Lincoln Chafee: The US should convert to metric units

[Nice Squirrel]

To suggest such an abomination, he is not only ineligible to become POTUS, his citizenship should be stripped and he should be deported to Reunion Island immediately!

There are a few who think it's a viable campaign issue. "Bobby Jindal administration blasts metric system, Lincoln Chafee"

You have to be careful these days. A headline like this is just as likely to appear on the Onion.

I'd prefer if the world went onto a base 12-system. It's more intuitive than a base-10, but noooo 7 billion people won't listen.

 

[Jayjay]

There are a few who think it's a viable campaign issue. "Bobby Jindal administration blasts metric system, Lincoln Chafee"

You have to be careful these days. A headline like this is just as likely to appear on the Onion.

I'd prefer if the world went onto a base 12-system. It's more intuitive than a base-10, but noooo 7 billion people won't listen.

I think you meant 1.5 billion.

 

[bilby]

Convert??? The world should see how right the Fahrenheit system is! Lets look at how we experience the various scales:

0F -- very cold. 100F -- very hot.

0C -- cold. 100C -- dead.

0K -- dead. 100K -- dead.

0R -- dead. 100R -- dead.

What's more useful??

So the only use of a temperature scale is weather? And you can only comprehend numbers between 0 and 100? Negative numbers too difficult for you?
And even for weather, having freezing temperatures be negative is very useful rather than the very random cutoff of 32°F. And yes, weather at 100°C is deadly, but "regular people" encounter high temperatures like that, for example when cooking. 100°C is seal level boiling point of water vs. 100°F being a random temperature that Fahrenheit chose.
As far as Kelvin, it is useful for science because it's an actual unit (there is no such thing as "degree Kelvin"), not a scale, so it can be used in thermodynamic equations. It is also useful in that a delta T of 1K = 1°C.

You are not allowed to boil seals anymore; Greenpeace put a stop to it

 

[fromderinside]

It isn't preserved its continued with a toss of a dime to those who think metric. Typical inertial response.
Appear to be changing direction but continue on to the same destination.

Today's automobiles are completely metric system engineered. The international market dictates that. There are too many horror stories of mistaking English for metric or vice versa for a mixed system to survive. The most spectacular was the Mars probe in 1999. Since then, everything is designed in metric, and there's no thought of crossovers and conversions.

Built is pretty extreme given most of the problem was in guidance software. Your point xxplains why the US is not among the big players in machine tools too. More true because we failed to retool in the late fifties and early sixties and again in the mid seventies to late seventies. Now we're living on infrastructure built between 1925 and 1970.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So the only use of a temperature scale is weather? And you can only comprehend numbers between 0 and 100? Negative numbers too difficult for you?
And even for weather, having freezing temperatures be negative is very useful rather than the very random cutoff of 32°F. And yes, weather at 100°C is deadly, but "regular people" encounter high temperatures like that, for example when cooking. 100°C is seal level boiling point of water vs. 100°F being a random temperature that Fahrenheit chose.
As far as Kelvin, it is useful for science because it's an actual unit (there is no such thing as "degree Kelvin"), not a scale, so it can be used in thermodynamic equations. It is also useful in that a delta T of 1K = 1°C.

You are not allowed to boil seals anymore; Greenpeace put a stop to it

Where is he saying anything about boiling marine mammals? He's talking about boiling devices that determine if a seal is flat or not!

 

[ApostateAbe]

=40 rods/hogshead * 16.5 feet/rod / (63 gallons/hogshead) = 10.5 feet/gallon. Must be an old car.

 

[fromderinside]

You are not allowed to boil seals anymore; Greenpeace put a stop to it

Where is he saying anything about boiling marine mammals? He's talking about boiling devices that determine if a seal is flat or not!

Who told you you could get away with being literal and spoiling a good tongue-in-cheek comment?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So the only use of a temperature scale is weather? And you can only comprehend numbers between 0 and 100? Negative numbers too difficult for you?
And even for weather, having freezing temperatures be negative is very useful rather than the very random cutoff of 32°F. And yes, weather at 100°C is deadly, but "regular people" encounter high temperatures like that, for example when cooking. 100°C is seal level boiling point of water vs. 100°F being a random temperature that Fahrenheit chose.
As far as Kelvin, it is useful for science because it's an actual unit (there is no such thing as "degree Kelvin"), not a scale, so it can be used in thermodynamic equations. It is also useful in that a delta T of 1K = 1°C.

You don't really think I was being serious, do you?

You are not allowed to boil seals anymore; Greenpeace put a stop to it

Where is he saying anything about boiling marine mammals? He's talking about boiling devices that determine if a seal is flat or not!

 

[Bronzeage]

Today's automobiles are completely metric system engineered. The international market dictates that. There are too many horror stories of mistaking English for metric or vice versa for a mixed system to survive. The most spectacular was the Mars probe in 1999. Since then, everything is designed in metric, and there's no thought of crossovers and conversions.

Built is pretty extreme given most of the problem was in guidance software. Your point xxplains why the US is not among the big players in machine tools too. More true because we failed to retool in the late fifties and early sixties and again in the mid seventies to late seventies. Now we're living on infrastructure built between 1925 and 1970.

There was an interstate bridge that collapsed because a plate that was supposed to be 5 inches thick was read as .5 inches on the plans. The bridge was completed and stood until 2007. The too thin plate was never noticed in 30 years of inspections. Shit happens.

Despite the change to metric engineering in automobiles, the speedometers are still read in mph. Back when digital displays were all the rage, about once a week we got a call from someone who said the speedometer had gone haywire and the odometer had changed. I had to explain that there was a little button labeled E/M. If they pressed this button, everything would return to normal.

 

[bilby]

Built is pretty extreme given most of the problem was in guidance software. Your point xxplains why the US is not among the big players in machine tools too. More true because we failed to retool in the late fifties and early sixties and again in the mid seventies to late seventies. Now we're living on infrastructure built between 1925 and 1970.

There was an interstate bridge that collapsed because a plate that was supposed to be 5 inches thick was read as .5 inches on the plans. The bridge was completed and stood until 2007. The too thin plate was never noticed in 30 years of inspections. Shit happens.

Despite the change to metric engineering in automobiles, the speedometers are still read in mph. Back when digital displays were all the rage, about once a week we got a call from someone who said the speedometer had gone haywire and the odometer had changed. I had to explain that there was a little button labeled E/M. If they pressed this button, everything would return to normal.

The UK still have mph speed limits, but due to rules that make the reduced limits for trucks uniform across the EU, those special limits are not round numbers - for example, the truck speed limit on motorways is 56mph, which is 90km/h. Most UK sold vehicles have speedometers that show both mph and km/h.

In Australia, new cars cannot be registered if they have a speedometer that gives speeds in anything other than km/h; markings giving any other units are not permitted under section 18.5.1.1.1 of ADR 18-00

When driving in the UK last year I found that for the first few days of my visit, I tended to drive at 63mph (100kmh) in 60 zones, unless I concentrated very hard on not exceeding the limit. I didn't get a ticket though, so either I was lucky, or the tolerance of UK speed cameras is at least 5%.

 

[tantric]

how about this change - dates should be written [day of month]-[month of year]-[year of century], which i believe is how it's done in europe. i do this habitually, and i don't really care if others don't understand, though i'd write the date out if it were critical. really, what does 15-06-15 mean? my locker combination? how about 33:04-15-06-15? 4:33 am? yep, and military time, too, dammit.

 

[Axulus]

I'd prefer if the world went onto a base 12-system. It's more intuitive than a base-10, but noooo 7 billion people won't listen.

I think you meant 1.5 billion.

He meant one-thousand five hundred million. Not 1.5 billion

 

[RavenSky]

how about this change - dates should be written [day of month]-[month of year]-[year of century], which i believe is how it's done in europe. i do this habitually, and i don't really care if others don't understand, though i'd write the date out if it were critical. really, what does 15-06-15 mean? my locker combination? how about 33:04-15-06-15? 4:33 am? yep, and military time, too, dammit.

Because writing it numerically as month-day or year-month-day makes it sort properly.

 

[RavenSky]

You are not allowed to boil seals anymore; Greenpeace put a stop to it

Where is he saying anything about boiling marine mammals? He's talking about boiling devices that determine if a seal is flat or not!

I'm going to assume you are also trying to make a joke?

100 degrees celsius = boiling point at sea level

 

[Keith&Co.]

If there's a great overhaul that's needed in the American education system, i think that teaching them how our government really works would be more useful than the metric system.
But no politician's going to base an election campaign on that...

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Of all the problems the U.S. Has right now and needs to spend money and resources on, this is no higher than #7 on that list.

 

[tantric]

how about this change - dates should be written [day of month]-[month of year]-[year of century], which i believe is how it's done in europe. i do this habitually, and i don't really care if others don't understand, though i'd write the date out if it were critical. really, what does 15-06-15 mean? my locker combination? how about 33:04-15-06-15? 4:33 am? yep, and military time, too, dammit.

Because writing it numerically as month-day or year-month-day makes it sort properly.

that would also be fully acceptable, so long as its in order smallest<->largest. sort properly? dude, perl.

 

[Tigers!]

At this point in history, it is hard to take any POTUS candidate seriously when he or she opens his campaign with a call to move to the metric system.

FIFY

 

[Juma]

how about this change - dates should be written [day of month]-[month of year]-[year of century], which i believe is how it's done in europe. i do this habitually, and i don't really care if others don't understand, though i'd write the date out if it were critical. really, what does 15-06-15 mean? my locker combination? how about 33:04-15-06-15? 4:33 am? yep, and military time, too, dammit.

The standard (!) in europe is year-month-day.
As in 2015 06 15
And time as 21 34 58 (hours minutes seconds)


(Seems not used on food though. )

 

[lpetrich]

Lincoln Chafee and the last mile - Adam B. Lerner - POLITICO

But Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has already incorporated it into an attack. In an email to POLITICO, his spokesman Michael Reed said Chafee is a “Typical Democrat — wants to make America more European. Governor Jindal would rather make the world more American.”