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The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

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Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#201

Post by jandrewrogers »

master_crab wrote: post #165
antisthenes wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (From my viewpoint as a millennial. Gen Z might think the golden years were during Obama, or just pre-COVID. To some extent every generation has a point in time that they see with rose tinted lenses.) Of course they do. It's the formative years & youth. Roughly from the time you form a mature consciousness (12-14 yo) to roughly your late 20s or maybe early 30s when all your tastes, preferences etc. are formed.

Oh that is definitely part of it. But new generations also don’t have a point of reference. I certainly don’t know if the 70s or the 80s were truly that great. Outside economic and social indicators (income, life expectancy — all of which should arguably carry more weight anywa) it’s difficult to argue against something if you never experienced it.

For Americans the 1970s were pretty terrible all around when compared to the other decades in the latter half of the 20th century. The 1980s are broadly viewed as a positive decade, albeit not an impactful decade, but the context for that perspective is coming out of a terrible 1970s.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#202

Post by qingcharles »

Symbiote wrote: post #170
GJim wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We also use Pints in pubs And so we should. A British pint is 568 ml. We will switch to smaller metric 500 ml 'half-litre' beers over my dead body. All other imperial measurements can bugger off to the history books where they rightly belong.

Australia switched to 570ml, rounding up. Would that be acceptable?

Do they still call them pints?

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#203

Post by ddellacosta »

gonzalohm wrote: post #89
threemux wrote: post #62

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one. Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally…

Interesting. As an European living in the US. The only US units that I find useful are cups, teaspoons and tablespoons. And that's only for cooking. It's way faster to measure volume than weight (although less accurate)

As a pretty experienced American home baker I don't understand how you can assert that it's faster to measure volume with cups or etc. than to put a bowl on a scale and simply pour stuff in, measuring everything in grams. It's not even close in terms of speed, convenience, _and_ accuracy.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#204

Post by qingcharles »

mschild wrote: post #68
alkonaut wrote: post #47

Having converted science, manufacturing etc, what's the first (or next) true consumer facing thing that could change?

Grocery sizes. In fact, a lot of them already have it on the items. Typically because a lot of products are also sold in Canada so they put the ml measurement next to the gallons.

Mexico too. Anyone immigrated from basically anywhere is more used to buying in metric. And some products have already made the conversion, e.g. soda bottles.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#206

Post by nayuki »

jxdxbx wrote: post #2

The metric systems's worse flaw was doubling down on base 10 instead of the plainly superior base 12.

I hope you're comfortable with changing literally every number in society to base 12. My house cost $42A765_12. My SSN is 399-AA-5866 and phone number is (289) 257-B84A. The distance to the moon is actually 50A693_12 feet. I used the additional symbols A and B as per usual notation, but it's okay if society agrees on some other symbols for the extra two digit values.

If you don't make the base of the number system agree with the base used for converting between units, then conversion becomes so much harder. For example, it's not immediately apparent that 204 inches is 17 feet, but it is immediately apparent that 204 cm is 2.04 m. Furthermore, when the base disagrees with conversion factors, you run into issues like variable-length fields - like, "2ft 9in", "2ft 10in" (notice the inches transitions from one digit to two digits).

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#207

Post by bigstrat2003 »

rickydroll wrote: post #191
threemux wrote: post #62

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one. Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally…

If you want to get even more divisive, try converting people to metric baking measurements. Baking bread and cakes is much more repeatable if you use mass rather than volume to measure ingredients. The results from this recipe were never consistent when I used volume measurements. I converted to mass in metric and now I get consistent results. adapted from: [ https://www.justsotasty.com/wprm_print/11594 ]( https://ww…

I use volume measurements for baking and I get consistent results all the time. Perhaps your recipe is especially gnarly, but that isn't true of all recipes.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#208

Post by qingcharles »

pengaru wrote: post #155

It will never cease to drive me batty every time I try find a metric fastener for an automotive purpose at a local hardware store. There are many reasons I can find for leaving the US, but engaging in DIY projects utilizing local suppliers are what's come closest to pushing me over the edge. Especially in this post-SEARS hellscape of low quality made in china junk the market's flooded with. Now not only can I never f…

I used to end up blowing all my money on ordering from Amazon and paying for same-day delivery, which usually means within a couple of hours in big cities.

I'd always waste my time going to Home Depot etc and getting aggravated at their metric fastener selections.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#209

Post by nayuki »

fainpul wrote: post #19
jxdxbx wrote: post #2

The metric systems's worse flaw was doubling down on base 10 instead of the plainly superior base 12.

Obviously base 60 is superior to all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9m2jck1f90

Possibly yes. But every implementation of base-60 I've ever seen is actually implemented as alternating base-6 and base-10.

A true base-60 would have 60 unique symbols for the different digital values, much like how in our set of ten digits {0123456789}, none of the symbols have any rhyme or pattern with respect to the others.

Good luck memorizing the ~1800 entries of the base-60 multiplication table.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#210

Post by toolslive »

nayuki wrote: post #173
ericmay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, we went over the Metric System that whole year. I can still sing the "Metric Family" song from the film on metric units ("Kilo", "Milli", etc.). And to my young an impressionable mind, the U.S. was joining the rest of the world "Free World" in a kind of Star-Trek-like casting aside of the old things that divided us—joining each other with a focus on progress, science, space… I’ve always found this peculiar be…

> I find the imperial system fits in better with that warmth of humanity Right, so you enjoy warmth such as: 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 stone = 14 pounds, 1 pound = 16 ounces. Lots of useless names and numbers to memorize compared to kilo = 1000, milli = 0.001. > in favor of cultural uniqueness and fun over conformity You're writing in impeccable English. As we know, English is an international language and most definitel…

> 1 foot = ...

hold on: a horizontal foot, or a vertical foot ? 0.30480061m versus 0.3048m

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