171–180 of 210 posts
What the soi-disant pro-metric faction really wants is to stamp out the English system from the culture. Why can't they tolerate people measuring themselves, their recipes, their temperatures, and their vehicle speeds in their preferred units?
I have lived in Taiwan for six years of my adult life (two three-year stays) and I have become used to thinking metric about overland distances in kilometers or my own height in centimeters or temperatures in Celsius degrees. But over there too, customary units survive long after official metrification, although some of those (like the unit of weight 斤, usually translated into English as "catty") have been conformed to the metric system by being defined in metric units (so that now a catty is half a kilogram). This process may go on for a long time in the United States.
[1] http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/204
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf
[2] http://www.ebsinstitute.com/OtherActivities/EBS.qs2df2.html
http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/life-style/2013-04-04/metr...
1980's: It's time for the US to use the metric system
1990's: It's time for the US to use the metric system
2000's: It's time for the US to use the metric system
2010's: OK, seriously guys, it's time for the US to use the metric system, this is getting ridiculous
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should it also be illegal for the UK to teach Imperial units? I find the European attitude that government should ban everything they don't like perplexing.
> Should it also be illegal for the UK to teach Imperial units? Yes. It's a waste of children's time (and there is a massive market failure in education, so laws are the only way to make changes).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I dislike having to own wrenches in both standard and metric units I think you mean "I dislike having US customary and standard metric units". When it comes down to it, everybody else in the world managed to buckle down and just switch to standard metric units and ISO/DIN paper sizes. There is nothing special about the US that makes it any more of an imposition for them to switch over. Many of the issues you've out…
The UK took a while and still hasn't switched some units. Our speed limits are miles per hour; beer on draught in pubs is sold in pints and half pints (and it is not legal to sell it in other units even if clearly labelled with conversions).
The UK should probably bite the bullet as far as roadsigns and speed limits go. It's about time, really.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is special about the US is that it has a huge population that uses a single set of units of measurement. Europe had zillions of them ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass) , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ell ) units, often multiple ones per country. In some sense, the metric system was a blessing, as it was foreign to all countries. Countries would never have switched to, say, the German standard of measurem…
We here in Ireland decided to move away from dual use of units (miles and km) to just km a few years back. Sure, we're not a big country, but we also have more road per capita than anywhere else in the EU at the very least. Given within a relatively short amount of time, the use of miles for non-trivial distances practically disappeared. Now it's only used in colloquialisms (e.g. "it's a few miles away") or for famil…
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…
What's your point? I also try to only use metric in the us, and a m3 Tap and bolts is cheaper than whatever silly fraction equivalent even buying from.consumer stores here. So, yeah, the economics of all this is crazy.. But i think the point is to improve it even more by removing the odd ones entirely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From an economic standpoint, the rest of the world is a big enough market so that it's worth supporting too. And everybody gains when markets join. About tooling, yeah that's bad. But everybody has 2 sets of tools all over the world, because both US and rest of the world are big markets. A transition won't change a thing, the only thing that changes is that a few decades from now, everybody will stop needing one of t…
> But everybody has 2 sets of tools all over the world Do they? I'm not a big DIY guy but I own a toolbox and I didn't even realize until now that a different set of tools may exist. EDIT: I am not arguing it's not true, I am honestly asking
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…