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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

#91

Post by notastartup »

kazinator wrote: post #80

I was born and raised in Europe. I live in Canada that has (mostly) gone metric in the 1970's. Yet, I use inches. They are nicer! I recently built a shelf and hanger rack in a weirdly-shaped closet. I used Sketchup to design it, and naturally made everything in inches. Inches are "semi-metric" too, thanks to mils: thousandths of an inch. Mils are very nice units for fine work, like circuit boards. Millimeters are way…

Canadian here as well, but I always thought that we had metric system all along!

I just assumed that everyone was using such standards when I was little and then came things like miles, pounds, yards, foot and I was like wtf, it's so complicated.

I know how long a cm is by pinching my index and thumb finger and measuring the distance between the nails. I know roughly how long is a meter based on my height. I know roughly how long is a km based on my running distance.

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

#92

Post by notastartup »

kazinator wrote: post #80

I was born and raised in Europe. I live in Canada that has (mostly) gone metric in the 1970's. Yet, I use inches. They are nicer! I recently built a shelf and hanger rack in a weirdly-shaped closet. I used Sketchup to design it, and naturally made everything in inches. Inches are "semi-metric" too, thanks to mils: thousandths of an inch. Mils are very nice units for fine work, like circuit boards. Millimeters are way…

Canadian here as well, but I always thought that we had metric system all along!

I just assumed that everyone was using such standards when I was little and then came things like miles, pounds, yards, foot and I was like wtf, it's so complicated.

I know how long a cm is by pinching my index and thumb finger and measuring the distance between the nails. I know roughly how long is a meter based on my height. I know roughly how long is a km based on my running distance.

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

#93

Post by nine_k »

hrbrtglm wrote: post #25

I love the metric system for no better reasons that it's the one I always used as a french, it just seems as natural for me as my ten fingers, I never really thought about it. Yet, I can understand why some would not change their “English customary measures”, they must feel it the same way, thinking it's as natural as their feet. For instance, our screens size (TV, computer, phones) are expressed in inches for whatev…

Screen size is measured as screen's diagonal.

It comes from the times when the screen were cathode-ray tubes. Late CRTs, as in old TV screens, were rectangular. But early CRTs were made circular for technological reasons, even if the device used a CRT as a rectangular screen. For a circular CRT, the diagonal of the rectangular "screen" part was just the diameter.

Since CRTs were invented long ago, and the first scanned video signal image was transmitted in 1907, the industry had time to develop a tradition which is not going to go now.

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

#96

Post by teamonkey »

venus wrote: post #59
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…

The knot isn't quite as arbitrary as most imperial measures.

1 knot = 1 nautical mile/hour

1 nautical mile ~= the distance travelled by someone at the equator in one minute due to the Earth's rotation

Since navigation at sea was strongly dependent on the position of the sun and stars, it makes sense to use a unit of speed that makes your calculations easier.

Even for modern navigation it makes sense to use a unit of measurement based on the circumference of the great circle surrounding the Earth.

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

#97

Post by johan_larson »

JohnDoe365 wrote: post #75

> Likewise, employer-provided health insurance was a historical accident As an European, a stance like that is near to instant execution.

What are you talking about? In some places, health care is a matter between you and the government.

The US has an odd system of subsidized employer-provided health insurance. It covers most workers, except at the low end of jobs. The government, meanwhile, provides direct coverage of the very old and the very poor.

The people who really get screwed in the US system are the ones in crappy jobs, who aren't poor enough that the government steps in directly, but don't make enough that it's worthwhile for their employers to take advantage of the subsidies of employer-provided insurance.

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

#99

Post by Havoc »

jwecker wrote: post #89

I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a limited use-case of) the imperial system is usually glossed over: the fact that in many crafts (especially historically), using base-12 makes certain things much easier. It divides into 3rds far more easily, divides into 4ths slightly more easily, and still di…

>a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units

That to me is the worst of both worlds. The optimal solution is to use one consistent system and the winner is pretty clear.

>carpentry

Certainly. The future is full of 3D printers though.

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

#100

Post by rakoo »

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"

It's not like the metric system was invented yesterday and will vanish tommorrow. Change doesn't have to be instantaneous, it can be gradual over the years (and, as the article pointed out, already is)
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