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.