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Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

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Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#51

Post by Schweigi »

raldi wrote: post #26
Schweigi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well its rather easy to make your own thermometer using the Celsius scale. Put quicksilver in a small glass tube and put it outside. When water starts to freeze mark the current position with 0. Drop it in boiling water and mark it with 100. Evenly distribute now 98 markings between the two existing ones and voila you have just made your own thermometer :)

Evenly distributing 98 markings is hard. Evenly distributing 64 is easy -- just halve the range six times. That's why the distance from freezing water to body temperature is 64 Fahrenheit degrees.

I don't think its advisable to use my self-made quicksilver thermometer for any kind of body temperature measurement.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#52

Post by nabla9 »

raldi wrote: post #20
kybernetyk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I have the same intuitive feeling with Celsius. I guess it depend on which temperature system you grew up with.

As I suggested on a parallel reply, could you say a bit more about why you feel it makes sense, perhaps with a chart like the one I wrote up?

All natural extremes fit within +100 and -100 beautifully.

110 - sauna is too hot

100 - water boils in one atmosphere

50 - desert hot (record is 56.7 °C (134.1 °F) Death Valley, California, U.S.A. 10 July 1913)

30 - hot (for a finn)

25 - nice hot

20 - use more clothes below this

0 - water freezes, ice forms on roads, lakes etc.

-10 - cold but OK with good clothes

-20 - this starts to be so cold were you need to prepare yourself well if you want to spend more than an hour outside. Temperature inside freezer.

-30 - extreme colds start. You don't enjoy this even when prepared and using good clothes.

-40 - Winter War conditions

-50 - record breaking extremes

−89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) Vostok Station 21 July 1983

-110 Kriotherapy room for treating joint inflammation

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#53

Post by harshpotatoes »

Could you imagine Boeing/lockheed/GM/some some oil company or any other manufacturer going up to their stockholders and saying: "This next year, profits will be significantly reduced as we replace every piece of equipment we own, replace every 1/4-20 screw with an M5, and redesign every aircraft/automobile/widget to meet new metric specifications"

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#54

Post by RVuRnvbM2e »

BruceIV wrote: post #23
raldi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you say a bit more about why you feel it makes sense, perhaps with a chart like the one I wrote up?

I'll bite (and I grew up in one of the colder parts of Canada, so I'd call 0F a cold but not unreasonable winter day). -30: Avoid going outside, if you do don't leave any exposed skin -20: A cold winter day: toque, scarf, mittens, winter coat and boots are must have -10: An average winter day: same load-out as above, but you'll be more comfortable 0: A mild winter day: snow possible, you may leave your winter jacket…

LOL. I'm in Western Australia:

15: Winter. Probably rain and wind.

20: Cool Autumn / Spring, you might need a jumper outside.

25: Vaguely warmish, t-shirt weather.

30: Getting warm, wear shorts and t-shirt.

35: Beach weather, avoid going outside for too long if you're in office attire and don't want sweat patches.

40+: Hot beach weather, stay out of the sun (or in the water) in the middle of the day.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#55

Post by dghughes »

BruceIV wrote: post #23
raldi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you say a bit more about why you feel it makes sense, perhaps with a chart like the one I wrote up?

I'll bite (and I grew up in one of the colder parts of Canada, so I'd call 0F a cold but not unreasonable winter day). -30: Avoid going outside, if you do don't leave any exposed skin -20: A cold winter day: toque, scarf, mittens, winter coat and boots are must have -10: An average winter day: same load-out as above, but you'll be more comfortable 0: A mild winter day: snow possible, you may leave your winter jacket…

Canadian here as well I see some people in shorts at 10C maybe even at 0C mostly "dudes" in their 20s and late teens. I even see bigger (fatter) guys in shorts in the middle of winter now it seems to be a thing.

After a cold winter 0C even -10C feels warm especially if there isn't any wind.

I don't know anyone who zips up their jacket unless it's -15C or -10C and windy.

It's the wind that gets you, -20C is nothing if there isn't any wind.

But really it also depends a lot on perspective since 10C in the spring feels very warm but 10C in the fall feels very cold. Maybe a lot of the descriptions depend on year round average temperatures, I can image people in southern California with a smaller temperature range would not feel as much of a difference as a Canadian would.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#56

Post by Someone »

raldi wrote: post #6

I wish the article had touched on temperature systems; I feel like Celsius is metric at its weakest. Farenheit has beautiful bands: 0's: So cold you have trouble doing anything and just want to warm up immediately 10's: Wear a ski jacket with hat and scarf and gloves 20's: Wear a ski jacket and hat 30's: Wear a ski jacket but leave it open 40's: Wear a wool overcoat 50's: Wear a heavy jacket 60's: Wear a light jacket…

Move to a different climate and your mapping may change a lot. 30 degrees centigrade below zero can feel cozier than 10 degrees above, if the latter comes with rain and wind gales, and 30 degrees above can feel hotter than 40 degrees above if the former comes with high humidity.

I know people who lived in Siberia, but complain about the cold weather in the Netherlands at times when it isn't even freezing.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#57

Post by dalke »

keithpeter wrote: post #30
dalke wrote: post #3

I have some difficulties with the issues described in the piece. "A yard is the distance from your sternum to the tip of your outstretched hand." According to folk belief, it's the distance from the tip of Henry I's nose to the end of his thumb. According to an early definition, "It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard." Who here has an idea of t…

UK: we work in Imperial but things are officially priced in metric, except for beer. Petrol is in pence/litre. So you get price per lb and per kg. Lengths are in millimetres on builders plans (to avoid mistakes with decimal points) but road signs are in miles. Makes teaching basic maths to adults a bit more fun... http://sohcahtoa.org.uk/pages/maths_market-metric-proportion... You would be surprised how many people h…

The UK is a very odd place when it comes to metrication.

My experience in Sweden is that things sold in the 1/2 and 1/4 kg sizes are often measured in grams or sometimes hectograms rather than kg. Meat, for example, is usually given in values which are a multiple of 25 g, even when there's more than 1kg.

This bypasses the need to use low denominator fractions.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#58

Post by vpeters25 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #19

> Well, to be fair, those anti-metric folks had at least one point in their favor: Customary measures make a lot more sense to us. The author is full of it. Whichever system you grew up with will seem natural to you. This misconception comes up time and time again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821501 The article seems like fluff; the author isn't even making novel mistakes. He even says that the metric syste…

> The author is full of it. Whichever system you grew up with will seem natural to you

This is true to at least my case: grew up under the metric system and after 15 years living in the US, still have to mentally convert dimensions to metric in order to make sense of them:

- If you point at something and ask me how far it is, the first number that comes to my mind is in meters, then I say that number and add "yards" or mentally multiply it by 3 and add "feets"

- If you ask me to grab something and give you the weight, the number comes in Kg and I mentally multiply it by 2.2 to give and approximate weight in pounds.

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#59

Post by venus »

harshpotatoes wrote: post #53

Could you imagine Boeing/lockheed/GM/some some oil company or any other manufacturer going up to their stockholders and saying: "This next year, profits will be significantly reduced as we replace every piece of equipment we own, replace every 1/4-20 screw with an M5, and redesign every aircraft/automobile/widget to meet new metric specifications"

I suppose it'd be better than being Boeing and going in front of your stockholders to explain why your marketshare is radically down because you refused to conform to the measurement system 95% of your customers are using.

It's a non-question anyway. Boeing planes already report fuel load in litres. Funnily enough, flight levels are internationally represented in feet (well, 100-feet) so there's a "win" for you. Also, ground speed is measured in knots!

Re: Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America

#60

Post by kps »

dalke wrote: post #57
keithpeter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK: we work in Imperial but things are officially priced in metric, except for beer. Petrol is in pence/litre. So you get price per lb and per kg. Lengths are in millimetres on builders plans (to avoid mistakes with decimal points) but road signs are in miles. Makes teaching basic maths to adults a bit more fun... http://sohcahtoa.org.uk/pages/maths_market-metric-proportion... You would be surprised how many people h…

The UK is a very odd place when it comes to metrication. My experience in Sweden is that things sold in the 1/2 and 1/4 kg sizes are often measured in grams or sometimes hectograms rather than kg. Meat, for example, is usually given in values which are a multiple of 25 g, even when there's more than 1kg. This bypasses the need to use low denominator fractions.

  > Meat, for example, is usually given in values which are a multiple of 25 g
Those used to be 28g, and called ‘ounces’.
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