fitty centimeters :Graucho

Those big bad asses Jesus H Christ and Labret will threaten to come to Canada and shoot us all :(

why again are european products machined more precisely? ehhh ... iuno

:thumbsup

Anyone who supports imperial system is either dumb or "proud to be an American" if you know what I mean.

Metric system not only makes sense, its not only easier, but it would save millions or even billions $$$ long term in so many ways, starting with saved time converting that was mentioned by few people in the thread.

Its honestly difficult to comprehend how any country would use that in 2013..

You're not American so you don't understand how long it'd take to complete the conversion and how much money it'd involve.... Everything is in Imperial here... And what do we gain from it? Foreigners self importance because they come to our country and can't do simple conversions, when most Americans know both measurements and have no problems converting when in another country.

In metric Canada - I still buy two-by-fours and sheets of four-by-eight at Home Depot. I know how long a 3" ardox nail is...couldn't tell you how many millimeters that'd be. My tape measures are all inches and feet - none of this centimeter/meter stuff.

I have a 5 gallon gas can in my garage. Hell if I know how many litres it holds.

I grew up with imperial measure in school - before the country went metric. I still think in imperial terms.

You are unbelievable clueless... You gain simple conversions, how do you say 15% of a pound? I say it 150 grams (in the case of kilos). Now imagine how many these conversions are done daily in the whole country (not even trading internationally but converting imperial to imperial) and count how many millions of labor hour does it take.
Its not about foreigners you ignorant "proud American", its about common sense: imperial system is prehistoric fossil which is obsolete in 21st century and metric system is not. It is clear to anybody with half a brain. It has nothing to do with foreigners.

Apparently it's some magical thing that happens? Like our economy just starts improving, what do we gain from switching to 100% metric like the rest of the world?

Since you edited it, what do I say when I want 15% of a pound? 3.02 kilograms. You see this? Wow, my country is 100% Imperial but I still know Metric, what is this sorcery?!?!

Just because you're to fucking dumb to do the conversions doesn't mean all Americans are.

Non-American's are the only people who are so butthurt over the fact that we don't use 100% Metric.

15% of a pound is 3.02kg to you? Wtf?

My point was in metric if I want to say 15% of a kg I say 150grams in a second.
In imperial if you want to say 15% of a pound you do math and it takes you longer.


Its not about me not understanding it, its about system where conversions are done in a split second and a system where you have to WORK math doing a conversion.

Your "logic" is like this:
a system is better than b system, but since we understand b system there is no point to switch to a system. Pretty stupid for a programmer.

FOR STARTERS - millions of labor hours doing various conversions that are unnecessary. Not even those that Minte posted, but also converting imperial to imperial. Instead of doing something in 1 second you choose to do it in few seconds. And millions of operations like these daily/weekly. On top of that add bigger chances of making a mistake doing those calculations (not everybody is as smart as you are and also even smart people do mistakes)

- a lot of mistakes and that is just one field. I wonder how many mistakes are done in total across all industries.

So how about you come to America and get the ball rolling if you're so worried about it.. Otherwise shut the fuck up. You guys all bitch saying America is too worried about whats going on in other countries but look, so many non-American's telling us to change our unit of measurement, or that we need to ban guns.

http://i.imgur.com/kltJD.jpg

You fail at arguing because it does not matter if I am American or not. Its completely irrelevant. We are speaking about the fact that metric system is better.
Your other argument about not understanding imperial system was also failed argument because its not about understanding, its about the fact that metric conversions takes split second and imperial conversions often takes serious math.

Since you are programmer your argument looks similar to:
Why should I do this thing in 1 code line if I perfectly do this in 3 lines. LOL. You should do it in 1 line because its more effective, optimized and time sensitive, and easier, and less chance to make a mistake and so on. Its simply no brainer. Yet you do not argue this fact, you argue as "proud American" with hurt feelings.

Do you not understand that just because Imperial is our "standard" doesn't mean we don't know metric. We're taught it in school just the same as Imperial. Look at the conversion has done in Canada..

So keep arguing, it won't change anything and I'll continue using what I use and you'll continue getting mad over something that doesn't affect you.

Depends on what it is, I can use a simple ternary operator and keep it all on one line, but looking back at code later on down the road it could be hard to realize what it's doing so it's sometimes best for readability to do it on 3 lines.

WTF? Who needs 15% of a pound? In almost 60 years of life I have yet to need to know 15% of a pound, ounce, pint, foot, inch, yard . . . .

A quart of milk?
Why does an eighth of milk not exist?

And why is a liquid quart less than a dry quart? Confusing if I want a cup of dried milk as to how much I really need.

I agree with you Lloyd.... no one needs that. But if I wanted 15% of anything, I would prefer having it as 15% of 100, not of a pound, mile, stone, Farenheit, whatever...

I bet 99% of the GFY population does not know at what Farenheit water boils. (without google assistance). PS. In the metric system, water boils at oooooooooohhhhhhhh 100C! :-)

I have to know; are your 2x4's really 2x4's or 1 x 7/8 x 3 3/4?

An eighth of milk does exist; no one sells it in that amount. They sell it in pints and half pints though. Can you buy 82 cc of milk? Why not? Does 723 liters exist? Why not?

Do solids measure the same as liquids just because they are metric? How does that work?



First off; happy new year. When have you ever needed 15% of a pound, mile, stone, Fahrenheit? Ever? Other than a math/science class. Real world example. And who cares what temperature water boils at? How useful has that tidbit been to you? It is like the age old question of: How long do you cook spaghetti? Till it is done."

100C or 212F does not really matter because you have to take altitude into consideration anyway. :)

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

+1, same with me as well ......

If the Imperial system is so easy and good


How many chains in a furlong?

How many feet in a league?

How many cables in a nautical mile?

How many links in a rod?

How many roods to the acre?

How many fluid onces to the quart?

I don't give a mimim about the imperial system it was a nightmare at school, but thanks to the French revolution we have 1 cc of water weights 1 gram in 1 ml of volume taking 1 calorie of energy to heat it through 1 degree centigrade.

Anyone fancy a pint ?

:winkwink: :upsidedow :winkwink:

Wow some serious keyboard warrior here! :1orglaugh

the stones thing of the UK sounds the weirdest to me.
Feet are approximately the same. Pounds are always the same. Who the fuck came up with stone as a weight system thing? A stone can be 10 grams or 1000's of kilo's. When I hear someone say on tv 'I weigh x stone' I literally think of the stone age.

:eek7

.

:1orglaugh :thumbsup

brilliaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant :1orglaugh

Now we talkin:drinkup

A stone is 14lb.. Suppose it was standard weight used.. but yep is odd.

To 99.9% of those questions, who cares and when have you ever put that information to practical use?

There are 32oz to a quart.

Adapt or die.

I believe it was a cro-magnon named Ug.

Ug the democrat!

Ug was a quasi-socialist with heavy liberal leanings. He was also a non-conformist, choosing not to follow the crowd by living in a cave, thus even his lean-to had liberal leanings. His "stone weight system" proposal was turned down by the counsel 13 times before being accepted.



You know, most people probably aren't going to fully understand the implication of what you were saying earlier. You might want to expound a bit on the obvious benefits to American industry by leveling the playing field with a uniform metric system in place.

I was in jr high back in the mid 70's and was thus right in that zone where we had learned the imperial system up until that point, then had to start learning the metric system. Of course all of us kids moaned and bitched loudly about it, but after being taught it for a time every one of us came to realize just how much simpler and organized it was. I still do the conversions in my head from celsius to F and kilos to pounds, mostly out of habit but the fact is I understand both. I don't need to have something converted to lbs etc in order to understand it, unlike many elderly Canadians who've not bothered to learn the new system.

We did it, and lived. Canada joined the rest of the world around 1975-76, and we're still here. The US can survive it too.

I can expand. Prior to the metric system making it to the shores of America, manufacturing already had 2 different systems of measurement. fractions and decimals. What was meant to happen was that as machine tools became more accurate so would the units of measurement.
Of course that didn't happen so it blended. For instance. Weldments are traditionally dimensioned in fractions. Machined parts in decimals. Where it gets tricky is when a weldment has a number of different machined components integrated. Even today we work off drawings(cad files) that have dimensions like 36" +-1/64" and 1.250 +-.005. with the metric conversions in [brackets].

Now factor in that all these dimensions were actually created in metrics. What happens is that you end up with a lot of goofy numbers. I like the metric system. But in manufacturing I prefer decimal dimensioning. Engineers are trained to work in metrics, but most that I know don't naturally visualize one mm...but they can visualize 39 one thousandths of an inch.

i try to remember: wasnt there some NASA/Russian incident where they couldnt connect something in space because one party measured in inches and the other in centimeters?

I'd suspect it's more about the money involved in regard to business. I couldn't even imagine what it would cost for manufacturing companies alone to retool from standard to metric.

You see, now I'm lost, and maybe you can help me out. I don't do Imperial, never had since at least 10 yrs old. But when I did, a quart equalled 2 pints. So unless I'm mistaken, an eighth is ehm, 1 pint. So you see, people do sell "eighths", but it's just named differently - ie a pint.
You see the confusion with the illogical naming scheme?

No but you can buy a litre. Is that near enough? Costs the same too as a pint, so we get better value for money :thumbsup

It exists, just not something to buy, cos shit, that's a looooot of liquid. What the fck do you buy that's 723 litres? You know 1000 litres of water == 1 cubic metre == 1 tonne right? So, what do you buy that is 723 litres?

When you are measuring solids as a volume, yes they measure the same as liquids :1orglaugh

I can measure a litre of sand or a litre of water - they would still both be a litre. Density is a different thing, or maybe you know it as specific gravity. Maybe not. This is where metric comes into force... eg
Sand has a density of 1600kg/m3 so I know a litre of sand weighs 1.6kg.
How much does a cup of sand weigh?
Maybe you don't give a shit but when transporting things that have payload limits, sorry but metric is used 100% of the time. For a reason.

Every Single Day. Without a word of a lie.

You must be trolling, right?

Anyone feels the strong irony in this statement?? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I don't give a shit one way or the other - I'm simply commenting on my own experience. It's a really stupid topic to argue either way.

Metric is simpler - but I prefer imperial simply because that's what my generation grew up with.

Our 2x4's are the dimensions you gave above. But our 128 yr. old house is built with old dimensional (oak) lumber - actual 2x4's, 2x6 attic trusses, etc.

But irregardless of the current down-sized dimensions - everyone I know of still refers to them as two-by-fours.

Go ahead, tell us how these came in handy today, or yesterday

How many chains in a furlong?

How many feet in a league?

How many cables in a nautical mile?

How many links in a rod?

How many roods to the acre?

I feel the exact same way. :thumbsup

it is funny to see how people support obsolete system just because they are comfortable with it. it is irrelevant how you feel about it and how you are used to it, the system is obsolete. the ENTIRE world has moved on to something modern and better and it's not because we are dicks. It's like using any tech from 90ties or 80tis in year 2013 just because "I like it and we are used to it and dont tell us what to do".

stuff like this is just laughable to anyone except usa:



sometimes it really looks like arguing about the metric system with American is like arguing religion with a religious nutcase. You cant win no matter how solid your argument is.