771–780 of 864 posts
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Americans will measure with anything except the metric system.
it's ironic because as a little kid in the US in the late 1970s we all learned the metric system, but we see the "imperial" system everywhere still....like the conversion just never got around to happening. it's confusing.
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Not to be too provocative, but hugely expensive precision equipment being fooled by a microwave oven with the door cut off is exactly what I’d expect from the US military.
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I like how the measurement unit seems to be either small cars or school busses.
Americans will measure with anything except the metric system.
The US was an original signatory of the Meter Convention. Our customary units have been based on metric units since 1893. Our food packaging features metric units. Our scientists use metric units. Our school children learn the metric system. Our military uses the metric system. Our cars are built with metric fasteners.
Changing informal habits takes decades and has questionable benefit. Canada tried it in the 70s and is going to take another generation at least to fully convert for informal use.
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Each one of those sidewinder rockets is half a million dollars. Think about how much healthcare, food, housing, we are burning up with this nonsense.
You’re missing the big picture. The wonderful, open, democratic society that we live in exists only because we secure it against adversaries. China has $1.4B striving, hungry citizens who would love to get a crack at that prosperity. If we let them, they will take it.
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Something funny about the people who are less worried about US spying because there is “oversight” and they are ultimately “democratically controlled”: they seem to be the same people who have very high faith in them working correctly and not against them. So they are certainly not going to be the ones who keep them in check.
The 'problematic people' are those who do not have the capacity to realize the difference between authoritarian regimes and their internal apparatus, vs the need state security with oversight. These people are usually naively driven by some kind of decontextualized political mindset, where the equate the arbitrary actions of some state far away, in same context as local governance, and a big dose of ultra liberal (cl…
(And also bringing up how no state actor only does bad things to bad people in order to dispute the typical “if you’ve got nothing to hide/have done no wrong then you have nothing to worry about”.)
ISIS is worse than a mall cop with a bully streak, but it makes more sense for me to worry about that mall cop while shopping at the mall than to worry about ISIS.
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I think it just comes down to preference since the government never mandated it. Science and engineering all use metric in the US. Automative all moved to metric voluntarily. I know construction is still imperial. Its mostly consumer facing things that still imperial. And if you go to Canada its pretty common to see $/lb printed along side $/kg. People often talk about height in feet and inches, weight in pounds. Its…
Science and engineering all use metric in the US Machinists still do a lot of work in inches.
Machines last for decades and can’t practically support multiple standards. There’s an enormous amount of inertia in such a system.
Similarly aviation uses feet for altitude in most countries.
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I read somewhere that it was traveling at about three football fields per Abraham Lincoln fart.
As a European I still don't know how their football fields compare to our football fields. I mentally assume they are the same to have a frame of comparison.
In this the american football field seems more "reliable" as a unit of measure, seemingly fixed to 91.44 x 48.8 m or 100 yards x 160 feet + the borders that may vary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_football_field
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_pitch
Personally I "convert" a "football field" to half an hectare:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hectare
or 100 x 50 m.
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I read somewhere that it was traveling at about three football fields per Abraham Lincoln fart.
As a European I still don't know how their football fields compare to our football fields. I mentally assume they are the same to have a frame of comparison.
We need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one balloon. Send over the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler (HELIOS) to protect the west coast.
The airforce would have thousands of missiles. Assuming they have some FIFO system they would use missiles heading for expiry.
Not sure how pilot training goes but would assume they have training hours requirement. If a mission covers those hours all the better for more real experience on what they would be flying anyway.
Anyway I don't know this as an expert, but logically seems costs are largely sunk regardless of an infrequent balloon incident.