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Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

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Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#241

Post by atonse »

anthk wrote: post #237
atonse wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same observation here. We (Americans) just don’t care. Not like we’re sitting here huffing and puffing about metric. Nobody. Cares. At the end of the day, the one you’re used to is the one that makes more sense. There is no system that is objectively better “in all situations.” Most people that strongly argue that one is better than the other are usually just saying “it’s better cuz I’m used to it”

Metric is easier. How does the humanity count? By using powers of 10. The usability it's right there. Just keep adding zeros.

But you've just stated that metric is easier mathematically. And I agree with you 100%, for that use case.

But C/F makes absolutely no difference in understanding the weather. Or cooking temperatures. Apart from measuring body temperature and possibly controlled lab environments, there is no situation in life where you need to break temperatures into 1/10 units or benchmark the weather on the boiling/freezing temperatures of water at sea level (I'm talking about the population at large, not meteorologists).

Miles/KM make absolutely no difference in understanding the distance you need to drive somewhere. The fact that a KM is 1000m does nothing to help you understand that the neighboring city is 40 miles (or 64km, or 64,000m) away.

Inches/MM make no difference when I'm doing woodworking. Although, again, no doubt doing the math is easier in mm than adding/removing fractions for inches.

My point is that, one can agree with the simplicity and standardization of the metric system (and I love its consistency) and also argue that it makes no difference in daily life.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#242

Post by atonse »

Moru wrote: post #226
atonse wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same observation here. We (Americans) just don’t care. Not like we’re sitting here huffing and puffing about metric. Nobody. Cares. At the end of the day, the one you’re used to is the one that makes more sense. There is no system that is objectively better “in all situations.” Most people that strongly argue that one is better than the other are usually just saying “it’s better cuz I’m used to it”

One argument would be "the best system is the one that everyone agrees on" [1]. Lower risk for big mistakes. [1] https://everydayastronaut.com/mars-climate-orbiter/

These always make for fun news articles but that's because these situations are rare.

Again, nobody, anywhere that I'm aware of, is sitting around insisting for imperial units as a matter of principle. We just don't care. We use and learn metric where we use it (all the sciences, chemistry, physics, etc in American schools are taught in metric). And we use imperial where we use it, mostly in daily life. And it's perfectly fine.

For example, I personally prefer grams (more because of weight, but still preferred to ounces) to cups (volume) in recipes because it removes density as a variable (a packed cup of flour vs a loose cup of flour)

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#243

Post by spiralx »

dahfizz wrote: post #209
RealStickman_ wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct, but also forgetting the best part. The ratio between width and length stays the same!! This specifically is what allows easy up-/downscaling for an A* size.

How often do you need to scale up or down a printed document? I don't see how that is useful.

Print shops nearly always print multiple copies/multiple pages of a job onto larger sheets and them cut and collate them afterwards, as the print step takes the longest time which includes moving sheets in and starting the print and then stopping the print and moving the result out.

An A1 sheet can fit 4x A3 posters, 8x A4 pages or 16x A5 flyer/booklet pages without any wastage, so all you need is a single A1 printer.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#244

Post by garbagecoder »

anthk wrote: post #238
lucumo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also the metric system is European in origin. As is quite a lot of American culture. Lots of good European ideas got improved on by America. Do one more ;-)

America would be better with just three little improvements: - Celsius temperatures near any Fahrenheit article/post/news. - The metric system. Just scale up and down by ten. You already do it with dollars. So consider it done. - ISO 6801 dates. Year, month, day. Things scale down logically. Years are composed of months; and months, of days. Also, they would be no ambiguity issues.

For the amount of money you're proposing to spend to make America better we could fund universal health care and almost completely fund 2-year college for everyone. I think that would be money better spent. And despite what everyone thinks of our schools, we manage to learn both systems and divide by numbers other than 10.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#245

Post by garbagecoder »

rebolek wrote: post #229
elzbardico wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not an American, I was raised using the metric system for almost everything, but I hate using it for manual work like carpentry and plumbing. For a long time in my country, we used the imperial system for stuff like that, and the change to metric is incredibly annoying and non-intuitive in those domains.

It seems non-intuitive exactly because you are used to imperial: "For a long time in my country, we used the imperial system for stuff like that". If you really were raised using metric not for almost everything, but for everything, it would seem intuitive and you've found the other system strange. And vice versa. That's just, in immortal words of Bjork "human behaviour".

He just said he wasn't American so why would it be intuitive to him?

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#246

Post by garbagecoder »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #197
garbagecoder wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Imperial units are defined in terms of metric units. * The cost of changing over is astronomical * Domains where the metric system is actually better use the metric system * Domains where it does not don't need it. * You have a supercomputer on your wrist. Dividing by a number other than 10 is not such a challenge anymore. * A4 paper is in no way superior to letter. It's just a choice. Replacing American exceptiona…

> The cost of changing over is astronomical as opposed to the cost of not changing over, which is much larger but paid in small increments over time so nobody is bothered enough to do anything about it

That's false. Most domains where it would benefit have already made the change.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#247

Post by garbagecoder »

naasking wrote: post #213
garbagecoder wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assert it will be incrementally better without offsetting for the externalities of the switch, which would take decades. Also the metric system is European in origin. Despite what chapter 0 of every science book implies god did not invent it.

> You assert it will be incrementally better without offsetting for the externalities of the switch, which would take decades The use of SI units is likely measured in centuries. You'll be fine, and you might save a few rockets, rollercoasters and planes here and there: https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf

That one incident is because they didn't use metric in a domain where it would benefit from it. You won't save that rocket by changing how my clothes are labelled.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#248

Post by tssva »

garbagecoder wrote: post #169
tssva wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you bringing up imperial units? The US doesn't use them. The US uses US customary units.

Aside from being overly pedantic, which is the reason I used the term, the doubly overly pedantic reply is that we do have the Imperial system, just redefined to be different than the itself-later-redefined imperial system. Furthermore, the names of the units are from the imperial system, even if the definitions themselves are not.

Try pouring an imperial gallon into a us gallon container and then tell me I'm being overly pedantic.

The names of the units are from the winchester system which is what predated both US customary units and Imperial units.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#249

Post by elzbardico »

garbagecoder wrote: post #245
rebolek wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems non-intuitive exactly because you are used to imperial: "For a long time in my country, we used the imperial system for stuff like that". If you really were raised using metric not for almost everything, but for everything, it would seem intuitive and you've found the other system strange. And vice versa. That's just, in immortal words of Bjork "human behaviour".

He just said he wasn't American so why would it be intuitive to him?

I am not an American, but until a few years ago there was not much of a push to move to metric on things like tools and plumbing. A lot of the world used imperial for such things even if they were not former british colonies.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#250

Post by LarryMullins »

Moru wrote: post #226
atonse wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same observation here. We (Americans) just don’t care. Not like we’re sitting here huffing and puffing about metric. Nobody. Cares. At the end of the day, the one you’re used to is the one that makes more sense. There is no system that is objectively better “in all situations.” Most people that strongly argue that one is better than the other are usually just saying “it’s better cuz I’m used to it”

One argument would be "the best system is the one that everyone agrees on" [1]. Lower risk for big mistakes. [1] https://everydayastronaut.com/mars-climate-orbiter/

> "everyone agrees on"

"Everyone" in what scope? For an international team of engineers and scientists, the answer is obviously metric. But if "everybody" in the relevant context is other tradesmen in America, then "everybody" agrees on the American customary units. It doesn't matter to the latter what the former pick.

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