What is Digg?314 Comments
- thelastcivilian, on 10/10/2007, -4/+133Drug dealers have been dealing in kilos for years...
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/10/2007, -5/+128Switch. Seriously, it's a brief pain to learn, then it's a lifetime of never having to perform arcane conversions between units ever again.
And then no spacecraft will ever again be lost because a yard is almost-but-not-quite the same length as a meter:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/moi.html - NoOneButMe, on 10/10/2007, -9/+52You _do_ realize that the scientific community already uses the metric system, right?
- GreatDrok, on 10/10/2007, -3/+44Britain is technically metric but still uses several imperial measurements too. Distances are measured in miles and pints of beer are in pints. Weight is commonly measured in stone (14lbs == 1 stone) and height is measured in feet. But for pretty much everything else metric is used. I just moved to New Zealand and here it is all metric. In the end you just have to stop converting. If you stop thinking about miles and just use kilometers you will be fine. It isn't about the measurements, it is about consistency. The UK has almost completely figured it out now and so should the US. Seriously, what kind of measurement is a 'cup'? I have tried following US recipies and 'cups' is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. Cooking in grams and litres is so much simpler. Cups. Give me a break!
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/10/2007, -1/+39Yes, but not consistently. As the poor Mars Climate Orbiter found out.
NASA has since made a policy to only use metric, though, but it's still not universal even among US science organizations. See e.g. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/index.html - Junkyarddawg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+35A teaspoon is an informal measure, but as it happens there are 5 milliliters in a teaspoon, so there's 200 teaspoons to a liter.
How many are there in a gallon?
...and is that an Imperial or a US gallon?
I would argue that inches, feet, yards, pounds and gallons never make sense. How many cubic inches are there in an imperial gallon? How many ounces to a pound? And is that avoirdupois ounces, or troy ounces? Rubbish units. The only thing they have going for them is inertia, that it takes effort to learn new units.
Personally I even think it's unfortunate that decimal time never caught on ( http://decimaltime.hynes.net/times.html ). It would have made many calculations easier. But them's the breaks. - SirZRX, on 10/10/2007, -7/+35come on Americans join the club, i ***** hate converting yards, feet, inches to centimeter or meters!
- Puppetfunk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+24A Kilo? What are you buying wholesale!?
- epj3, on 10/10/2007, -3/+26Simply put, once you've been using the metric system for, oh I don't know - 15 minutes... it's SO much easier and makes so much more sense than SAE and the like.
- lengau, on 10/10/2007, -0/+21That's because a computer is using a binary system, which is 2^10. However, there are two standards about this. One says that a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, but another states that a kilobyte is 1000 bytes and that a kibikyte is 1024 bytes (thus differentiating between 10^3 and 2^10).
I gather you mean Hertz ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz ) when you say hurtz, right (there's a spell checker there for a reason)?
You can easily use Hectahertz if you want. However, the Metric system is based more on 1000 than on 10. There are some exceptions that are commonly used (cm), but in general everything is based on a thousand.
So besides the arguable Bytes problem, can you suggest anything else that's incorrect? - rojano17, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22I like my beer cold and my conversions random
- kman004, on 10/10/2007, -5/+23Reading an american car magazine can be a chore for a Canadian sometimes.. mpg, mph... how many km in a mile again?
- castleking, on 10/10/2007, -4/+19As someone in high school right now, I feel that I have a deeper understanding of the metric system then I do Imperial. I honestly was never ever taught imperial measures in school, but almost always use metric measures for all of my classes which require measures. To me, the imperial system is just something used to buy things. Thats it.
- lengau, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15How many yards are in 1/3 of a mile?
How many fluid ounces in 1/3 of a gallon?
How many Avoirdupois ounces in 1/3 of a pound?
How do I convert square inches to acres?
etc. etc. etc. - Bamborzled, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15How large is a cup? What if I like more coffee in my mug (because I'm lazy) and have a larger mug? What if I don't have a coffee mug but rather a wine goblet? That's technically a cup, right?
- Ajajadude, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15Why we don't just go ahead and adopt the metric system is beyond me. It makes things too damned confusing at times (as someone pointed out above, just look at what happened to that Mars rover...)
Having to learn one system would've saved me one hell of a headache while I was in school. - happytron, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14*sigh*
- lengau, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13@doctechnical - Really? My mom found cooking to be an absolute PITA when having to convert her metric units to Imperial after moving to the US. She still uses her metric cooking utensils and whenever she's outside of the states buys whatever she needs, because the US sizes are annoying.
- lengau, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13@doctechnical -
Number 2 came up twice today (well, once dividing a gallon into 1/3 and once dividing a half gallon into 1/3 the other).
I don't remember when I've ever needed 1 or three, but I generally use metric measurements.
And I was recently given a size (50*50 yards) and needed to convert that into acres. That's just over 1/2 an acre, but I had to use Google Calculator to find that out.
And when did you last divide a foot or metre into three? Especially when you needed more than, say, one mm of accuracy. (By the way, 4 inches is 101.6 mm, which, for almost all everyday purposes might as well be 100mm) - gorac12, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12an area of land 100m x 100m = 10,000 sq m...100 hectares = 1 sq km (1,000,000 sq m)...simple, no? better than one acre being equal to 43,560 sq feet...its comments like the one above, 2.4710538 acres = 1 hectare, that make the metric system seem difficult..it is--if you are teaching it as derivations of US units and not derivations of the base metric units!
- netdawg, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13I didn't know there was such a thing as a metric fanboy. Who knew!
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12Luckily the automobile industry has already pretty much converted. Sometimes I'll find an odd fastener though that is still standard. I don't find this particularly because we're stubborn but because it's expensive for the bean counters to recalibrate the forging machines. But still. On a 2002 vehicle why is there a Standard brake bleeder?! I ROUNDED IT OFF WITH A METRIC WRENCH OUT OF IGNORANCE AND BARELY GOT IT LOOSE WITH PLIERS.
- atdigg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11a little bit of condensed history: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmetric.html
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+14Depends on the industry, in Canada we have been metric for 30 years but the other day I had to tell the dirt guy how many yards of dirt I needed to cover my property...
- bandola, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11Simple. 10 000 square meters. That is a field that's 100 meters wide and 100 meters long. The hectare is a unit that couldn't be easier to keep in mind or calculate large fields of land with.
- HesNikke, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12does that make 1000 metric fanboys a kilometric fanboy?
- happytron, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11It is easiest to calculate "too" the power of 2.
- imdeanlabouty, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Not working for me.
http://www.duggmirror.com - justdave, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9They've been teaching almost exclusively metric in the schools in the U.S. since I was in school (and that was 20 years ago). It's the old folks who are resisting the conversion. You learn the imperial stuff from your parents and on TV (weather reports, etc). In school you learned metric. Most folks my age and younger think metric is better, because that's what they were taught in school. Once the folks my age start getting into power (congress, etc -- probably in the next 10 or 20 years), the conversion will happen.
- xtraa, on 10/10/2007, -20/+29lol, I love the americans with their medieval things like gallons, and whatever all the stuff is called.
It's like times never happend there. Still running round with guns and stuff. crazy but amusing, too. - sockpuppets, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9I like turtles.
- lengau, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11That's probably because of the US looming so much over Canada. Apparently this is common in border areas, but pretty uncommon far away from the border.
- bassoondux, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10From what I understand, the biggest reason the US hasn't converted to metric yet isn't the general population; it's that the old units are deeply rooted into everything engineering. It's not so easy to phase out a 1/4 inch bolt as it is to change the numbers on the speed-limit signs.
- sockpuppets, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11He mows my lawn.
- WaterJake, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8good old Abe Simpson
- stimpack, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Euroz in ur websitez, stealin' ur diggz.
- boyasunder, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Baking is much easier, in particular if you use weights, like you should for precise baking. Measuring in grams is way easier, and more precise, than annoying fractions of dry ounces.
- queenstarsha, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8i wish they'd sneak it up on us faster. quick! divide 3.7 by 12. now divide it by ten. which was easier?
- mikedoth, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8We'll take your Metric system and raise you English. Actually I'm all for using the Metric system... I just don't want to learn a new language.
- hatdrop, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8what kind of non conformist uses the term "we?"
modern american capitalistic society is BUILT out of conformity. trying to create the "all american" family, keeping up with the jones', the whole listen to the government because it knows what's best for you mentality, etc etc. you ever wonder why is bullying so damn prevelant? those goths chose to ostracize themselves right, it's their own damn faults for being weird right? nope its because american society teaches it's children to hate EVERYTHING different.
oh but you hit the nail on the head at the end "only the parts we want," yes it's okay to be different only if being different is by our standards.
if you don't like the way the rest of the world is doing things how bout you gtfo of my planet? - keyboardduder, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7If someone actually figured out a way to make time in base-10 and synch it up with our revolutions as well as our sciences, it would be ***** awesome.
- CrimsonFlash, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Now, if only the US (among other countries) would have their standard screw set as the Robertson Screw.
Metric > Imperial
Robertson Screws > Slot/Star/Phillips/Etc... Screws - Uranium118, on 10/10/2007, -0/+710 000 m2 = 1 hectare
- sockpuppets, on 10/10/2007, -12/+18Digg is American. It's funny, you foreigners running all around it with your mouths and stuff. Crazy but amusing, too.
- Pinhedd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6no *****, Robertson are so hard to strip.
- otakushark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Quick, how many tablespoons in a gallon?
- philoponia, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7A pound is not a unit of mass, it is a unit of weight. The metric equivalent is the Newton.
- Ibox, on 10/10/2007, -6/+12Geography
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Well, having choice sounds like a good plan, until you pull up to a gas station and they sell gas by the icce, or you get your lumber measured in barleycorns.
Measures and units is one time where having one standard is a good thing. - ommand, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7No.
People use the units they are taught. -
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