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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)

#301

Post by JKCalhoun »

wffurr wrote: post #196
JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

>> But then [post-1970s] some kind of shit seemingly started to poison the country. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ - the oil ran out and the post-war boom ended.

If you think being tethered to gold was a good thing I wonder if you also believe wealth is a zero-sum proposal? I would think that the explosive growth of wealth since 1971 would cause most to rethink that.

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

#302

Post by dekhn »

I work across both english and metric all the time (CAD, 3d printing, science, woodworking in the US) - I just mentally switched (age 52) to metric first in my head (specifically, I think "that's 10cm" not "that's 4 inches" when I look at something.

Woodworking became a lot more enjoyable- I don't know why- when I started to think "I need to shave off 1mm" instead of "shave off 3/64 inch" or whatever.

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

#303

Post by JKCalhoun »

mturmon wrote: post #225
JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

Katherine Carpenter Elementary, OP, KS for me, in the same era -- just a couple miles from your school. I share some of the same disappointment, especially going back and noticing disinvestment in the schools, which were one of the gems of the area.

Shawnee Mission was a gem of the Midwest. I was told that only California had better schools (whosaidthat?).

(And then of course Prop 13 came along and impaled California.)

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

#304

Post by eszed »

IAmBroom wrote: post #212
shoxidizer wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frank Llyod Wright lacking warmth and humanity? Never been to Falling Water?

I love FLW, and Falling Water (which I've toured), but yeah: his art tends to be cold, abrupt, and ... unsnuggly.

The only FLW building I've been inside is the Marin Civic Center, and I'd call it the opposite of cold and abrupt. The outside is... weird - and, yeah, the roof leaks, and not all the doors open and close all the way and it costs an absolute bomb to heat and cool - but the inside is full of natural light and wood surfaces and quirky details. I walked around thinking it would be an incredibly pleasant building in which to work.

BTW, Gattica only used the exterior, and I think the entry hall - which they lit very cold. The rest of their interiors were sets, and the vibe of the actual building is (appropriately for the film, but misleadingly for people - like me! - who judged it by that) pretty much the exact opposite of what you'd expect if something like the film is what you think it would be.

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

#305

Post by spogbiper »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #247
spogbiper wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

below zero days are really really crazy cold and above 100 days are really really crazy hot . I don't think the fact that things occasionally exceed the 100 point "normal" range makes it less useful, if anything the out of bounds numbers emphasize the severity of the temperature. it's common where I grew up in the midwest US to hear "wow its going to be BELOW ZERO" as a way to express extreme cold

For me personally “really really cold” starts below -30°C and crazy hot is above +30°C. It’s very subjective and outside of US many areas have climate where Fahrenheit doesn’t make sense at all.

maybe that's why its popular in the US? for most of this country the 0-100 range works quite well to describe the normal range of outdoor temperature. we seem to like 0-100 ranges, for instance speed in MPH works out nicely.. "over 100 MPH!" is a common expression for extreme speed drivers. school grades are often a value out of 100, etc. which makes you wonder why we don't prefer metric lol

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

#306

Post by AngryData »

FeloniousHam wrote: post #177
JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

I understand existing-tool-holder opposition to a new measurement system, but sweet mother I hate fraction math.

Im the other way around and think fractional math isn't used enough because it is so easy and useful. I think fractional maths biggest obstacle is everyone trying to avoid it and not learning it in contexts and methods where it excels.

That said, I still use tons of decimal math because sometimes it is more useful, but not always.

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

#308

Post by AngryData »

nine_k wrote: post #293
beloch wrote: post #242

To those who cling to customary units because... 1. "They're more intuitive". They're not. You're just familiar with what 70 F feels like. If you're used to metric, 70 F is meaningless, but you intuitively know what 20 C feels like. 2. "Metric leads to lots of awkward numbers." All systems will fortuitously have round numbers in some contexts and awkward numbers in others. Customary units are different in that there…

"Customary units" are a varied bunch. The inch-foot-yard-mile scale are not uniform, and not easy to calculate. Their only convenience is easy divisibility by 3. The practical example of uniform scale of this kind is seconds-minutes-hours, which, I suppose, go all the way down to the Sumerian 60-based scale. The mm-cm-m-km are much easier in practice. Sub-inch units are an honest binary system, and as such is pretty…

0F is useful in areas where they salt roads because thats the temperature many salts stop being effective and previously good road might turn to ice sheets.

But it isn't a good reason all by itself.

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

#309

Post by cogman10 »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #300
cogman10 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temperature is the worst metric unit to pick for this. Both the imperial and metric versions of temperature are completely arbitrary. It's really baffling to me that THIS is the one that most people talking about metric superiority cling to. Where metric shines is when you talk about subunits like mg vs g vs kg. You don't do that with temperature almost ever. So so what if water boils at 212F vs 100C? Pinning 100 at…

(A standard horse in standard health, of course).

I mean, say what you will, but a horse is likely to have a similar body temperature regardless their location on the planet. The same can't be said of boiling water. Pretty normal elevations make pretty big changes in water boiling temperature.

You can ultimately also average out temperatures for multiple horses to get pretty close to that 100F.

A better pin would have been something like the melting point of Gallium. Something that hardly changes with a change of pressure.

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

#310

Post by watersb »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #201
master_crab wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> not an impactful decade

The Trump reign is a direct consequence of 1980s Social and Economic policy.

Although the libertarian hellscape vision of the 1980s would reject state ownership of (for instance) Intel, it might embrace the Chevron ownership of the state.

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