Petition For Metric In US Halfway To Requiring Response From the White House 1387
fsterman writes "Without any prompting from the U.S. Metric Association, a We The People petition to standardize the U.S. on the metric system has received 13,000 signatures in six days. That's half the number needed for an official response from the White House. It looks like ending the U.S.'s anti-metric alliance with Liberia and Burma (the only other countries NOT on the metric system) might rank up there with building a death star."
US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
"Liberia and Burma (the only other countries NOT on the US metric system)"
Right. And now the Metric system itself is from the US? Who writes this stuff.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
Right. And now the Metric system itself is from the US? Who writes this stuff.
Do you really expect that most American will accept the metric system if it is somewhat unamerican? I don't mind it been presented as an american invention if it can help bring the US in the 20th century.
Also, I suspect this is exactly the idea behind this article. So shut up about it, and let this US metric system get root.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Right. And now the Metric system itself is from the US? Who writes this stuff.
Do you really expect that most American will accept the metric system if it is somewhat unamerican? I don't mind it been presented as an american invention if it can help bring the US in the 20th century.
Also, I suspect this is exactly the idea behind this article. So shut up about it, and let this US metric system get root.
Once you convert over to metric, it's the 21st century.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Honest question here: Assuming you're an American, how would the US switching to the metric system enhance your life? Most people don't run around doing dimensional analysis, and people who have grown up with the current system don't have trouble with it. If you like the metric system, there's nothing stopping you from using it. For my own way of thinking, we have a lot of bigger problems to tackle before we spend money switching everything over to metric. Such a switch would have short-term negative effects (due to confusion and misunderstanding of how different units relate to each other), and I just don't see there being much benefit for the average person in the long-term.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Funny)
I little piece of my soul dies every time I have to measure something in 1/32th's of an inch.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Not having to have two sets of wrenches and not crashing landers into Mars come to mind.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that the metric system is better than the imperial system is because of its advantages in scientific and industrial applications. And so the reason that the US should adopt the metric system is so that future scientists and engineers have an intuitive feel for the units.
But there are a few day-to-day advantages. The biggest one that comes to mind is unit pricing at the grocery store. The whole point of unit pricing is to make it easy to compare the price of products that are sold in different volumes, and in countries that use the metric system this is easy. But in the United States, you'll often see products side-by-side that cost $X per pint, $Y per quart, and $Z per ounce. It's not easy to compare these prices because the unit conversions are not simple to do in your head.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Informative)
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3074/why-arent-two-by-fours-two-inches-by-four-inches [straightdope.com]
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention how many inches are in a meter.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Funny)
So? There are 1000 mInch in an Inch. There are 1000 inch in a kiloInch. There is nothing special about the meter.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Informative)
Also, In temperatures, 0'C is Freezing point of water, 100'C is boiling point.
In Volume/ Mass/ Weight, 1000sq/cm = 1 Litre = 1 kg of water.
All these have practical applications in real life.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
If I'm fishing in my pants to figure out what all the "fur" is about... that means I have been away from it for far too long.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
250ml, 500ml, 1l, 2l and 4l are typical sales units for dairy products in the UK. And before you say "look, they're using powers of two, metric is all a sham", those particular sizes map quite closely to the old sizes, making it easier for uber-conservative (and ardently anti-European) Britons to accept and understand metric.
I'm not conservative or anti-European and I prefer to work in base 10, with consistent ratios, not having to remember the different number of ounces in a pound, vs the number of pounds in a stone, vs the number of fluid ounces in a pint. I like that I can think of a litre of water and have an immediate feel for what a kilogram weighs, or what 100mm looks like.
I'm 43 years old, so I went to school post-initial-metrication, but there are still plenty of hold-outs my age and older who "can't stand metric", including my otherwise-sane wife. But at least we're 30 years further along the metrication process and can report that the world won't end if you do get with the program(me).
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure it would not stop right wing newspapers like the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Express from freaking out if ever the UK went the whole hog but it really is no big deal.
Switching from driving on the left to the right could be a tad harder though...
Re: US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to disagree with your point. But I would say that the main problem with units like foot and inches is not the base per se, but the inconsistent bases across the spectrum.
If it used base 16, for example, across the board, then it would be just as sane as metric. Eg 1/16 inch, 1 inch, 16 inch to a feet, 16 feet to a yard, 256 yards to a mile, etc.
Instead, we have a mishmash of lengths that used different base at every level. If base 16, or 12 or whatever, really has some good, why not apply such goodness across the board?
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Informative)
Simple would be relative. In the west, we use Arabic numerals, which are base 10, or powers of 10. Systems such as binary are base 2, or powers of 2, and after working with it for a while you can figure those numbers in your head as easily as anything else. We divide those into nibbles, bytes, words, dwords, qwords, etc. A kilobyte is 10 bits, which doesn't fit into those divisions, but we stick that label on it anyways.
Imperial lengths work in a similarly awkward way, and are countable in powers of 3. For example, 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 1780 yards to a mile. Mass appears to go into powers of 14. I don't think that was by design, but it is one way to look at it.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
A kilobyte is 10 bits
That's you off the next Mars probe team.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Economics and timing is a poor but convenient excuse, it's only been used for the last three decades to justify not doing anything.
It would have been more economical to start phasing out imperial 30 years ago, but instead millions of additional dollars have been wasted making, for example, signposts in miles and speed limit signs in mph.
It will *never* be a "good time" to change to metric, but the longer you *don't* change, the more money you've wasted and the more it will cost when you finally do change over.
Hell, it would've been more economical to stop printing $1 bills years ago, seeing as $1 US coins have been available for ages. But no, new $1 bills are still made, and so people continue using them.
Instead of saying it's not economical or bad timing, just say some of the real reasons: Americans on the whole are resistant to change, don't want to learn a new and generally better way of doing things, or just want to be different somehow from the rest of the world (except such nice company as Liberia and Burma).
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Economics and timing is a poor but convenient excuse, it's only been used for the last three decades to justify not doing anything.
So you think a choice of measurement units is more important than an economy?
I addressed such false dichotomy already [slashdot.org].
Hell, it would've been more economical to stop printing $1 bills years ago, seeing as $1 US coins have been available for ages. But no, new $1 bills are still made, and so people continue using them.
Dig that grave deeper. It'd have been more economical to just drop the dollar coin altogether. Somehow your little opinion on such things is more important than the blatantly obvious consensus of hundreds of millions of people.
The blatantly obvious consensus of hundreds of millions of people is that Internet Explorer is a great browser, and Windows XP remains a great operating system for 2013. That is obviously as false as your statement, because it's inertia, familiarity, and habit that keeps them going, not because they remain the best option years after their introduction.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, that is what God created conversion programs for.
God crashed a multi-billion dollar research craft into Mars?
Occam's Razor says, yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
All systems of units are arbitrary.
Some are arbitrary and logical, easy to work in your head... Some are a bunch of disparate measurement systems that makes almost no logical sense what so ever. If I have to choose, I take the logical one, thank you.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Informative)
Add to this paper measurement, letter being 8,5x11 inches in north america but 15cm x 30 cm in Europe.
Really? At least 90% of the letters I receive are A4, which is 29,7cm x 21cm. I don't know any European paper format that has an aspect ratio of 2.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Informative)
letter being 8,5x11 inches in north america but 15cm x 30 cm in Europe.
That would be a very elongated piece of paper.
A4 paper is 210x297mm, and is never called "letter", always A4. The odd lengths are because the ratio of the sides is 1:sqrt(2), which means an A4 sheet cut in half (called A5) or doubled (called A3) has the same ratio as the A4 sheet, so a document can be very easily scaled or reduced to a sheet twice/half/etc times the size.
A0 has area 1m^2. Paper weight is measured in g/m^2, i.e. the weight of a piece of A0 paper. Since A4 is (A1-half, A2-quarter, A3-eighth) a sixteenth of that, I know that each sheet of A4 paper in the ream by our printer (80g/m^2) weighs 80/16 = 5 grams.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Informative)
letter being 8,5x11 inches in north america but 15cm x 30 cm in Europe.
Completely wrong. Here is the reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216 [wikipedia.org]
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Interesting)
This from an idjut country that can't even spell 'METRE' correctly.
I know you're fishing for karma with that opening, but may I remind you that the ORIGINAL spelling for the primary units is french:
Mètre, kilogramme, seconde and ampère.
I don't see a single anglo-saxon "idjut" on either side of the Atlantic use the accents or the double-m or the final "e".
For that point, neither so do the Germans: Meter, Kilogramm, Sekunde, Ampere.
The Dutch also don't get it quite right: meter, kilogram, seconde, ampère.
The Catalans are much weirder: metre, quilogram, segon, ampere
And the Spanish finally top it all: metro, kilogramo, segundo, amperio.
One might even get the funny idea, that pretty much every country in the world tried to make the measurements sound "natural" to their citizens. Crazy, isn't it?
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Funny)
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Insightful)
I would wager that 1/3 of a meter is "1/3 of a meter"? How much is 1/5 of a foot?
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
I would wager that 1/3 of a meter is "1/3 of a meter"? How much is 1/5 of a foot?
One toe?
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, what the fuck is wrong with your feet?!?
Even my big toe is less than one tenth the size of my sole.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Funny)
When I see a distance of a multiple of 60 one can quickly determine how many hours it will take to get there when driving. :-)
Until time is also switched over to base 10 using miles/hr has a very nice 1:1 mapping with time! (assuming one drives 60 mi/hr.) The metric is a nice scientific system; the imperial system is a "nice" organic system. There is no reason BOTH systems couldn't be kept on the signage.
Ummm, yeah. I'm assuming you either just forgot your sarcasm tag or had a massive brain fart....
Last I checked km / hour was 1:1 as well. 1 hour @ 65 km/hour = 65km traveled.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Metric is every bit as arbitrary as imperial, it's just a bit easier to do unit conversions with them.
The metric system is not arbitrary. There is only one unit each of length, mass, volumes, etc. It is also coherent.
Coherence"
"Each variant of the metric system has a degree of coherence – the various derived units being directly related to the base units without the need of intermediate conversion factors. For example, in a coherent system the units of force, energy and power are chosen so that the equations
force = mass × acceleration
energy = force × distance
power = energy / time
hold without the introduction of constant factors. Once a set of coherent units have been defined, other relationships in physics that use those units will automatically be true - Einstein's mass-energy equation, E = mc2, does not require extraneous constants when expressed in coherent units.[18]
The cgs system had two units of energy, the erg that was related to mechanics and the calorie that was related to thermal energy so only one of them (the erg) could bear a coherent relationship to the base units. Coherence was a design aim of SI resulting in only one unit of energy being defined - the joule.[19]
In SI, which is a coherent system, the unit of power is the "watt" which is defined as "one joule per second".[20] In the US customary system of measurement, which is non-coherent, the unit of power is the "horsepower" which is defined as "550 foot-pounds per second" (the pound in this context being the pound-force), similarly the gallon is not equal to a cubic yard (nor is it the cube of any length unit).
The concept of coherence was only introduced into the metric system in the third quarter of the nineteenth century; in its original form the metric system was non-coherent - in particular the litre was 0.001 m3 and the are (from which we get the hectare) was 100 m2. A precursor to the concept of coherence was however present in that the units of mass and length were related to each other through the physical properties of water, the gram having been designed as being the mass of one cubic centimetre of water at its freezing point."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system [wikipedia.org]
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Informative)
E= mc2 certainly does have an arbitrary constant embedded within it -- if expressed in metric units the speed of light is an arbitrary constant. For this reason most high energy physics uses so called 'natural units' where the speed of light = 1 and units of mass are the same as units of energy (i.e. the electron rest mass is 511 kilo-electronvolts). And what is an electronvolt of energy? -- it's the energy which one electron-charge gains accelerated through one volt. Notice that the only metric unit referenced in this usual measure of mass is the volt; no kilograms or units derived from kilograms. So once you get deep into the 'hardest' of the hard sciences you don't find metric units used for much -- that says something about the arbitrariness of metric units (and their more exactly defined successors, the SI units).
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
Metric is every bit as arbitrary as imperial
Imperial units internal relationships = arbitrary
Imperial units external relationships = mostly-arbitrary (generally measures of someones body parts)
SI internal relationships = non-arbitrary
SI units external relationships = semi-arbitrary (generally measures of physical phenomena that are roughly universal)
The metric system is at least 1 unit of arbitrariness less arbitrary than the imperial system.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed the whole point. "E=mc^2" works in metric because the units are coherent. Use the SI base units (kg, m, s) and everything works out. If you use old stuff like slugs or pound-force for mass and btu for energy, you're going to need some arbitrary conversion factor in the equation depending on which particular units you used.
The "10" business is a very small part of it; that's just to make it easier to do the math when you scale stuff. What DOES matter is that the unit of Force (for example) is exactly related to the base units: F=ma, so the base units are kg*m/s^2, and that is how you define the Newton.
In the bad old days you had to decide what units "mass" was (slugs? oz? lb? tons?) and then acceleration (ft/s? yards/s? inches/s?) and in the end you end up with some funny conversion factor depending on what you want "Force" to be in. So instead of "F=ma" you end up with "F=kma", where "F" is "poundforce", "m" is "oz", "a" is "ft/s" and "k" is some stupid conversion factor just to make the numbers work out with the units you happened to choose. And so you'll get a different conversion factor depending on which particular units you chose for mass and acceleration. Ouch.
"Slugs" are in fact the old unit of mass created to try to sort out this idiotic mess for mass, but hardly any Imperial fanatics even seem to be aware of it. In the end it was best to throw out all that garbage and realize that you only need three basic measurements: mass, distance, time. Everything else can be derived from that through physics equations. And so SI was born: "kg, m, s". Everything else is a derived unit, and so no conversion factor is EVER necessary. The multiple of 10 stuff is just to make it easy to scale numbers, and you can scale the meter down as tiny as measuring atoms to as big as measuring galaxies, but it's still just a meter with a prefix for an exponent.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Insightful)
0 C - point at which water freezes, 100 C - point at which water boils.
Yep, totally arbitrary. Lets not even start with Kelvin.
By "a bit" you mean an imperial shitload (2.4358 Metric fucktons) easier. I know there is 1000 millimetres in a metre, 1000 millilitres in a litre, 1000 milligrams in a gram. Same with centi, deci, kilo, mega and so forth. How many furlongs are there in a mile, inches in a furlong? How do we start dealing with tiny fractions of an inch or many hundreds of thousands of miles?
It's also a lot easier to convert between different measurements in metric. 1 millilitre is 1 cubic centimetre (CC) of water (1 cm x 1 cm x 1 cm), 1 litre is 1000 CC's.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Informative)
I would much rather arbitrarily use Mercuries melting and boiling point...Actually I'd like to use the point between it's freezing and when it turns to plasma. WTF is so non-arbitrary about water?
It's abundance. The fact water can be found everywhere and purified easily makes it a good point to start with.
Besides using an object as reference, be it water or mercury is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
arÂbiÂtrarÂy
1. Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
An arbitrary system has the boiling point at 21 and the freezing point at -453.
Also, "Mercury's" not "Mercuries".
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Interesting)
...Chinese glyphs make them more primitive than using an alphabet...
If I may pick up on this one: The Chinese writing system is in fact very far from being 'primitive' in any sense of the word - it is uniquely suited to the Chinese language and continues to this day to be better than all the alphabetical systems that have been attempted over the years: Bopomofo, Wade-Giles, Pinyin and several others. There are two reasons for this, in my view.
One is that the Chinese language doesn't have the same grammatical need for expressing different word forms - there are no inflections etc, so the same word form is used throughout, unlike in English (e.g. 'be', 'am', 'is', 'are' ...). Thus you can use the same character for a word everywhere without the sort of modification you see in Japanese, and there is no incentive to get away from the writing system.
The most important reason, however, is that the Chinese writing system allows you to write all the different dialects in the same way; this means that you can communicate things like common legislation and culture over the whole of that vast country. When you compare things like spoken language or local culture across Chinese, the differences are at least as great as the differences you find in Europe, but all Chinese feel they belong to the same nation - that is ultimately because of the writing system. It is also interesting to note, that the groups that want to break away from China are exactly the ones whose languages are not compatible with the writing.
And of course, once you master Chinese writing, it turns out to be hugely convenient, because it is so compact and concise.
Re:US Metric System (Score:5, Informative)
Aside from the earth not being spherical, its size isn't static either.
That's why the meter is no longer defined by a distance of a physical object - it was defined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum, until 1983 when it was defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1299,792,458 of a second. (more info here [wikipedia.org])
And water at what temperature?
Unless you're a scientist, you generally don't need to account for the small change in density over temperature. If you are a scientist, then you know it's 4 degrees C and you're already using the metric system.
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Funny)
Who writes this stuff.
Me.
Sorry, the thing went through several revisions : )
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Informative)
The U.S. is a signatory to the international treaty of the meter. Our yards, pounds and gallons are defined on the meric scale and have been since the 1890s. The problem is not that the Gov't hasn't adopted the meter, its that the public has decided not to use metric measurements and has openly opposed efforts to convert public signage to metric.
see, e.g.http://science.howstuffworks.com/why-us-not-on-metric-system2.htm
Re:US Metric System (Score:4, Interesting)
We've had the metric system since day one. Ten pennies equal a dime. Ten dimes equal a dollar. Ten dollars equal a ten. Ten tens equal a C-note. People who can make change without relying on a computer understand the metric system perfectly. We had metric before most of Europe. How many shillings in a pound are there, anyway?
UK as well (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how a country that drives in miles, weighs in stones (pounds for other things), and sells things by the gallon counts as metric.
Pints (Score:4, Insightful)
I would hate to see the other units disappear as well but, as far as I'm concerned, someone should always be able to order a pint of ale. Any metric twaddle that threatens that should be thrown out with the other trash.
Cheers,
Dave
Re: (Score:3)
Australia went metric in 1970, and I can still order a pint in most pubs today (though middys and schooners are more Aussie).
Re:Pints (Score:5, Insightful)
You can buy a pint of beer in Australia too, despite the country being otherwise completely metric.
You call it a pint because it is seved in a "pint glass", which by law holds 570 mililitres of beer, rather than the beer served one imperial pint of liquid (which, for historical reasons, it also happens to be).
Re: (Score:3)
Lots more to do with the culture of ordering a "pint" then the quantity.
I suspect it'll be like the US liquor industry though (which mostly IS metric) - even though they don't sell actual pints if you walk into any liquor store and ask for a "pint" they know you want a 375ml bottle. And a "half-pint" is a 250ml bottle (yes, even though that's a lot more than half of 375).
Re:Pints (Score:4, Interesting)
'I arst you civil enough, didn't I?' said the old man, straightening his shoulders pugnaciously. 'You telling me you ain't got a pint mug in the 'ole bleeding boozer?'
'And what in hell's name is a pint?' said the barman, leaning forward with the tips of his fingers on the counter.
'Ark at 'im! Calls 'isself a barman and don't know what a pint is! Why, a pint's the 'alf of a quart, and there's four quarts to the gallon. 'Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.'
'Never heard of 'em,' said the barman shortly. 'Litre and half litre -- that's all we serve. There's the glasses on the shelf in front of you.
'I likes a pint,' persisted the old man. 'You could 'a drawed me off a pint easy enough. We didn't 'ave these bleeding litres when I was a young man.'
'When you were a young man we were all living in the treetops,' said the barman, with a glance at the other customers.
You and this guy [george-orwell.org]. I think Orwell was trying to make a point about history being altered or lost when he wrote this part.
Re: (Score:3)
Or you can say pint and get a half-liter, the customer won't complain!
Re:Pints (Score:4, Insightful)
As a Canadian who has ordered beer in most of the provinces, I can confirm that we order it in pints.
And that's OK. because it's a set size and it's not something that further conversion is going to be done on. You are never going to have to know how many mL of beer you just received.
Actually, as a Canadian you have probably been scammed on pints [onbeer.org]. The US pint (473 mL) is less than a imperial pint (568 mL), and there's a "metric" pint that's exactly 500 mL. In Canada there hasn't been consistency or regulations as to which "pint" bars need to serve, so you might expect a British pint when ordering but actually get beer in an American-sized pint glass. 100 mL difference isn't a lot in absolute terms, but we're talking up to 20% difference in expectation vs. reality.
So no, a pint of beer in Canada is NOT a set size.
Re:UK as well (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, we drive in miles. Stones and pounds are on the way out, ditto feet and inches which are only used to measure people. Anyone born before about 1960 tends to use stones and feet exclusively, anyone born after about 1980 uses metres and kilos. Those of us on the cusp tend to switch depending on who we are talking to.
Fahrenheit (I even had to go and look up the spelling) has completely disappeared. I have absolutely no idea what the weather in Fahrenheit means other than doing some mental arithmetic.
The mile will probably stay for motoring. Much like the guinea and furlong for horse racing and the chain for cricket. I don't know if the pint will finally disappear in the pub. I suspect not but the gill has gone. L.s.d. is not even on the radar of most people born before about 1980. With the replacement of the shilling coin in 1990 and the florin in 1992 the final links and reminders of our old money system escaped from public consciousness.
Tim.
Re:UK as well (Score:4, Informative)
I don't see how a country that drives in miles, weighs in stones (pounds for other things), and sells things by the gallon counts as metric.
I've not seen anything weighed in stones/pounds or sold in gallons for a loooong time. However, I will agree that using miles on the roads and pints for beer (which are both units that haven't been taught in schools for *decades*) is insane. Even more fucked up is that british law relating to road signs states that for short distances, such a sign should be placed multiples of 100 metre away from the hazard but must say "yards" on it - i.e. a "low bridge 200 yards ahead" sign is actually 200 metres from the low bridge. (Placing metric units on the sign, or selling beer in half-litre measures is, of course, illegal).
US metric system? (Score:3)
I can not believe that the metric system was invented by the US. I guess you meant IS metric system.
Re:US metric system? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, these editors, sheesh. You give them an inch, they take a mile.
Re:US metric system? (Score:4, Insightful)
... The other way lies committees and madness.
But you repeat yourself.
Never underestimate familiarity (Score:3, Insightful)
For this to even remotely succeed, at least two generations of kids need to grow up with the metric system (or at least have it along side imperial). Then, when they enter the workforce, metric will seep into common usage.
Meanwhile, what of the generations of existing trades that rely on imperial? I.E. Carpentry, plumbing etc... It isn't just a simple matter of teaching metric either. All these industries and their supporting industries must switch or provide parallel measures (of course, the old timers will stick to imperial in that case, since it's there too). That's very, very, very expensive both in material and time.
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't just a simple matter of teaching metric either. All these industries and their supporting industries must switch or provide parallel measures (of course, the old timers will stick to imperial in that case, since it's there too). That's very, very, very expensive both in material and time.
That sounds like something that will require a lot of work, and will require hiring a lot of people to do that work.
If only there was an unemployment problem in America...
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
For good reason too. Those square drive things cam out like crazy. Use torx next time, please.
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:5, Funny)
Could you pick up some robertson screwdrivers as well? Last time I shipped a crate to the US, they used crowbars to open it up.
Whenever I ship something big to the US, I make a point to attach a note to the outside of the crate warning them about the Robertson screws, and informing them that for their convenience, I have included a pack of Robertson bits inside the crate.
Re: (Score:3)
We were already teaching metric in school (actually in grades 1-4) back when I was in school 20 years ago. The thing is that it doesn't really matter as for the most part its something kids learn and then when they get out into the real world unless they're in specific industries they don't use anymore and they end up getting used to customary units afterwards.
I specifically remember being about 13-14 and going to work with my dad who was a construction worker. He asked me a take a measurement of somethin
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:4, Informative)
How exactly do you think the UK went metric? By killing everyone who grew up on imperial, and forcibly breeding the children in 1969? Seriously mis-understand how this is done dude..
they legislated the problem away 73-80. I was in the cohort who left school friday being taught inches/ft and came back monday alive on cm/meter. I've never regretted learning the 12 and 20 times table.
You'll be telling us people can't learn to drive on the other side of the road next (despite two economies having made the transition in the last 50 years)
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:4, Informative)
For this to even remotely succeed, at least two generations of kids need to grow up with the metric system (or at least have it along side imperial). Then, when they enter the workforce, metric will seep into common usage.
Meanwhile, what of the generations of existing trades that rely on imperial? I.E. Carpentry, plumbing etc... It isn't just a simple matter of teaching metric either. All these industries and their supporting industries must switch or provide parallel measures (of course, the old timers will stick to imperial in that case, since it's there too). That's very, very, very expensive both in material and time.
And yet, somehow, the other 180 countries in the world managed to do it.
In Australia, it was in the 1970s. A few years of "soft" conversions, where you just have to give a metric equivalent, then "hard" conversions where various official weights and measures go to solely metric, "rounded" quantities (e.g. 25 mm instead of 25.4 mm to replace one inch; 100 km/hr instead of 60 mph. Once weather reports stopped giving Fahrenheit equivalents supermarkets and butchers etc all started using kilos there was a burst of resentment but people got over it. The building trade went to mm early on. Rulers still often have inches on one side, but are needed less and less.
But Mexicans already know how to use use metric, so I guess you'll probably go metric about the same time you change your official language to Spanish.
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:4, Insightful)
Many countries that have officially gone metric still use local units for things like building materials.
Your objection really isn't an issue.
Re: (Score:3)
The part that will blow people's minds that relatively new, high tech industries (like PCB design) also still use imperial. We use mils here (1/1000th of an inch) for specifying PCB geometry. Then you merge silicon and package substrate geometry which is always in um, and nobody knows what the hell the other guy is talking about.
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:4, Informative)
AFAICT, American cars are metric and have been for some time.
The only "Imperial" stuff I come across are those used in construction: Plumbing, electrical, steel building components, and other of that sort of ilk, none of which is frequently exported.
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:4, Interesting)
It's worse than that. Half the packages are in mils (such as SOIC, 0603 passive components, SOT-23 etc) and the other half are in mm (TSOP and TQFP with 0.5mm pitch, various LQFPs with 0.4mm pitch etc). So on one board it's quite possible to have some components in mils, and some in imperial, and you have to choose one grid (either a mils grid or a mm grid). Since the PCB fabricators seem to be using mm, I use a mm grid and the PCB layout tool can make traces snap to the component pins of things that are in mils.
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:5, Informative)
The rest of the world uses metric, the efficiencies of mass manufacturing mean that it costs more to create version using imperial units. Switching is a one time cost, the savings [colostate.edu] are cumulative so eventually (given a ROI higher than inflation) you should make your money back.
Re:Never underestimate familiarity (Score:4, Interesting)
What's bizarre to me is that we learn that the human body is 98.6 and that water boils at 100. When I was young I thought that human body temperature was close to boiling. I really doubt that I'm the only person in the U.S. who didn't know.
Most people in the U.S. probably couldn't tell you that human body temperature is ~37 Celsius or that water boils at 212 Fahrenheit.
That's a lot! (Score:5, Funny)
13,000 American signed? That's like 20,000 in metric! (or airplane seats)
Re:That's a lot! (Score:4, Funny)
So one American is equivalent to approximately 1.5 metric people. Yes, we Americans know we are overweight compared to the rest of the world, but that doesn't mean you have the right to poke fun. We just made a "different life choice", that's all.
I actually once got disciplined as a kid for calling another kid fat. We can't help who we are and it isn't right to focus on peoples flaws as it prevents us from feeling good about ourselves. I wonder how much of our overweight problems and poor health is a direct result of all that PC garbage that was crammed down our throats as children.
Re:That's a lot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
People do a couple calculations in college and then they think they know something. It's not simple like multiplying by 25.4. Start with a quarter inch bolt of which there are several thousand on an airplane. Then consider the hole for that bolt. Then consider the drill bit for that hole. Then think about the washer and the thickness of the sheet metal used to make the washer. Work your way back to the rollers that press out the sheets. Think about all the mistakes that are not made due to well understood measurement systems. There is so much to change.
Metric is nice. No doubt about that. Changing over is a gargantuan undertaking. Don't underestimate the difficulty.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Oblig XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/526/ [xkcd.com]
tl,dr: it's better to visualize each measurement than to convert into familiar units.
advantages of metric (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:advantages of metric (Score:5, Funny)
No, the Death Star will use imperial units, duh!
Re:advantages of metric (Score:4, Informative)
Here are a couple dozen examples [colostate.edu].
Good luck with that. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have much of a problem with metric, but I don't think in metric. My children might be young enough to make the transition to metric thinking but this isn't going to happen in their lifetime because...
1. Baby boomers are the biggest demographic group and they will reject a metric transition.
2. If we have to wait for the baby boomers to die off, Gen X and Gen Y will be too entrenched in imperial thinking to make the transition.
3. When the baby boomers die off Gen X and Gen Y will be the demographic groups driving elections and when we're in our 50s, there's no fucking way we'll go along with a metric transition.
4. A lot of Americans like to keep doing things our way precisely because the rest of the world doesn't.
LK
Re:Good luck with that. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand why there is a problem. We should require metric and allow both. Done.
Eventually (in 3 generations, I figure), companies will stop bothering with imperial. In the meantime, everybody wins.
Too Late. (Score:5, Informative)
It won't happen now (Score:3)
hell, it probably won't happen in my lifetime bar a major change in our political zeitgeist that will put "American Exceptionalism" to bed for good.
Stop Acting Like These Petitions Mean ANYTHING. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I read one of these articles, I sense this bizarre attitude that getting 25,000 signatures somehow means that a law will be passed or that something meaningful has been accomplished or that it's important to sign/not sign whatever bit of garbage is being bandied about at the moment. The "We The People" site is about as important, useful, or relevant as a pop-up poll promising you a free iPad for responding. The "response" from the White House is virtually always "We've read your stupid petition. Here's your response: It's stupid.". Laws are not passed in America by direct democracy, and, even if they were, you'd need about a hundred million votes, give or take, not 25,000. 25,000 signatures -- in a population of 300+ million -- are nothing. You can get 25,000 people to sign virtually anything. To get a law to the President's desk, you need to convince 50% of Congress to do something -- actually, more than 50%, given the many procedural obstructions that exist. Absolutely NO MEANINGFUL, CONCRETE, OR SIGNIFICANT ACTION WILL EVER BE TAKEN SOLELY AS A RESULT OF A PETITION ON THAT WEB SITE. Every time a web site or news service acts as if signing a petition on "We The People" is somehow different from writing "I wish the magic fairies would give me a pony!" on a scrap of paper and then keeping it under your pillow, it adds to the "slacktivism" of the American people and undermines any actual progress towards any desired goal, regardless of your political leanings. THE SITE IS A JOKE. It means NOTHING. It will not influence a single vote in Congress. It will not cause the President to take any action he was otherwise not going to take. Every moment wasted signing a petition, asking someone else to sign a petition, asking someone NOT to sign a petition, etc, is a moment wasted from your life (yes, like the moments I wasted writing this). You would accomplish more for yourself watching "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo", because at least you'd be entertained. (I assume, I've never actually watched it. If I want to see drunken redneck idiots, I can drive a mile to my local Wal Mart.)
You are already on the metric system (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Trouble with that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping using one badly designed measure system while the whole world use another clearly superior is not only stubbornness but stupidity.
Re: (Score:3)
> every US city had a different measure system.
It used to be that way. That's why the Constitution has this thing about Congress establishing standard units.
Fast forward 240 years and now the time to go from one continent to the next is shorter than the time it used to take to travel between cities.
So guess what. If you want to sell your stuff outside your village (the US) you have a problem.
Re:Trouble with that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Uhh, the government just has to mandate use within it's own sectors and for contracts. Everyone will switch over very quickly and the only choice you will have to make is how much more you want to spend on an imperial unit version of a given tool.
Re:Trouble with that... (Score:4, Informative)
Europe is 5.9 times larger than Alaska.
Europe has an area of 3,930,000 sq miles.
Alaska has an area of 663,268 sq miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska [wikipedia.org]
Re:Metric . . . the liberal's tool (Score:5, Interesting)
If we are going to adopt a decimal system of weights and measures at least we should go with an American one.
From your link:
"Jefferson proposed to divide the foot into 10 inches, 100 lines, and 1000 points"
This is exactly how land surveying is done today in the US. Steel and fiberglass land surveyor's tapes and leveling rods are graduated in 10'ths and 100'ths of a foot as the standard. It has carried over from the land surveying electronics revolution in the 80s to be incorporated into total stations.
On a total station, you can switch between metric and English at the press of a button, but since land surveying is "1/3rd measurement and 2/3rds law" as one former boss put it, doing measurements in metric when a deed calls out English is just nuts.
--
BMO
Re:Metric . . . the liberal's tool (Score:4, Insightful)
And this is the death knell of US Metrification as a likely future event: The irrational bigotry and hatred of the French exhibited by so many Americans, solely because when the US waged an illegal war based on false premises and deliberate lies, the French decided not to participate based on their own interests and their own democratic system.
Anything French must seemingly be spat upon the moment it is mentioned. Anything French must be inferior, cowardly, belittled etc, simply because its French, and they didn't want to come play in the first Gulf War when the US told them to. Its sad.
Re:*Cough* United Kingdom *cough* (Score:5, Informative)
It's convenient for political organizations to pretend everyone agrees with them.
As of this writing (January 2013) the United Kingdom still uses MILES to measure distance, MILES PER HOUR to measure speed, STONES and POUNDS and OUNCES to measure weight, and FLUID OUNCES to measure volume.
Certainly not true. I've not seen stones, pounds and fluid ounces used in years. I guess people born before the mid-60s might still use them in conversation, but younger generations don't and you won't find them being used in any kind of technical or commercial setting.