why

[ashw_justin]

Why haven't we switched over to the metric system?

 

It is one of many manifestations of our supreme arrogance, a sign of our isolation, and betrays our blind love of the illogical. There is something more evil than simple stupidity at work here. I can only assume that there is some argument involving economic exclusivism to explain why we cling to an outdated Anglo-Saxon incapability to divide by ten.

[RogerJ]

[sarcasm]

Why should we switch to something as illogical as constants of common compounds? Why use a system where you shift a decimal place instead of say divide by 16? Why use a system where volume and mass have some relationship?

 

I much prefer a system based on real values such as the length of the King's foot.

[/saracasm]

 

When I was young (teens) there was a lot of push to move to the metric system. However it seemed like every ad I saw on TV led you to beleive you would need to know all these convoluted conversions. I distinctly remember seeing an ad where a state trooper said "Today the speed limit is 55 MPH, under the metric system it will be 88 KPH). Even as a kid I never understood why they would not just make it 90 KPH. I even see things today where coffee cups say 16 oz\473 ml. Like this barrista has the scientific precision to make sure it's not 475ml or even 500 ml.

 

Phew... I am glad I got this off my chest.

 

-r

 

[ivan]

we have resisted the metric system because we are a very large population seperated from the rest of the world by a great distance - the literate amongst us are however quite fluent w/ both systems

[G-spotter]

You have resisted the metric system for the same reason that state legislators once proposed making pi equal three.

[JayB]

I think that this has been a matter of debate on and off since the mid 1790's or thereabouts.

 

It seems like the last time there was any serious debate on this topic seemed to be in the mid-70's or thereabouts, and I seem to remember people who were old enough to be involved in that debate saying something about the cost of replacing all of the tooling, etc with their metric equivalents outweighing the benefits for most businesses, and very few people in the wider world clamoring for a change in the units that they used for their day-to-day affairs. It seems like all of the business that that need to use SI have been doing so for quite a while, and the only place where the Imperial system really persists in this country is in a limited number of everyday applications like volumes, distances, elevations, heights, weights, etc....

 

I suppose that there's still a fair number of technical professions that might have to work in imperial units these days, though. Maybe civil engineers, surveyors, automotive engineers, etc.

[ashw_justin]

40% of WA students probably can't do the math necessary to be 'fluent' in two systems of measurement.

Are we resisting the metric system? Or did we just drop the ball?

Perhaps it makes us feel more 'special'...

 

[ashw_justin]

I wonder how Canadian lumbermills feel about having to make "2x4's" for the silly unitedstatesians.

Or is it even worse--we buy their trees and sell "2x4's" back to them.

Luckily they can measure close enough with their little 'millimeters.'

[RogerJ]

The mid-70's is the time I was referring to the barrage of TV ads.

 

I remember the retooling debates. I also remember my parents getting all tweaked out over trying to remember the miles to kilometer conversion. Like any of the conversions would be necessary only a handful of years after adoption of the metric system.

 

Personally I think the sport fishing industry would benefit from the conversion. Bragging rights over a 12 in trout are not as glorious as a 30.5 cm trout.

 

-r

 

 

[JayB]

I'd be surprised if the dimensional lumber wasn't cut to the same size for both markets, but given that we are the destination for the overwhelming majority of their output, I doubt they'd ever get worked-up enough to stop selling us their wood in whatever dimensions we want.

 

I'm sure that GM, Ford, et al don't mind equipping all of the vehicles that they sell in Canada with spedometers that display speeds in km/H either....

[ashw_justin]

Yes... if only we'd gotten the whole hemisphere on board... who dropped the ball on that one? Lazy Reaganites.

 

http://members.shaw.ca/gw.peterson/moratorium.html

1983 eh? Let's see, Reagan for pres 1980... of course!

[ivan]

our country is so big if we adopted the metric system for distances between our cities we'd all commit suicide when driving from pdx to squamish

 

the only thing to keep the canucks alive and forestalling a similiar fate seems to be the fact they've reduced their iq to the level of drunken monkeys w/ shitty whiskey and hockey-fuck

[RogerJ]

Too bad myriameters is pretty much obsolete. Driving a scant 58mym to Squamish seems palletable to me.

 

-r

[G-spotter]

would those be 2x4 pallets or 2m x 1.5m pallets

 

funny how American climbers have learned to do pitch and rappel lengths in meters.

[cj001f]

you can tell who's never worked in a machine shop on this thread. Retooling = real cost.

 

Most of the competitive US industries have already had to retool.

 

The last time there was a debate was when Ronnie I listen to Astrologers Raygun undid the US conversion to the metric system.

[Mal_Con]

I think we have already converted in all things that matter. All cars are now metric as are aircraft and electronics. They just put english measurments on some of the containers.

[catbirdseat]

would those be 2x4 pallets or 2m x 1.5m pallets

 

funny how American climbers have learned to do pitch and rappel lengths in meters.

Nothing funny or strange about it. Ropes are measured in meters. It's less hassle to use meters.

[JayB]

kN for impact forces....

[cj001f]

I think we have already converted in all things that matter. All cars are now metric as are aircraft and electronics. They just put english measurments on some of the containers.

 

There are a number of industries, including transport, that are still English based. Most of the fasteners you purchase are English sized.

 

What really sucks are retarded companies that have specs like, here's an actual one: 3m +- 3"

[AlpineK]

Tree guys...you know people who actually make money climbing...buy their ropes in 1/2" diameters. None of this euro metric horseshit.

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Metrivia: A Newton of force is equivalent to the weight of an apple at sea level.

 

The metric system sucks.

 

"Only 500 meters to go!" Fuck you, pal.

 

"Jesus, we've got 20 km to go still." THen STFU and walk.

 

"How many ml of whiskey do you think we'll need?" Christ.

 

Who has time for the tedium?

 

Besides, the metric system makes things smaller. In the end, the consumer gets screwed. Take our construction industry for example; the last group of real men fending off a tide of limp wristed CE marks, closet sized apartments, and toy dishwashers plastered with 50 pastel colored icons that handle only two of those dough boy size latte cups per load.

 

Think you could build your dream home with the 2 foot setback under the metric system? Think metric. That would be 2 meters, mon ami. At the standard 3 story, 80 x 80' American home footprint, you'd be giving up more than 3000 sq ft of living space; 9 times the size of the average Euro-flat! There goes covered parking for the Denali.

 

The only thing that would get bigger under the metric system would be electricity. Try plugging your stereo into a European outlet and you'll see what I mean. You might want to have a fire extinguisher on hand. There's a reason why european electrical plugs weigh about 10 kilos each and look like they're sized for the main power bus on the Titanic.

 

Furthermore, the words are too long with the metric system, so you wind up with cutesy little nicknames for everything. Take 'kilometer'. No one ever says it. The most you'll ever get out of a European is 'kilomet'. No, it's 'Klicks' (if you want to sound like VA case who's off his meds, fine. I don't), or 'km's (OK, faggot), or simply 'K's (mkay?). Here, we say 'miles'. Not 'Five thousand two hundred and eighty feet', or 'sixty three thousand three hundred sixy inches'. Miles. We can remember the extra word. It's just not that hard.

 

And finally, who wants to switch to metric time? Personally, I like Earth's day and year length the way it is. Who the hell wants to work a 100 hour day? And do you know how expensive it would be to change that? This isn't the Chunnel we're talking about here.

 

So let's all just relax, have a dram, and forget about becoming European or, worse still, Canadian. Give those foreigners an inch, and they'll take a furlong every time.

Edited June 11, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[ashw_justin]

Ye Olde English 'system' is almost completely ad hoc; there are few constant conversion factors, and even these are almost always coincidental. There is little to no standardization between what were primitively thought to be unrelated physical phenomena.

 

Metric is a start, because of the relatedness by a systematic factor (ten), and because of its awareness of the need to convert between measurements of different physical qualities that are always related in one way or another.

 

But... base ten? Base ten is a truly handicapped system.

 

Factors - LCM

1 - 1

1,2 - 2

1,2,3 - 6

1,2,3,4 - 12

1,2,3,4,5 - 60

 

1,2,5 - 10... WTF?

 

http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/

 

"The merits of base twelve are due to the great factorability of the number twelve, the next really useful number being sixty, but this latter number is rather too large to be chosen as an every-day number base. Ten is unsatisfactory because its factors 2 and 5 include the prime 5 which in turn is not as useful as the prime 3 (though one professor of mathematics complained that I was not being really fair to the number 5 when I said this ... ). The dozen, and the dozen dozen, or gross, have shown their usefulness in packing and packaging over many, many years."

 

http://www.dozenal.org/index.php?u=31

 

"A Misconception Some people wrongly believe that the ability to multiply and divide by powers of the base by simply moving the fraction point is an advantage special to base ten. But such is not the case. It is not "ten- ness" that gives this property (after all it wouldn't work with ten-based Roman Numerals). No, this advantage exists in every base, for it is a property of the place value notation we use for expressing numbers along with a symbol for zero. Thus we see that

110.11 x 10^2 = 1.1011

is always true, no matter what base one is using."

[G-spotter]

In "Battlefield: Earth" the bad guys (John Travolta) use a Base 11 system. That is why they are so bad.

[jjd]

gas kilometerage? go the extra kilometer for a customer? wtf?

[olyclimber]

its "go the extra 1.609344 kilometer for the customer"

[chucK]

Once one has progressed past the counting on fingers stage, six or twelve are much nicer as a base than ten. One has only to look at the packaging of beer to get a practical example of the utilities of six or twelve. Think of the number of hard feelings, fights, injuries and deaths that have been avoided by never having to decide who gets the last beer in the five-pack.

 

:brew: :brew: :brew:

 

I've got a six pack, and nothing to do.

I've got a six pack, and I don't need you!