Presidential Candidate Lincoln Chaffee Proposes That US Go Metric 830
New submitter Applehu Akbar writes: The good news is that for the first time in years, a candidate in the next presidential cycle has proposed completing our transition to the metric system. Though unfortunately it's Lincoln Chaffee, let's all hope that this long-standing nerd issue gets into the 2016 debate because of this. Warning: Lame CNN autoplaying video.
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a non-starter of a proposal from a non-starter of a candidate. There is no huge push in the US to go fully metric right now.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't count (almost) all the other countries on the planet being metric as a huge push?
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
Not in the US - since most of the inhabitants don't even realise there *are* other countries...
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like most of the inhabitants of Europe don't understand that the USA is mind-boggingly huge and is only bordered by two countries.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Meh (Score:4, Funny)
Well sure, there's England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and Australia.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
I'm reminded of one time back in high school when we were discussing a poem by Margaret Atwood. The English teacher mentioned as an aside, "who knows where Margaret Atwood is from," thinking it would be a good segue. Silence. "I'll give you a hint: she's writing in her native language."
"American?"
- "No."
"British?"
- "No."
"Australian"
- "No." There was another pregnant silence and before I could hazard a guess on New Zealand, he gave up and said, "Canada! Margaret Atwood is perhaps the most famous Canadian poet!"
So help me, my thought at the time was actually, "Ohhh. Canada... they exist too."
The point of the story is, just because you speak English doesn't make it any more likely we'll remember that your country exists. Sorry, Canada. If it helps at all I'm in Texas, so you're not exactly foremost in our thoughts.
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I forgot Texas. That's yet another country.
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There is America. Then there is ThirdWorldLandia which sends us illegal immigrants and terrorists. Then there is Europia which is full of communists and yodelers. And then maybe there's Antarcticstan I think but no one goes there. Anyway, that's all the countries I know of.
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No, because other countries can't generate any appreciable political pressure in the US. It would require an internal political movement and there isn't one of any moment.
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I was in grade school when Jimmy Carter was president, and there was a political push back then. It still wasn't enough. Personally, I'd prefer to switch to metric, but I think the push has to be social, not political.
In most textbooks, the units are metric. This has been the same since I was in school in the 70's. It's just real life that is SI, and for some reason, real life seems to stick better.
Still, there are plenty of things that are in metric units. Engine sizes and soda bottles (but not cans) being the examples that immediately spring to mind.
Oddly enough, most American cars have nuts and bolts that are metric because we want to seem cool and hip, but most Japanese cars (manufactured for the USA) have SI nuts
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like US companies already produce products with metric measurements? The idea that the US is not metric is somewhat disengenuous. What the US is not is "forced metric".
US companies happily adapt to other countries (like in Europe) that make it a sort of fascist fetish.
But it's true that Americans simply don't care, and have no interest in change just for it's own sake.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
No. I don't.
First off, it hardly matters to most people (American or foreign) whether we're metric or not.
Everything in the USA is sold with both SI and Imperial units (except shotgun ammo, of course, which as far as I know, is still sold in the rest of the world the same way it's always been - 12gauge, 16gauge, 20gauge), so it's not like the rest of the world is terribly handicapped figuring out US products, since they can look on the box.
Ditto foreign products sold here. Okay, it's metric. It'll generally have a line of print with Imperial measurements on it for the people who can't do the conversions in their head.
Only real difference is that the native SI stuff uses round numbers of SI units and odd amounts for the Imperial translations, while the native Imperial stuff has round numbers of Imperial units and odd amounts of SI units.
Face it, noone much cares whether the gas can for their lawnmower is 1 gallon (3.8L) or 4.0L, nor do they really much care which of those numbers is written in the fine print on the box....
Ditto for almost everything else....
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
Even in Metric countries like Canada, many people still use imperial units for a lot of things. Go to the lumber store and you can get a 2x4, and they are sold in 6, 8, 10, and 12 foot lengths. Plywood is sold in 4x4 foot sheets. Just about everybody I know refers to their weight in pounds and their height in feet and inches. Almost nobody can tell you the metric equivalent without a calculator. We order a pint of beer at the pub, and most people still refer to a block of butter as a "pound of butter". . British people still use "stone" to express their body weight, and they are supposed to be metric as well.
You can standardize all you want, and print whatever you want on the packaging, but people are still going to use whatever they are used to. You could have the US go metric tomorrow, but people will still use Imperial measurements for another century
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
2x4s, of course, aren't 2" by 4". They're approximately 1,5 by 3,5 inches. As for lengths, here in Iceland it's sold in meters. We refer to our weights in kilograms and our heights in centimeters. Butter is sold in 500 gram bars. Cans and bottles of beer are in millilitres; I don't know what they call the size of a glass at a pub because I don't drink. Anyway, it's really hard to think of things we use imperial units on. The one that comes to mind is TVs, they're in inches. I'm sure there's others - they just don't come to mind at the moment.
The British are famously not-metric (they even use miles for distance), and Canada has a reputation for only being half switched over, so you picked two of the worst examples you could. I found this map [tumblr.com] which seems to be more detailed than a simple "metric: yes or no?", although I don't know what the color codes mean (red is clearly "effectively 100% metric").
And no, people will not "use whatever they are used to". They'll use what's on the package and all of the road signs. They're not going to pull out a calculator and start running conversions. You move to a metric country, you just get used to how things "feel". You don't need to know the conversion factor for miles to kilometers, you just get used to the fact that a kilometer is basically a "short mile" and the like. You get used to "0C = freezing, 10C = jacket weather / layers, 20C = light long sleeves, 30C = short sleeves" etc. You don't run conversions, you just get used to the norms.
Re: (Score:3)
2x4s are 2" x 4", before they're cut down to their final size. If you ever have some lumber from before dimensional lumber was common (or right around its introduction), you'll see that the pieces match the nominal size. Also, if you get green, unfinished lumber, it will still have those nominal dimensions.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I advocate adopting the Feter. Exactly 1/3 of a meter.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
Regular construction lumber is cut to size (2x4, 2x6, etc.) and then dried which removed substantial amounts of moisture, resulting in the (typical) 1.75 x 3.5" dimensions for a 2x4. What your father gets from the Amish is called "green wood" and has not been dried - over time it will dry out naturally and be the "expected" dimensions.
Dimensional lumber has exact dimensions (e.g. a 2x4 is actually 2" x 4") and is either cut to size after drying or cut large before drying so that the dried size is correct.
And then there are the "manufactured wood products" (plywood, hardboard, chipboard, MDF, project panels, etc.) which are sold using actual dimensions vs. pre-drying dimensions.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
I will also continue to argue that, while the metric system is great for math/science, it's actually not as good for some things in day-to-day life.
For example, measuring things in Kelvin may make a lot of sense in a lab, the Fahrenheit scale makes a lot of sense for measuring weather. In Fahrenheit, 0-100 degrees is roughly the range of temperatures that is habitable for people. And I know, it's not exactly the range of habitable temperature, but if there's a climate that spends a lot of time outside of that range, then people probably won't be very comfortable there. In Celcius, that translates into roughly -18 to 38, and Kelvin is 255 to 311. Those seem stupid and arbitrary by comparison. Also, if you measure only in 1 degree increments, Fahrenheit degrees are smaller and provide better resolution, though I suppose I can't tell the difference between 69 degrees and 70 degrees anyway.
But similarly, the length of feet and yards are pretty convenient for measuring spaces. Being a relatively average-sized man, my foot is about a foot long, for example. If I want to measure the size of a room, I can put one foot in front of the other and walk, counting my footsteps. In the end, I have a pretty good approximation. Measuring a person's height in feet also gives a range with pretty good resolution with adults typically being between 5 and 7 when you round. With meters, when you round, basically everyone is 2 meters tall.
I know some people won't quite get my point, or they'll say, "But metric is so much easier once you know it!" Really though, metric is only much easier when you're doing math. On a day to day level, most of us don't need to do enough math for it to matter.
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But Celsius makes much more sense in Canada. Here, the range of habitable temperatures are basically -30 to +30.
Outside that it's either too damn cold or too damn hot.
I would also argue that the trivial benefits the imperial system has in being "good for some things in day to day life" are far outweighed by the inconvenience of every other country on the planet using a different measurement system.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
I would also argue that the trivial benefits the imperial system has in being "good for some things in day to day life" are far outweighed by the inconvenience of every other country on the planet using a different measurement system.
Except it's not. Seriously, the average American is not inconvenienced in the slightest by using a different measurement system than "every other country on the planet." If you're constantly traveling internationally, sure, maybe. Or if you're in the import/export business. Otherwise there's essentially no drawback for the average US Citizen. And if your response to this is "Oh, well let's just make it inconvenient for Americans and then they'll *have* to change!" then you're what the average American hates about top-down social manipulation.
Judging from this thread, it's clear than non-Americans really don't understand much about Americans at all. Sure, they think they do... but they really don't.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, if you measure only in 1 degree increments, Fahrenheit degrees are smaller and provide better resolution, though I suppose I can't tell the difference between 69 degrees and 70 degrees anyway.
For me I like the precision when dealing with fevers. You have 6-7 degrees between healthy and ER.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
For me I like the precision when dealing with fevers. You have 6-7 degrees between healthy and ER.
I enjoy blowing peoples minds: Have you heard of a decimal point?
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The British system is a mess. Speed is measured in miles per hour, but distance & fuel in kilometers & liters. Those poor kids in school probably get word problems like "Bobby is driving at a constant speed of 50MPH to his friend's house, which is 35 kilometers away. Given a fuel consumption of 40km per liter, how many clowns can fit in his car?"
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"They could require ... all sorts of things to force the change"
You've put your finger on the main difference between the US and Europe. Europe seems to have no problem with top down forced changes, while the US is fairly resistant to that.
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Only real difference is that the native SI stuff uses round numbers of SI units and odd amounts for the Imperial translations, while the native Imperial stuff has round numbers of Imperial units and odd amounts of SI units.
And that's what hobbles US products in the rest of the world. It doesn't fit together with your other stuff, and you need special imperial size tools to work with it. It's bad enough with wire, where you have AWG and metric sizes and thus need two sets of strippers (my teeth are only calibrated for metric).
It even screws up the documentation. Datasheets for US products often include both metric and imperial units, so every diagram has two sets of numbers on every measurement. It's also random which number t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know, right? Nobody buys American products in the rest of the world.
Hell, last year, the US only shipped $1.623 trillion worth of goods around the globe, including over $219billion in machines, engines and pumps and $172billion in electronic equipment. And $135billion in vehicles. And $125billion in aircraft and spacecraft.
If we'd only adopt the metric system, we might sell some stuff.
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This high-priced American export tech was destroyed by repeated errors in metric/imperial conversion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
The Martians haven't stopped laughing at us since.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Business lobbyists in the US would have candidates sell this to voters as an example of "onerous, unasked-for Big Government interference!" They'd threaten voters with nonsense like "You have to throw away your dad's old wrenches because it will be illegal to use inch sized bolts!" or "It's a big-tool-company plot to force us all to buy new wrenches!" This would spark irrational debates around pointless-topics, and won't do anything but make candidates look even stupider than they are.
Never mind that most
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not really.
The average American has very little to any interaction with anyone outside the US at all, much less one that would require much metric/imperial conversions.
It would cause more trouble than it's worth right now, a fiscal burden on an economy that is struggling still to get back on its feet.
I'd dare say if nothing else, there are MUCH more pressing issues that need to be addressed other than making everyone in the US have to go to their computer and do a conversion on the temperature being 30C to know how to dress to go outside after hearing it on the news in the morning.
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(not counting tech support calls)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
It's a non-starter of a proposal from a non-starter of a candidate. There is no huge push in the US to go fully metric right now.
Never go full metric.
HAHA! 'Murkins are the DUMBF! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
And? It is a totally irrelevant anecdote. Idiots can fit the wrong kinds of bolts into anything.
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Re: (Score:2)
not unless you work for Lockheed Martin [wikipedia.org]
This. (Score:2)
Nor is there any need to for the majority of people.
This.
It's irrelevant, unless you are a hard science scientist, and if you are a scientist in a hard science, you are already metric.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Because dumb people are against it and smart people are able to deal with it.
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Yes, it's scientifically proven that if you swap the MPH and KPH on your odometer, you get 5 points on your IQ right there, because now you're driving rationally. :/
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I don't expect that we'll completely get rid everything though. American football can stick with yards and bars can keep selling pint
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering signs don't last forever and the 100 year timeline that was given, I don't think the cost would be prohibitive. You could just update the signs during their normal replacement cycle. I'd imagine it would be something like this:
Years 0-25: All signs replaced must print both measurements
Years 25-50: All signs replaced must print both measurements, both with equal representation.
Years 50-75: All signs replaced must print both measures, with the metric measurements featured.
Years 75+: All signs replaced must print Metric only.
I guess some signs will need to be larger to accomodate more info, but probably not a "considerable" amoutn more then the normal cost.
The biggest problem with this proposal is that any legislation like this would just get repealed when the "other" political party takes office. There is almost no way that this would last for 100 years.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Funny)
Years 0-25: All signs replaced must print both measurements
We tried that once in the 70s. In some places people shot the signs down. Literally. With guns.
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Years 0-25: All signs replaced must print both measurements
We tried that once in the 70s. In some places people shot the signs down. Literally. With guns.
In most of the rural West, that happens regardless of what the signs say, especially if they're speed limit signs.
You have to start somewhere. (Score:2)
I for one support this Candidate (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know the stances of Lincoln on other issues, but trying to push the metric system is a great start and bound to fix the economy as soon as people can figure out how to measure things. Why can't one of the main stream candidates get this?
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We can't have this! (Score:5, Funny)
I'll resist this with every ounce of my being.
I'll resist this with every gram of my being.
I won't give an inch on this issue.
I won't give 5 centimeters on this issue.
They came at us with a shit ton of rockets and mortars!
They came at us with a shit kilogram of rockets and mortars!
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
An gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Great, and also who? (Score:3)
It's great that he's finally talking some sense. I just wish he weren't doing it to an empty room with only his mom and kids present.
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It's great that he's finally talking some sense. I just wish he weren't doing it to an empty room with only his mom and kids present.
And don't forget the CNN video crew.... I'll bet MSNBC had one there too....
But 'Murica?! (Score:5, Funny)
I am surprised the republican field has not proposed we get rid of the english system for Biblical set of measures in units of Palms, Spans, and Cubits.
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Oh no.. Nobody wants to go back to getting a single shekel for a day's work..
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Oh no.. Nobody wants to go back to getting a single shekel for a day's work..
It all depends on how you define a Shekel.
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Yes, but for 12 Shekels and a goat, you get to buy a woman!
MC Lars says it best. (Score:2)
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The only rapper that is worth listening to who talks on science topics is MC Hawking.
Great director (Score:2)
I love Alan Smithee's films.
First clue you aren't going to win (Score:3, Insightful)
You're pushing an unimportant issue nobody cares about.
Really, with all the important issues that should occupy a president's attention, if this is even on your radar, you're not qualified for the job.
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if this is even on your radar, you're not qualified for the job.
I disagree a president should be aware of the metric system, even if switching is not a priority.
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Re:It's the economy, stupid (Score:4, Informative)
What school in the US teaches engineering in US Customary? I am doubtful of this anecdote.
Re:It's the economy, stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Every civil engineering school there is? It gets worse when you go to surveying. Those guys use stupid units like "US Feet" which are ever so slightly different than "International Feet" but both of which are defined in terms of the Meter.
Re:It's the economy, stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
What? My Engineering degree is 30 years old. We did almost everything in school in Metric.
After school it's industry specific. But all common metric parts are readily available.
Metric Guns. (Score:2)
The same way that gas stations in the 70's tried to sell gas in liters. People just thought, divide by four, but since there are more than 4 liters in a gallon, they though they we
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Let's be honest here, going metric is just like banning guns: regardless of how you feel about the subject, the cost of changing the way it has been for hundreds of years is just too great. From road signs to revamping of labels to changing all hardware (like tools/bolts/etc) to just changing how people think about measurements.
or, don't change the roadsigns?
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Fewer than four liters in a gallon. 3.8 liters per gallon. Well, 3.78-odd, but close enough.
And at the time that gas stations tried to switch from gallons to liters, they were also going to the trouble of quietly raising the price of gas during the conversion - a buck a gallon becomes $0.30 per liter, for instance....
But... but... but... (Score:2)
Let's be honest here, going metric is just like banning guns: regardless of how you feel about the subject, the cost of changing the way it has been for hundreds of years is just too great.
Just *think* of all the make-work *jobs* ("work for one person for one year") this would create for people whose major talent in life is "smoking weed" and their other major talent in life is "installing new road signs and other manual labor, as needed"!
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Get Out The Vote! (Score:2)
Sure, sure, sure.... (Score:2)
And while we're at it, let's make the national sport SOCCER!
America is a contrarian country, we will never fit in with the rest of the planet. Forget trying, the only way to be sure is to nuke it from orbit.
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Wait, America, or the planet? Nuking either is a bad idea, but one of those options is rather self-defeating...
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And while we're at it, let's make the national sport SOCCER!
That's FOOTBALL you know... Problem is Americans have redefined that word, so you have your work cut out for you.
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Nice try. The word "soccer" was invented by the British as an abbreviation for "association football". The Brits just stopped using it out of spite when we took it up :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
INSTANT PENIS ENLARGEMENT (Score:5, Funny)
America's response (Score:2)
I thought we already did (Score:2)
The 1970's Called... (Score:2)
No one cares (Score:2, Insightful)
All measurements systems are arbitrary.
the advantage of metric is that it is a global standard and the units are all divisible by ten.
That's it.
However in the US, we're familiar with the current system so it isn't a big deal... and the US has never really cared what was standard in other countries. We just don't care.
The US tried to go metric in the 1970s.
First, most people just ignored it and used the existing imperial system.
Second, it was the middle of a bad economic time and transitioning costs money be
Re:No one cares (Score:4, Informative)
No big deal, right. Unless you want to actually calculate something.
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As to your dig on the American people, I could say the same thing for europeans leaving europe. The difference is that your countries are smaller. How many europeans leave europe? About as many Americans as leave the United States. So your presumption of superiority is comical.
You're not leaving the EU and we're not leaving the US.
There are huge cultural differences around the country. if you think we're all one simple nation then you don't know anything about us. there are states that have as much differen
Chaffee is a guy (Score:2, Funny)
I would like to sit down and have a pint with.
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SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:2, Troll)
From wikipedia (Score:2, Insightful)
A liberal Republican, Chafee was frequently ranked as the least conservative Senate Republican, and to the left of some conservative Democrats. He opposed eliminating the estate tax, voted to increase the top federal income tax rate, voted against allowing drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, supported an increased minimum wage and was the only Republican Senator to vote against authorising the use of force in Iraq. Chafee is pro-choice, supports same-sex marriage, affirmative action, gun control and federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and opposes the death penalty and a Flag Desecration Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I don't know what to make of this, but he seems better than all the Republicans running so far.
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Why is this the government's job? (Score:2)
The Metric system has been standard since 1866 (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
And note that the US was one of the initial signatories of Metre Convention and that our "customary" units have been actually defined from Metric units since 1893. The problem being that the people have been rather slow to stop using the customary units and the government hasn't really done much to encourage a total switch.
Well except in the 70's, Carter got blamed for that even though it was Ford who signed the legislation. The Reagan administration that came after was full of nostalgia addled traditionalists including the president himself, so the encouragement ended.
Oblig (Score:3)
My Car and Bike are Metric (Score:4, Informative)
sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
First, the US is officially metric.
The problem most non-Americans can't understand is that the US government/system ostensibly has few tools to compel this transition, CERTAINLY none that are worth political cost of using on an issue that most people don't give two shits about.
In short: the people who need/want metric use it.
The people who don't would strongly resist doing so.
Second: there's no "automatic" value inherent in the metric system. It's a SHIT TON easier to use with computers and calculators, certainly, as it's all decimal. But otherwise its less wieldy in daily use as 10 doesn't divide neatly by 3 or 4.
If your pro-metric argument is about the value of universalization, hell, we can't even agree that we should all speak ENGLISH in this country, and the 'universalization' value of that would be orders of magnitude more useful/immediate than all switching to a measuring system most of us don't use in the first place.
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Just use tenth of Celcius then. It will be even wider.
Welcome back to drudgedot (Score:3)
unfortunately it's Lincoln Chaffee
On the front page of any site, other than to get conservatives excited about someone they can bash? Besides, the conservative majority here already knows that Chaffee is not one of them, they would have seen his name and jumped in to tell us what a terrible evil person he is without needing the lead-in in the summary.
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No, we think Bernie is high. And so is this guy. I'm not sure if they're using the same drug, but the DNC will be a riot.
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He is... Along with all other politicians...
FTFY...
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I remember when all the interstate signs showed their metric equivalents (in smaller print under the miles/mph). It was sad to see those removed some years later.
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One wonders how many /. readers even remember Carter.... Or realize how much history is repeating itself...
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Yeah I'm kind of curious about that myself. Never heard of the guy, and a very quick perusal of his Wikipedia page doesn't look like he's too crazy, while still actually coming from politics.
Maybe the "unfortunately" is related to the fact that I've never heard of him, and probably neither have most people...