Lincoln Chafee: The US should convert to metric units

[Jimmy Higgins]

Half of Americans can not name the Vice President. They are not remotely calibrated to the metric system in their everyday lives.

And, the point you did not address is they will see no material benefit from switching.

Metric is easier than English. Much easier. There is nothing to remember, other that deci- is 0.1, centi is 0.01, kilo is 1000, etc...

 

[barbos]

Nobody will suffer from getting rid of Fahrenheit scale.
And considering that americans already know and use metric system, whereas I had not known imperial at all, I don't see much suffering in switching to metric.

Half of Americans can not name the Vice President. They are not remotely calibrated to the metric system in their everyday lives.

What is there to calibrate?
kilogram is 2 pounds
liter is quart,
yard is meter.
Done!

And, the point you did not address is they will see no material benefit from switching.

Material benefit is less weight in having 1 set of wrenches (instead of 2) in the cars, not to mention cheaper.

 

[Bronzeage]

Nobody will suffer from getting rid of Fahrenheit scale.
And considering that americans already know and use metric system, whereas I had not known imperial at all, I don't see much suffering in switching to metric.

Half of Americans can not name the Vice President. They are not remotely calibrated to the metric system in their everyday lives.

And, the point you did not address is they will see no material benefit from switching.

The half who can, are Republicans and their objection to the metric system is that it's ferrun. They want to keep the system of the tyrannical King who levied oppressive taxes and reject the system of our ally who sent ships, troops and canon, which enabled us to kick out our English overlords. It's kind of unpatriotic and treasonous, when you look at it that way.

When this is combined with the fact that all the scientists who say the climate is changing, made all their observations and calculations in the metric system, they know a conspiracy when they smell one.

 

[dismal]

Half of Americans can not name the Vice President. They are not remotely calibrated to the metric system in their everyday lives.

And, the point you did not address is they will see no material benefit from switching.

Metric is easier than English. Much easier. There is nothing to remember, other that deci- is 0.1, centi is 0.01, kilo is 1000, etc...

If you started with a blank slate this may be true. We aren't starting with a blank slate.

And not just mentally, we already have signs and dials and gauges and crap, even.

 

[Bomb#20]

People that would slug you if you suggested they cannot read cheerfully brag that they would fail basic math skills already, so they'll wear their metrics-illiteracy with pride...

They wouldn't slug you. They'd pound you. Get your units straight.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

People that would slug you if you suggested they cannot read cheerfully brag that they would fail basic math skills already, so they'll wear their metrics-illiteracy with pride...

They wouldn't slug you. They'd pound you. Get your units straight.

Is that lbm or lbf?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

They wouldn't slug you. They'd pound you. Get your units straight.

Is that lbm or lbf?

The point is that if you get into a ruffle with someone who's got a stone on you, they'll just put the boot in.

 

[Bomb#20]

1 cc of water is 1 gram
1 liter of water is 1 kg
1 cubic meter if water is 1 ton
gold is roughly 19 times more dense than water so 1 cc of gold is ~19 grams
and 1 m^3 is 19 tons


1 galon of water, can you tell how many pounds is that?
Imperial system is stupid.

About 8 pounds. 1 cf of water is 62.4 pounds and there are roughly 8 gallons per cubic foot. But those are numbers I need to know for work, so I'm an outlier.

No, it's ten pounds -- like he said, the Imperial system is stupid. Everybody knows a real gallon is 8 pounds of water. The Imperial system's ten pound gallon is as lame as a 110 yard football field where you have to punt on 3rd down.

 

[arkirk]

Part of the reasons that this whole unit of measure thing has not been resolved is that modern computers and computation devices are easily outfitted with algorithms to make these units fit into engineering calculations and the actual human labor in that type of calculation has almost vanished. I believe if we were still back in the days of slide rules, things would be different. We really should all be on one system world wide, but the changeover has actually become less important over time.

 

[Bomb#20]

They wouldn't slug you. They'd pound you. Get your units straight.

Is that lbm or lbf?

lb. "lbf" is an idiotic acronym who's only purpose is to offer unmerited legitimacy to the lbm, an abomination exceeded only by the cgs system. The pound is a unit of force, not mass. Get over it.

 

[crazyfingers]

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.

Yes and no. I batch rename all my photo files Year Month Day hour(24) minute and second for proper sorting.

By the way, when are we going to the 24 hour day and skip the AM/PM thing? I think that Lincoln should get on that too.

 

[dismal]

Part of the reasons that this whole unit of measure thing has not been resolved is that modern computers and computation devices are easily outfitted with algorithms to make these units fit into engineering calculations and the actual human labor in that type of calculation has almost vanished. I believe if we were still back in the days of slide rules, things would be different. We really should all be on one system world wide, but the changeover has actually become less important over time.

It would seem to be a higher priority for the whole world to speak one language.

 

[Keith&Co.]

People that would slug you if you suggested they cannot read cheerfully brag that they would fail basic math skills already, so they'll wear their metrics-illiteracy with pride...

They wouldn't slug you. They'd pound you. Get your units straight.

No, 'slug' is the metric. My speech patterns are influenced by my service, and the service has gone metric. I can't begin to count the number of times i've been professionally assessed to be in a 'metric shit-ton of trouble.'

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

I think it would be beneficial for men to switch. Penis lengths would sound more impressive in centimetres until people got used to the measure.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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

This sub-thread started because Derec wrote "seal level" rather than "sea level".

Bilby interpreted it as talking about boiling seals (the animals) but I didn't feel the grammar worked and instead interpreted it as boiling levels (tools) meant for measuring seals.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

1 cc of water is 1 gram
1 liter of water is 1 kg
1 cubic meter if water is 1 ton
gold is roughly 19 times more dense than water so 1 cc of gold is ~19 grams
and 1 m^3 is 19 tons


1 gallon of water, can you tell how many pounds is that?
and gallon is probably not based on unit of length, am i right?

Imperial system is fucking retarded

A pint, a pound the world around.

Thus a gallon is 8 pounds.

 

[dismal]

1 cc of water is 1 gram
1 liter of water is 1 kg
1 cubic meter if water is 1 ton
gold is roughly 19 times more dense than water so 1 cc of gold is ~19 grams
and 1 m^3 is 19 tons


1 gallon of water, can you tell how many pounds is that?
and gallon is probably not based on unit of length, am i right?

Imperial system is fucking retarded

A pint, a pound the world around.

Thus a gallon is 8 pounds.

This can be derived from the devilishly complex English system conversion that one fluid ounce of water weighs 1 ounce.

Or close enough anyway.

 

[bilby]

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?

I tried making that assumption, but it conflicts with the observed outcome.

 

[Bronzeage]

1 cc of water is 1 gram
1 liter of water is 1 kg
1 cubic meter if water is 1 ton
gold is roughly 19 times more dense than water so 1 cc of gold is ~19 grams
and 1 m^3 is 19 tons


1 gallon of water, can you tell how many pounds is that?
and gallon is probably not based on unit of length, am i right?

Imperial system is fucking retarded

A pint, a pound the world around.

Thus a gallon is 8 pounds.

Actually, a gallon weights 8.34 pounds, which means 3 gallons of water weighs 25 pounds, not 24. This would become a serious error when dealing with large quantities of water. There is no natural relationship between a gallon of water and it's weight or mass and any true calculation requires the units to be decimalized. Decimalization is just shoehorning English units into a metric system, so some sort of correct answer can be obtained.

Somewhere in my collection, I have an Engineer's tape(a steel tape measure) which is marked in increments of a 1/10th of a foot and 1/100th of a foot.

 

[Bomb#20]

A pint, a pound the world around.

Thus a gallon is 8 pounds.

This can be derived from the devilishly complex English system conversion that one fluid ounce of water weighs 1 ounce.

Or close enough anyway.

But it isn't, because in the English system a pint is 20 fluid ounces. It's the U.S. pint that's 16. A pint isn't a pound the world around, unless the sun now never sets on the American empire.