Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 363 posts

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

#211

Post by Havoc »

nice_uname_nerd wrote: post #204
Havoc wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Using the right tool for the right job is worth far more than enforcing arbitrary universal consistency. Except units of measure are not "tools"...they are ways of communicating information. And when each person feels the need to enforce their own version of "right tool for right job" then things like the mars orbiter incident happen. >Imagine if we enforced only one programming paradigm, since they're all equivalen…

>units of measure are not "tools"...they are ways of communicating information. How you communicate information is important and has real impacts. Given a graph, you could choose to encode it as an adjacency matrix or as a collection of adjacency lists. Both convey the same information, but nobody would say we should pick one and only one. I disagree with the assertion that measurement units aren't tools or that they…

>Sure, the Mars incident is a call for consistency, but it's a call for consistency inside NASA.

No its not. Realistically space travel is going to be a humanity as a whole deal, not "inside NASA". Remember that the USA is like 4% of the world population. Even if the US contributes 10x more than everyone else per person that still puts the US in the minority. Consistency here is not a "nice to have"...its mission critical.

>That shouldn't affect carpenters

So you propose teaching your future carpenters and space engineers different units of measure?

>approximate by eye.

Approximate by eye? Seriously? Intel is aiming at 10 nanometers. Nobody is eyeballing anything in the modern world. Note...nanometers not nanofeet...this from an American company.

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

#213

Post by kazagistar »

_ZeD_ wrote: post #132
bronson wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that working in hundreds of centimeters is easier?? I guess the system one first learns is the system that feels easiest.

You miss the base-10 point: you can switch in zero time from 240cm to 2.4m and vice-versa, as you can switch in zero time from $2,40 to ¢240 when you expect ¢60 in return. And you can totally ignore the "2", and focus on the "40" part, if you care about the precision, in zero time, and switch back to a global view.

The real problem then is our counting system. If base-12 is the most convenient, then we could count in base 12 too. That, however, is clearly never going to happen, so we are stuck with the less efficient base 10 system.

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

#214

Post by Havoc »

Taniwha wrote: post #208

If I visit Starbucks they sell something called a "Venti" it's part of Starbucks attempt to change the language of coffee so that their regular customers can't order elsewhere. "Venti" is of course Italian for 20, let's ignore the fact that Starbucks appear to invalidly trademarked a number, when I find myself stuck with a Starbucks in an American airport I love to ask "that's Italian for twenty, twenty what?" the us…

>they sell something called a "Venti"

I just stick to small/medium/large and keep insisting on that. The employees inevitably cave (realistically they know exactly what I mean).

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

#215

Post by hrbrtglm »

slyall wrote: post #207
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…

My screen to paper size conversion: 15 inches is almost exactly A4 landscape 17 inches has a 2cm gap around the edges 19 inches has a 5cm gap around the edge 24 inches is A3 landscape or 2.5xA4 in portrait mode.

For such a conversion, you may need however to specify a screen aspect ratio, because even if the diagonal remain the same size, the height or with will vary regarding a 4:3, 16:9 or 16:10 screen.

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

#216

Post by beloch »

Taniwha wrote: post #208

If I visit Starbucks they sell something called a "Venti" it's part of Starbucks attempt to change the language of coffee so that their regular customers can't order elsewhere. "Venti" is of course Italian for 20, let's ignore the fact that Starbucks appear to invalidly trademarked a number, when I find myself stuck with a Starbucks in an American airport I love to ask "that's Italian for twenty, twenty what?" the us…

Occasionally people blurt out "venti" in a place that isn't a Starbucks. The staff always knows that means "biggest cup we've got". Conversely, if I order an "extra large" in Starbucks they always force me to pick one of their sizes and say it's freakin' nonsense name. Also, I'm in Canada (a country that uses metric) and they list their sizes in fluid ounces.

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

#217

Post by Htsthbjig »

For me this is too much rationalization for a single fact: people hate to change, even if it is for the better.

So simple. I study Chinese and I am 100% certain than the reason Chinese did not develop like the West was the printing press and the superior method it is to have to print 25-30 symbols instead of 30.000.

Just look at Chinese and even Japanese delay in getting to use computers as ASCII was so simple compared to their language. Japanese use kanji(chinese symbols) for lots of things.

The Chinese writing came first, the Indian copied the Chinese language and basically improved over them, then the Greeks copied that via Persia, and then the Romans copied the Greeks.

Romans started copying Greek culture because they were so ignorant compared with the Greeks, let alone Chinese at the time.

But at the same time, they started anew.The language was so refined, and it took the best thing of each iteration(better than Greek, better than Indian Scripts, better than Chinese).

I worked with someone doing programming and the fact that I used Vim instead of a visual text editor really infuriated him.

So one day I explained it to him and expended 30 to 40 min teaching him why it was so good for me. He looked confused. One month later he only used vim.

The reason most people don't use programs like vim or emacs is because it takes some effort to learn before you get the benefits.

The same happens with metric or any other measurement system.

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

#218

Post by beloch »

A yard is currently defined by the metric system.

Metrology is the discipline of measuring. It concerns itself with ensuring that everyone has the same definition of measuring units. For a long time, the yard was based on physical standards. i.e. Somewhere there sat a physical rod 1 yard long that all other rods were measured against to define the yard. The meter was defined this way until 1960 too. The unfortunate problem with physical standards is that they change. A physical rod is different lengths at different temperatures and will, of course, gradually get shorter as it's handled and wear occurs on its ends.

The meter is now defined in terms of how fast light can travel in a given period of time. That period of time is defined in terms of hyperfine ground state level transitions of a Cesium atom. Yes, it's complex. However, while a physical standard changes, these standards are built into the laws of the universe and are thus reproducible and fixed for all time. For this reason, the yard is currently defined as 0.9144 meters in the U.S.. No matter how the metric system defines the meter, a yard is 0.9144 meters.

So, the U.S. really has gone metric, at least where it counts. The average American is just ignorant of the fact.

P.S. Even the metric system is not completely free of physical definitions... yet. The kilogram is still based on a physical prototype. However, there are proposals to change that to something based on physical constants. Once this is done, the metric system will be defined entirely in terms of physics.

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

#219

Post by adventured »

melling wrote: post #8

Everyone seems to be missing the most obvious reason to convert. http://gizmodo.com/5786004/these-are-the-three-countries-who... We're a global economy. By the ends of the century, India and China will have pushed us down to at least #3.

The #3 what, economy? That's a stretch. And before that Japan was supposed to become the world's largest economy too. History is littered with terrible economic extrapolations. It's far more likely any given country will stagnate, fall into strife, have a civil war or three, have a revolution, make mistakes and lose decades, etc., than boom for a century. Take for example the fact that few saw China accumulating such immense debt in such a short amount of time, they're now arguably the world's most indebted nation.

And India doesn't look primed to take over any leadership mantle economically. They're an economic disaster still. First they'd have to get their house in order. Having a billion people is anything but a guarantee of inherent economic scale, just ask Africa.

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

#220

Post by jeroen »

XorNot wrote: post #163
jwecker wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you've illustrated, we've come to value precision over intuition. The reason people using metric don't feel like they're missing something without organic units is because people who use the relics of those organic units don't use them in the fuzzy organic sense either anymore. When someone tells me "1 foot long" I expect exactly 12 standardized inches- not something roughly as big as my foot (even though, in my c…

Also because using the metric system you simply take shorthands. 1 inch? About 2.4 cm as far as anyone cares in a casual sense. A meter is about the length of your shoulder to your hand, or a slightly stretch stride. It's actually easier for me to eyeball a centimeter then an inch because I see and use the centimeter all the time. The idea that the units themselves matter is absurd - when you're eyeballing it, you're…

It seems more logical to me to go with 2.5 cm. It is closer to the truth (2.54 cm) and easier to calculate with.
Post reply on HN