At the risk of being lumped in with the negative/unhelpful/HN-is-on-the-decline comment crowd, and I hate naysaying here but... Seriously? 1) If you haven't seen enough of these White House Polls go by yet (and there is a never ending list of inanity, for example: http://www.modernman.com/12-dumbest-whitehouse-petitions/ ) let me clue you in. They do nothing. Nothing. No one reads them. Just go back to wishing on a s…
It does have a lot to do with programming actually. I'm building an international application and I have to convert all my dimensions and weights to make it work in the US.
Imperial is very visible in the UK (for road instances and for beer glasses in particular) but the country is pretty much metric now and has been for decades.
Funny you should mention beer – I've noticed an increasing tendency for pint glasses to be marked "568ml". Milk also doesn't come in pints any more, but does come in 568ml and 1 litre varieties. Still, as a nation we ask for and think of our beer and milk in pints.
In Canada beer is sold in 532ml cans and bottles (18fl oz?). It's funny to put imported and local beer cans next to each other, although they look the same, the local is slightly higher.
Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.
These "apologies" are not gibberish. Measurements units are like words in that they are conventions that enough people agree with to make them useful as a way of communicating. Measurement units exist to help us quantify our world and if two systems do this equally well then there is no recompelling reason to switch. Besides which, what problem would be solved in the process? People will use whatever units they prefe…
> Measurement units exist to help us quantify our world and if two systems do this equally well then there is no recompelling reason to switch.
The world is already nine-tens of the way through the switch. This is a compelling reason to finish the job.
Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.
"Familiar" is a bit off target because it implies that use is a matter of individual choice.
The system is embedded in standards, such as SAE. It is embedded in industries such as construction. It is embedded into statutes, regulations, and deeds for real property.
Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.
The way I explain this one to my European friends is: Do you remember the transition to the Euro? How you had to mentally convert prices at first? And how old people had more difficulties with it in some cases? Now, imagine that, not just for one unit, but weights, lengths, temperatures and volumes, all at the same time.
The UK managed the switch from imperial to metric okay. It's really not that hard.
Would indicate that the process has being going on for some 40 years and is still not at all complete. That to me indicates that it's not "easy" either.
People complain about the usual issues: multiple definitions of a mile, the odd ratios between inches, feet, yards, etc. It gets even more fun in agriculture, where the bushel is a frequently used unit. Now, the bushel is a unit of volume, whereas much of the world prefer to measure their crops by weight. To convert between the two, you essentially need to use conversion ratio (or table) for the crop type, along with…
Why not use metric volumes instead of bushel? You'd have the same conversion issues converting bushel to imperial weights.
Well, at some point, that part of the world decided that they'd use weight to measure produce, as opposed to volume. So now, if you read a scientific paper from Europe, you will get numbers in KG, likely with no indication of moisture content (since they don't particularly care). So, you're left with an inaccurate conversion to bushels, or more likely, you simply don't use the paper. The same goes for the other way around; there's probably a whole lot of rework that happens due to this incompatibility.
Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.
I was raised metric, but still find utility in the imperial system under some circumstances. I use my anatomy to measure things all the time while out on the farm, for instance. You could say step off 914cms, but I think 30 feet makes more sense in the context since you are literally counting your steps.
If you have precise measuring tools at your disposal, then I'm inclined to agree though.
I moved from Belgium to the US last year, and one of the things that surprised me was that metric measures actually see a fair amount of use in the States. It makes a convoluted system even more weird, but it's also just plain fascinating.
2L bottles of coke and 9mm bullets, miles except when people suddenly switch to kilometers, 50 meter pools and 5K jogging runs but a 120 yard football field, 2 oz shaving cream but eye drops come in a 20ml bottle and so on.
The way I explain this one to my European friends is: Do you remember the transition to the Euro? How you had to mentally convert prices at first? And how old people had more difficulties with it in some cases? Now, imagine that, not just for one unit, but weights, lengths, temperatures and volumes, all at the same time.
When do you even deal with these things on a day-to-day basis? These days most people buy prepackaged stuff from the supermarket. I don't think many people go to market stalls and struggle telling the merchant how many potatoes they want. I mean, some do, but it's rare enough that they would probably figure it out quickly.
Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.
"Familiar" is a bit off target because it implies that use is a matter of individual choice. The system is embedded in standards, such as SAE. It is embedded in industries such as construction. It is embedded into statutes, regulations, and deeds for real property. Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.
> (The Imperial system) is embedded in industries such as construction. It is embedded into statutes, regulations, and deeds for real property.
So is the metric system now in most of the world.
And where the non-metric world has to interact with the rest of us, metric is embedded in their processes too. E.g. science done in the U.S. and engineering goods made for export in the US. This comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996646 discusses some of the same issues.