ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Do you see the post I was responding to? He was saying that USA's large size means that its citizens wouldn't be able to adjust to the metric system. Direct your comments to that person, not me.
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Will the US ever switch to the metric system?
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
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Do you see the post I was responding to? He was saying that USA's large size means that its citizens wouldn't be able to adjust to the metric system. Direct your comments to that person, not me.
Haunted
Member
Having to learn only one system is an improvement over having to learn both. Getting kids accustomed to the international standard early without confusing them with another system, that's an improvement.
It's not like people aren't allowed to use the old system anymore or anything, just phase it out for the next generation and time/established standards will take care of the rest. Fuck, I know older people here who still calculate all their finances in Deutschmark because they really don't like the Euro. :lol
Alx
Member
Hence my mention of cynicism. "You may be a slimy bastard who supported a racist totalitarism and used human slavery in concentration camps, but since you can build rockets, welcome to America, you'll be the pride of the nation !".
Erm, what ? It may have been a good OS at the time, considering the lack of other choice, but it's also known for its lack of stability and security. It's because of Win95 that Microsoft is still suffering today from the "lol blue screen" stigma.
Obviously it's directed to the use of the imperial system, not at the instances where the metric system is used (why not ditch the old system completely?). And the rest of the analogy is directed towards how it can bother you even if it has no affect on your life.
And like Haunted also pointed out:
"Dad" and the US seem to share the same mindset: "Why change? It's such a hassle etc."
iamshadowlark
Banned
Except, its not confusing them. Our kids are not dumb asses. I and millions of others have learned both with no trouble. Like I said, inconsequential.
But, please continue on how going metric-only will rock our worlds and totally open our eyes...
iamshadowlark
Banned
As far as I know, he was never really involved with the Nazis. He even wrote an affidavit to the Army to that effect. He was a leading scientist who only really cared about building rockets. If he didn't join hitlers party they were gonna cut his funding.
Its alot different from a military officer, commanding troops.
About 95, I don't know where you are looking but alot of circles considered it top rank among Windows, 98 or Xp being considered the best. You can look at Vista and 8 to understand that not all new OSes are received as better.
I think the mindset is more like "If it aint broke, don't fix it" Especially when "fixing" it would be so unfruitful.
Holy shit! Never thought I'd see a meltdown over this.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
You shouldn't have to learn two sets of measurement. You should only have to learn one. It's a fucking waste of time to teach both and how to convert them. And if most people already know Metric, then all you have to do is stop teaching imperial and switch the signs around. But I know you're already dead set on never ever changing in a billion trillion years, so I don't even know why I'm bothering to respond.
The transition is not painful, especially since, by your own admission, most Americans already know the new system. You say Americans aren't stupid? Great, that'll make things smooth sailing as Imperial gets phased out then. And the next generation of kids won't have to learn a redundant system that gives them absolutely no advantage.
Alx
Member
I'm looking at my own experience. At the many OS crashes I endured. At the fact that it opened a session if you clicked on "cancel" at the login prompt.
I was still glad to have it in 1995 since other alternatives didn't meet my needs. But I wouldn't use it now, nor recommend it to anybody. Which why people would roll their eyes at anybody using Win95 today and not wanting to upgrade.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Its probably like a hour worth of curriculum, learning both systems. "Fucking waste of time" amirite. LOL, "but would someone please think of the children."
Im dead set on not changing something that really doesn't need to be changed. Something that if changed would help almost nothing. Im against changing exlusively to a system that would give us "absolutely no advantage"...
Im dead set on not changing something that really doesn't need to be changed. Something that if changed would help almost nothing. Im against changing exlusively to a system that would give us "absolutely no advantage"...
Alx
Member
I should have bookmarked that youtube video from that older thread about imperial, where two guys working on a car/motocycle in a garage spent 10 minutes arguing about a simple measurement addition in imperial. Anybody remember it ?
*edit : found it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pikrntjcbyw
It's shorter than what I remembered, but still hilarious.
*edit : found it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pikrntjcbyw
It's shorter than what I remembered, but still hilarious.
OldAsUrSock
Banned
Lets say for example that the state of Arizona changed to metric. Well it is near the size of Italy. So if a country the size of Arizona changed its units it would have less area to change and less people. So it would be harder to change standard units for a country with 32x the area of Italy and 5x more people than Italy.
I hope that is a good example.
OldAsUrSock
Banned
Even though everyone is taught metric in the USA there are few people that actually know it. From the people I have been around most cannot use metric at all. They say it makes no sense.
iamshadowlark
Banned
This is false. Metric is used in everyday things from cooking to drugs.
Hell I live in Europe and can use both without a problem.
that would be an issue if engineers, scientists extensively used the imperial system. SI units are used science, medicine, military and industry. If the customary units are used by the general public and consumers, I don't see why Europeans have to get hot and bothered about it.
OldAsUrSock
Banned
In america cooking is mostly with tbsp, tsp, and cups. For drug instructions they will say to use 2tsp of(insert medicine) or 10mL of that medicine.
When I said "know it" I meant that few people can actually use it like they use US units. For drug instructions they will say to use 2tsp of(insert medicine) or 10mL of that medicine.
I wonder what's the correlation between those that want to keep the imperial system and their political affiliation.
I suspect that there's a medium to high correlation - given the propensity of the American conservative to be jingoistic and afraid of change - both perfect attributes for arguing against in a straight measuring system change up that is initially slightly disruptive, but simply more convenient for everyone in the long term.
I suspect that there's a medium to high correlation - given the propensity of the American conservative to be jingoistic and afraid of change - both perfect attributes for arguing against in a straight measuring system change up that is initially slightly disruptive, but simply more convenient for everyone in the long term.
I once spent (rather, lost) 2 hours of my professional life manually converting imperial units to metric for some casting drawings because the gobshite across the pond wouldn't convert it on his end.
See Americans, it does affect people's lives.
Just make sure you don't half arse it like the UK did. We still have people who cling on to fahrenheit despite the fact the younger generation have no idea what it is. I hate when someone says the weather is fahrenheit. The only acceptable imperial units are tv sizes and beer.
People seem to really underestimate translation costs. It's not about whether "math is hard", but about unnecessary costs incurred. This is not just about imperial -> metric, but anything else. For example, I don't like the unit kWh; it takes time to convert into Joules and convert back again. It's not hard but it costs time.
Exactly.
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
people are trolling you and you are letting it get under your skin.
iamshadowlark
Banned
I can't help but be extremely unsympathic. This is extremely all minor.
Again, "If it aint broke, there's no need to waste time and money fixing it".
So like I said, help almost nothing?
I'm not letting it get under my skin. But for every troll here there are more than enough people who actually do think that.
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Conversion issues have cost us billions of dollars and years of work, lost. Down the drain.
This, coupled with the fact the imperial system is retarded, with no benefit outside of "rah go america!", isn't worth the "hour" of class time it takes to teach it, or the ink and paper it's printed on.
Haha... ok I get your gig here. carry on.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Hyperbolic much? LOL
America doesn't like science.
endresults
Member
A shame, since we're so fucking awesome at it.
Um no, translation costs are not extremely minor. kWh is just one example, there's number system, date formats, different units for one entity (for pressure you have kPa, bar, kg/cm^2, for example). All these things affect productivity.
I like to examine things that aren't broken to see if they can be improved.
A Black Falcon
Member
Hah, good point.
No, while the year, month, and day standards are indeed astronomically based, week (7 days), minute (60 per hour), and second (60 per minute) are human-invented. For instance, we use 60 minutes and seconds because the Babylonians used base 60, and they're the ones who came up with them.
Indeed, with standard large and metric small.
That's not entirely true, actually -- the US uses a variant of the British system that predates that 1824 Imperial standard (because it's what we were using at the time of the American Revolution). The standard US customary system is not the same as the Imperial system, not exactly. Calling the US system "Imperial" isn't entirely accurate.
It is still a British system, but the Metric system is French... as if that's better?
Fahrenheit degrees are nearly twice as precise. Don't forget that. 180 degrees from freezing to boiling instead of 100.
Also, of course temperatures people are used to vary, but that doesn't change the general point.
Huh? It's not exactly hard to remember that freezing is at 32. Pretty simple.
Right, and things like that British effort to ban Imperial scales and such would be unthinkable in the US... I don't think the government could possibly get away with something like that even if they wanted to.
We don't.
That's your problem, not ours. And anyway, most Americans have plenty of issues like that, like with distances in kilometers and such... how far is that? No idea. At least meters are simple, since they're nearly identical in length to yards.
No, I'd say that it really is true that America does not like the idea of doing things because other countries say we should... particularly conservative Americans, but plenty of liberals support the Standard system over Metric too.
Yeah, there are mile markers on all American highways, and they would all need to move (and they'd need a lot more of them, if they changed to kilometer markers). They would also need to renumber the exits on most American highways, since as you say most use mile-based numbering. And of course all highway signs in the country would need to be repainted, both the speed limit signs and the distance markers. That would all be hugely expensive.
They didn't because Americans refused, pretty much. And we were right to do so.
That is perhaps true, but he was a rocket scientist, and showed absolutely no sign that he cared about the slave labor (and mass death) at the factories that made his rockets. He only cared about the rockets, not any of that other stuff. All things being equal, he probably was a war criminal. But he got off because we wanted his rocket knowledge.
What? Very few Americans use metric for cooking, no. You use standard. Cups, teaspoons, etc.
iamshadowlark
Banned
I really don't see how you can qualify any of this. Just because he wasn't brave enough to speak out doesn't mean he supported hitler or lacked care for the victims. Hell the Nazis even detained him on occasion because of his questionable loyalty.
DeadFalling
Member
Sorry if this has been discussed but why don't they just teach both to US students? That would at least be an improvement...
iamshadowlark
Banned
It has. They do. Which makes this thread even more pointless.
We do, and have done for a few generations. It's not that Americans don't know metric, it's that those measurements aren't our intuitive units.
For example, although I know that a kilometer is 1,000 meters long and I also know how long a meter is because it's close to a yard, I have no real intuitive grasp of how far a km is. Conversely, I don't usually bother to remember how many feet a mile is beyond "five-thousand some odd feet, or around eighteen hundred yards", but if I go on a walk I can make a pretty damn good guess at how many miles I've traveled, or point at a landmark that's about a mile away.
I have an intuitive understanding of how fast it feels to drive at XX mph that isn't at all derived from my independent perceptions of miles or hours. I don't really know what it means to drive at any particular measure for kph, and I'm certainly not going to try to multiply and divide while I'm driving.
I kinda know that 20 C is an average-ish temp and 40 is real hot, but the F degrees are much more familiar to me.
The only way full metrication can ever happen is if we prevent people from becoming familiar with the American customary units in the first place. Until we actually get rid of the customary units, children will continue to form their intuitive understanding of size and scale around the basis of those units rather than metric.
We're probably never going to budge on this one, because it's not like we'd just have to change unit scale, we'd have to start measuring our ingredients by weight rather than volume. All of our recipes are in dry measure. I'm not going to go through Nana's recipe box and do a separate conversion for each type of ingredient by density.
It's still questionable how involved von Braun really was.
On the one hand you have him saying:
And then you have witness accounts:
I think the whole point is that if he hadn't been such a valuable scientist he probably would have been put in jail.
After spending the last week in the USA, this is what you guys need to fix before tackling the metric system:
1. Doorknobs. What's with the twist style doorknobs? They're super uncomfortable. You need to twist your wrist instead of just slamming your hand on the handle? WHY?
2. Windows. Please, no more slide to open. It's not the 20s anymore.
3. Flimsy ass AC sockets and even worse: the plugs. I can bend the prongs with my fingers. Make this shit stronger.
4. Your money. Everything the same size and color. You always have to pay attention to know what's what. And get rid of your coins. Nobody needs them anyway (except maybe laundromats).
5. Finally, the metric system. What is an oz how does it relate to a gallon? Why can't everything be measured in the same system? Why are drinks measured in at least 3 different ways?
1. Doorknobs. What's with the twist style doorknobs? They're super uncomfortable. You need to twist your wrist instead of just slamming your hand on the handle? WHY?
2. Windows. Please, no more slide to open. It's not the 20s anymore.
3. Flimsy ass AC sockets and even worse: the plugs. I can bend the prongs with my fingers. Make this shit stronger.
4. Your money. Everything the same size and color. You always have to pay attention to know what's what. And get rid of your coins. Nobody needs them anyway (except maybe laundromats).
5. Finally, the metric system. What is an oz how does it relate to a gallon? Why can't everything be measured in the same system? Why are drinks measured in at least 3 different ways?
Oh fucking hell, those 1 and 5-cent coins... just round everything up to the nearest 10 cents and get rid of those useless things. I'm sure most Americans would agree with me.
Arjen
Member
Simple example, parts you buy in America are build with inches in mind. So let's say bolts are a nice even 1" apart from eachother. That means we have to make the holes 25.4 mm apart, instead of the 25mm we would probably use. It's a simple example but it get's really annoying, really quik.
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