Imagine it being 2020 and not using the metric system.
Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
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Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#22[deleted]
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#23Imagine it being 2020 and not using the metric system.
I don’t really mind that we’re not on the metric system. I just wish our measurements were consistent as they increase. E.g. foot, kilofoot, etc. instead of foot, yards, miles.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
think renaming a software library is hard? try changing units of measure!!!!!
I think that's what they did in Canada and it worked out great as far as I can tell (except that they had a silly clock based on 10 hours instead of 12 IIRC which had little to do with metric units and nobody wanted it nor was it compatible with the rest of the world).
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#25Imagine it being 2020 and not using the metric system.
I don’t really mind that we’re not on the metric system. I just wish our measurements were consistent as they increase. E.g. foot, kilofoot, etc. instead of foot, yards, miles.
IDK, if you're going to be non-standard might as well go all the way.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#26As an example of a problem that can occur: Client wants to survey the elevations of a parcel of land for building a house. The surveyor goes out and collects data with gps survey equipment, which produces a .csv file of northing,easting,and elevation values relative to some National Geodetic Survey benchmark. The engineer imports this .csv into his cad software, produces a grading plan .csv file. The earthmoving cont…
seems like an issue that surveyors and engineers should be well acquainted with.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#27Mildly surprising that we are not just using meters at this point.
Back in the 90s, new construction for the US Govt was supposed to all be done using the metric standard even though all of the supplies were in US/Imperial units. Can't imagine the headaches that caused. Source: My uncle who is/was a contractor
The Comanche helicopter was subject to this dictum. The original drawings specified all metric fasteners. They found out nobody supplies aircraft grade metric bolts so everything had to be redesigned for the next size up in freedom-units with a corresponding weight penalty.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#28Imagine it being 2020 and not using the metric system.
I don’t really mind that we’re not on the metric system. I just wish our measurements were consistent as they increase. E.g. foot, kilofoot, etc. instead of foot, yards, miles.
What you want is metric, so 10 inches to a foot and so on. Switching makes of units isn’t so bad so long as the multipliers are 10,100,1000
Next you want your units to make sense across dimensions. You want your volume units to ALL be based on your length units. A cubic foot is ok. It then contains 1000 cubic inches. There are no quarts, gallons, pints (unless they are names for decimal quantities of cubic units).
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#29Imagine it being 2020 and not using the metric system.
That's not hard to imagine. Quick, what's 1/3 of a meter? The sometimes problem with metric is it's base-10. The prime factors of 10 are 2 and 5. Feet are in base-12, which has the prime factors 2 and 3. Three is much more useful than five. There are marks on your measuring tape at exactly 1/3 of a yard or 1/3 of a foot.
Metric is often easier and more convenient, but not always. So, in the US, we tend to use metric or customary units depending on which is more convenient for the task at hand. Actually, it's a lot like the UK and other countries where older systems still exist alongside metric. The difference with the US is that we don't have as many unnecessary laws mandating metric. You're an adult. You're working with other adults. You're perfectly capable of figuring out what to do without the input of lifelong politicians who've never measured a thing in their lives. Except for the amount of your money that they're going to spend. They like measuring that.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#30Imagine it being 2020 and not using the metric system.
I don’t really mind that we’re not on the metric system. I just wish our measurements were consistent as they increase. E.g. foot, kilofoot, etc. instead of foot, yards, miles.
And base-2, rather than the computer-unfriendly base-10. Aaaaactually ... with a bit of squinting the U. S. customary volume system(s) define a complete set of base-2 nouns (which could be used as prefixes):
tbspn
oz
jill
gill
cup
pint
quart
half
gallon
peck
kenning
bushel
rundlet
barrel
hogshead
butt
tun
I've always imagined we could redefine a few things to make a "completely rational" U.S. customary measure. That'd be:
1 in == 2.5 centimeters (as Thomas Jefferson wanted)
256 in^3 == 1 gallon (water at 32° F)