total . . .

Mike

Quote from: kkt on August 05, 2023, 11:11:19 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2023, 09:55:17 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

Measuring computer storage, both memory and disc, in multiples of 1024 bytes is the natural unit and was well established by the late 1960s. And there was indeed a large element of saving a few bucks by marketing hard drives in multiples of 1000 bytes.  The spiritual kin of changing the 16-oz cans of beans to 15-oz cans of beans.

Natural for computer scientists, yes, because a byte can be 0 or 1 so base 2 makes sense.  For people who don't know the first thing about how computers work and quite frankly couldn't care less?  Decimal probably feels more natural.

Incidentally, it's not just hard drives that do this: RAM does it too.

Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2023, 03:45:58 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 05, 2023, 11:11:19 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2023, 09:55:17 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

Measuring computer storage, both memory and disc, in multiples of 1024 bytes is the natural unit and was well established by the late 1960s. And there was indeed a large element of saving a few bucks by marketing hard drives in multiples of 1000 bytes.  The spiritual kin of changing the 16-oz cans of beans to 15-oz cans of beans.

Natural for computer scientists, yes, because a byte can be 0 or 1 so base 2 makes sense.  For people who don't know the first thing about how computers work and quite frankly couldn't care less?  Decimal probably feels more natural.

Incidentally, it's not just hard drives that do this: RAM does it too.

It's a bit that can be either 0 or 1.  A byte is usually 8 bits.

Hard drive and flash memory sales literature typically refers to decimal units, but RAM is typically sold in binary units.  And many computer OSs - MacOS included - refer to both using binary units.

Typically people who don't know the first thing about computers aren't opening the case at all, let alone installing more memory.

Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 04:59:28 PM
Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Are you serious?

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 05:58:39 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 04:59:28 PM
Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Are you serious?

Yes, show me an American college basketball jersey in the last 60 years containing a number 6 to 9, players only, no mascots or fans.

Quote from: JKRhodes on July 17, 2023, 11:40:18 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
(Regarding learning Celsius gradations, BTW, I heard an old poem that's useful: "0 is freezing, 10 is not. 20 is room temperature and 30 is hot." I might quibble that 30 is "hot"–it's 86°F–but the principle is reasonable on the whole.)

Quote
Nah, 30C is definitely hot.
- Signed by a Canadian :-D

And that's when someone from Arizona materializes and screams "YoU hAvEn'T eXpErIeNcEd ReAl HeAt!"  :-D :spin:

After working outside in low 30's a few weeks ago, and I could barely get my socks off because of sweat, I stand by my statement that 30C is hot! :)

Quote from: SSOWorld on August 05, 2023, 09:56:48 PM
https://xkcd.com/526/

Again, 26C isn't beach weather? What the heck :-D

Quote from: CtrlAltDel on August 05, 2023, 11:17:18 PM

Quote from: Road Hog on August 05, 2023, 09:41:19 PM
The imperial system is actually based on base-2. Eight ounces in a cup, two cups in a pint, two pints in a quart, four quarts in a gallon etc.

Not entirely of course. There's also 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, 3 feet in a yard, 231 cubic inches in a gallon, and so on.

Don't forget 1760 yards in a mile, should be changed to 1776 for patriotism (only a 0.9% increase in length, what's the worst that could happen)? :colorful:

Quote from: 7/8 on August 06, 2023, 06:15:43 PM

Quote from: JKRhodes on July 17, 2023, 11:40:18 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
(Regarding learning Celsius gradations, BTW, I heard an old poem that's useful: "0 is freezing, 10 is not. 20 is room temperature and 30 is hot." I might quibble that 30 is "hot"–it's 86°F–but the principle is reasonable on the whole.)

Quote
Nah, 30C is definitely hot.
- Signed by a Canadian :-D

And that's when someone from Arizona materializes and screams "YoU hAvEn'T eXpErIeNcEd ReAl HeAt!"  :-D :spin:

After working outside in low 30's a few weeks ago, and I could barely get my socks off because of sweat, I stand by my statement that 30C is hot! :)

Yesterday, it was still 30°C here at 1 am. The high that day was 39°.

Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2023, 03:45:58 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 05, 2023, 11:11:19 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2023, 09:55:17 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

Measuring computer storage, both memory and disc, in multiples of 1024 bytes is the natural unit and was well established by the late 1960s. And there was indeed a large element of saving a few bucks by marketing hard drives in multiples of 1000 bytes.  The spiritual kin of changing the 16-oz cans of beans to 15-oz cans of beans.

Natural for computer scientists, yes, because a byte can be 0 or 1 so base 2 makes sense.  For people who don't know the first thing about how computers work and quite frankly couldn't care less?  Decimal probably feels more natural.

Incidentally, it's not just hard drives that do this: RAM does it too.

Natural for memory chips using N address pins and having each combination refer to a valid storage bit.
For disks, even taking some old floppy with 80 tracks (cylinders), 9 sectors per track, 2 sides and 512 bytes per sector...decimal number of kilobytes is as much à powers of 2work naturally.
For today's flash memory with 174 layers and 3 bits per cell in each layer even that doesn't work well. There may still be same logic of "n pins, 2^n location" but it is completely obscured on a disk level with error correction, caches, service and reserve areas.

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 06, 2023, 06:29:01 PM

Quote from: 7/8 on August 06, 2023, 06:15:43 PM

Quote from: JKRhodes on July 17, 2023, 11:40:18 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 13, 2023, 08:59:46 AM
(Regarding learning Celsius gradations, BTW, I heard an old poem that's useful: "0 is freezing, 10 is not. 20 is room temperature and 30 is hot." I might quibble that 30 is "hot"–it's 86°F–but the principle is reasonable on the whole.)

Quote
Nah, 30C is definitely hot.
- Signed by a Canadian :-D

And that's when someone from Arizona materializes and screams "YoU hAvEn'T eXpErIeNcEd ReAl HeAt!"  :-D :spin:

After working outside in low 30's a few weeks ago, and I could barely get my socks off because of sweat, I stand by my statement that 30C is hot! :)

Yesterday, it was still 30°C here at 1 am. The high that day was 39°.

Make it 40 and start bottling.

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 06:01:10 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 05:58:39 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 04:59:28 PM
Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Are you serious?

Yes, show me an American college basketball jersey in the last 60 years containing a number 6 to 9, players only, no mascots or fans.

That's for the ref's simplification so he or she only needs one hand to signal who committed a foul. That's all that is.

Quote from: mgk920 on August 06, 2023, 12:29:16 PM
Well, I'm not the one who decreed that most people (and other creatures) have hands with ten fingers in total and feet with ten toes in total . . .

Mike

Four fingers plus one thumb on each hand.

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 06:01:10 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 05:58:39 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 04:59:28 PM
Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Are you serious?

Yes, show me an American college basketball jersey in the last 60 years containing a number 6 to 9, players only, no mascots or fans.

I'll take your word for it.  I had no idea.  What a strange custom.

Quote from: andrepoiy on July 22, 2023, 04:56:08 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 17, 2023, 07:27:15 PM

This is true (and dividing by 5280 is such a pain in the ass nobody even attempts it; we just say things like "½ mile" rather than "2640 feet"), but the thing that makes km usage in the US unlikely isn't because of the division, but because the country was physically built using a mile-based surveying system.

Take a look at this utterly typical section of rural land south of Woodward, Oklahoma:
[img snipped]

That grid of roads is built exactly 1 mile apart. That means you can easily determine the distance between any two points on it just by counting the grid squares. Of course, you can't do that with kilometers, you have to actually measure.

Canada was also surveyed using customary units. Canada only adopted metrics in the 1970s.

However, something funny happened in the Toronto area, where the surveyors decided that each "square" would be 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 miles.
Funnily enough, that translated to 2 km x 2 km when metricated. Therefore metrication actually made it easier to estimate distances simply because surveyors chose a random number back in the day.

[img snipped]

Chicago's street grid using 800 for every mile correlates pretty well to metric, which makes it 1000 for every 2 km. Turns out changing the grid from the initially proposed 1000 for every mile to the implemented 800 per mile helps when measuring it in metric, though planners back then most likely didn't know that and this is a coincidence.

Quote from: mgk920 on August 06, 2023, 12:29:16 PM
Well, I'm not the one who decreed that most people (and other creatures) have hands with ten fingers in total and feet with ten toes in total . . .

Just think how much easier math would have been if we'd had six fingers per hand. Base 12, baby!

Quote from: Road Hog on August 06, 2023, 06:34:04 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 06:01:10 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 05:58:39 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 04:59:28 PM
Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Are you serious?

Yes, show me an American college basketball jersey in the last 60 years containing a number 6 to 9, players only, no mascots or fans.

That's for the ref's simplification so he or she only needs one hand to signal who committed a foul. That's all that is.

That is what base 6 is. Those of us with 2 hands usually work base 10...

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 04:22:57 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2023, 03:45:58 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 05, 2023, 11:11:19 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2023, 09:55:17 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

Measuring computer storage, both memory and disc, in multiples of 1024 bytes is the natural unit and was well established by the late 1960s. And there was indeed a large element of saving a few bucks by marketing hard drives in multiples of 1000 bytes.  The spiritual kin of changing the 16-oz cans of beans to 15-oz cans of beans.

Natural for computer scientists, yes, because a byte can be 0 or 1 so base 2 makes sense.  For people who don't know the first thing about how computers work and quite frankly couldn't care less?  Decimal probably feels more natural.

Incidentally, it's not just hard drives that do this: RAM does it too.

It's a bit that can be either 0 or 1.  A byte is usually 8 bits.

Hard drive and flash memory sales literature typically refers to decimal units, but RAM is typically sold in binary units.  And many computer OSs - MacOS included - refer to both using binary units.

Typically people who don't know the first thing about computers aren't opening the case at all, let alone installing more memory.

They may not be installing more, but they do select how much is on the computer when they buy it.  And I've never had a computer where the amount of reported RAM matches what it theoretically has; it's always less, just like with hard drives.

Quote from: kalvado on August 06, 2023, 07:51:06 PM

Quote from: Road Hog on August 06, 2023, 06:34:04 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 06:01:10 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 05:58:39 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 04:59:28 PM
Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Are you serious?

Yes, show me an American college basketball jersey in the last 60 years containing a number 6 to 9, players only, no mascots or fans.

That's for the ref's simplification so he or she only needs one hand to signal who committed a foul. That's all that is.

That is what base 6 is. Those of us with 2 hands usually work base 10...

That is my point. 5 is the highest digit in a base-6 system. 5 requires one hand, 6 would require 2 hands.

Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2023, 09:14:11 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 04:22:57 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 06, 2023, 03:45:58 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 05, 2023, 11:11:19 PM

Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2023, 09:55:17 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 05, 2023, 08:16:54 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 05, 2023, 08:05:28 AM
And I still have to hear "gibibyte" used in the wild.

"Gibibyte" is only necessary because some asshole capitalists decided it'd be a great idea to rip everyone off by 24 bytes out of every thousand when selling storage. A kilobyte was always 1024 bytes except when buying hard drives. Thus "kibibyte", since there became a need to have a term to distinguish "real kilobyte" from "capitalist kilobyte".

I'm guessing it has to do with most people thinking in base 10, so they would have seen a base 10 system as more understandable than a base 2 system.

Measuring computer storage, both memory and disc, in multiples of 1024 bytes is the natural unit and was well established by the late 1960s. And there was indeed a large element of saving a few bucks by marketing hard drives in multiples of 1000 bytes.  The spiritual kin of changing the 16-oz cans of beans to 15-oz cans of beans.

Natural for computer scientists, yes, because a byte can be 0 or 1 so base 2 makes sense.  For people who don't know the first thing about how computers work and quite frankly couldn't care less?  Decimal probably feels more natural.

Incidentally, it's not just hard drives that do this: RAM does it too.

It's a bit that can be either 0 or 1.  A byte is usually 8 bits.

Hard drive and flash memory sales literature typically refers to decimal units, but RAM is typically sold in binary units.  And many computer OSs - MacOS included - refer to both using binary units.

Typically people who don't know the first thing about computers aren't opening the case at all, let alone installing more memory.

They may not be installing more, but they do select how much is on the computer when they buy it.  And I've never had a computer where the amount of reported RAM matches what it theoretically has; it's always less, just like with hard drives.

My impression is they usually just take it in to the Experts and say "Make it go faster"

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 07:28:07 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 06:01:10 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 06, 2023, 05:58:39 PM

Quote from: Big John on August 06, 2023, 04:59:28 PM
Or go to college basketball, where jersey numbers are base 6.

Are you serious?

Yes, show me an American college basketball jersey in the last 60 years containing a number 6 to 9, players only, no mascots or fans.

I'll take your word for it.  I had no idea.  What a strange custom.

The same in high schools.  When I was a student watching high school games, the ref would call a foul and then signal to the scorers' table using both hands to identify the offending player, one hand for the first digit (0-5) and the other hand for the second digit (0-5).  I thought that it was a very neat and efficient way to do it.

Mike

My reasons and thoughts to metrication:


Street grids in new development should place exactly 10 streets per kilometer.
The boundary of severe frost would be different: -10 C in South, -15 C in Northeast, -20C in Midwest, -25 C in Canadian Prairies and -30 C in Canadian Arctic.

Quote from: US 89 on August 06, 2023, 07:29:46 PM

Quote from: mgk920 on August 06, 2023, 12:29:16 PM
Well, I'm not the one who decreed that most people (and other creatures) have hands with ten fingers in total and feet with ten toes in total . . .

Just think how much easier math would have been if we'd had six fingers per hand. Base 12, baby!

Each hand has twelve knuckles that can be tapped by the thumb, which is where it's proposed that the base-12 system came from. Multiply that by the five fingers that can be used as place holders on the other hand, and you've got the base-60 system that was often used in Mesopotamia.

Wait, how do you tap the knuckle at the base of your middle finger with your thumb on the same hand?

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 21, 2023, 06:33:11 PM
Wait, how do you tap the knuckle at the base of your middle finger with your thumb on the same hand?

From the other side.

Ah. Still kind of an awkward reach for me, but maybe my thumb joints are just stiffer (or my thumb is longer) than average.

Quote from: US 89 on August 06, 2023, 07:29:46 PM

Quote from: mgk920 on August 06, 2023, 12:29:16 PM
Well, I'm not the one who decreed that most people (and other creatures) have hands with ten fingers in total and feet with ten toes in total . . .

Just think how much easier math would have been if we'd had six fingers per hand. Base 12, baby!

You can count up to 31 on one hand, and 1023 on two hands by using base 2.

Quote from: algorerhythms on August 22, 2023, 07:54:42 AM
You can count up to 31 on one hand, and 1023 on two hands by using base 2.

Try sticking out your index and ring fingers and only those two. I personally can't.

There are 10 types of people - those who use binary and those that don't.

Quote from: algorerhythms on August 22, 2023, 07:54:42 AM

Quote from: US 89 on August 06, 2023, 07:29:46 PM

Quote from: mgk920 on August 06, 2023, 12:29:16 PM
Well, I'm not the one who decreed that most people (and other creatures) have hands with ten fingers in total and feet with ten toes in total . . .

Just think how much easier math would have been if we'd had six fingers per hand. Base 12, baby!

You can count up to 31 on one hand, and 1023 on two hands by using base 2.

Boys can count up to 21 without to many problems.

Quote from: kalvado on August 22, 2023, 09:46:11 AM

Quote from: algorerhythms on August 22, 2023, 07:54:42 AM

Quote from: US 89 on August 06, 2023, 07:29:46 PM

Quote from: mgk920 on August 06, 2023, 12:29:16 PM
Well, I'm not the one who decreed that most people (and other creatures) have hands with ten fingers in total and feet with ten toes in total . . .

Just think how much easier math would have been if we'd had six fingers per hand. Base 12, baby!

You can count up to 31 on one hand, and 1023 on two hands by using base 2.

Boys can count up to 21 without to many problems.

27. (Ten fingers, ten toes, two hands, two feet, two..., one... 🤔)

The metric system isn't just about base numbers and multiples.  It has an internal consistency.  A calorie is the amount of heat needed to change the temperature of one cubic centimeter (one milliliter) of water (which has a mass of one gram) by one centigrade.  To me, this is beautiful.  But what's also beautiful is having an intuitive understanding of what a measure means.  I know what a mile per hour is, but I have no idea what a kilometer per kilosecond is, or a decigram per centistoke.  I know exactly what a boatload is, but the idea of a metric boatload just confuses me.  We need to improve education, including bimeasure education, so that people will not have to be convinced to accept a superior system but instead will demand it because they understand why it's better.

Quote from: wxfree on August 23, 2023, 12:16:18 AM
The metric system isn't just about base numbers and multiples.  It has an internal consistency.  A calorie is the amount of heat needed to change the temperature of one cubic centimeter (one milliliter) of water (which has a mass of one gram) by one centigrade.  To me, this is beautiful.  But what's also beautiful is having an intuitive understanding of what a measure means.  I know what a mile per hour is, but I have no idea what a kilometer per kilosecond is, or a decigram per centistoke.  I know exactly what a boatload is, but the idea of a metric boatload just confuses me.  We need to improve education, including bimeasure education, so that people will not have to be convinced to accept a superior system but instead will demand it because they understand why it's better.

Do you have a feeling for bushels per acre or therms per dollar?

I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

Oh, that's an easy one. My backyard times 2.

An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

I only do because I grew up on a one-acre lot.

Quote from: kalvado on August 23, 2023, 08:11:23 AM

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

Oh, that's an easy one. My backyard times 2.

My childhood lot was an acre.  Smallest lot in the "neighborhood."

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

An American football field is 1.32 acres.

Ok, people know what acre is
Can someone put 100 bushels per acre into perspective?

Quote from: kalvado on August 23, 2023, 08:11:23 AM

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

Oh, that's an easy one. My backyard times 2.

My property size growing up was 0.45 acre, so an acre was just smaller than our yard plus an adjoining property.

My property size today is 1/6 of acre, and would easily fully fit on my parent's front yard

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn't play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326..., feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2023, 09:31:59 AM

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn't play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326..., feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

The point here, of course, is that chains, feet, acres, miles  all require the knowledge of each of them. Same conversation about backyard size in metric would require knowledge of what meter is, and  a 100x100 meters called   hectare. 
Again, hectare holds its place in metric system for land use - especially agricultural - as a side unit. Square (kilo)meter would be a more compliant one, but traditions...

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2023, 09:31:59 AM

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn't play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326..., feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

It actually does, at larger scales.  A mile is 80 chains long, and a chain is 100 links.  Hence, a section is 80 chains on a side, for a total of 6,400 square chains or 640 acres.

"What's a 'bushel'?"   :hmmm:

Mike

Quote from: Brandon on August 23, 2023, 11:09:09 AM

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2023, 09:31:59 AM

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn't play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326..., feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

It actually does, at larger scales.  A mile is 80 chains long, and a chain is 100 links.  Hence, a section is 80 chains on a side, for a total of 6,400 square chains or 640 acres.

I don't think a chain counts as a "unit more familiar to us" , though...

Quote from: kalvado on August 23, 2023, 09:49:39 AM

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2023, 09:31:59 AM

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn’t play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326…, feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

The point here, of course, is that chains, feet, acres, miles  all require the knowledge of each of them. Same conversation about backyard size in metric would require knowledge of what meter is, and  a 100x100 meters called   hectare. 
Again, hectare holds its place in metric system for land use - especially agricultural - as a side unit. Square (kilo)meter would be a more compliant one, but traditions...

The biggest cognitive shift is realizing that prefixed values aren't units in and of themselves, but abbreviations of core (meter, kilogram [exception that proves the rule], second) or derived (liter, kelvin, ampere) units. That saying "100 km" and "100k m" are the same thing. That, and the interconnections among SI units, all being derived from m/kg/s, are the true value over the customary and Imperial systems.

Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 23, 2023, 03:47:37 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 23, 2023, 09:49:39 AM

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2023, 09:31:59 AM

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn't play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326..., feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

The point here, of course, is that chains, feet, acres, miles  all require the knowledge of each of them. Same conversation about backyard size in metric would require knowledge of what meter is, and  a 100x100 meters called   hectare. 
Again, hectare holds its place in metric system for land use - especially agricultural - as a side unit. Square (kilo)meter would be a more compliant one, but traditions...

The biggest cognitive shift is realizing that prefixed values aren't units in and of themselves, but abbreviations of core (meter, kilogram [exception that proves the rule], second) or derived (liter, kelvin, ampere) units. That saying "100 km" and "100k m" are the same thing. That, and the interconnections among SI units, all being derived from m/kg/s, are the true value over the customary and Imperial systems.

This is one of the reasons that US should use metric system.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on August 23, 2023, 03:53:01 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 23, 2023, 03:47:37 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 23, 2023, 09:49:39 AM

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2023, 09:31:59 AM

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn't play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326..., feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

The point here, of course, is that chains, feet, acres, miles  all require the knowledge of each of them. Same conversation about backyard size in metric would require knowledge of what meter is, and  a 100x100 meters called   hectare. 
Again, hectare holds its place in metric system for land use - especially agricultural - as a side unit. Square (kilo)meter would be a more compliant one, but traditions...

The biggest cognitive shift is realizing that prefixed values aren't units in and of themselves, but abbreviations of core (meter, kilogram [exception that proves the rule], second) or derived (liter, kelvin, ampere) units. That saying "100 km" and "100k m" are the same thing. That, and the interconnections among SI units, all being derived from m/kg/s, are the true value over the customary and Imperial systems.

This is one of the reasons that US should use metric system.

Why?  What would be the point of changing units if they don't match how things were surveyed?  And before you comment, P13, please read up on the Public Land Survey System (PLSS): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System

We already used a mixed system anyway.

Quote from: Brandon on August 23, 2023, 04:11:33 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on August 23, 2023, 03:53:01 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on August 23, 2023, 03:47:37 PM

Quote from: kalvado on August 23, 2023, 09:49:39 AM

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2023, 09:31:59 AM

Quote from: elsmere241 on August 23, 2023, 08:21:12 AM
An acre is ten square chains, a chain being 66 feet or four rods.

Which of course doesn't play nice with units more familiar to us. A square with an area of one acre measures 66*sqrt(10), or 208.710326..., feet per side, so an acre is 43,560 square feet.

The point here, of course, is that chains, feet, acres, miles  all require the knowledge of each of them. Same conversation about backyard size in metric would require knowledge of what meter is, and  a 100x100 meters called   hectare. 
Again, hectare holds its place in metric system for land use - especially agricultural - as a side unit. Square (kilo)meter would be a more compliant one, but traditions...

The biggest cognitive shift is realizing that prefixed values aren't units in and of themselves, but abbreviations of core (meter, kilogram [exception that proves the rule], second) or derived (liter, kelvin, ampere) units. That saying "100 km" and "100k m" are the same thing. That, and the interconnections among SI units, all being derived from m/kg/s, are the true value over the customary and Imperial systems.

This is one of the reasons that US should use metric system.

Why?  What would be the point of changing units if they don't match how things were surveyed?  And before you comment, P13, please read up on the Public Land Survey System (PLSS): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System

We already used a mixed system anyway.

Legally, metric does match how things were surveyed. It's only because of a lack of need for precision at that scale that feet 1200/3937 meters in length can be used.

Quote from: mgk920 on August 23, 2023, 12:50:09 PM
"What's a 'bushel'?"   :hmmm:

Mike

A bushel basket is big... about as big as one person could easily carry by themselves when it's full of vegetables or berries etc.

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

It's the amount of land that a person and an ox can plow in one day.  It's a practical measurement for a pre-industrial agricultural society.

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on August 24, 2023, 07:57:51 AM

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

It's the amount of land that a person and an ox can plow in one day.  It's a practical measurement for a pre-industrial agricultural society.

Does anyone have an intuitive understanding of an ox these days?

Quote from: kalvado on August 24, 2023, 08:18:27 AM

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on August 24, 2023, 07:57:51 AM

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

It's the amount of land that a person and an ox can plow in one day.  It's a practical measurement for a pre-industrial agricultural society.

Does anyone have an intuitive understanding of an ox these days?

Sure.  Looks like a big hairless cow.

Quote from: Rothman on August 24, 2023, 08:54:03 AM

Quote from: kalvado on August 24, 2023, 08:18:27 AM

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on August 24, 2023, 07:57:51 AM

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

It's the amount of land that a person and an ox can plow in one day.  It's a practical measurement for a pre-industrial agricultural society.

Does anyone have an intuitive understanding of an ox these days?

Sure.  Looks like a big hairless cow.

Ah, so an acre is  the amount of land that a big hairless ape and a big hairless cow can plow in one day... Now that makes sense!

Quote from: kalvado on August 24, 2023, 08:18:27 AM

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on August 24, 2023, 07:57:51 AM

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2023, 08:09:59 AM
I don't even have an intuitive understanding of an acre.

It's the amount of land that a person and an ox can plow in one day.  It's a practical measurement for a pre-industrial agricultural society.

Does anyone have an intuitive understanding of an ox these days?

(https://www.thewho.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/John2-Page.jpg)

Now, what is a 'bushel' as defined in farm commodities markets?  Wouldn't prices in '(whatever local monetary units) per metric tonne'(1000 KG)' make for sense to the public?

Mike

Quote from: mgk920 on August 24, 2023, 12:27:15 PM
Now, what is a 'bushel' as defined in farm commodities markets?  Wouldn't prices in '(whatever local monetary units) per metric tonne'(1000 KG)' make for sense to the public?

Mike

Karats for diamonds, troy ounces for precious metals, barrels of oil,  bushels... 
That's the way things work (so far)

For gems and precious metals, $ or Euro or whatever per gram would be reasonable.  Scap gold dealers already set their prices that way.

Quote from: kkt on August 25, 2023, 04:38:17 PM
For gems and precious metals, $ or Euro or whatever per gram would be reasonable.  Scap gold dealers already set their prices that way.

I am not saying "unreasonable". I am saying "traditional is hard to change"

Quote from: kalvado on August 25, 2023, 04:45:16 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 25, 2023, 04:38:17 PM
For gems and precious metals, $ or Euro or whatever per gram would be reasonable.  Scap gold dealers already set their prices that way.

I am not saying "unreasonable". I am saying "traditional is hard to change"

Traditional is not hard to change. There are costs associated with it (that is, investments that will be inherently unprofitable), and in the US, business owners being able to shunt those costs off to their customers is politically unpopular. So the status quo remains, with small, incremental, relatively inexpensive changes being made along the way.

Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

Speed limits should be based on design speed. In the eastern third of the US, there are very few roads with that high of a design speed. Roads built in the plains states are either built that high (e.g. Texas Interstates) or are basically unlimited because it's a straight road with no obstacles (e.g. US 2), but roads aren't built that way in much of the country.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

Do you realize that there aren't any roads in the US with that high of a speed limit today? Most places are equivalent of 120 kph or far less.

They already tried having the same speed limit in every state. It failed miserably and it was a stupid law. It makes eminent sense that a flat, empty state like Illinois Kansas should be free to set a higher maximum than a place like Connecticut.

How do Americans measure things that are measured in micro-, nano-, or picometers? At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
How do Americans measure things that are measured in micro-, nano-, or picometers?

We use micro-, nano-, or picometers as appropriate.   Fields where we need such small units of measurement are standardized on SI with the rest of the world.

That being said, in US customary measurements, 1 inch = 12 picas; 1 pica = 6 points; 1 point = 20 twips; and 1 inch = 1000 mils.  I've seen points and picas used in reference to typography, but otherwise....

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

0.1 inches = 2.54mm.   I don't believe there's anything to be gained by attempting to measure in a more granular level of detail, given the limitations of measurement tools, and the potential variability of precipitation amounts.

Quote from: GaryV on September 02, 2023, 10:16:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

Do you realize that there aren't any roads in the US with that high of a speed limit today? Most places are equivalent of 120 kph or far less.

Don't let stupid engineering destroy beautiful round numbers!

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
How do Americans measure things that are measured in micro-, nano-, or picometers? At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

The need to measure things that small is relatively new.  U.S. customary units are used by the mass of people in common everyday situations, but for things that small now they're probably using SI for the engineering and manufacture.

Prior to the mid 1900s, engineering something like a ship or major bridge would probably have been done in 1/1000s of an inch.  For liquids, apocatharies had their own system of units, of which the smallest unit was the minim of approx. 61.6 microliters.  Medical doctors and pharmacists started switching from apocatharies' measure to metric in the 1950s, I believe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apothecaries'_system

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits.

So none of the states would have metric speed limits?

Short anecdote alert appropos of perhaps little: My all-American Chevy requires a 17mm socket to do the rear brake calipers, a 13mm socket to do the front brakes and a 10mm to change the terminals on my battery. Hate to break it to all you Wankees, but "metrication" is here to stay, at least in the trades.

Quote from: Road Hog on September 02, 2023, 08:18:41 PM
Short anecdote alert appropos of perhaps little: My all-American Chevy requires a 17mm socket to do the rear brake calipers, a 13mm socket to do the front brakes and a 10mm to change the terminals on my battery. Hate to break it to all you Wankees, but "metrication" is here to stay, at least in the trades.

Once upon a time I needed a 9 mm wrench right now, asap, yes for real, no, I can't wait for next day delivery.
Now that ended up in 15 min drive to the only place in the area carrying such....

Quote from: kalvado on September 02, 2023, 08:35:24 PM

Quote from: Road Hog on September 02, 2023, 08:18:41 PM
Short anecdote alert appropos of perhaps little: My all-American Chevy requires a 17mm socket to do the rear brake calipers, a 13mm socket to do the front brakes and a 10mm to change the terminals on my battery. Hate to break it to all you Wankees, but "metrication" is here to stay, at least in the trades.

Once upon a time I needed a 9 mm wrench right now, asap, yes for real, no, I can't wait for next day delivery.
Now that ended up in 15 min drive to the only place in the area carrying such....

Luckily most stores carrying tools have both SAE and metric. I can tell you Tractor Supply has both, so you're in luck with with other outlets.

Quote from: Road Hog on September 02, 2023, 08:41:37 PM

Quote from: kalvado on September 02, 2023, 08:35:24 PM

Quote from: Road Hog on September 02, 2023, 08:18:41 PM
Short anecdote alert appropos of perhaps little: My all-American Chevy requires a 17mm socket to do the rear brake calipers, a 13mm socket to do the front brakes and a 10mm to change the terminals on my battery. Hate to break it to all you Wankees, but "metrication" is here to stay, at least in the trades.

Once upon a time I needed a 9 mm wrench right now, asap, yes for real, no, I can't wait for next day delivery.
Now that ended up in 15 min drive to the only place in the area carrying such....

Luckily most stores carrying tools have both SAE and metric. I can tell you Tractor Supply has both, so you're in luck with with other outlets.

8 and 10 mm, sure, any hardware store

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

The U.S. is a very mobile society.  It would be really stupid for some states to have signs in miles and others in km.

Quote from: kkt on September 02, 2023, 09:38:42 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

The U.S. is a very mobile society.  It would be really stupid for some states to have signs in miles and others in km.

That being said, the 2004 Standard Highway Signs book had a whole slate of metric signs, including for things like speed limits.

No state ever used any of them.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 03, 2023, 01:25:30 AM

Quote from: kkt on September 02, 2023, 09:38:42 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

The U.S. is a very mobile society.  It would be really stupid for some states to have signs in miles and others in km.

That being said, the 2004 Standard Highway Signs book had a whole slate of metric signs, including for things like speed limits.

No state ever used any of them.

I-19 in Arizona for distance signs (but not speed limits)...

Quote from: kkt on September 03, 2023, 01:42:08 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 03, 2023, 01:25:30 AM

Quote from: kkt on September 02, 2023, 09:38:42 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

The U.S. is a very mobile society.  It would be really stupid for some states to have signs in miles and others in km.

That being said, the 2004 Standard Highway Signs book had a whole slate of metric signs, including for things like speed limits.

No state ever used any of them.

I-19 in Arizona for distance signs (but not speed limits)...

Laws are written in imperial units - and it would be difficult to enforce them across unit systems. Distance to the next city isnt legally binding, unlike speed limit

I prefer measuring wind speed in m/s rather than km/h if metric is used. Km/h is for vehicle speed.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 03, 2023, 09:02:11 AM
I prefer measuring wind speed in m/s rather than km/h if metric is used. Km/h is for vehicle speed.

Oh, then maybe...
US should convert speed limits to m/s to avoid confusion with MPH!

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 03, 2023, 09:02:11 AM
I prefer measuring wind speed in m/s rather than km/h if metric is used. Km/h is for vehicle speed.

m/s is a base-derived velocity or speed. km/h is derived from two derived units. By the way 1 m/s is exactly 3.6 km/h. It may be that we tend to use km/h for vehicle speeds because they have a bigger value and thus, rounding of them to whole units FEELS more precise. One wonders why we think that 120 km/h feels more precise than 33.3 m/s, but many people do think that. That said, m/s is a quantity that is easier to estimate over short time periods. How many meters did I move in 10 seconds. Divide by 10. How many meters did I move in the last second? That's your answer. A speed trap actually measures reciprocal velocity (time divided by distance) and we compute the reciprocal, so that we are comfortable with the unit.  Most "speed measuring devices" actually COMPUTE the speed from observation of other effects (wheel spin rate, red shift, etc).

... and don't get me started on the fact that 98.6F is a fraud.

I'm in a nitpicky mood.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 03, 2023, 01:25:30 AM
That being said, the 2004 Standard Highway Signs book had a whole slate of metric signs, including for things like speed limits.

No state ever used any of them.

Well, there is this: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9891819,-73.4572722,3a,75y,194.08h,91.77t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s96q5fzl6UcpCpHhbx92hpA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

Quote from: kalvado on September 03, 2023, 06:45:03 AM
Laws are written in imperial units - and it would be difficult to enforce them across unit systems. Distance to the next city isnt legally binding, unlike speed limit

Actually, when US laws don't invoke SI units, they invoke US Customary measures, rather than Imperial.

For statute miles and speed limits, US Customary and Imperial measures do match, but when you get to certain measures of volume or mass, the two systems do vary.

Quote from: michravera on September 03, 2023, 11:03:19 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 03, 2023, 09:02:11 AM
I prefer measuring wind speed in m/s rather than km/h if metric is used. Km/h is for vehicle speed.

m/s is a base-derived velocity or speed. km/h is derived from two derived units. By the way 1 m/s is exactly 3.6 km/h. It may be that we tend to use km/h for vehicle speeds because they have a bigger value and thus, rounding of them to whole units FEELS more precise. One wonders why we think that 120 km/h feels more precise than 33.3 m/s, but many people do think that. That said, m/s is a quantity that is easier to estimate over short time periods. How many meters did I move in 10 seconds. Divide by 10. How many meters did I move in the last second? That's your answer. A speed trap actually measures reciprocal velocity (time divided by distance) and we compute the reciprocal, so that we are comfortable with the unit.  Most "speed measuring devices" actually COMPUTE the speed from observation of other effects (wheel spin rate, red shift, etc).

... and don't get me started on the fact that 98.6F is a fraud.

pretty much everything is measured indirectly..
With that - it's also about utility of the measurement. Trip distances are usually in miles/km range, few people would drive 0.1 mile or 100 m. And second is convenient for small intervals - but daily life is planned in hours and minutes. So planning a trip it makes sense to think about 150 miles or 240 km, not about 2.4e5 meters. And if that trip would take 2.5 hours that's OK. 9000 seconds is much less informative.
Short distance running, on the other hand, is in meters/yards, and seconds, maybe minutes. Because it makes sense. Marathon is again miles/km and hours...

Quote from: kalvado on September 03, 2023, 06:45:03 AM

Quote from: kkt on September 03, 2023, 01:42:08 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 03, 2023, 01:25:30 AM

Quote from: kkt on September 02, 2023, 09:38:42 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

The U.S. is a very mobile society.  It would be really stupid for some states to have signs in miles and others in km.

That being said, the 2004 Standard Highway Signs book had a whole slate of metric signs, including for things like speed limits.

No state ever used any of them.

I-19 in Arizona for distance signs (but not speed limits)...

Laws are written in imperial units - and it would be difficult to enforce them across unit systems. Distance to the next city isnt legally binding, unlike speed limit

US customary units are defined in terms of SI units.  It would be a pretty longshot defense that they thought the speed limit in km/h was mph.

Quote from: michravera on September 03, 2023, 11:03:19 AM
... and don't get me started on the fact that 98.6F is a fraud.

And yet newspapers make the same type of conversion mistake over and over. There's a story about some business segment contributing 3B euros to the economy. And they helpfully translate it into USD for our convenience - carrying it out to 3 or 4 significant digits. Sigh.

Quote from: kkt on September 03, 2023, 01:22:34 PM

Quote from: kalvado on September 03, 2023, 06:45:03 AM

Quote from: kkt on September 03, 2023, 01:42:08 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 03, 2023, 01:25:30 AM

Quote from: kkt on September 02, 2023, 09:38:42 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 09:28:40 AM
Each state would decide if they have metric speed limits. The limits would be same in every state. The maximum limit would be 150 km/h.

The U.S. is a very mobile society.  It would be really stupid for some states to have signs in miles and others in km.

That being said, the 2004 Standard Highway Signs book had a whole slate of metric signs, including for things like speed limits.

No state ever used any of them.

I-19 in Arizona for distance signs (but not speed limits)...

Laws are written in imperial units - and it would be difficult to enforce them across unit systems. Distance to the next city isnt legally binding, unlike speed limit

US customary units are defined in terms of SI units.  It would be a pretty longshot defense that they thought the speed limit in km/h was mph.

OK, now add accuracy of police meter (1 MPH +1% per certificate), permissible speedometer error,  earth curvature,  and you better have a math professor on standby for court proceedings.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 03, 2023, 01:25:30 AMThat being said, the 2004 Standard Highway Signs book had a whole slate of metric signs, including for things like speed limits.

It never presented a complete design specification for freeway guide signs that used metric units, however.  All of the example illustrations in the "design guidelines" section used "MILES" (vertically centered on the numerical part) in distance expressions.  The very few guide sign example illustrations in SHS with metric units appeared elsewhere in the manual and suggested that FHWA expected the units part to be at the same size and on the same baseline as the number.

Quote from: kkt on September 03, 2023, 01:42:08 AMI-19 in Arizona for distance signs (but not speed limits)...

Yes, to designs that differed between 1981 (first installation of metric signs) and 1998 (replacement of the 1981 signs).  And although I know of no record that they were actually posted, the 1981 plans set has designs for metric speed limit and advisory speed signs similar to those later added to the 2003 MUTCD.  Speed limits were soft-converted (e.g., 88 km/h for 55 MPH).

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
How do Americans measure things that are measured in micro-, nano-, or picometers? At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

It varies by what's being discussed, used, or sold.  If you're talking about distances, it's miles.  Height?  Feet and Inches.  Milk, water, and gasoline?  Gallons, especially for larger milk and water sizes, then quarts and pints.  Oil?  Quarts.  Weight?  Pounds.  A small chocolate bar?  Ounces.

Height should be measured in light-nanoseconds.

1 light nanosecond = about 30 cm, yes?  You'd want a smaller unit also.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

Rainfall is measured in hundredths of an inch. Any lower than that is reported as "trace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_(precipitation))" (since amounts that small are more or less impossible to accurately measure regardless of the unit used).

Quote from: algorerhythms on September 03, 2023, 11:07:01 PM
Height should be measured in light-nanoseconds.

1 light nanosecond is 2% different from the foot. Believe it or not, I use that relationship once in awhile

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 04, 2023, 12:21:12 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

Rainfall is measured in hundredths of an inch. Any lower than that is reported as "trace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_(precipitation))" (since amounts that small are more or less impossible to accurately measure regardless of the unit used).

How many traces to a furlong?

In a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 04, 2023, 12:21:12 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

Rainfall is measured in hundredths of an inch. Any lower than that is reported as "trace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_(precipitation))" (since amounts that small are more or less impossible to accurately measure regardless of the unit used).

I meant that in US, rainfall is measured using inch as a unit, with precise to two decimals. I just looked only to integer parts of inch values, and they seemed ridiculously small.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 04, 2023, 09:57:42 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 04, 2023, 12:21:12 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 02, 2023, 01:49:23 PM
At least rainfall measured in inches creates ridiculously small values, because inch is the smallest commonly used unit.

Rainfall is measured in hundredths of an inch. Any lower than that is reported as "trace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_(precipitation))" (since amounts that small are more or less impossible to accurately measure regardless of the unit used).

I meant that in US, rainfall is measured using inch as a unit, with precise to two decimals. I just looked only to integer parts of inch values, and they seemed ridiculously small.

I'm failing to see what, if any, problem exists here.

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 07:21:09 AMIn a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

Specifically, it is an unit for dynamic viscosity.  I had to become familiar with kinematic viscosity (basically, dynamic viscosity divided by density) in order to interpret the specification sheets I used to decide which automatic transmission fluids to use in the family vehicles.  The unit commonly used is the centistokes (named after the Stokes of Stokes' Theorem, often "centistoke" in the US).  These sheets usually quote kinematic viscosity at 100° C, typically in a range of 5-7.5 cSt.

Current-generation ATFs (Dexron VI, Toyota WS, Honda DW-1) tend to be semi-synthetic and are designed to minimize pumping losses, with fairly low kinematic viscosities but greater shear stability.  However, all of our vehicles are old enough to have had last-generation ATFs as OEM specification (Saturn ATF, Toyota T-IV, Honda ATF-Z1), and these tend to use conventional basestocks and to be thick out of the bottle but shear down rapidly.

I found the cars were happiest with shear-stable full-synthetic ATFs that come close to matching the respective OEM specifications for kinematic viscosity.  For the Saturn especially, this means using Castrol TranSynd or equivalent (sold by the gallon because it is designed for heavy-duty applications such as RVs and garbage trucks), as it comes closest to the almost 8 cSt of Saturn ATF and hardly shears down in heavy use.

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 07:21:09 AM
In a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

How is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

Quote from: vdeane on September 04, 2023, 08:23:03 PM

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 07:21:09 AM
In a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

How is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

The internet wasn't there yet.  I think the purpose of this exercise was to get the freshmen to try to converse with upperclassmen to get the definition.  Much harder for some than others.

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 08:29:11 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 04, 2023, 08:23:03 PM

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 07:21:09 AM
In a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

How is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

The internet wasn't there yet.  I think the purpose of this exercise was to get the freshmen to try to converse with upperclassmen to get the definition.  Much harder for some than others.

Did they ever tell you where the library was on campus?

Quote from: vdeane on September 04, 2023, 08:23:03 PMHow is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

This was a weed-out course, so adversity is the point.  Tests on material not discussed in class or part of assigned reading, exam questions the professor himself can't solve, office hours for just 30 minutes once a week when he's smoking like a chimney--all par for the course.

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 08:29:11 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 04, 2023, 08:23:03 PM

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 07:21:09 AM
In a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

How is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

The internet wasn't there yet.  I think the purpose of this exercise was to get the freshmen to try to converse with upperclassmen to get the definition.  Much harder for some than others.

But they had the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.  The Rubber Bible, we called it.

Quote from: kkt on September 04, 2023, 10:10:17 PM

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 08:29:11 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 04, 2023, 08:23:03 PM

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 07:21:09 AM
In a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

How is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

The internet wasn't there yet.  I think the purpose of this exercise was to get the freshmen to try to converse with upperclassmen to get the definition.  Much harder for some than others.

But they had the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.  The Rubber Bible, we called it.

but was unknown to engineering freshmen.

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 10:17:25 PM

Quote from: kkt on September 04, 2023, 10:10:17 PM

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 08:29:11 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 04, 2023, 08:23:03 PM

Quote from: Big John on September 04, 2023, 07:21:09 AM
In a freshman engineering class, there was an assignment that had an item measured in centipoise (cP) and told to convert it to other units.  Of course, none of the students ever heard of that term and asked what it meant.  The instructor refused to answer that question. (was a weed-out course).  Later learned that term in a junior-level fluids course that it is a measure of viscosity.

How is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

The internet wasn't there yet.  I think the purpose of this exercise was to get the freshmen to try to converse with upperclassmen to get the definition.  Much harder for some than others.

But they had the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.  The Rubber Bible, we called it.

but was unknown to engineering freshmen.

We used it starting in 10th grade.

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 04, 2023, 09:48:53 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 04, 2023, 08:23:03 PMHow is someone supposed to do a conversion if they don't even know what one of the units even is?  Reminds me of the joke about a calculus word problem consisting of "If Bartholomew has 10 apples and is traveling at 25 mph, what is the distance from the Earth to the Moon?".

This was a weed-out course, so adversity is the point.  Tests on material not discussed in class or part of assigned reading, exam questions the professor himself can't solve, office hours for just 30 minutes once a week when he's smoking like a chimney--all par for the course.

Aren't weed-out courses supposed to be merely difficult rather than impossible?  They're not much use if literally everyone fails.

Clarkson's weed-out courses mainly consisted of the freshmen Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics classes, since most people (outside of business majors) had those in common.  Still, while the tests and a few of the homework problems were difficult, they were all doable by people who paid attention in class, did the work, studied hard, and had an aptitude for science/engineering.  They also had plenty of time for people to get help if needed between office hours for the professors and TAs.  I suspect the intro Computer Science classes were used as this for the Digital Arts and Science majors, but I found them fairly easy, so it's hard to say for sure.

Depends partly how it's graded, I suppose.  Failure to solve a problem the professor can't solve might not be a fail if the student makes a reasonable attempt at the problem.

Read this article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Australia). Australia went from similar situation as US to almost complete metrication in the 1970s. Could US do the same in next 20 years? I would like that to happen.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 05, 2023, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

Aren't there some companies that would prefer it to happen? For example, food companies that would have to make fewer sizes for each product. This is already happening somewhat with 2L soda bottles in the US and 355 mL (= 12 fl oz) soda cans in Canada, but that's only a small portion of what you can find on the shelves.

EDIT: The 1970s is when we attempted to switch. There could have been a big push by the oil companies to switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices. Why didn't they?

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 05, 2023, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

I would be eternally happy when temperatures in national weather forecasts and weather.gov are changed to Celsius. This should happen asap.


Also, why Australia succeeded in metrication, but not US?

Quote from: 1 on September 05, 2023, 11:58:37 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 05, 2023, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

Aren't there some companies that would prefer it to happen? For example, food companies that would have to make fewer sizes for each product. This is already happening somewhat with 2L soda bottles in the US and 355 mL (= 12 fl oz) soda cans in Canada, but that's only a small portion of what you can find on the shelves.

Between product shrinkage, automated packaging lines, and labeling weight guidelines - nobody seemingly  cares about round numbers any more. For example, I am looking at a roll of electric tape of 22' / 6.7 meter; and it is apparently labeled for sale in any place where the tape is legal to use. For whatever reason, 19 mm = 3/4" also seem a fairly universal width for electrical tape in metric world as well.
As it was mentioned, there is a lot of metrication under the hood (literally! US cars are metric now). For example Intel makes 5 nm chips on 300 mm wafers. 
Let things run their natural way....

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 12:02:43 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 05, 2023, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

I would be eternally happy when temperatures in national weather forecasts and weather.gov are changed to Celsius. This should happen asap.


Also, why Australia succeeded in metrication, but not US?

Cultural differences, I suppose–Australia probably hasn't gotten so suffused with the "greed is good" mentality that's been the order of the day in the US since the 1980s.

Why do you care what the temperature is reported in in a country you don't live in? I can't say I've looked up the temperatures in other countries all that often (probably my most frequent instance of doing that is seeing what the weather is like in Ukraine since it would affect the war there). And considering that private apps like Ventusky exist that give you the weather in whatever units you would like, for anywhere in the world, why does it matter for your purposes what NWS does?

Quote from: vdeane on September 05, 2023, 10:39:53 AMAren't weed-out courses supposed to be merely difficult rather than impossible?  They're not much use if literally everyone fails.

Regarding the exam question the professor couldn't solve, that situation was resolved much as Kkt suggests--it was simply left out when the tests were graded.  Since it was a timed test, that disadvantaged students who spent time on it at the expense of other questions.

This particular problem was clearly inspired by the 1990's Sprint pin-drop commercial and was deceptively simple.  Given a pin dropped in a vacuum onto a flat surface from height h at angle θ, how much longer after the lower end hits does the other touch the surface?

Quote from: vdeane on September 05, 2023, 10:39:53 AMClarkson's weed-out courses mainly consisted of the freshmen Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics classes, since most people (outside of business majors) had those in common.  Still, while the tests and a few of the homework problems were difficult, they were all doable by people who paid attention in class, did the work, studied hard, and had an aptitude for science/engineering.  They also had plenty of time for people to get help if needed between office hours for the professors and TAs.  I suspect the intro Computer Science classes were used as this for the Digital Arts and Science majors, but I found them fairly easy, so it's hard to say for sure.

I Googled after I posted and it seems the definition of a weed-out course is pretty capacious.  For many, the archetype is much as you outline:  a freshman course designed to redirect those without the preparation, aptitude, or motivation to persist in a high-demand major, and yes, that stereotypically includes freshman calculus (especially for accounting and business majors), introductory computer science (for non-CS majors), and organic chemistry (for pre-med).  But a weed-out course can also be one specific to a given major that is not encountered until distribution requirements and initial prerequisites are cleared, and is often taught by an instructor considered difficult--for my physics degree, this was Mechanics I.

To an extent, weed-out courses (to either aspect of the definition) are an expression of the philosophy of "Spare the rod, spoil the child."  Over the past few decades, I suspect the incentives have changed to favor gentler means of redirection as student debt has become more prevalent, college degrees have come to be regarded more as a consumer product, and the survival of departments (and sometimes whole colleges) have increasingly become tied to graduation rates.  Especially with the attenuation of tenure, it is now much more likely that an instructor will lose his or her job for making a weed-out course unreasonably difficult, as happened last year with Maitland Jones at NYU (https://futurism.com/university-fires-professor-course-too-hard).

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AMRead this article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Australia). Australia went from similar situation as US to almost complete metrication in the 1970s. Could US do the same in next 20 years? I would like that to happen.

It wasn't just Australia--it was pretty much every major country in the settler Commonwealth, including Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.  (India, not a settler country, metricated about a decade earlier.)  I suspect the transition carried through to completion in those countries, while it stalled in the US, because (1) the public sector allocated (and continues to allocate) a higher proportion of GDP in those countries, which gives civil servants more leverage to enforce metric mandates, and (2) possibly also their respective industrial bases were much smaller on a per-capita basis than that of the US, thereby lessening the switching costs.

Even so, it has already been noted in this very thread that metrication has been culturally skin-deep in some sectors in those countries, the continuing use of imperial units for lumber in Canada being one example.  I am sure you could find similar examples in Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand.

Quote from: 1 on September 05, 2023, 11:58:37 AM
EDIT: The 1970s is when we attempted to switch. There could have been a big push by the oil companies to switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices. Why didn't they?

Anecodotally my recollection is that was part of the problem; there was pushback that metrication would be used to hide inflation, much like in Britain and Ireland there was concern that decimalizing the pound would be used for stealth price increases in the same general time period.

Not to wade too deeply into the politics here but as a general rule American political institutions are structured to favor the status quo, even more so than the political institutions of most countries; if you're going to change something that already exists and mostly works, you need a really compelling case to effect change and there has never been that compelling a case for metrication in the consumer space given the size and influence of the American market. It's one thing if you're a relatively small country surrounded by countries that all have been metric for decades and mostly trade with them, quite another if you have the world's largest or second-largest economy and can make other countries and global corporations put up with your idiosyncrasies to do business with you, especially if the costs are low.

Small businesses and local gentry are far more common, numerous, and organized (Chamber of Commerce, Rotary) than in other Commonwealth nations. Big business would have course prefer to metricate; it means lower frictional costs in global trade. It's the smaller guys who do primarily domestic trade who don't want to bear the costs of transitioning. Since we can't come up with a way to fund the change without pissing somebody off, stagnation is what we get.

Metrication has always been sector-specific in the US.  Talk to someone in the hard sciences about going back to customary units and all you will get is laughter.  On the other hand, we are living 20 years after an effort to metricate highway construction (not the units on the signs--rather, the unit systems used for surveying as well as ordering and fabricating components like pipes, culverts, bridge girders, etc.), which never reached 100% buy-in even among state DOTs and encountered enormous resistance from contractors.

Quote from: 1 on September 05, 2023, 11:58:37 AM
EDIT: The 1970s is when we attempted to switch. There could have been a big push by the oil companies to switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices. Why didn't they?

This was also the time of the OPEC oil embargo.  Gas stations did, in fact, switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices.  As a result, pricing gas in metric is associated with high prices and gas shortages in this country, and that's one reason we didn't switch to metric.

Quote from: vdeane on September 05, 2023, 09:10:10 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 05, 2023, 11:58:37 AM
EDIT: The 1970s is when we attempted to switch. There could have been a big push by the oil companies to switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices. Why didn't they?

This was also the time of the OPEC oil embargo.  Gas stations did, in fact, switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices.

I lived through that era. I don't recall that happening (unless it happened only outside California, where I lived at the time).

I think some stations briefly charged by the half-gallon, or tenth-gallon. Much easier than to convert to metric.

Quote from: oscar on September 05, 2023, 09:35:46 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 05, 2023, 09:10:10 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 05, 2023, 11:58:37 AM
EDIT: The 1970s is when we attempted to switch. There could have been a big push by the oil companies to switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices. Why didn't they?

This was also the time of the OPEC oil embargo.  Gas stations did, in fact, switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices.

I lived through that era. I don't recall that happening (unless it happened only outside California, where I lived at the time).

I think some stations briefly charged by the half-gallon, or tenth-gallon. Much easier than to convert to metric.

I remember some stations putting up signs that the pump would display only the cents portion of the price per gallon, and the $1 at the front would be added for payment.

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 05, 2023, 02:09:51 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 05, 2023, 10:39:53 AMAren't weed-out courses supposed to be merely difficult rather than impossible?  They're not much use if literally everyone fails.

Regarding the exam question the professor couldn't solve, that situation was resolved much as Kkt suggests--it was simply left out when the tests were graded.  Since it was a timed test, that disadvantaged students who spent time on it at the expense of other questions.

This particular problem was clearly inspired by the 1990's Sprint pin-drop commercial and was deceptively simple.  Given a pin dropped in a vacuum onto a flat surface from height h at angle θ, how much longer after the lower end hits does the other touch the surface?

Quote from: vdeane on September 05, 2023, 10:39:53 AMClarkson's weed-out courses mainly consisted of the freshmen Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics classes, since most people (outside of business majors) had those in common.  Still, while the tests and a few of the homework problems were difficult, they were all doable by people who paid attention in class, did the work, studied hard, and had an aptitude for science/engineering.  They also had plenty of time for people to get help if needed between office hours for the professors and TAs.  I suspect the intro Computer Science classes were used as this for the Digital Arts and Science majors, but I found them fairly easy, so it's hard to say for sure.

I Googled after I posted and it seems the definition of a weed-out course is pretty capacious.  For many, the archetype is much as you outline:  a freshman course designed to redirect those without the preparation, aptitude, or motivation to persist in a high-demand major, and yes, that stereotypically includes freshman calculus (especially for accounting and business majors), introductory computer science (for non-CS majors), and organic chemistry (for pre-med).  But a weed-out course can also be one specific to a given major that is not encountered until distribution requirements and initial prerequisites are cleared, and is often taught by an instructor considered difficult--for my physics degree, this was Mechanics I.

To an extent, weed-out courses (to either aspect of the definition) are an expression of the philosophy of "Spare the rod, spoil the child."  Over the past few decades, I suspect the incentives have changed to favor gentler means of redirection as student debt has become more prevalent, college degrees have come to be regarded more as a consumer product, and the survival of departments (and sometimes whole colleges) have increasingly become tied to graduation rates.  Especially with the attenuation of tenure, it is now much more likely that an instructor will lose his or her job for making a weed-out course unreasonably difficult, as happened last year with Maitland Jones at NYU (https://futurism.com/university-fires-professor-course-too-hard).

Donald Knuth's classic textbook The Art of Computer Programming includes exercises at the end of each section, rated from "easy" = expected to take less than 5 minutes for an average undergrad, up to "unsolved" = good PhD topic.

I'm not opposed to weedout classes as such, but it is a favor to many of the students to encounter the weedout classes in their first year, if possible, so they can adjust their study habits or expections before they have racked up six figures in student debt.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 05, 2023, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

It's not money, it's votes.  https://today.yougov.com/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/08/15/do-americans-prefer-imperial-metric-system-measure

QuoteClose to nine in 10 Americans (88%) say they would use feet and inches to describe someone's height, while just 8% say they would use meters and centimeters for this. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 17% say they would use meters and centimeters for this; 16% of 30-to 44-year-olds agree. The proportion of metric users for height is much lower  among 45- to 64-year-olds (2%) and Americans 65 and older (1%).

It's similar for other metric versus US customary measures.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 12:02:43 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 05, 2023, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

I would be eternally happy when temperatures in national weather forecasts and weather.gov are changed to Celsius. This should happen asap.


Also, why Australia succeeded in metrication, but not US?

1. Celsius sucks as a temperature measure for the everyday things.  It is not a fine enough scale in my opinion, and the range of typical temperatures (-10 to 40) is too small versus Fahrenheit, which has a larger and finer range (0 to 100).

2. In Australia, it was done from the top down, not the bottom up.  Americans (and most other people) have a resistance to top down enforcement of something.  Read the poll I posted in reply to Scott.

My bet on metrication coming during next economic downturn. If US market is no more attractive enough to accommodate specific demands (and that is already sort of a  thing. Try to get NRTLed laser cutter or 3d printer!), things will have to change...   

Quote from: Brandon on September 06, 2023, 08:18:22 AM

QuoteClose to nine in 10 Americans (88%) say they would use feet and inches to describe someone's height, while just 8% say they would use meters and centimeters for this. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 17% say they would use meters and centimeters for this; 16% of 30-to 44-year-olds agree. The proportion of metric users for height is much lower  among 45- to 64-year-olds (2%) and Americans 65 and older (1%).

It's similar for other metric versus US customary measures.

I still don't understand why anyone thinks this would have to change if Congress decided to declare metric the "standard." It's not like there would suddenly be some federal mandate that you have to throw away all your existing rulers, tape measures, bathroom scales, measuring cups, etc.

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 08:44:40 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 06, 2023, 08:18:22 AM

QuoteClose to nine in 10 Americans (88%) say they would use feet and inches to describe someone's height, while just 8% say they would use meters and centimeters for this. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 17% say they would use meters and centimeters for this; 16% of 30-to 44-year-olds agree. The proportion of metric users for height is much lower  among 45- to 64-year-olds (2%) and Americans 65 and older (1%).

It's similar for other metric versus US customary measures.

I still don't understand why anyone thinks this would have to change if Congress decided to declare metric the "standard." It's not like there would suddenly be some federal mandate that you have to throw away all your existing rulers, tape measures, bathroom scales, measuring cups, etc.

Frankly speaking, a lot of  of

Quoteexisting rulers, tape measures, bathroom scales, measuring cups

are already dual-scale.  So they could be used under the New Order.  And yes, full transition in household would take 2 generations - 50 years or so. But, for example, extending double-posting to store prices could be pretty quick if mandated. That would be a big factor in bringing in the new system.   

^^^^

Heh, I once flipped our bathroom scale to kilograms. 100 sounds better than 220. My wife was not particularly amused.

Quote from: Brandon on September 06, 2023, 08:21:48 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 12:02:43 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 05, 2023, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

People with way more money than you would like it to not happen. Since we're talking about America, that means it will not happen.

I would be eternally happy when temperatures in national weather forecasts and weather.gov are changed to Celsius. This should happen asap.


Also, why Australia succeeded in metrication, but not US?

1. Celsius sucks as a temperature measure for the everyday things.  It is not a fine enough scale in my opinion, and the range of typical temperatures (-10 to 40) is too small versus Fahrenheit, which has a larger and finer range (0 to 100).

2. In Australia, it was done from the top down, not the bottom up.  Americans (and most other people) have a resistance to top down enforcement of something.  Read the poll I posted in reply to Scott.

But Celsius directly shows big milestone in temperatures: freezing point. Values are positive above the point and negative below the point. And Celsius is used in most countries, so why US cannot use it too?

Quote from: Brandon on September 06, 2023, 08:21:48 AM
1. Celsius sucks as a temperature measure for the everyday things.  It is not a fine enough scale in my opinion, and the range of typical temperatures (-10 to 40) is too small versus Fahrenheit, which has a larger and finer range (0 to 100).

I've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:03:28 AM
.... And Celsius is used in most countries, so why US cannot use it too?

You make the common mistake of conflating "can" with "will" or "may." The US can use it, and indeed certain industries do–when you go to the doctor, they'll use Celsius when they take your temperature. Setting that aside, though, the answer to your question is that people don't want to use it. There is nothing prohibiting anyone in this country from using Celsius should they so choose. When my wife and I are getting ready to travel out of the country, I've often changed our thermostat to display Celsius to help her get used to the numbers she'll see on the thermostat in hotel rooms abroad. But aside from that, what benefit do I stand to gain from setting it to Celsius on a regular basis? I'll have an annoyed wife, and I don't think she'll be persuaded to change her mind if I say, "Some guy who says he's from Finland tells me the rest of the world uses it, so I have to as well."

Even if Congress were to declare metric to be the national standard, there would most likely be First Amendment problems if they tried to prohibit TV weathermen from using Fahrenheit in their forecasts.

---

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 06, 2023, 08:21:48 AM
1. Celsius sucks as a temperature measure for the everyday things.  It is not a fine enough scale in my opinion, and the range of typical temperatures (-10 to 40) is too small versus Fahrenheit, which has a larger and finer range (0 to 100).

I've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

Says who? During the winter, ours is set at 69° during the day if we're at home (58° at night when we're asleep). During the summer, it's set at 73° at night when we're asleep.

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 10:20:47 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:03:28 AM
.... And Celsius is used in most countries, so why US cannot use it too?

You make the common mistake of conflating "can" with "will" or "may." The US can use it, and indeed certain industries do–when you go to the doctor, they'll use Celsius when they take your temperature. Setting that aside, though, the answer to your question is that people don't want to use it. There is nothing prohibiting anyone in this country from using Celsius should they so choose. When my wife and I are getting ready to travel out of the country, I've often changed our thermostat to display Celsius to help her get used to the numbers she'll see on the thermostat in hotel rooms abroad. But aside from that, what benefit do I stand to gain from setting it to Celsius on a regular basis? I'll have an annoyed wife, and I don't think she'll be persuaded to change her mind if I say, "Some guy who says he's from Finland tells me the rest of the world uses it, so I have to as well."

Even if Congress were to declare metric to be the national standard, there would most likely be First Amendment problems if they tried to prohibit TV weathermen from using Fahrenheit in their forecasts.

---

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 06, 2023, 08:21:48 AM
1. Celsius sucks as a temperature measure for the everyday things.  It is not a fine enough scale in my opinion, and the range of typical temperatures (-10 to 40) is too small versus Fahrenheit, which has a larger and finer range (0 to 100).

I've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

Says who? During the winter, ours is set at 69° during the day if we're at home (58° at night when we're asleep). During the summer, it's set at 73° at night when we're asleep.

Fahrenheit would be first to taken out when metrication is underway.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:25:27 AM
Fahrenheit would be first to taken out when metrication is underway.

No, it wouldn't be and it couldn't be. What makes you think anyone is going around to individual houses forcing homeowners to rip out existing thermostats? I really think you're just trolling at this point because I can't imagine that any rational person is as obtuse and ignorant as you're trying to make yourself appear to be.

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 10:42:08 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:25:27 AM
Fahrenheit would be first to taken out when metrication is underway.

No, it wouldn't be and it couldn't be. What makes you think anyone is going around to individual houses forcing homeowners to rip out existing thermostats? I really think you're just trolling at this point because I can't imagine that any rational person is as obtuse and ignorant as you're trying to make yourself appear to be.

Fahrenheit is oppressive, I think. I can't imagine measuring temperatures in other scale than Celsius.

Oppressive?  You mean like a "city/gulag"  on an Arctic Island?

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:46:47 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 10:42:08 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:25:27 AM
Fahrenheit would be first to taken out when metrication is underway.

No, it wouldn't be and it couldn't be. What makes you think anyone is going around to individual houses forcing homeowners to rip out existing thermostats? I really think you're just trolling at this point because I can't imagine that any rational person is as obtuse and ignorant as you're trying to make yourself appear to be.

Fahrenheit is oppressive, I think. I can't imagine measuring temperatures in other scale than Celsius.

And what does that have to do with what anyone else prefers? I know plenty of people who can't imagine using Celsius–some of them because they're old and stuck in their ways, some because they have no desire to do so, some because they would actively resist using what they consider foreign systems. They're all perfectly entitled to those opinions just as much as you're entitled to yours.

Your post is an internal non sequitur anyway. If you "think" Fahrenheit is "oppressive," then by definition you have indeed "imagine[d] measuring temperatures" in a non-Celsius scale and you decided you didn't like the idea.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:46:47 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 10:42:08 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 10:25:27 AM
Fahrenheit would be first to taken out when metrication is underway.

No, it wouldn't be and it couldn't be. What makes you think anyone is going around to individual houses forcing homeowners to rip out existing thermostats? I really think you're just trolling at this point because I can't imagine that any rational person is as obtuse and ignorant as you're trying to make yourself appear to be.

Fahrenheit is oppressive, I think. I can't imagine measuring temperatures in other scale than Celsius.

You mean like the thermodynamics folks who use Kelvin because it makes the formulas simpler?

Quote from: oscar on September 05, 2023, 09:35:46 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 05, 2023, 09:10:10 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 05, 2023, 11:58:37 AM
EDIT: The 1970s is when we attempted to switch. There could have been a big push by the oil companies to switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices. Why didn't they?

This was also the time of the OPEC oil embargo.  Gas stations did, in fact, switch to liters to avoid adding an extra digit to the prices.

I lived through that era. I don't recall that happening (unless it happened only outside California, where I lived at the time).

I think some stations briefly charged by the half-gallon, or tenth-gallon. Much easier than to convert to metric.

I remember reading something along those lines, but Google is being less helpful than I would have hoped.  However, given this timeline (https://www.convenience.org/Topics/Fuels/The-History-of-Fuels-Retailing), it may have been the Iranian Revolution, not the OPEC oil embargo:

Quote
1979-81: In February 1979, the revolution in Iran begins, and in November the U.S. Embassy in Iran is stormed and hostages are taken. Midway through the year, Saudi Arabia cuts oil production and the price of crude oil soars. Meanwhile, the Iran/Iraq war also reduces production in both countries. Several states implement odd-even gas rationing, including New York, California, Texas, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The world price of crude oil jumps from around $14 per barrel at the beginning of 1979 to more than $35 per barrel in January 1981 before stabilizing. In 1979, the average gas price tops $1 per gallon for the first time. An estimated 1.4 million mechanical dispensers are unable to handle pricing beyond 99.9 cents, so sales by the liter grow as a way to address the problem. Gasoline prices peak in March 1981 at $1.42 per gallon.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 06, 2023, 11:15:31 AM
Oppressive?  You mean like a "city/gulag"  on an Arctic Island?

That's where they send you to be persuaded to switch if you refuse to use Celsius.

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

The Celsius 20s are okay, the Celsius 30s are all too hot :)

edit: typo

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

It can be said that temperatures in e.g. a state or region are in 30s Celsius, when coolest is 31 C and hottest 39 C. And 0s would be pronounced "zeros" and 10s "tens".

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

Low 20s - mid-20s - upper 20s
It's really something that can be worked out as desired.
As for too crude... Once upon a time I had an industrial temperature controller doing bedroom temperature, with resolution pushed down down to 0.01C. It was a bit worse realistically, maybe 0.07-0.1C.
Try to beat that with your crude fahrenheit machine...

The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what JN Winkler said, Poiponen's response is about as irrelevant as it could possibly be–arguably, he's just repeating what JN Winkler said.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 01:22:30 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

It can be said that temperatures in e.g. a state or region are in 30s Celsius, when coolest is 31 C and hottest 39 C. And 0s would be pronounced "zeros" and 10s "tens".

Quote from: kalvado on September 06, 2023, 01:55:48 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

Low 20s - mid-20s - upper 20s
It's really something that can be worked out as desired.

And in Fahrenheit you can also do low 70s - mid-70s - upper 70s and it's more precise there too.

Look, I love the metric system, but Celsius is just a stinker of a unit. I don't really see why it's considered part of the metric system, anyway; it's not like kilocelsiuses or centicelsiuses or whatever are a thing. The central unifying idea of the system doesn't apply to Celsius, so why is it included as one of its measures?

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 02:09:43 PM
The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what JN Winkler said, Poiponen's response is about as irrelevant as it could possibly be–arguably, he's just repeating what JN Winkler said.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 01:22:30 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

It can be said that temperatures in e.g. a state or region are in 30s Celsius, when coolest is 31 C and hottest 39 C. And 0s would be pronounced "zeros" and 10s "tens".

I just clarified that the "10s", "20s", "30s" can be used in Celsius too, in addition to Fahrenheit.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 02:32:04 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 02:09:43 PM
The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what JN Winkler said, Poiponen's response is about as irrelevant as it could possibly be–arguably, he's just repeating what JN Winkler said.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 06, 2023, 01:22:30 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

It can be said that temperatures in e.g. a state or region are in 30s Celsius, when coolest is 31 C and hottest 39 C. And 0s would be pronounced "zeros" and 10s "tens".

I just clarified that the "10s", "20s", "30s" can be used in Celsius too, in addition to Fahrenheit.

So? Jonathan was saying that if you do that, you cannot speak with the same precision that you can in Fahrenheit. You didn't bother to respond to the main idea of his post.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2023, 02:31:48 PM

Quote from: kalvado on September 06, 2023, 01:55:48 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 — a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

Low 20s - mid-20s - upper 20s
It's really something that can be worked out as desired.

And in Fahrenheit you can also do low 70s - mid-70s - upper 70s and it's more precise there too.

Look, I love the metric system, but Celsius is just a stinker of a unit. I don't really see why it's considered part of the metric system, anyway; it's not like kilocelsiuses or centicelsiuses or whatever are a thing. The central unifying idea of the system doesn't apply to Celsius, so why is it included as one of its measures?

The central unifying idea of the system basically does apply to Celsius though -- being base 10. Water freezes at 0° and boils at 100°. Yeah, you can't use the prefixes to scale up or down, but there's no larger or smaller measures of temperature in Fahrenheit either.

I suppose, but I always considered the killer feature of the metric system to be the prefixes. If you're not going to have prefixes either way, I would rather use the smaller units.

(Just out of curiosity, how many US-based pro-Celsius people in this thread actually use it?)

I'm not necessarily pro-Celsius. From a physics perspective though, a lot of the formulas utilize temperature in units of Kelvin, which is basically just absolute-zero adjusted Celsius. (Fun fact #1: Fahrenheit has its own absolute-zero scaled version and it's called Rankine.) (Fun fact #2: Kelvin doesn't use °. It's just 273 K.) So, there are times in my life where I've used it, and plenty of others would now.

When I'm overseas, I've gotten relatively adept at identifying what temperature it is outside in Celsius, basically just remembering that 37° C is body temperature and adjusting from there.

I was about to say I would agree it makes sense to use Celsius/kelvin when working in a context with lots of units derived from kelvin...but I just looked it up and there aren't any, other than Celsius. But I do agree that in scientific contexts where you're using formulas and such that depend on kelvin/Celsius, it makes sense to use kelvin/Celsius, because converting between units is silly.

But that's not the context I'm in when I'm setting my thermostat or deciding what to wear.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2023, 02:31:48 PM

Quote from: kalvado on September 06, 2023, 01:55:48 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on September 06, 2023, 01:12:03 PM

Quote from: 1 on September 06, 2023, 10:06:44 AMI've mentioned this twice before in this thread, but 1°C is about the smallest meaningful difference. People set their thermostats to 68°F or 70 or 72, not 69 or 71 – a difference of 2°F ≈ 1°C.

There are plenty of people who don't set their thermostats in integer multiples of 2° F--65° F and 75° F are popular values, for example.

Using Celsius for ambient temperatures also sacrifices the convenience of talking about a comfort range as a decade group.  We generally recognize that the eighties and nineties are different in comfort level, but in Celsius they are all in the thirties, which forces us to speak with false precision (e.g. "about 30° C" rather than "in the eighties") to make the distinction.

Low 20s - mid-20s - upper 20s
It's really something that can be worked out as desired.

And in Fahrenheit you can also do low 70s - mid-70s - upper 70s and it's more precise there too.

Look, I love the metric system, but Celsius is just a stinker of a unit. I don't really see why it's considered part of the metric system, anyway; it's not like kilocelsiuses or centicelsiuses or whatever are a thing. The central unifying idea of the system doesn't apply to Celsius, so why is it included as one of its measures?

Look, imperial, or whatever it's called - isn't that bad. People can live with feet and pounds, use SAE wrenches - but Fahrenheit is just a stinker of a unit.
And well, Kelvin is the metric unit - and millikelvin and microkelvin are in fact used.

As for unifying ideas, primary one is not suffixes - I definitely saw kilopounds used, for example. Key idea is minimizing number of random constants used. As a result... For example, electric power  and mechanical power come out in same units without any conversions.  That's not really the case for US units. 
Kelvin - and celsius, as one derived from Kelvin - is a stepchild here as a random constant is added for no good reason (ok, not a very good one). It's mostly to scale things down into digestible range (I am more or less comfortable saying that room temperature is 26 meV - but I am a minority, and even then I don't have natural scale in my head. Not to mention that electron-volt is a non-standard unit as well..

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2023, 03:29:34 PM
I was about to say I would agree it makes sense to use Celsius/kelvin when working in a context with lots of units derived from kelvin...but I just looked it up and there aren't any, other than Celsius. But I do agree that in scientific contexts where you're using formulas and such that depend on kelvin/Celsius, it makes sense to use kelvin/Celsius, because converting between units is silly.

But that's not the context I'm in when I'm setting my thermostat or deciding what to wear.

I think you'd adjust just fine though. You're a smart dude. Yeah, it's not quite as granular as Fahrenheit, but a little practice with it, and you'd be a-okay. Also, if you ever get the hell out of Oklahoma and get up to Colorado, you need to bring every kind of layer with you anyway. So whatever the temp is is somewhat irrelevant. :)

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2023, 02:46:16 PM
I suppose, but I always considered the killer feature of the metric system to be the prefixes. If you're not going to have prefixes either way, I would rather use the smaller units.

(Just out of curiosity, how many US-based pro-Celsius people in this thread actually use it?)

I'm not sure I fall within the camp listed in the last paragraph, but I do use Celsius for two things, aside from the pre-travel thermostat display thing I noted earlier:

(1) My wife has an Instant Pot fast-boil teakettle that boils up to 1.5 litres of water far more quickly than setting it in a pot on the stove, so I use the teakettle to accelerate the process of boiling water when we're making any sort of pasta. Its display happens to be set to Celsius and neither of us remembers how to change it to Fahrenheit. It doesn't much matter because all we need is for it to hit 100°, but even if we didn't know that was the relevant number, the thing beeps when the water is boiling.

(2) We have a recipe for doing corn on the cob in the oven and the recipe is written in metric units. It calls for wrapping it in foil and baking it at 200° Celsius. So I simply hit the "°F/°C" button on the oven to switch the display to Celsius and then set the temperature accordingly. Before anyone says "just memorize the conversion," that doesn't work–it converts to 392°F and the oven doesn't let you set it to that temperature if the display is in Fahrenheit. (I doubt it would matter much if I just set it to 400°, but since I can set it to the prescribed number, I see no reason not to do so.)

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 06, 2023, 02:52:01 PM
I'm not necessarily pro-Celsius. From a physics perspective though, a lot of the formulas utilize temperature in units of Kelvin, which is basically just absolute-zero adjusted Celsius. (Fun fact #1: Fahrenheit has its own absolute-zero scaled version and it's called Rankine.) (Fun fact #2: Kelvin doesn't use °. It's just 273 K.) So, there are times in my life where I've used it, and plenty of others would now.

When I'm overseas, I've gotten relatively adept at identifying what temperature it is outside in Celsius, basically just remembering that 37° C is body temperature and adjusting from there.

From physics perspective, it's either some flavor of T1/T2, which would work equally in Rankine and in Kelvin; or k_BT - instantly converting out of Kelvin.
What really matters for unit sake is almost infinite datasets of various properties - heat capacity, resistance vs temperature, melting/boiling points, expansion coefficients etc etc etc.   

As someone who goes back and forth on a regular basis, Celsius is much easier and more intuitive once you're used to it. Nobody's switching their thermostat either, if it's not some ancient model from the '70s.

Everyone just thinks of the decadal Celsius values in terms of "upper" and "lower". The 20s are nice, but the upper 20s are warmish-nice, and the lower 20s are coolish-nice.

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 06, 2023, 03:39:40 PM
As someone who goes back and forth on a regular basis, Celsius is much easier and more intuitive once you're used to it. Nobody's switching their thermostat either, if it's not some ancient model from the '70s.

Everyone just thinks of the decadal Celsius values in terms of "upper" and "lower". The 20s are nice, but the upper 20s are warmish-nice, and the lower 20s are coolish-nice.

I like the idea of round numbers being the freezing and boiling points of water, but not only having 100 degrees between them.

Maybe a modified Celsius with 0 as the freezing point and 200 as the boiling point.

Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on September 06, 2023, 04:19:43 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 06, 2023, 03:39:40 PM
As someone who goes back and forth on a regular basis, Celsius is much easier and more intuitive once you're used to it. Nobody's switching their thermostat either, if it's not some ancient model from the '70s.

Everyone just thinks of the decadal Celsius values in terms of "upper" and "lower". The 20s are nice, but the upper 20s are warmish-nice, and the lower 20s are coolish-nice.

I like the idea of round numbers being the freezing and boiling points of water, but not only having 100 degrees between them.

Maybe a modified Celsius with 0 as the freezing point and 200 as the boiling point.

you're 150 years late for the party

Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on September 06, 2023, 04:19:43 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 06, 2023, 03:39:40 PM
As someone who goes back and forth on a regular basis, Celsius is much easier and more intuitive once you're used to it. Nobody's switching their thermostat either, if it's not some ancient model from the '70s.

Everyone just thinks of the decadal Celsius values in terms of "upper" and "lower". The 20s are nice, but the upper 20s are warmish-nice, and the lower 20s are coolish-nice.

I like the idea of round numbers being the freezing and boiling points of water, but not only having 100 degrees between them.

Maybe a modified Celsius with 0 as the freezing point and 200 as the boiling point.

When you stop thinking of Celsius as a scale that has 0 at freezing and 100 and boiling, and instead start thinking of it as a scale that measures the effective range of temperatures on Earth from -50 to 50, it really does illuminate things about how temperature works. Having 25 be the division between generally cooler temperatures and generally warmer temperatures is just too convenient.

Quote from: Konza on July 14, 2023, 04:55:19 AM
Why all of the 11's in the Imperial distance measurements?  5280=480 x 11.  43560= 11 x 11 x 360 or 66 x 66 x 10.  Again, why?

It was to avoid over-taxing people in late-16th-Century England.  It was either decrease the length of the rod by ¹/₁₁ or increase the number of rods per furlong by ¹/₁₀.  Keep in mind that the rod in those days wasn't just a theoretical distance, but an actual surveyor's rod of a government-mandated length, and the number of rods your property measured determined how much tax you owed.  The former solution would have increased the numerical size of everyone's property and therewith the amount of property tax owed, so the government went with the latter solution instead to avoid–you know, a nationwide riot.

In other words, before the year 1593, those 11s were 10s.

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 02:09:43 PM
The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler.

There does seem to be a habit of many outside observers looking at some things the US does and going "no one else does that so that automatically makes it dumb and wrong". Poiponen can't really articulate his arguments beyond that idea.

I'm not saying that to promote or to degrade imperial measurements (or other things like our date format that foreigners like to pick on), but I mean, I don't know why some people in Finland or France or wherever get so aggravated over me buying a half-gallon of milk.

Quote from: kphoger on September 06, 2023, 06:15:59 PM

Quote from: Konza on July 14, 2023, 04:55:19 AM
Why all of the 11's in the Imperial distance measurements?  5280=480 x 11.  43560= 11 x 11 x 360 or 66 x 66 x 10.  Again, why?

It was to avoid over-taxing people in late-16th-Century England.  It was either decrease the length of the rod by ¹/₁₁ or increase the number of rods per furlong by ¹/₁₀.  Keep in mind that the rod in those days wasn't just a theoretical distance, but an actual surveyor's rod of a government-mandated length, and the number of rods your property measured determined how much tax you owed.  The former solution would have increased the numerical size of everyone's property and therewith the amount of property tax owed, so the government went with the latter solution instead to avoid–you know, a nationwide riot.

In other words, before the year 1593, those 11s were 10s.

That's really interesting.  I thought England was thoroughly surveyed by order of William the Conqueror and producing the Domesday Book.  Why 1593?  And if you don't like taxes being too high, wouldn't it be easier to, I dunno, lower the tax rate instead of changing the definition of a rod?

Weighing in on the Celsius topic...

It's quite useful to know what temperature water freezes at.  For example, it's handy to be able to glance at my car's outside temp readout to know how concerned I should be about hitting icy patches.  Or it's handy to look at the cheap thermometer in the fridge and know how far above freezing it is in there.  So, in that sense, Celsius being pegged to 0°C makes sense.

But I have basically zero need to ever know what temperature water boils at.  What am I, a lab scientist?  Literally the only thing I need to worry about boiling over on a daily basis–the coolant in my car's engine–is mixed with antifreeze and kept under pressure and therefore has a much higher boiling point than 100°C anyway.

So let's just shift the Fahrenheit scale up by 32 degrees and call it good.  Freezing is now 0°F, room temperature is now in the 35°F to 40°F range, hot Midwestern summer days are now 70°F, and the hottest summer temperatures recorded on earth now just barely crack the 100°F mark.

---

In general...

Converting units more easily with the Metric system is only true if you're comfortable ending up with decimals as your final answer, or if you only really need to divide by ten or five or two.  This is great for a lot of things.  But not for everything.

Converting units more easily with the US Customary system is true if you're also frequently dividing by threes and fours and sixes and eights.  The threes and sixes are the real issue.

In the end, people should use whichever system suits their needs the best.  Which–*gasp*–they generally already do!  Living in a part of the country where the entire street and road system for hundreds of miles around is based on US Customary units, I would hate having to switch to kilometers (even though I'm perfectly find using kilometers in Mexico, where that mile-grid pattern isn't a thing).  But I could switch from buying milk by the gallon to buying it by the liter, no problem:  I never need even a quart at any one time anyway.  Like Scott, I often measure paper by the centimeter;  but I sometimes measure it by the inch instead, because it just depends on how the fractions or decimals work out for that particular project.  And measuring body height by the meter just seems silly to me, because almost every adult I know is between 1½ and 2 meters tall.

Body height is usually quoted in centimeters in the world outside the U.S....

Quote from: kkt on September 06, 2023, 07:36:54 PM

Quote from: kphoger on September 06, 2023, 06:15:59 PM

Quote from: Konza on July 14, 2023, 04:55:19 AM
Why all of the 11's in the Imperial distance measurements?  5280=480 x 11.  43560= 11 x 11 x 360 or 66 x 66 x 10.  Again, why?

It was to avoid over-taxing people in late-16th-Century England.  It was either decrease the length of the rod by ¹/₁₁ or increase the number of rods per furlong by ¹/₁₀.  Keep in mind that the rod in those days wasn't just a theoretical distance, but an actual surveyor's rod of a government-mandated length, and the number of rods your property measured determined how much tax you owed.  The former solution would have increased the numerical size of everyone's property and therewith the amount of property tax owed, so the government went with the latter solution instead to avoid–you know, a nationwide riot.

In other words, before the year 1593, those 11s were 10s.

That's really interesting.  I thought England was thoroughly surveyed by order of William the Conqueror and producing the Domesday Book.

Before the 16th Century, England used both Roman and Anglo-Saxon/Germanic units of measurement (the former, of course, predating William the Conqueror).  Because surveyor's rods were the basis of determining taxation, its length was standardized in the 16th Century by Henry VIII, who had recently come into a whole lot of land to be granted or sold to others, land that suddenly needed to be assessed for taxation and sale price–you know, land that had formerly been the property of the Catholic Church and now... ummm... wasn't.

Even though the North Germanic (Belgic) foot had been a defunct unit of measurement since around 1300, the length of the surveyor's rod at the time of Henry VIII was still based on it.  Originally, using the North Germanic system, there were 40 rods to the furlong, and 15 feet to the rod.  England had since ditched the North Germanic foot in favor of one based on the Roman foot, and it was slightly smaller:  to be precise, the North Germanic foot had been 10% longer than the newer English (née Roman) foot.  The length of the foot had changed but, understandably, the length of the surveyor's rod had not.  After all, landowners' deeds the country over had been drawn up by the acre, which was an area equal to one furlong by four rods, and by the square-rod/rood:  change the length of the rod, and would you want to be the one responsible for doing all that math and rewriting all the deeds?

There were then, depending on how you calculated a furlong, two possible answers.  16.5 English feet to the rod, 40 rods to the furlong = 660 feet?  Or 625 feet to the furlong, as already established by law?  In 1593, the government officially maintained that there were 8 furlongs to the mile, and 40 rods to the furlong, but what to do about how many feet to the rod?  (1) They could shorten the length of the rod, so that there could be 15 English feet to the rod (as originally), 40 rods to the furlong, 8 furlongs to the mile, and therefore 4800 feet to the mile.  Or (2) they could keep the higher number of feet per rod, and therefore establish a greater number of feet per furlong and feet per mile, giving 660 feet per furlong and 5280 feet per mile.  Option 2 meant nobody had to rewrite the whole country's deeds, nobody had to make new surveyor's rods, nobody had to pay higher taxes, ...  so they went with that.  16½ feet to the rod, 40 rods to the furlong, 8 furlongs to the mile.

Quote from: kkt on September 06, 2023, 07:36:54 PM
Why 1593?

Because that's when Elizabeth I passed that particular Weights and Measures Act:  35 Elizabeth c. 6 (1593)

Quote from: kkt on September 06, 2023, 07:36:54 PM
And if you don't like taxes being too high, wouldn't it be easier to, I dunno, lower the tax rate instead of changing the definition of a rod?

I'm no expert on how late-16th-Century British tax rates, but my assumption is that it wasn't simply a matter of "tax them at 15.29% instead of 16.82%" or whatever.  But as I elaborated above, they were revamping the measurement system anyway.

Quote from: kkt on September 06, 2023, 08:45:00 PM
Body height is usually quoted in centimeters in the world outside the U.S....

But notably not in Canada, which supposedly "went metric".

Quote from: kphoger on September 06, 2023, 09:12:54 PM

Quote from: kkt on September 06, 2023, 08:45:00 PM
Body height is usually quoted in centimeters in the world outside the U.S....

But notably not in Canada, which supposedly "went metric".

Supposedly.  I just bought a carton of milk for the morning here in British Columbia.  It's marked in millilitres, but the size happens to be exactly one US customary quart.  BTW, it's a local milk in a Canadian-made carton.

I use centimeters when referring to my height here in Japan. It is more precise than half inches or whatever. It's also the local custom.

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on September 06, 2023, 06:41:22 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 02:09:43 PM
The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler.

There does seem to be a habit of many outside observers looking at some things the US does and going "no one else does that so that automatically makes it dumb and wrong". Poiponen can't really articulate his arguments beyond that idea.

I'd say the problem runs deeper than that–over in Fictional Highways he's advocating for milemarkers not resetting at state lines, because larger numbers are better, because he likes them more.

What I don’t get is why we can’t be comfortable with having different units for different contexts. It takes the same amount of brainpower to remember 32F is freezing as it does to remember 0C. That’s one of those things just about everyone learns in elementary school that actually sticks.

Most science contexts work this way already. All sorts of thermodynamic concepts rely on an absolute temperature scale that starts at absolute zero, so the Kelvin is the SI unit of temperature. It integrates with the rest of the SI unit system through fundamental laws of physics with things like the Boltzmann constant (k_B=1.38*10^-23 J/K) and ideal gas constant (R=8.314 J/mol K). So why don’t scientists just use Kelvin all the time and not Celsius? Because the units aren’t as useful. Everyone knows water freezes at 273.15 K, but do 305 K and 335 K really sound all that different? If you’re working in a lab, that’s the difference between a warm bath (89.5F) and a nice burn (143.3F). Those numbers do come out sounding pretty different in Celsius (32C vs. 62C).

The reason Celsius works so well for science is not necessarily that it’s defined by water freezing at zero, but that the unit is the same size as the kelvin. So you can just plug your Celsius numbers straight into any formulas that only require a difference in temperature (which is a lot). The zero point could be anywhere on the cold side of regular human experience and it would work just as well. But the scale was created during a time when water was a very common reference to base units off, so those 0 and 100 references stuck. (As another example, a gram was originally defined as the mass of one cm³ of water at its melting point, and that volume was defined as 1/1000 of a liter. Of course, those relationships aren’t technically true anymore because we’ve standardized our units more precisely and gotten better at measuring things. Turns out water actually has a density of 0.9998396 g/cm³ at its melting point, which is actually at 0.0000891°C…)

Ultimately, Celsius in science has the advantage of both being somewhat useful for regular human understanding and somewhat useful for more advanced math. If we’re just talking about how it feels outside, who cares about keeping the size of a degree the same as a kelvin? Might as well make the size of a degree a bit smaller and shift down the zero point to make it more accessible for typical human use. As I’ve said before, 0F to 100F is more or less a full range of regularly experienced temperatures in most parts of the world.

Quote from: Brandon on September 07, 2023, 12:06:32 AM

Quote from: kphoger on September 06, 2023, 09:12:54 PM

Quote from: kkt on September 06, 2023, 08:45:00 PM
Body height is usually quoted in centimeters in the world outside the U.S....

But notably not in Canada, which supposedly "went metric".

Supposedly.  I just bought a carton of milk for the morning here in British Columbia.  It's marked in millilitres, but the size happens to be exactly one US customary quart.  BTW, it's a local milk in a Canadian-made carton.

And I am in upstate NY eating a yogurt - I assume it's local one, branded by a us grocery chain - which is marked as 5.3 oz (150 g). Somehow, round number is on a metric side this time

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 07, 2023, 02:04:24 AM

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on September 06, 2023, 06:41:22 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 02:09:43 PM
The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler.

There does seem to be a habit of many outside observers looking at some things the US does and going "no one else does that so that automatically makes it dumb and wrong". Poiponen can't really articulate his arguments beyond that idea.

I'd say the problem runs deeper than that–over in Fictional Highways he's advocating for milemarkers not resetting at state lines, because larger numbers are better, because he likes them more.

Some of them from unitary countries (like France or Finland) have trouble understanding that the US (and some other countries like Canada) is a federal country with sub-national entities that commonly do their own thing, very independently of the federal/national government.  This may be the case here.

Quote from: Brandon on September 07, 2023, 09:24:07 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 07, 2023, 02:04:24 AM

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on September 06, 2023, 06:41:22 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 02:09:43 PM
The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler.

There does seem to be a habit of many outside observers looking at some things the US does and going "no one else does that so that automatically makes it dumb and wrong". Poiponen can't really articulate his arguments beyond that idea.

I'd say the problem runs deeper than that–over in Fictional Highways he's advocating for milemarkers not resetting at state lines, because larger numbers are better, because he likes them more.

Some of them from unitary countries (like France or Finland) have trouble understanding that the US (and some other countries like Canada) is a federal country with sub-national entities that commonly do their own thing, very independently of the federal/national government.  This may be the case here.

China is a unitary country, despite having almost same size as US. Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
China is a unitary country, despite having almost same size as US. Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

Are you suggesting something similar to the divisions of the Soviet Union?

By the way, for China, Hong Kong and Macau already do this.

Quote from: 1 on September 07, 2023, 10:33:41 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
China is a unitary country, despite having almost same size as US. Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

Are you suggesting something similar to the divisions of the Soviet Union?

By the way, for China, Hong Kong and Macau already do this.

Divisions similar to US, of course.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

I have thought that US should have more federal laws and federal sales tax.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 11:04:43 AM
I have thought that US should have more federal laws and federal sales tax.

It's been slowly trending this way already from the country's inception to now.

Quote from: 1 on September 07, 2023, 11:06:09 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 11:04:43 AM
I have thought that US should have more federal laws and federal sales tax.

It's been slowly trending this way already from the country's inception to now.

Good  :thumbsup:

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 07, 2023, 09:24:07 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 07, 2023, 02:04:24 AM

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on September 06, 2023, 06:41:22 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 06, 2023, 02:09:43 PM
The bigger issue is that, as usual, Poiponen never responds to what someone says. I mean, look at his reply to JN Winkler.

There does seem to be a habit of many outside observers looking at some things the US does and going "no one else does that so that automatically makes it dumb and wrong". Poiponen can't really articulate his arguments beyond that idea.

I'd say the problem runs deeper than that–over in Fictional Highways he's advocating for milemarkers not resetting at state lines, because larger numbers are better, because he likes them more.

Some of them from unitary countries (like France or Finland) have trouble understanding that the US (and some other countries like Canada) is a federal country with sub-national entities that commonly do their own thing, very independently of the federal/national government.  This may be the case here.

China is a unitary country, despite having almost same size as US. Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

It's not so much about how country is divided - there are always  a few levels of subdivision. France, for example, has 3 levels of subdivision, as far as I understand - not unlike US with state/county/municipality structure.
It's more specific situation that US states have more authority than similar size subdivisions elsewhere; and that state authority includes vehicle regulation, issue of license plates and driver licenses/IDs (last one is slowly taken away by the federal government, though). Those functions are more centralized in other places, where things are regulated nationally.
As they told me in my school days, there are advantages and disadvantages for  both approaches. 

The 10th Amendment says:

QuoteThe powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So, in theory, at least, the states have all of the powers, except where the Constitution specifically says they don't. (In practice, the Commerce clause has been used to grant the federal government all manner of powers it doesn't explicitly have, often regarding regulation of things that the Founders hadn't contemplated because they weren't an issue in 1776.)

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

Absurd statement.

"The mountains are tall and the emperor is far away" still holds in the PRC.

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 07, 2023, 01:56:37 PM

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

Absurd statement.

"The mountains are tall and the emperor is far away" still holds in the PRC.

You're saying that each province might choose to design its own flag, establish its own parliament, and pass its own laws–no matter what Beijing says?

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 02:31:06 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 07, 2023, 01:56:37 PM

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

Absurd statement.

"The mountains are tall and the emperor is far away" still holds in the PRC.

You're saying that each province might choose to design its own flag, establish its own parliament, and pass its own laws–no matter what Beijing says?

No kidding. Ask Tibet and Xinjiang about that...

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 02:31:06 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 07, 2023, 01:56:37 PM

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

Absurd statement.

"The mountains are tall and the emperor is far away" still holds in the PRC.

You're saying that each province might choose to design its own flag, establish its own parliament, and pass its own laws–no matter what Beijing says?

According to wiki

QuoteThe Guangdong Provincial People's Congress has enacted measures to increase democracy and transparency, and exert more control over the financial sector.

No mention of flag, though.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 11:04:43 AM

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

I have thought that US should have more federal laws and federal sales tax.

No, no, no, and fuck no.

Quote from: Brandon on September 07, 2023, 11:23:44 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 11:04:43 AM
I have thought that US should have more federal laws and federal sales tax.

No, no, no, and fuck no.

Yeah, Poiponen’s statement is rather ignorant of how the US came to be as a country to begin with. We fought a whole war to not be governed by a singular faraway authority with no power closer to home. I am no expert on Finnish history, but as far as I know they’ve never had anything quite like that.

In fact, our first government under the Articles of Confederation had practically no federal power and really functioned more as an association of a bunch of separate countries. The downside to such a weak central government is it becomes next to impossible to get anything done as a unit, so some sort of compromise had to be reached, and that was what our Constitution gave us. Of course, give an entity power and an ability to increase that, and it will do anything it can to expand itself, so the scope of the federal government has expanded in a major way since then…

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 02:31:06 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 07, 2023, 01:56:37 PM

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

Absurd statement.

"The mountains are tall and the emperor is far away" still holds in the PRC.

You're saying that each province might choose to design its own flag, establish its own parliament, and pass its own laws–no matter what Beijing says?

Provinces have wide leeway to establish laws and policies to meet targets and goals set by the central government and Party, each with their own legislature. The central government only weighs into the intention of the laws - it's almost entirely hands off on the structure and mechanisms laid out within. China doesn't really do flags outside of the SARs, so that's a bit of a moot point.

Also @US 89 - Finland fought quite a few wars to be independent of governance from Moscow, so yes, they've had things quite like that.

I... um...  clearly do not understand China.

Quote from: kphoger on September 08, 2023, 12:06:13 PM
I... um...  clearly do not understand China.

Think about it in terms of practicality. Similar issues may be addressed on different levels, but not WAY different levels.
Managing 1 billion (China) or 0.3 billion (US) lives from a single location is impossible, there have to be levels of government. Those on a more local  scale should have power to make things happen locally. How those powers are delegated (originally local or delegated from the center), and how office holders (elected or appointed) is another story. 
House water and sewer have to be addressed at municipal to small regional level.  There may be some common denominators set by high level government, but location of the trench for the pipe is determined or approved by municipality,  maybe county - or their equivalents.  Vital records used to be local, but went up the scale once communications allowed  and increased travel required that.

Quote from: Brandon on September 07, 2023, 11:23:44 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 11:04:43 AM

Quote from: kphoger on September 07, 2023, 11:01:40 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 07, 2023, 10:31:34 AM
Maybe China should become a federal county, setting every province its own flag, parliament and laws.

You...  um...  clearly do not understand China.
Decentralization and diversity are not its hallmarks.

I have thought that US should have more federal laws and federal sales tax.

No, no, no, and fuck no.

The only way that I would consider a USA federal sales tax is if and only if the 16th Amendment were repealed.

Mike

Sales taxes are regressive and hurt the poor far more than an income tax with closed loopholes. Trust me, WA is ranked number 1 in tax inequality because almost all our revenue comes from sales and consumption tax.

Quote from: kalvado on September 08, 2023, 12:28:36 PM

Quote from: kphoger on September 08, 2023, 12:06:13 PM
I... um...  clearly do not understand China.

Think about it in terms of practicality. Similar issues may be addressed on different levels, but not WAY different levels.
Managing 1 billion (China) or 0.3 billion (US) lives from a single location is impossible, there have to be levels of government. Those on a more local  scale should have power to make things happen locally. How those powers are delegated (originally local or delegated from the center), and how office holders (elected or appointed) is another story. 
House water and sewer have to be addressed at municipal to small regional level.  There may be some common denominators set by high level government, but location of the trench for the pipe is determined or approved by municipality,  maybe county - or their equivalents.  Vital records used to be local, but went up the scale once communications allowed  and increased travel required that.

Yep. The main difference is that the overall goal of American government is to manage individual property rights and promote the increased value thereof, while the overall goal of the PRC government is to manage the transition from socialism to communism through the required historical phases per Marxist-Leninist-Maoist analysis. The oppositional nature of those goals, along with the vastly different institutional histories of both countries, account for most of the structural differences.

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 08, 2023, 02:04:38 PM

Quote from: kalvado on September 08, 2023, 12:28:36 PM

Quote from: kphoger on September 08, 2023, 12:06:13 PM
I... um...  clearly do not understand China.

Think about it in terms of practicality. Similar issues may be addressed on different levels, but not WAY different levels.
Managing 1 billion (China) or 0.3 billion (US) lives from a single location is impossible, there have to be levels of government. Those on a more local  scale should have power to make things happen locally. How those powers are delegated (originally local or delegated from the center), and how office holders (elected or appointed) is another story. 
House water and sewer have to be addressed at municipal to small regional level.  There may be some common denominators set by high level government, but location of the trench for the pipe is determined or approved by municipality,  maybe county - or their equivalents.  Vital records used to be local, but went up the scale once communications allowed  and increased travel required that.

Yep. The main difference is that the overall goal of American government is to manage individual property rights and promote the increased value thereof, while the overall goal of the PRC government is to manage the transition from socialism to communism through the required historical phases per Marxist-Leninist-Maoist analysis. The oppositional nature of those goals, along with the vastly different institutional histories of both countries, account for most of the structural differences.

One thing in common between two of these goals - both are basically pure propaganda....

Quote from: Bruce on September 08, 2023, 02:04:07 PM
Sales taxes are regressive and hurt the poor far more than an income tax with closed loopholes. Trust me, WA is ranked number 1 in tax inequality because almost all our revenue comes from sales and consumption tax.

Then I'll gladly forward my annual accounting bills for complying with the 16th Amendment to you - they are INCREDIBLY regressive!  :nod:

Mike

Quote from: mgk920 on September 09, 2023, 01:09:58 PM

Quote from: Bruce on September 08, 2023, 02:04:07 PM
Sales taxes are regressive and hurt the poor far more than an income tax with closed loopholes. Trust me, WA is ranked number 1 in tax inequality because almost all our revenue comes from sales and consumption tax.

Then I'll gladly forward my annual accounting bills for complying with the 16th Amendment to you - they are INCREDIBLY regressive!  :nod:

Mike

I'm not sure whether you don't know what the word 'regressive' means in the context of tax policy, or if you do and you're making a subtle political point.

The most bizarre thing about the US is how tax avoidance is seen as patriotic, rather than beneficial but somewhat shameful

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 09, 2023, 04:08:00 PM
The most bizarre thing about the US is how tax avoidance is seen as patriotic, rather than beneficial but somewhat shameful

Then I strongly suggest you read up on some histories of the Revolution and prelude to the Revolution to understand why.

Quote from: Brandon on September 09, 2023, 10:28:14 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 09, 2023, 04:08:00 PM
The most bizarre thing about the US is how tax avoidance is seen as patriotic, rather than beneficial but somewhat shameful

Then I strongly suggest you read up on some histories of the Revolution and prelude to the Revolution to understand why.

Unlike you, I don't see those motives as primarily high-minded, fancy prose though they may be cloaked in.

Quote from: Brandon on September 09, 2023, 10:28:14 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 09, 2023, 04:08:00 PM
The most bizarre thing about the US is how tax avoidance is seen as patriotic, rather than beneficial but somewhat shameful

Then I strongly suggest you read up on some histories of the Revolution and prelude to the Revolution to understand why.

Because Washington didn't want to pay for the war he escalated on his own?

Some things that are measured in imperial today will be measured in metric in 2033.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:49:35 AM
Some things that are measured in imperial today will be measured in metric in 2033.

But in the US, speed limits will continue to be in miles per hour, standard paper sizes will continue to be 8½ × 11 inches, weather reports to the public will continue to use Fahrenheit.....

The only way the US will abandon American customary is if the government is taken over by a foreign authoritarian regime that forces a change...and even then, there will be people who stubbornly continue to use customary measures.

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 10, 2023, 12:30:56 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 09, 2023, 10:28:14 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 09, 2023, 04:08:00 PM
The most bizarre thing about the US is how tax avoidance is seen as patriotic, rather than beneficial but somewhat shameful

Then I strongly suggest you read up on some histories of the Revolution and prelude to the Revolution to understand why.

Unlike you, I don't see those motives as primarily high-minded, fancy prose though they may be cloaked in.

I never said anything to that point.  I'm telling you to look up the "why", whether you agree/disagree with the "why".

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on September 10, 2023, 06:48:46 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:49:35 AM
Some things that are measured in imperial today will be measured in metric in 2033.

But in the US, speed limits will continue to be in miles per hour, standard paper sizes will continue to be 8½ × 11 inches, weather reports to the public will continue to use Fahrenheit.....

The only way the US will abandon American customary is if the government is taken over by a foreign authoritarian regime that forces a change...and even then, there will be people who stubbornly continue to use customary measures.

For a comparison, see Canada, western Canada far more so than eastern Canada.  It's stunning the number of the distances given by private and semi-private entities in feet first, meters later.  Signs for farms in miles, and sizes given in acres.  Only the governments seem to use hectares.  Shoot, even the lady at the welcome center in western Manitoba on the TCH talked about a time change 2 miles west at the Saskatchewan border.

Quote from: MikeTheActuary on September 10, 2023, 06:48:46 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:49:35 AM
Some things that are measured in imperial today will be measured in metric in 2033.

But in the US, speed limits will continue to be in miles per hour, standard paper sizes will continue to be 8½ × 11 inches, weather reports to the public will continue to use Fahrenheit.....

The only way the US will abandon American customary is if the government is taken over by a foreign authoritarian regime that forces a change...and even then, there will be people who stubbornly continue to use customary measures.

It would be very nice to see weather reports using Celsius someday. Maybe in 2048.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:43:46 PM
It would be very nice to see weather reports using Celsius someday. Maybe in 2048.

You mean your Finnish weather reports? Don't they do that already?

Why do you care what American weather reports say?

Quote from: GaryV on September 10, 2023, 02:50:50 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:43:46 PM
It would be very nice to see weather reports using Celsius someday. Maybe in 2048.

You mean your Finnish weather reports? Don't they do that already?

Why do you care what American weather reports say?

Because Celsius is used in most countries in weather reports, so why not in US too?

Quote from: Brandon on September 10, 2023, 07:53:37 AM
Only the governments seem to use hectares.

And this is what would happen if the US government decided the US should go metric.  Only the government would be bothered to use it.  That's why, in Canada, especially western Canada, metric is most likely to be found in contexts that have government involvement.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:06:53 PM

Quote from: GaryV on September 10, 2023, 02:50:50 PM
Why do you care what American weather reports say?

Because Celsius is used in most countries in weather reports, so why not in US too?

Your response did not answer the question that was asked.  The question was this:  why do you care?

I, for instance, don't care one bit what units they use in Finland to measure the outdoor temperature.  Why should I?

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:06:53 PM

Quote from: GaryV on September 10, 2023, 02:50:50 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:43:46 PM
It would be very nice to see weather reports using Celsius someday. Maybe in 2048.

You mean your Finnish weather reports? Don't they do that already?

Why do you care what American weather reports say?

Because Celsius is used in most countries in weather reports, so why not in US too?

That's not a valid reason. People here don't want Celsius. That's enough reason, and it's certainly valid because it behooves TV weathermen to use the units their viewers want them to use. If you don't like it, too bad.

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 10, 2023, 03:37:56 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:06:53 PM

Quote from: GaryV on September 10, 2023, 02:50:50 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:43:46 PM
It would be very nice to see weather reports using Celsius someday. Maybe in 2048.

You mean your Finnish weather reports? Don't they do that already?

Why do you care what American weather reports say?

Because Celsius is used in most countries in weather reports, so why not in US too?

That's not a valid reason. People here don't want Celsius. That's enough reason, and it's certainly valid because it behooves TV weathermen to use the units their viewers want them to use. If you don't like it, too bad.

I would want Celsius if I lived there.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:46:07 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 10, 2023, 03:37:56 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:06:53 PM

Quote from: GaryV on September 10, 2023, 02:50:50 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:43:46 PM
It would be very nice to see weather reports using Celsius someday. Maybe in 2048.

You mean your Finnish weather reports? Don't they do that already?

Why do you care what American weather reports say?

Because Celsius is used in most countries in weather reports, so why not in US too?

That's not a valid reason. People here don't want Celsius. That's enough reason, and it's certainly valid because it behooves TV weathermen to use the units their viewers want them to use. If you don't like it, too bad.

I would want Celsius if I lived there.

So if you lived in the Oklahoma City media market, that would mean 712,629 households in the media market would want °F and 1 would want °C.

If you're the program director at KWTV and you tell them to broadcast in °C with those numbers, you're a damn terrible businessman.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 10, 2023, 03:56:48 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:46:07 PM
I would want Celsius if I lived there.

So if you lived in the Oklahoma City media market, that would mean 712,629 households in the media market would want °F and 1 would want °C.

If you're the program director at KWTV and you tell them to broadcast in °C with those numbers, you're a damn terrible businessman.

Ironic

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:46:07 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 10, 2023, 03:37:56 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:06:53 PM

Quote from: GaryV on September 10, 2023, 02:50:50 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 01:43:46 PM
It would be very nice to see weather reports using Celsius someday. Maybe in 2048.

You mean your Finnish weather reports? Don't they do that already?

Why do you care what American weather reports say?

Because Celsius is used in most countries in weather reports, so why not in US too?

That's not a valid reason. People here don't want Celsius. That's enough reason, and it's certainly valid because it behooves TV weathermen to use the units their viewers want them to use. If you don't like it, too bad.

I would want Celsius if I lived there.

Somehow I don't think the guy on Channel 4 is going to change to Celsius if I send him a message saying some troll who says he's from Finland likes Celsius better and would want that unit used if he lived here.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 10, 2023, 03:56:48 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:46:07 PM
I would want Celsius if I lived there.

So if you lived in the Oklahoma City media market, that would mean 712,629 households in the media market would want °F and 1 would want °C.

Hey, now, be fair!  Be accurate.  More like 712,216 households would want °F and 414 would want °C.   :meh:

Quote from: kphoger on September 10, 2023, 04:41:29 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 10, 2023, 03:56:48 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 10, 2023, 03:46:07 PM
I would want Celsius if I lived there.

So if you lived in the Oklahoma City media market, that would mean 712,629 households in the media market would want °F and 1 would want °C.

Hey, now, be fair!  Be accurate.  More like 712,216 households would want °F and 414 would want °C.   :meh:

actually -273

Considering some of the students I taught at the University of Oklahoma came in not knowing that millimeters and centimeters are different units, let alone the difference between them, I don't know if Oklahoma is a good example to follow...

Quote from: algorerhythms on September 10, 2023, 07:38:07 PM
Considering some of the students I taught at the University of Oklahoma came in not knowing that millimeters and centimeters are different units, let alone the difference between them, I don't know if Oklahoma is a good example to follow...

you may have some inappropriately high expectations for US schools (based on my NY experience)

Quote from: algorerhythms on September 10, 2023, 07:38:07 PM
Considering some of the students I taught at the University of Oklahoma came in not knowing that millimeters and centimeters are different units, let alone the difference between them, I don't know if Oklahoma is a good example to follow...

I wonder if part of the problem there is the traditional classroom ruler with customary on one side and metric on the other. The metric side is of course marked off in centimeters, but at least on the ones I grew up using in school, the label next to the metric numbers said “mm” presumably to refer to the small tick marks between the bigger numbered cm lines. That confused me for a good while.

It is also worth noting that coded aviation weather reports (METAR (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/METAR)) have some slight differences in North America compared to the rest of the world, mostly in the use of customary units for some quantities. Notably, temperature is not one of them - even in the US, it will always be reported in Celsius. So contrary to Poiponen's assertions, Celsius is in fact used in American weather reports - just not common easily accessible public facing ones.

And it's not like North American aviation is a metric leaning field like the sciences - these guys measure speed in knots and pressure in inches of mercury, even as metric equivalents are generally used internationally. So there had to be a specific reason for this. My bet is to emphasize the freezing point especially for international pilots who might not necessarily remember the °F conversion off the top of their heads. A few knots error isn't generally a huge deal, but 34 to 30F is a very big deal. Ice is one of the greatest hazards to aviation not just in terms of runway traction but especially if it accretes on aircraft wings, since that modifies airflow and might result in loss of lift. Any effort to emphasize a scenario where that is a possibility (by having temp in °C with a nice obvious negative sign in front) is a benefit to safety even for pilots familiar with customary units.

Quote from: Brandon on September 10, 2023, 07:49:45 AM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 10, 2023, 12:30:56 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 09, 2023, 10:28:14 PM

Quote from: TXtoNJ on September 09, 2023, 04:08:00 PM
The most bizarre thing about the US is how tax avoidance is seen as patriotic, rather than beneficial but somewhat shameful

Then I strongly suggest you read up on some histories of the Revolution and prelude to the Revolution to understand why.

Unlike you, I don't see those motives as primarily high-minded, fancy prose though they may be cloaked in.

I never said anything to that point.  I'm telling you to look up the "why", whether you agree/disagree with the "why".

1. Fairly certain I know it better than you think
2. There's nearly 300 years of subsequent history (including the first 10) in contradiction to whatever point you're trying to make.

What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

Resisting metrication would be viewed as a noble fight against colonialism.  (Yes, I know France did colonialism too, but notice that I didn't say it would be a logical difference.)

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

French people would dismissively object to it by shaking their heads and saying, "Zees ees so stoopeed." (In my mind I can hear a French guy in my law school class who used to say that when he didn't like the way something was done in the US.)

Quote from: 1995hoo on September 14, 2023, 12:24:25 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

French people would dismissively object to it by shaking their heads and saying, "Zees ees so stoopeed." (In my mind I can hear a French guy in my law school class who used to say that when he didn't like the way something was done in the US.)

An interesting question...
For one, there was definitely a need for standardization understood throughout. So, it could be a pair of competing metric systems..
And behold - there were actually two  (and even more, but lets limit discussion to 2) competing metric systems! CGS, centimeter-gram-second - was actually a german/english version. Gaussian system didn't introduce separate arbitrary electric unit, so eps₀=mu₀=1, and voltage unit ends up being 300V
Actually my college textbooks still relied on CGS pretty heavily. By now MKS/SI won
If I were to guess, I would say that Edison and Tesla were the key to adopting volt-based system, despite CGS-leaned Maxwell (I believe he worked at MIT back then?). 

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

An interesting question is, what would have happened if the ship carrying the measurement devices from France had actually made it to the US in 1793?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system

We might have had townships 10km on a side, and sections 2km x 2km.  A metric gallon like Canada has (4L jug).

Quote from: Brandon on September 15, 2023, 07:55:31 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

An interesting question is, what would have happened if the ship carrying the measurement devices from France had actually made it to the US in 1793?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system)

We might have had townships 10km on a side, and sections 2km x 2km.  A metric gallon like Canada has (4L jug).

All in all, US should metricate so that all will be measured in metric in 2050.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:08:12 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 15, 2023, 07:55:31 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

An interesting question is, what would have happened if the ship carrying the measurement devices from France had actually made it to the US in 1793?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system)

We might have had townships 10km on a side, and sections 2km x 2km.  A metric gallon like Canada has (4L jug).

All in all, US should metricate so that all will be measured in metric in 2050.

All in all, Finland should de-metricate so that all will be measured in US customary units in 2050.

Quote from: US 89 on September 15, 2023, 08:17:21 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:08:12 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 15, 2023, 07:55:31 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

An interesting question is, what would have happened if the ship carrying the measurement devices from France had actually made it to the US in 1793?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system)

We might have had townships 10km on a side, and sections 2km x 2km.  A metric gallon like Canada has (4L jug).

All in all, US should metricate so that all will be measured in metric in 2050.

All in all, Finland should de-metricate so that all will be measured in US customary units in 2050.

US definitely needs metric to line with rest of world.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:31:23 AM

Quote from: US 89 on September 15, 2023, 08:17:21 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:08:12 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 15, 2023, 07:55:31 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

An interesting question is, what would have happened if the ship carrying the measurement devices from France had actually made it to the US in 1793?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system)

We might have had townships 10km on a side, and sections 2km x 2km.  A metric gallon like Canada has (4L jug).

All in all, US should metricate so that all will be measured in metric in 2050.

All in all, Finland should de-metricate so that all will be measured in US customary units in 2050.

US definitely needs metric to line with rest of world.

How about de-metricating the world, starting with Helsinki?

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:31:23 AM
US definitely needs metric to line with rest of world.

Why do you care if the US "lines with rest of world"?  Maybe it doesn't matter.  Maybe it works the way it is.

Quote from: US 89 on September 15, 2023, 08:17:21 AM
All in all, Finland should de-metricate so that all will be measured in US customary units in 2050.

I agree.  Finland should do this.

Quote from: kphoger on September 15, 2023, 10:15:23 AM

Quote from: US 89 on September 15, 2023, 08:17:21 AM
All in all, Finland should de-metricate so that all will be measured in US customary units in 2050.

I agree.  Finland should do this.

I think this is needed.

Quote from: GaryV on September 15, 2023, 10:32:59 AM

Quote from: kphoger on September 15, 2023, 10:15:23 AM

Quote from: US 89 on September 15, 2023, 08:17:21 AM
All in all, Finland should de-metricate so that all will be measured in US customary units in 2050.

I agree.  Finland should do this.

I think this is needed.

Thirded.  Definitely needed.

Quote from: kalvado on September 15, 2023, 09:23:04 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:31:23 AM

Quote from: US 89 on September 15, 2023, 08:17:21 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:08:12 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 15, 2023, 07:55:31 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

An interesting question is, what would have happened if the ship carrying the measurement devices from France had actually made it to the US in 1793?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system)

We might have had townships 10km on a side, and sections 2km x 2km.  A metric gallon like Canada has (4L jug).

All in all, US should metricate so that all will be measured in metric in 2050.

All in all, Finland should de-metricate so that all will be measured in US customary units in 2050.

US definitely needs metric to line with rest of world.

How about de-metricating the world, starting with Helsinki?

Sounds like a winner to me.

Anything but Fahrenheit. Celsius gives you wings, and to US too.

How does Celsius is now akin to a can of Red Bull?

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 12:26:12 PM
How does Celsius is now akin to a can of Red Bull?

(https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/101eb216-ea18-402d-aa2b-f04a20e5c360_1.7d9e698823dc909e89106dfd493163d3.jpeg)

Quote from: Big John on October 08, 2023, 12:36:50 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 12:26:12 PM
How does Celsius is now akin to a can of Red Bull?

(https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/101eb216-ea18-402d-aa2b-f04a20e5c360_1.7d9e698823dc909e89106dfd493163d3.jpeg)

Is this a real can?

^^ Yes, a newer product.

My wife drinks them.  Nobody at the marketing department at Celsius is claiming the tagline from Red Bull though.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:06:55 PM
My wife drinks them.  Nobody at the marketing department at Celsius is claiming the tagline from Red Bull though.

We should also have "Anti-Fahrenheit" drink, which would have key item in Fahrenheit opposition.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on October 08, 2023, 01:12:17 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:06:55 PM
My wife drinks them.  Nobody at the marketing department at Celsius is claiming the tagline from Red Bull though.

We should also have "Anti-Fahrenheit" drink, which would have key item in Fahrenheit opposition.

"Anti-Fahrenheit, it clips your wings?"

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:13:56 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on October 08, 2023, 01:12:17 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:06:55 PM
My wife drinks them.  Nobody at the marketing department at Celsius is claiming the tagline from Red Bull though.

We should also have "Anti-Fahrenheit" drink, which would have key item in Fahrenheit opposition.

"Fahrenheit, it clips your wings?"

FTFY

Why I am suddenly feeling a urge to join the anti-metric bandwagon?

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:17:24 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on October 08, 2023, 01:16:08 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:13:56 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on October 08, 2023, 01:12:17 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:06:55 PM
My wife drinks them.  Nobody at the marketing department at Celsius is claiming the tagline from Red Bull though.

We should also have "Anti-Fahrenheit" drink, which would have key item in Fahrenheit opposition.

"Fahrenheit, it clips your wings?"

FTFY
[/quote

Why I am suddenly feeling a urge to join the anti-metric bandwagon?

Anti-imperial. Let's Go Metric!

But in the US, we don't use Imperial measures; we use the American Customary system.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on October 08, 2023, 01:16:08 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:13:56 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on October 08, 2023, 01:12:17 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:06:55 PM
My wife drinks them.  Nobody at the marketing department at Celsius is claiming the tagline from Red Bull though.

We should also have "Anti-Fahrenheit" drink, which would have key item in Fahrenheit opposition.

"Fahrenheit, it clips your wings?"

FTFY

Kelvin all the way!!!!111

Just like degrees Celsius, Celsius the beverage comes in an inconveniently-sized can.

I would guess that Fahrenheit would come in the same size cans as every other North American beverage, thus making them more convenient because everybody else in the United States is drinking out of them.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 15, 2023, 08:08:12 AM

Quote from: Brandon on September 15, 2023, 07:55:31 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 14, 2023, 11:09:54 AM
What would be different if metric system had been invented in the UK instead of France?

An interesting question is, what would have happened if the ship carrying the measurement devices from France had actually made it to the US in 1793?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28/574044232/how-pirates-of-the-caribbean-hijacked-americas-metric-system)

We might have had townships 10km on a side, and sections 2km x 2km.  A metric gallon like Canada has (4L jug).

All in all, US should metricate so that all will be measured in metric in 2050.

I remember when I was in early (US) grade school, almost exactly 50 years ago, we were taught that the metric system was coming. No date was given, but I'm sure the prevailing thought was that it would be by the end of the century at the latest, and likely earlier than that (like 1980).

In my subsequent life and overseas travels since then, I have gotten somewhat comfortable with kilometers, Celsius, and liters, but I always have to convert these in my head to miles, Fahrenheit, and quarts, if just to explain to other people what quantity is meant. I don't think I will ever get to the point where I don't have to do that.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:17:24 PM

Why I am suddenly feeling a urge to join the anti-metric bandwagon?

I'm remembering an old poster that said something like, "We don't need no foreign rulers. Join the fight against metrics." (I remember Cracked Magazine used that line a few times, though I assume it originated somewhere else.)

Quote from: 1995hoo on October 10, 2023, 03:07:46 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 08, 2023, 01:17:24 PM

Why I am suddenly feeling a urge to join the anti-metric bandwagon?

I'm remembering an old poster that said something like, "We don't need no foreign rulers. Join the fight against metrics." (I remember Cracked Magazine used that line a few times, though I assume it originated somewhere else.)

Someone on one of the Faceboo road groups recently phrased it as "the tyranny of the Metric System."  I prefer to it more succinctly as "the fight against the tyranny of Poiponen."

SNL skit this past Saturday night at the American Army Camp in 1777 where the army is reminded that they are fighting to create their own nation, where they can choose their own laws, choose their own leaders, and choose their own system of weights and measurements...

https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=2qmLS46ntTdPHpP5

That was funnier than I thought it would be.

— And how many yards to a mile?
— Nobody knows.
— Okay, well, how many feet to a mile?
— 5,280, of course. It's a simple number that everyone will remember.

Something feels ironic about this...
(https://imgur.com/XCdmaoN.jpg)

Quote from: algorerhythms on November 02, 2023, 08:20:06 AM
Something feels ironic about this...
(https://imgur.com/XCdmaoN.jpg)

What country are you in? I'm in Japan, only using a VPN when necessary. Video is accessible to me.

Quote from: jakeroot on November 06, 2023, 01:40:16 AM

Quote from: algorerhythms on November 02, 2023, 08:20:06 AM
Something feels ironic about this...
(https://imgur.com/XCdmaoN.jpg)

What country are you in? I'm in Japan, only using a VPN when necessary. Video is accessible to me.

I'm getting this same message in Canada.

Quote from: 7/8 on November 06, 2023, 08:19:26 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on November 06, 2023, 01:40:16 AM

Quote from: algorerhythms on November 02, 2023, 08:20:06 AM
Something feels ironic about this...
(https://imgur.com/XCdmaoN.jpg)

What country are you in? I'm in Japan, only using a VPN when necessary. Video is accessible to me.

I'm getting this same message in Canada.

Works OK for me in Delaware.

Quote from: davewiecking on November 06, 2023, 08:45:01 AM

Quote from: 7/8 on November 06, 2023, 08:19:26 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on November 06, 2023, 01:40:16 AM

Quote from: algorerhythms on November 02, 2023, 08:20:06 AM
Something feels ironic about this...
(https://imgur.com/XCdmaoN.jpg)

What country are you in? I'm in Japan, only using a VPN when necessary. Video is accessible to me.

I'm getting this same message in Canada.

Works OK for me in Delaware.

A quick check on this website (https://polsy.org.uk/stuff/ytrestrict.cgi?agreed=on&ytid=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FJYqfVE-fykk%3Ffeature%3Dshared) shows that this video is restricted in a decent number of countries.

UK should fully metricate.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

I suspect at least a few of the British members here wouldn't entirely disagree, given the fact that it'd bring 'em in line with the rest of Europe and one could argue a half-assed job of metrification is probably worse than barely even starting like the US, given that it'd be much more confusing...

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 06, 2023, 06:33:11 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

Would they be meters rather than yards in football then?

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 06, 2023, 06:33:11 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

Why would a Wall Street watchdog group care?

Quote from: fwydriver405 on November 06, 2023, 10:18:44 AM

Quote from: davewiecking on November 06, 2023, 08:45:01 AM

Quote from: 7/8 on November 06, 2023, 08:19:26 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on November 06, 2023, 01:40:16 AM

Quote from: algorerhythms on November 02, 2023, 08:20:06 AM
Something feels ironic about this...
(https://imgur.com/XCdmaoN.jpg)

What country are you in? I'm in Japan, only using a VPN when necessary. Video is accessible to me.

I'm getting this same message in Canada.

Works OK for me in Delaware.

A quick check on this website (https://polsy.org.uk/stuff/ytrestrict.cgi?agreed=on&ytid=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FJYqfVE-fykk%3Ffeature%3Dshared) shows that this video is restricted in a decent number of countries.

Why would anyone willingly click on a SNL skit anyways?

Quote from: LilianaUwU on November 06, 2023, 11:35:48 PM

Quote from: fwydriver405 on November 06, 2023, 10:18:44 AM

Quote from: davewiecking on November 06, 2023, 08:45:01 AM

Quote from: 7/8 on November 06, 2023, 08:19:26 AM

Quote from: jakeroot on November 06, 2023, 01:40:16 AM

Quote from: algorerhythms on November 02, 2023, 08:20:06 AM
Something feels ironic about this...
(https://imgur.com/XCdmaoN.jpg)

What country are you in? I'm in Japan, only using a VPN when necessary. Video is accessible to me.

I'm getting this same message in Canada.

Works OK for me in Delaware.

A quick check on this website (https://polsy.org.uk/stuff/ytrestrict.cgi?agreed=on&ytid=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FJYqfVE-fykk%3Ffeature%3Dshared) shows that this video is restricted in a decent number of countries.

Why would anyone willingly click on a SNL skit anyways?

Because, every ten years or so, one of them is funny.

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 06, 2023, 06:33:11 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

I meant that United Kingdom should fully metricate. And United States too.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 07, 2023, 07:28:54 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 06, 2023, 06:33:11 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

I meant that United Kingdom should fully metricate. And United States too.

Really???? Damn. I never would have guessed that you meant that if you hadn't explained it for me. Who woulda thunk it.

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 07, 2023, 07:34:11 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 07, 2023, 07:28:54 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 06, 2023, 06:33:11 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

I meant that United Kingdom should fully metricate. And United States too.

Really???? Damn. I never would have guessed that you meant that if you hadn't explained it for me. Who woulda thunk it.

Poiponen got whooshed.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 07, 2023, 07:28:54 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 06, 2023, 06:33:11 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

I meant that United Kingdom should fully metricate. And United States too.

You're a little bit behind the curve here. USA is no longer a part of His Majesty possessions, been that way for quite some time...

Quote from: Poiponen13-du-Ha!-Ha! the Troll on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Are you EVER going to give any reason for your assertions?

Troll.

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

UK should fully revert to imperial.

Just because a troll is advocating for metrication doesn't mean you must automatically oppose him for being a troll. I support metrication.

Quote from: kphoger on November 07, 2023, 09:39:46 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

UK should fully revert to imperial.

Poiponen13 should metricate - as in adjusted to be exactly 1 meter. Prokrustes approach should apply if necessary.
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-33yrjhM1MQU/WoFw1PRm53I/AAAAAAAALdI/Klcoy9-ipHcX9kURmLh_Pd5kISbuelykQCEwYBhgL/s320/PROKRUSTES%2BSENDROMU%2B1.jpg)

Quote from: 1 on November 07, 2023, 09:40:45 AM
Just because a troll is advocating for metrication doesn't mean you must automatically oppose him for being a troll. I support metrication.

That's not why.  I oppose him because he never gives any reason for his support of metrication — other than . . .

Quote from: Poiponen13-du-Ha!-Ha! the Troll on September 05, 2023, 11:50:41 AM
I would like that to happen.

In contrast, I'm confident that you, |1|, are actually prepared to give a halfway decent defense of your support for metrication when asked for one.  This troll never does.  Instead, every week or two, he just drops a troll-dookie into one of these threads to make everyone rattle their sabers—these days never even more than four or five words, not even showing the level of thought he once put into his posts in the early days.  He's just trolling.

Both of you support metrication.  He is a troll.  You are not.

Quote from: Rothman on November 07, 2023, 08:43:59 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 07, 2023, 07:34:11 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 07, 2023, 07:28:54 AM

Quote from: 1995hoo on November 06, 2023, 06:33:11 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

Might be confusing for the rest of the SEC for only one school to do that.

I meant that United Kingdom should fully metricate. And United States too.

Really???? Damn. I never would have guessed that you meant that if you hadn't explained it for me. Who woulda thunk it.

Poiponen got whooshed.

I suspect P13 is used to that, it being a regular occurrence.

Quote from: kphoger on November 07, 2023, 09:39:46 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

UK should fully revert to imperial.

Well, they already use Fred Flintstone units for measuring people's weights.

Quote from: freebrickproductions on November 06, 2023, 05:52:24 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

I suspect at least a few of the British members here wouldn't entirely disagree, given the fact that it'd bring 'em in line with the rest of Europe and one could argue a half-assed job of metrification is probably worse than barely even starting like the US, given that it'd be much more confusing...

A few years ago (and I remember posting about this here in AARoads at the time), several major police agencies in the UK sent a message to the road ministries strongly insisting that they sign dimensional restrictions (bridge clearances, etc) in meters due to lorry (big rig truck, for the non-Brits in here) drivers from the 'continent' having no idea what inches and yards were.

Mike

Quote from: mgk920 on November 07, 2023, 12:11:16 PM

Quote from: freebrickproductions on November 06, 2023, 05:52:24 PM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

I suspect at least a few of the British members here wouldn't entirely disagree, given the fact that it'd bring 'em in line with the rest of Europe and one could argue a half-assed job of metrification is probably worse than barely even starting like the US, given that it'd be much more confusing...

A few years ago (and I remember posting about this here in AARoads at the time), several major police agencies in the UK sent a message to the road ministries strongly insisting that they sign dimensional restrictions (bridge clearances, etc) in meters due to lorry (big rig truck, for the non-Brits in here) drivers from the 'continent' having no idea what inches and yards were.

Mike

One of ideas floating around regarding weekly bridge hits over here is to double those clearance signs in meters.

Quote from: kphoger on November 07, 2023, 09:39:46 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

UK should fully revert to imperial.

UK should convert to lRc.

Quote from: Scott5114 on November 07, 2023, 04:57:31 PM

Quote from: kphoger on November 07, 2023, 09:39:46 AM

Quote from: Poiponen13 on November 06, 2023, 02:40:22 PM
UK should fully metricate.

UK should fully revert to imperial.

UK should convert to lRc.

Poiponen13 should convert to mIRC.

The new survey grids should be built with exactly one square kilometer in size. The number of sides of square which has passed is the number of kilometers passed, and there is a distance marker every one hectometer (100 m / 0.1 km), a total of ten markers per one square. The markers tell distance in hectometers. House numbers in rural areas are based on meters from rural road's starting point, with a house 25,110 meters from start is numbered 25110.


This would be logical. And I wuld like to use hecto- deci- and decameters a lot, since these units are not commonly used in areas that use metric.

Next, do NFL passer rating :-)

Having a perfect score be 158.3 is really Fahrenheity. (Not to mention, you can still achieve that with some incomplete passes.)

Quote from: kurumi on November 20, 2023, 04:19:20 PM
Next, do NFL passer rating :-)

Having a perfect score be 158.3 is really Fahrenheity. (Not to mention, you can still achieve that with some incomplete passes.)

ESPN does that with their proprietary system.