Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

Post by dickbasedregex » Wed, Jan 02, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

dmit wrote: post #201

dickbasedregex wrote: post #49

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…

"President Andrew Jackson in the main foyer of his White House had a big block of cheese. The block of cheese was huge — over two tons — and it was there for any and all who might be hungry. Jackson wanted the White House to belong to the people, so from time to time, he opened his doors to those who wished an audience. It is in the spirit of Andrew Jackson that I, from time to time, ask senior staff to have face-to-…

Post by jzwinck » Wed, Jan 02, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #178

fennecfoxen wrote: post #104

There's a couple of things you'd want to consider converting to metric: long distances, short distances/dimensions, volumes, weights, and temperature come to mind. Long distances: swap out a bunch of highway signs, consider that 60mph (a mile a minute) ~= 100km/h, not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible. Volumes: people are used enough to 2-liter bottles of soda, expect the 3.78 liter mi…

>not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible. Very expensive though. Signs normally have a 20 years expected lifetime. Now you need to replace them all at once. Plus a lot of the sign locations need to be changed, unless you want all those "Exit 29 1 mile" signs to now say "Exit 29 1.6 km".

Post by gadders » Wed, Jan 02, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #198

From the petitions.whitehouse.gov petition kindly submitted for comment here: "The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit - despite the fact that practically every other country…

Post by jamesjguthrie » Wed, Jan 02, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

jamesjguthrie wrote: post #131

EliRivers wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British. I live in the UK. I'm in my thirties. I do a person's height in casual conversation (on forms I write it in metres) and driving distance in Imperial measurements (often; I use kilometres when I'm talking to someone I trust to know what a kilometre is, which is generally anyone under about 40). I do depth and altitude in metres, but sometimes I'll use an old chart that has feet (or sometimes fathoms, but…

I'd rather be with the metrics! I'm about to graduate with my design engineering degree, I'm so used to SI units that imperial drives me crazy, but I need to live with it. Regarding the steak point, do you never ask for the 8oz or 10oz steak? For curiosity, I'm just outside Glasgow, where are you? Edit: Gordon Ramsay recipes: http://gordonramsaysrecipes.com/ Butter update: Butter is measured in knobs.

Post by aidos » Wed, Jan 02, 2013, 2:56 PM UTC

rmccue wrote: post #213

danielbarla wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is fairly similar to fuel mileage, where some places use miles per gallon (distance per volume) while others use litres per 100km (volume per distance). Changing systems is fairly irrelevant though, since you can still measure your mileage in kilometres per litre if you want.