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

Post by astrodust » Fri, May 30, 2014, 3:06 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #112

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…

It would make a lot more sense if we used a system where 0 was the coldest it normally got, and 100 was the highest it normally got. Way more integer data points, and a lot less use of negative numbers.

Post by polshaw » Fri, May 30, 2014, 3:07 PM UTC

thisjepisje wrote: post #30

shasta wrote: post #21

Cool. Let's get everyone over to the English langauge, too. Think of the productivity gains we're going to have in a generation or two!

English is not a superior language. The metric system is superior.

Post by benjohnson » Fri, May 30, 2014, 3:11 PM UTC

privong wrote: post #45

trothamel wrote: post #37

The strange thing about articles like this is that they seem to assume that converting between units is something that happens all the time, such that doing so is a huge drain on the economy and engineering time. I don't know if my experience is the common one - but with a few exceptions (inches/feet, oz/pounds) such conversions seem kind of rare. Instead, you pick an appropriately sized unit to begin with, and stick…

> (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) It's interesting that you pick that example. In many cases, the "measurements" for lumber don't actually correspond to the true dimensions of the product purchased. For example, a "2x4" has dimensions of 1 1⁄2 inches x 3 1⁄2 inches[0], rather than 2 inches by 4 inches. So, at least for the example you give, it's not clear to me that converting t…

Post by smackfu » Fri, May 30, 2014, 3:19 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #144

smackfu wrote: post #121

It's funny how Celsius gets grouped in with the metric system, even though it really has no benefits over Fahrenheit. http://www.ericpinder.com/html/celsius.html

It has benefits, like it works perfectly with Metric, where Fahrenheit is based on arbitrary numbers that have nothing to do with anything else. A 1x1x1 cm cube of water at 20°C weighs 1 gram and has a volume of 1mL. Temperature, weight, and volume are interlinked this way.

Post by smackfu » Fri, May 30, 2014, 3:21 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #141

smackfu wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make a lot more sense if we used a system where 0 was the coldest it normally got, and 100 was the highest it normally got. Way more integer data points, and a lot less use of negative numbers.

Kelvin starts at 0°. There's a maximum temperature but it's really stupidly hot, where the particles are accelerated to nearly light speed because of thermal energy. The temperature of the sun would be 0.00000000000000002° in your crazy system.