View Full Version : Imperial System... oh how i loathe theee!
LOL
Ok first off.. let me just say this up front. Im an American construction worker... and despite using it all my life... i fugging hate the Imperial System.
Yup.
It sucks almost as bad as fractions.
Only thing worse is "Imperial Fractions". Its the devil. I mean seriously.. "Hey Chuck... hand me the 5/8 nut driver... no better make that the 9/32. No that one dont fit either.. hand me the 1254/1340984 driver."
I'm a logically thinking type of person... and mathematically, the imperial system just has no logic to me. Who the hell comes up with Inches, Feet, Yards, and Miles? The system is ancient and needs to die!! LOL!!
Dont even get me started on liquid quantities/measurements!!
but i digress..
I really wish this country would switch to the metric system as i used to hear people say was coming. It will make our lives easier. but i Doubt it will happen any time soon.
I dunno, i guess thats just the way my brain is wired.
So how many of you "Imperial subjects" prefer Metric? And how do the rest of you just not get annoyed when your ruler jumps from yds to miles.
Distortion
09-17-09, 11:21 AM
I know nothing about the imperial system, thats why I use it in SH4, just to learn something about it.
:o
[Quickly jumps down on his stomach before Rockin Robbins sees this thread and the FLAK starts shooting]
:haha:
SteamWake
09-17-09, 11:25 AM
Uhh you know you can change that right?
yes.
I used metric since day 1 of SHIV coming out.
Since i reinstalled SH4 recently after a long hiatus.. i decided to go imperial for a laugh.
It ended in fits.
:o
[Quickly jumps down on his stomach before Rockin Robbins sees this thread and the FLAK starts shooting]
:haha:
oddly, given how long it's been since i visisted this site.. that's one of the few names i remember. Mostly from some tactical/targetting discusions we had.
ETR3(SS)
09-17-09, 11:40 AM
Imperial seems quite simple to me. 1NM=2000yds=6000FT. The ruler jumping from yards to miles is no different than it jumping from meters to kilometers. IMO.
5,500yds = 2.7nm
5,500m = 5.5km
it speaks for itself.
About the only good thing is the Nm/Knot relationship.
If only we could get these sailors to quit using Kts and use Kmh.:D
lol, ok i was just joking on that last one.
vanjast
09-17-09, 03:05 PM
Read up on the Nautical system, and you'll see how much simpler it is, than the metric with regard to global, universal measurements.
This system was developed over hundreds of years of exploration. Had the metric system been easier I'm sure it would have been used, as the metric system was known in the east since baylonian times...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_mile to correct al those incorrect measurements.
In SH4 they've changed the size of the Nm to 2000m (1852m) :nope:
:03:
GerritJ9
09-17-09, 03:21 PM
Grew up in the British West Indies with Imperial (British) measurements including learning how to work with pounds-shillings-pence (even though the islands used dollars!), then learned how to use metrics when I moved back to the Netherlands at the age of 12 so I'm familiar with both systems. Have one SH4 + UBM install with TMO running USN subs in Imperial, and another install with OM running U-Boote in metric. No problem when switching- just seems to come naturally.
Rockin Robbins
09-17-09, 04:45 PM
I'll not repeat myself except to say that the imperial system is a reflection of the natural world which divides itself into twos, fours, eights, twelves, etc, the products of small prime numbers, NEVER into powers of ten so our feeble brains can calculate easily.
Trying to stuff the round world into the square metric hole is just plain silly. Even the metric people are sensible enough to measure boat speed in knots, an imperial measurement in spite of the whitewashing that has occurred.
Yes, it is possible to measure the universe in metric units. Yes, those inappropriate units act as a smokescreen, keeping us from understanding the underlying processes working in products of small prime numbers.
Units are sort of like translating one language into another. If I were translating "Well, that's quite another kettle of fish" into German, I would have two choices: one, to translate the words and leave the German reader entirely clueless about what I said, and two, to translate the idea into the equivalent of "that is another idea entirely" and lose all sense of the underlying language and figure of speech. You can't have it both ways, and perhaps you are best served by having both renditions.
Bubblehead1980
09-17-09, 05:02 PM
lol see the metric system drives me nuts, i prefer imperial.To each his own...
Imperial is not too bad. I was being kind of tounge in cheek about it earlier (well somewhat anyway).
the only thing that really irks me in the game is the yards/nm switch on the tools.
i ping a contact, and he's 28,567yds away. i have to convert that to NM just to place a mark on the map. yeah, its not that big a deal.. just divide by two to get a decent idea (~14nm), but i sometimes find myself forgetting to do that lol.
Rockin Robbins
09-17-09, 08:03 PM
Yeah, it would be nice to be able to do those conversions in the game. After awhile dividing by 2000 becomes second nature. Also remember a target traveling 3 knots is going 300 yards a minute, 100 yards in 20 seconds. One knot is 100 yards per minute.
Yes, imperial measurements are closer to how nature works, metric is strictly for our retarded convenience, but have little connection with reality. It's a lousy choice. But what are computers for?
Reminds me of the all time circle runner stupidity award. I was working as a marine mechanic many moons (about 25 years) ago and from across the yard, a fellow mechanic (pronounced mech' a nick) yelled, "Hey Steve", "Eh?", Hey I forget. How many sixteenths in an inch?"
I had to think real hard before I answered that one... "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?"
Frederf
09-18-09, 01:24 AM
Yes, imperial measurements are closer to how nature works.
Whoa Nelly I've got to stop you there. There ain't nothing "natural" about a yard or a nautical mile. Calling factors of primes more sensible than base-10 is a non-starter. A well distributed basis that's hard to work with is no better than an uninsightful basis that's easy to work with.
There's a subtle but important distinction between the Imperial and Metric systems when it comes to units. Feet and yards and miles and inches are four distinct different units of measuring distance while metric only has the meter. Picometer, kilometer, centimeter, etc are not actually different units of measure but simply modifiers. To have many different units for the same measure is dumb, Metric doesn't do this.
As for extolling the virtues of 1/16ths of an inch... that's not a property owned by Imperial, just commonly used with it. Fractions are not part of the measurement system. I can use 1/32nd of a meter just as easily as I can use 1/32nd of a yard.
The only reason people use knots anymore is due to how ostensibly stubborn the world is such that there are conventions that the metric system wouldn't bother tackling like 60 seconds per minute or 360 degrees in a circle. Radians are the natural unit of angular measure in a Euclidean universe, no matter what base your numbering system. Oh, 1/3600th of the circumference of the Earth... that's reasonable and not arbitrary.
well nautical mile does have somewhat of a relationship to nature. as for the others... they are nonsense, and metric is far superior to them.
FIREWALL
09-18-09, 01:29 AM
Metric is for short dicked guys that want it to sound bigger. :har:
Ok, i gave it some thought while on the crapper earlier... and I'll agree.. Imperial system seems more useful for visualizing things, and for quantities etc. that are practical for use in everyday life. But then again, that could just be 30+ years of using it.
but when it comes to math and computations, imperial sucks.
so yeah, thats my verdict. I think i might be lost if i suddenly had to view the world in metric eyes.. but i'd rather do math in metric.
Rockin Robbins
09-18-09, 02:16 AM
As for extolling the virtues of 1/16ths of an inch... that's not a property owned by Imperial, just commonly used with it. Fractions are not part of the measurement system. I can use 1/32nd of a meter just as easily as I can use 1/32nd of a yard.
And I can and do use decimal fractions of an inch. As a matter of fact, all imperial micrometers are calibrated that way.
The imperial system is a group of measurements loosely based on the measurements of man, to measure a world and items that man uses. For that reason, the units are sized so that they are appropriate for the items they measure. Using units that are a factor of 10 larger than each other makes you use units that are inappropriately large or inappropriately small, with no choice of an intermediary unit.
Using a foot divided into 12 inches lets you divide it by six, four, three or two using whole units, a flexibility the metric system can't even dream of. Architecturally, this makes building pleasingly shaped structures a brainlessly easy task. Small prime numbers unlock concepts buried in a myriad of natural and human processes. Five and two don't cut it.;)
As an experiment to validate my claim. Try writing music by note durations or pitches of a "decimal" type system and see if you can make it aesthetically pleasing. Music and mathematics are intertwined systems, following the same principles. Sometimes music can convey a mathematical concept much better than digits on a piece of paper. Small prime numbers are in the "music of the spheres." (Play the spooky theremin music here)
When I play the U-Boat, I strictly use the metric system. When I play the fleet boat I use imperial. I'm equally adept at both. But the metric U-Boat retains the knot. And the non-metric time and date system. That says volumes.
I'd say that, besides the easiness of calculations, imperial is really only worth to have a better understanding of longitudinal measure units, but not f.e. weigth or temperatures or similars. And the problem comes also in that you do unnecessarily divide and avoid the correct relationship of lenght with weigth. F.e. IIRC an ounze, pound or a stone are absolutely arbitrary, and in no way related with 1 cubic feet/yard of anything. In metric, a cubic decimeter is capable of containing exactly one liter of pure water, which also weigths 1 kilogram and boils at 100º celsius and freezes at 0º. In that sense, we people used to metric have a more intuitive perception of the proportions of mass and volume in the nature than people used to imperial.
The difference is that in the imperial system the units come as RR said from experience and observation done by people (sailors) who were just interested in measures, but not in weigths. The people interested in weigths (f.e. business people in the markets) developed their own system, and there is no relation between them. In metric it is at least coherent, and that's already a lot.
But that said, as someone with a bit of experience in sailing, I prefer imperial for anything nautic related, though of course I also can work well with metrics.
Cheers
Blood_splat
09-18-09, 08:14 AM
I can use both in game but in real life I can picture things better in inches, feet, yards, and miles.
Munchausen
09-18-09, 01:44 PM
The only reason people use knots anymore is due to how ostensibly stubborn the world is such that there are conventions that the metric system wouldn't bother tackling like 60 seconds per minute or 360 degrees in a circle. Radians are the natural unit of angular measure in a Euclidean universe, no matter what base your numbering system. Oh, 1/3600th of the circumference of the Earth... that's reasonable and not arbitrary.
:hmmm: A daunting task. Let's see ... you'd need to change the number of latitude lines from 180 to ... what? 100? That would put the North Pole at 50 degrees north latitude. Divide each degree into 100 parts ... the distance between each part being the new nautical (metric) mile?
:-? Do the same with longitude ... changing 360 to ... what? Not much in the way of metrics unless you either settle on 100 again ... or greatly increase the number of lines to 1000. Either way, you'll need to make major changes to the whole system of time zones. Not to mention the Lat/Long coordinate system.
:03: Btw, the current system is based on navigation ... which is based on time. Clocks. Timepieces. Which are based on the movement of the earth around the sun. 365 days ... rounded off to 360 so time could be divided into smaller units (without having anything left over). The difficulty wasn't so much in using 360 as it was in trying to cram 360 into a base-10 system of numbers (thanks to our "natural" proclivity for ten fingers). Ergo, we have six sets of ten minutes in each hour. And six sets of ten seconds in each minute.
Etc.
Rockin Robbins
09-18-09, 02:22 PM
During the French revolution, when the metric system was strong-arming its way to ascendancy, there was an attempt to kill off the week and the month to make metric time. For once even the French bowed to common sense and recognized how stupid that was.:har:
Frederf
09-18-09, 04:15 PM
:hmmm: A daunting task. Let's see ... you'd need to change the number of latitude lines from 180 to ... what? 100?
It'd be radians, the only unit of angular measure where the slope of angle vs. sine (angle) approaches unity around inflection points. Yeah it'd change the coordinate system and time. I'm not saying it's worth it but that's what you'd do.
Try writing music by note durations or pitches of a "decimal" type system
Music is already written in base-10 dummy. It's all base-10 fractions. Thirds, fourths, halves... this is fractions which are not to be confused with what separates Imperial from Metric. The characteristic distinction of Metric from Imperial is that Imperial has not 10^X conversion factors between units of the same measure or their derived units are not based on simple combinations of base units.
A L is 10x10x10cm. A gallon is ?x?x? inches? Yeah not a pretty number.
In building we rarely use mixed feet-inches when we can get away with it. A stud is 92 and a quarter inches. No builders would call a wall stud 7' 8 1/4." Until around 100" we mostly work in inches unless it happens to be a whole number of feet like 5x10' or something. The mixing of different units for the same measure is unsavory even for an industry most accustomed to it.
The Imperial system suffers due to its age, having come about piecemeal over a long period of time. The streets around the center of Paris are wholly unsuited for modern use but will remain because they were laid long ago without suitable design before modern methods, abilities, and uses came into being.
Kelvin starts at 0, Fahrenheit starts at -459.67.
Rockin Robbins
09-18-09, 11:34 PM
Actually Fahrenheit starts at 0, "damned cold," and goes to 100 at "damned hot." That's pretty damned precise!:D And again based on human perception: a temperature system designed for humans' inherent sense of temperature, instead of some ridiculously ungrokkable and impossible to experience absolute zero.
Musical duration notation is not base 10 at all. It is all based on twos, threes, fours, eights and twelves. Some strange music is based on fives (even then it tends to be counted as two-three or three-two), but it is very rarely encountered and I have played some 7/4 time, which is most bizarre, but that is strictly for showoffs in the music field and never has achieved any popularity outside esoteric classical and progressive rock music. There are no examples I can think of where a measure is composed of 10 beats or any multiple.
As far as the mathematical relationship between pitches, we use a scale based on a scale of C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C. That's 13 semi-tones, a prime number, with 12 intervals. Our major, minor, diminished, and other variant scales are eight notes with varied spacing depending on the type of scale. A major scale, for instance, has seven intervals of whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. None of these mathematical relationships are factors of 10 or a base 10 system. Actually the frequency of the lower C to the C at the top of that scale is exactly double.
Although mathemeticians seem to insist the frequency of middle C is 256 hz, musicians use 262 hz and ignore them. The C above middle C is exactly double the frequency, or 524 hz. This relationship between pitches is also not based on powers of 10. The universe just doesn't work that way. Music agrees with the rest of the universe in working as the products and ratios of small prime numbers. It's really very curious and amazing how our base 10 numerical system hides that central and incomprehensibly important fact.
its 12 semitones.. not 13.
the 13th semitone is the octave of the 1st (.ie same note at different frequency), and hence would be like calling metric a base 11 system.
side note:
It's called an octave because it's the 8th note in the major scale (which all other western scales are based off).
<--- guitar player
FIREWALL
09-19-09, 12:05 AM
Actually Fahrenheit starts at 0, "damned cold," and goes to 100 at "damned hot." That's pretty damned precise!:D And again based on human perception: a temperature system designed for humans' inherent sense of temperature, instead of some ridiculously ungrokkable and impossible to experience absolute zero.
Musical duration notation is not base 10 at all. It is all based on twos, threes, fours, eights and twelves. Some strange music is based on fives (even then it tends to be counted as two-three or three-two), but it is very rarely encountered and I have played some 7/4 time, which is most bizarre, but that is strictly for showoffs in the music field and never has achieved any popularity outside esoteric classical and progressive rock music. There are no examples I can think of where a measure is composed of 10 beats or any multiple.
As far as the mathematical relationship between pitches, we use a scale based on a scale of C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C. That's 13 semi-tones, a prime number, with 12 intervals. Our major, minor, diminished, and other variant scales are eight notes with varied spacing depending on the type of scale. A major scale, for instance, has seven intervals of whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. None of these mathematical relationships are factors of 10 or a base 10 system. Actually the frequency of the lower C to the C at the top of that scale is exactly double.
Although mathemeticians seem to insist the frequency of middle C is 256 hz, musicians use 262 hz and ignore them. The C above middle C is exactly double the frequency, or 524 hz. This relationship between pitches is also not based on powers of 10. The universe just doesn't work that way. Music agrees with the rest of the universe in working as the products and ratios of small prime numbers. It's really very curious and amazing how our base 10 numerical system hides that central and incomprehensibly important fact.
What he said. :DL :up: RR
Rockin Robbins
09-19-09, 01:37 AM
Actually I suppose you could mishandle some liquid nitrogen and experience something close to absolute zero. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience.:eek:
And gutted, I've never played a scale without playing the entire octave, which includes the top note. Actually what your brain evaluates is the 12 intervals, NOT the 13 semi-tones. If you leave off that top note, one octave above the first, you lose that last half step interval that defines the major scale.
Also, if you detune the entire scale by any number of hertz but keep the same intervals, the music sounds fine and you'll probably not even notice. I do that all the time with my chronotron to tune recordings for singers' ranges, although usually I'll transpose by an even number of halftones just out of habit. If I encounter a singer with perfect pitch and don't restrict myself to that convention, they get all discombobulated.
to be technical about it, a diatonic scale by definition is 7 tones.. not 8.
everybody includes the octave in it because it sounds nice playing to the octave and then back. .ie the last half step to the octave in the major scale is not really part of the scale.
on guitar.. the major scale is usually played as two octaves.
GerritJ9
09-19-09, 04:39 AM
Where is the logic in THIS Imperial measurement: 22 yards = 1 chain. It only makes some sense when you know of its origin- but how many (or perhaps how FEW) do????
Or why Imperial gallon (4.54 litres) and US gallon (3.785 litres)?
ever bought a cord of lumber for firewood?
heheeheh.. silly americans.
Iron Budokan
09-19-09, 12:03 PM
LOL
Ok first off.. let me just say this up front. Im an American construction worker... and despite using it all my life... i fugging hate the Imperial System.
I much prefer metric. It's simple and intuitive and straightforward. Can't beat that combination, imo.
Rockin Robbins
09-19-09, 12:26 PM
The facts will never sway those whose minds are already made up. Ease of calculation in the base 10 system is the ONLY advantage of the metric system. Aside from that its units are the wrong size, the mathematical relationships are not in correspondence with the numerical relationships between sizes, frequencies, weights or temperatures in the real world as I have described carefully in the posts above.
Bald statements of "this is better" do not substitute for reason, example and proof.
DarkFish
09-19-09, 12:48 PM
I don't agree with you that the metric system is harder to use because the units would be too far apart. I can estimate pretty well how long a meter is, just as easily as someone who grew up in the US can estimate the length of a feet/yard/inch/mile/whatever. The imperial system might be based on human measures, but I'm positive my feet are a lot bigger than yours:yeah:
Besides, because we've got 10 fingers to count with our natural counting system is base 10.
BTW, Fahrenheit VS Celsius has nothing to do with metric, the only difference between them is that celsius is based on the freezing (0°) and boiling (100°) point of water while fahrenheit is based on brine (0°) and the body temperature of a human (98.6°).
They both make sense, they are only based on other values. It's not like a fahrenheit is divided in 14 feirenhahts which is divided in 8.36 hahrenfeit or something:)
Rockin Robbins
09-19-09, 02:41 PM
Actually the way I was taught way back in elementary school, Mr. Fahrenheit was very scientific about it. He made himself up a mercury thermometer and one day he went outside and said "It's DAMN cold. I don't think I remember any day as cold as this. I'm going to call this temperature zero." and he marked his tube of mercury.
Then in the summer one day he said, "It's DAMNED hot. I don't remember any day as hot as this. I'm going to call this temperature 100. He marked his tube of mercury.
Then dividing the difference into hundredths, he arrived at the size of a degree in Fahrenheit. That 32º ended up being the freezing temp of water was just an accident.
It was a charmingly human way to reckon temperature and one which divided rough extremes of human tolerance into 100 gradations, a great size for the degree in relation to the human being. That's the essence of imperial and traditional measurements. As the Greeks said, rightly or wrongly, "man is the measure of the universe." According to their way of thinking, only the presence of man makes the universe worthwhile at all. I happen to agree with them that our very existence bears with it a validation of our appropriateness and worth in the universe we inhabit.
Our modern (that should be in quotations, I doubt it is in any way enlightened) way of thinking is that man is inherently evil and the universe would be much better off without us. Tree huggers live their lives with the aim of killing off the vast majority of us and forcing the rest of us to live in the stone age. And they act as if THAT were some kind of a service to the planet, which spawned us as the pinnacle of its accomplishments.
So we adopt systems of measure which have no relationship to man whatever, as man is supposedly irrelevant to the universe he measures. Doesn't the Heisenburg uncertainty principle imply that the act of measurement changes the qualities of that which is measured?
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/WantedShoedingersCat.jpg
Frederf
09-19-09, 03:12 PM
Meh, Fahrenheit does start at absolute zero. You confuse the start of a scale and the zero of a scale. Oh absolute zero is cold it would hurt your hands... chuckle, chuckle... is that a logical point or are you just trying to distract?
Music is in base ten, just fractionally. So what if you break a measure up into 8 parts. A half note is 4/8 of a measure. Again you confuse fractions with base. You completely changed topics between talking about how music is composed to the physical composition of tones in order to make me seem wrong. Yeah octaves are based on 2^N math, we all knew that. Base-2 math is not owned by either measurement system.
Ease of calculation is not the only benefit. How about having one bloody unit per unit of measure? What's the sense in having inches, feet, yards, miles for distance instead of a single measure? And Imperial are more convenient? How about a measuring a brake rotor? Are inches or millimeters more natural? How about a film thickness on the order of green light's wavelength? Would you pick mils or nanometers?
I also don't buy this egotistical thing about "man is the measure of all things" where you make it into a choice between a man-based system and a human-abhorrent system. How about the system that isn't based on man but is merely indifferent to man. You don't have to be a tree hugger or some humans are evil type to simply get over the ego about everything being man-centric and get on with it.
The Heisenberg measurement changes the world is hardly man-centric. A measurement doesn't mean a guy in a lab coat with a ruler, it just means any time there is an interaction which requires a definite value. The idea that it takes a person to enact that law... ouch my brain. I guess there's a reason Fark.com has a Florida tag.
[/joking mode on]
I don't know about other countries but here in Spain we are divided in high school in two groups, according toour preferences: Humanities, and Sciences. Those who choose "Sciencies" go on studying maths, physics, chemistry and suhc, while those who -like me- chose humanities get philosophy, latin and history. And it's a classic here :D to discuss against the sciences guys what is more useful, philosophy or maths/physics. In the end, we always beat the science guys because we are better at argumentation, and do you know what? This discussion you are having here is actually a philosophical one, even if you were not aware of it :haha:
Yes, gentlement, you are actually joining one or another of the big sides in philosophy: Realism vs. Idealism
Realistic are those who think that the world is what it is, independently of what we think of it (Imperial measurements), and idealists are those who think that the world is what we think it is (Metric system). Who is right? None of you! Only us guys from humanites :D, who have learnt since long that the discussion yoru are having is actually futile if you want to get the real measure of knowledge :yeah:
[/joking mode off] ;)
Frederf
09-20-09, 02:07 AM
Heh, we at Subsim should throw out all previously made systems and let's make our own.
I think Silent Hunter 5 will be out in 37:12.6 and 3/4 soups!
I was educated in the UK in the 1970's and due to the government's mania about the metric system I was taught to think in Meters, Centimeters, Kilometers, Grammes and Kilos, only to find that when I left school everybody was working in feet inches yards miles pounds tons and gallons.
To say the least, I was confused!
Even now, they sell petrol in litres but we still talk about miles per gallon. If I see a man in the street I could describe him as 6 feet tall or 5'9" and about 14stones, but I couldn't estimate his height & weight in meters & Kilos. Milk is still sold in pints the construction industry works in millimeters and aviation estimates their height in feet. You can buy a kilo of flour or sugar or a pound of sausages.
I am messed up! I wish we had a standardised system that everyone really uses.
Rant over! :DL
Ouch!
Morpheus
09-20-09, 08:35 AM
you guys make up your heads for nothing...
if its called quarter pounder or cheese royal, after i eat it - its gone!
thx for you understanding :haha:
i drive with both measurements in sh4 (us and german campaing) and have no problems with that, its just a questions of logical flexibility *cheers*
Rockin Robbins
09-20-09, 11:51 AM
Knowledge is a little bird that tweets in your ear and tells lies.:D
Frederf: please have a good time while we are talking ideas that have no handles on them.
Munchausen
09-20-09, 10:57 PM
If I see a man in the street I could describe him as 6 feet tall or 5'9" and about 14stones, but I couldn't estimate his height & weight in meters & Kilos.
:O: My wife uses both systems to her advantage. If she's gaining weight, she uses a scale calibrated in kilograms. If she's on a diet, she uses a scale calibrated in pounds.
:cool: You do the math.
DigitalAura
09-22-09, 03:49 PM
It's worse in Canada, gutted.
Here we claim to be metric, teach everything in metric, learn everything in metric, and then get in the real world where no one uses it because everything we buy comes out of the US and everyone we sell to expects it to be SAE.
LOL. We're neither and both and so dang confused about the whole thing! :O:
SteamWake
09-22-09, 04:26 PM
LOL when I was in elementry school / high school we were taught and told that the 'world' including the US would standardize on the metric system within 10 years... that was a lot longer than 10 years ago ;):rotfl2:
Rockin Robbins
09-22-09, 04:27 PM
I don't see why it's so confusing. If you know both and feel comfortable with both you are better equipped to understand the qualities being measured than anybody who is only comfortable with one.
When it's 61º F outside you can say "It's 61º of the difference between damned cold and damned hot" and simultaneously know it's 16º C, 16% of the way from freezing to boiling water.
0º C equals 32º F. 16º C equals 61º F. 28º C equals 82º F. Everything else in human environmental temperature range can be interpolated or extrapolated roughly in a 2 for 1 relationship between C and F.
SteamWake
09-22-09, 04:27 PM
LOL when I was in elementry school / high school we were taught and told that the 'world' including the US would standardize on the metric system within 10 years... that was a lot longer than 10 years ago ;):rotfl2:
Frederf
09-22-09, 07:54 PM
You know I wish I could have a good grasp of weather reports in Celsius. Fahrenheit is what I've come to know but I totally realize it's nothing special. I guess it's kinda nice to say "It's in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s" and those are pretty useful in the scale. I know if I grew up with Celsius I'd feel just as at home with that.
When was it that science classrooms in the US switched to Metric? I can't imagine doing a physics degree in Imperial... I just can't. I mean, carpenters are going to be using feet and inches for a looooong time. I think it's silly to try a forced change... just let 50 years go by such that every living person had Metric taught to them in middle school and it'll come about of its own accord.
It's not necessarily that metric is better but that it's dumbsauce for there to be more than one system worldwide and there's more metric than there is imperial out there.
50F degrees here is damned cold due to the humidity (New Orleans).
seriously, i went to colorado once, and was standing on the balcony of the hotel in shorts smoking a cig while it was like -10 and snowing and didn't care at all. if i did that over here at 40F.. i'd be squeeling.
Rockin Robbins
09-23-09, 09:22 AM
I thought "humidity" was a copyrighted trademark of Florida. The Orlando Magic should have been called the Orlando Humidity.:D
I don't see why it's so confusing. If you know both and feel comfortable with both you are better equipped to understand the qualities being measured than anybody who is only comfortable with one.
When it's 61º F outside you can say "It's 61º of the difference between damned cold and damned hot" and simultaneously know it's 16º C, 16% of the way from freezing to boiling water.
0º C equals 32º F. 16º C equals 61º F. 28º C equals 82º F. Everything else in human environmental temperature range can be interpolated or extrapolated roughly in a 2 for 1 relationship between C and F.
Or as they say in Spain, "cero grados, ni frio ni calor", translates to "zero degrees, neither cold nor warm" end of quote pardon I might have mispelled "cero", I am bi-illiterate!
As for the interpolation its just like the "9's" multiplication table! Sweet! RR has a beautiful mind!
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