It's time for the US to use the metric system • Hacker News Board

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#81

Post by benpanter » Fri, May 30, 2014, 1:56 PM UTC

alphadevx wrote: post #41

the_unknown wrote: post #32

Hearing Fahrenheit in Toronto does surprise me on the few occasions that it happens (usually either retirement-age seniors or American visitors). Recently I noticed the medical profession has come on board with cm/kilos for measurement which is pretty surprising since hearing inches/pounds is still fairly common. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I still find I float between the two fairly easily but I sure did find…

Scotland (as part of Britain) is not metric as far as I know. The imperial measurement system was created by the British after all. The rest of the EU is metric, but not Britain.

We (Scotland / UK) are metric for almost everything - science/engineering, medicine, quantities of food etc.

There are a few exceptions in more human measurements - beer is measured in pints, burgers and steaks in ounces, distances on roads in miles and personal dimensions in feet and inches, barleycorns and stones.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#82

Post by ds9 » Fri, May 30, 2014, 1:56 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #56

k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

In US schools are children taught metric or imperial? For example when measuring a liquid for a science experiment are measurements made in millilitres?

When we're young we're taught the imperial method since it's the customary system. Once we start getting into science classes it's all metric. Still, outside of science classes (and the military) we don't use it at all. Which means we don't have a good working model in our heads of what a kg feels like or how warm a 30 degC day is...that sort of thing. I think most Americans have a pretty good feel for what a liter i…

Amusingly, the areas where the most US Americans are familiar with SI are gun calibers and recreational drugs. [n] (OK, I may have a warped sense of humor, but it's true)

n. (not taught in schools)

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#83

Post by petethepig » Fri, May 30, 2014, 1:57 PM UTC

This reminds me of a joke I heard in New Zealand:

A bank officer recently heard the following explanation for a farmer's financial trouble:

It all started back in 1966 when they changed from pounds to dollars. My bloody overdraft doubled.

Then they brought in kilograms instead of pounds, my bloody wool clip dropped by half.

Then they changed rain to millimetres and we haven't had an inch of rain since.

They bring in celsius and it never gets over 40 degrees. No wonder my bloody wheat won't grow.

Then they change acres to hectares and I end up with half the bloody land I had.

By this time I'd had it and decided to sell out. I just get the place in the agent's hands when they changed from miles to kilometres. Now I'm too bloody far out of town for anyone to buy the bloody place.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#84

Post by shasta » Fri, May 30, 2014, 1:59 PM UTC

sophacles wrote: post #72

sjwright wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like America is the only country that will have ever transitioned. Many other countries have gone through all those issues without much complaint. It's not some untested experimental process being advocated. It's not like the US is going to be using weird-arse inches, furlongs, horses and stones forever.

Wow you must not have read my comment at all. I explicitly said we should convert, but that there are some considerations that need to be made. I even said that now is a better time than ever. Perhaps I'm not being zealous enough with my "hey lets be careful about this as we do it" type statement?

Now isn't going to happen and later might be better. We're transitioning more and more to computers. The transition could be handled more easily if we have a generation of computer programs that can easily handle either. Pervasive language support for units would probably help.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#85

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 30, 2014, 1:59 PM UTC

alphadevx wrote: post #41

the_unknown wrote: post #32

Hearing Fahrenheit in Toronto does surprise me on the few occasions that it happens (usually either retirement-age seniors or American visitors). Recently I noticed the medical profession has come on board with cm/kilos for measurement which is pretty surprising since hearing inches/pounds is still fairly common. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I still find I float between the two fairly easily but I sure did find…

Scotland (as part of Britain) is not metric as far as I know. The imperial measurement system was created by the British after all. The rest of the EU is metric, but not Britain.

[deleted]

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#86

Post by sjwright » Fri, May 30, 2014, 2:00 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #65

I challenge you all to make two changes today with regard to this. First, switch your phone to give you the weather in Celsius. It gets super simple fast: 0 and below - Freezing. Wear a warm jacket and closed toe shoes or boots. 1 - 10 - Cold. Wear an overcoat (a light one if you are used to colder weather) 10-15 - Early spring time. Long sleeves are probably in order, maybe even a sweater. 15-20 - Late spring. Wear…

> I am deliberately not giving conversions to Fahrenheit

But I spent all that effort learning what temperature water boils at in Fahrenheit. Who the hell is going to remember what that temperature is in Celsius??

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#87

Post by pge » Fri, May 30, 2014, 2:02 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #73

These articles are always missing the subtly of the issue. I'm going to ignore MPH signs & mile markers, because they really don't matter much for international interoperability. The important things are focused around dimensions on parts, packaging, engineering drawings, etc. Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer elect…

your comment about having to use imperial in defense industry reminded me of working for the US Navy in the early 90s, where a standard unit of measure is a "kiloyard" (1000 yards) when measuring the range of sonars. Apparently a lot of the early testing had been done using yards as a unit. Since people often round to the nearest whole unit, they thought converting those historical measures to meters would introduce inaccuracy, so they continue to measure in yards, which yields big numbers with modern gear. Rather than use miles (1760 yards) as the ranges got long, they use kiloyards to record all data (presumably because dividing by 1000 is easier than dividing by 1760). Only in America...

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#88

Post by alphadevx » Fri, May 30, 2014, 2:03 PM UTC

g_lined wrote: post #77

alphadevx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scotland (as part of Britain) is not metric as far as I know. The imperial measurement system was created by the British after all. The rest of the EU is metric, but not Britain.

Britain, including Scotland, is Metric. The fact that metrication happened in the 60s means people of a certain age describe the weather in both F or C, depending on the situation. The UK is certainly unique in the EU for its exceptions which include the use of miles per hour for speeds, miles for distances and, for example, 'pints' for beer. But much EU legislation on the sale of goods has been enshrined in UK law a…

> The UK is certainly unique in the EU for its exceptions which include the use of miles per hour for speeds, miles for distances and, for example, 'pints' for beer.

Given that all official road signs for distances and speed limits in Britain are still in miles, I can't accept that it is a metric country.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#89

Post by jmpe » Fri, May 30, 2014, 2:05 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #16

zimbatm wrote: post #9

It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system. I'm in the UK and people talk about sizes in feet and miles all the time even though the society is supposed to have switched to the metric system. There are places like on product labels where both units should be mandatory. Hopefully in a few generations people will gradually switch over.

> It's hard to "make people think" in the different unit system It is, but it can be done in just one generation. The generation that is raised metric finds it even harder to think in imperial measurements, since the imperial measuring system is significantly more complex. Source: I grew up in a fully metric country. I just looked it up, apparently the conversion to metric happened around the time that I was born. I…

Something that is often overlooked: in the EU a dozen countries switched to a different currency overnight. Everything. Accounting and banking, shops big and small, the entire value system was redone.

But after more than a decade I still find myself converting back to the old currency in my head from time to time. Only to remind myself that inflation has made that exercise pointless. The older generation has trouble with it, though.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#90

Post by headShrinker » Fri, May 30, 2014, 2:05 PM UTC

sophacles wrote: post #53

Some thoughts on a conversion that I don't generally see brought up: * From an economic standpoint, the US is a big enough market that it is profitable to make things in weird US units, you have 350M people to sell to, most of whom are pretty well off by world standards. It makes sense to make a line catering to them. If businesses can start making a true or good economic argument it will happen more. * Tooling that…

You touched on what I see as the biggest most long term piece to transition, American tool and die companies, foundries and fabricators. A lot of these companies are based around giant machines with 20 or thirty year life cycles. Switching to metric would be a factory's worst nightmare short of blowing the place up.