A mini rant about the metric system--from Canada

Ah, yes--the good old metric system!!! When I started in engineering in 1965 everything was British Imperial---Feet, inches, and pounds. I worked along, quite happily, measuring everything in sixteenths, thirty seconds, and thousanthths of an inch. Then in about 1974, our political leaders, in a fit of uninformed idiocy, decided that Canada was going to go metric, to "secure our future in trading with European business partners". Of course, the dumb shits never stopped to realize that out major trading partner was not Europe, and really hadn't been since the fur trappers hung up their traps. It was the good old USA, and they had no intention of going metric. Then, there ensued about 10 years of absolute insanity in Canada. Nobody knew how hot or cold it was anymore (What the Hell is a Celcius???)---Nobody knew how much they were buying at the grocery store anymore (Uh, Give me 17 grams of meat please). Aeroplanes ran out of fuel, and had to make emergency landings in Aswipe, Alberta at abandoned airstrips (Well Gee, they put 500 litres of fuel in at Toronto---Ya mean thats not the same as a gallon???) Everybody in engineering nearly went crazy, learning all this new metric system. Then we found that when our engineering drawings hit the shop floor, the first thing that happened was that the shop foreman set down with his calculator and converted everything back to British Imperial---because all the readouts on all the mills, lathes, burning tables, etcetera were still calibrated in inches, and could not operate with metric measurements. After numerous machining disasters, all Canadian engineers and designers were told to use a "dual Dimensioning" system, whereby we had to put British Imperial AND metric dimensions on all machine shop drawings. Of course, this resulted in so many dimensions on shop drawings that the poor shop guys could no longer even read the damn drawings--they couldn't see the outline of the part because of all the stupid numbers on the engineering drawings. Now we have gone full circle---and the shops that build stuff for Canada and USA want everthing in inches---forget that metric stuff. The big multi national companies lke Volkswagen, Honda, etcetera want their stuff in Metric---None of that Inch crap. Damn, I shoulda been a hair stylist!!! <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
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Ahhhhh, wasn't it the great American, Patrick Swayze, who once said "Give me Liberty or give me the Metric System".

 

I am a scientist in the good ol US of A. I hate to admit it but the metric system is far superior when doing conversions. But the dual system is terrible.

 

I agree a hectopercent

 

LMAO!!

 

Being a machinist myself I can totaly relate to your frustrations. Having to deal with two measuring systems is a royal pain in the ass. WOW! I just noticed on the weather channel that mother nature is dumping 45 cm of snow tonight!

 

I memember way back in Jr High.....like in the early 60's there was a push to change over to the metric system. It fell through before it got very far. One thing about the metric system is that its much easier to do calculations with and If we had of stuck with it life would be simplier but it would take till all us old codgers died off that were born in the time of feet and inches. Its like having to learn another language and quit conversing in the old one. Our minds just cant grasp how long a centimeter is or how much a liter is or how much weight a kilogram is. Well some of us know how much a Kilo is but thats a different story.

 

Okay---I had the wrong province---it was Manitoba

<MAP name=haut_pageMap><AREA shape=RECT coords=8,13,123,23 href="/index.asp?IDLan=1"><AREA shape=RECT coords=234,0,427,35 href="/index.asp?IDLan=1"></MAP><NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT><MAP name=menuMap11><AREA shape=RECT coords=2,3,117,23><AREA onclick="changerOnglet('21','11','Onglet')" shape=RECT coords=120,3,224,21><AREA onclick="changerOnglet('31','11','Onglet')" shape=RECT coords=226,2,330,20></MAP><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=332 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=332 colSpan=5></TD></TR><TR><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=8><SPACER type="block" height="8" width="1"></TD><TD width=7 bgColor=#f5f0e6 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="7"></TD><TD width=311 bgColor=#f5f0e6 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="311"></TD><TD width=12 bgColor=#f5f0e6 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="12"></TD><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=189><SPACER type="block" height="189" width="1"></TD><TD width=7 bgColor=#f5f0e6><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="7"></TD><TD vAlign=top width=311 bgColor=#f5f0e6>Twelve kilometres above the Manitoba countryside, the unthinkable happens: a brand new Air Canada Boeing 767 runs out of fuel. The 120-tonne, $40-million plane becomes a glider, dropping at over 600 metres per minute with no hope of reaching Winnipeg. Amazingly, the powerless plane makes a successful emergency landing at an abandoned airbase in Gimli, Man. A week later, Air Canada reveals how the newest plane in their fleet could simply run out of gas.
</TD><TD width=12 bgColor=#f5f0e6><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="12"></TD><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=5><SPACER type="block" height="5" width="1"></TD><TD width=330 bgColor=#f5f0e6 colSpan=3 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="330"></TD><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=8><SPACER type="block" height="8" width="1"></TD><TD width=7 bgColor=#f5f0e6 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="7"></TD><TD width=311 bgColor=#f5f0e6 height=1><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=311 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=10> </TD><TD width=100> </TD><TD class=suiv_lay align=middle width=91>1/1</TD><TD align=right width=100>Did You Know?</TD><TD width=10></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD width=12 bgColor=#f5f0e6 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="12"></TD><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=1><SPACER type="block" height="1" width="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD width=1 bgColor=#6e6a62 height=5><SPACER type="block" height="5" width="1"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

They are both good systems.

Just not on the same Car...

I worked on a Ford Truck once that had a little of each.
That was a nightmare to work on...


I think I still have some Whitworth Tools somewhere.
http://www.timebus.co.uk/rlh/whitworth.htm

 

The only person I ever knew who liked the metric system was my uncle---the one who taught me how to drink whiskey and play the fiddle!!! He explained it this way---"All my life I've been telling women that my dick was 4 inches long, and they never got exited about it. Now I tell them its 100 millimeters long, and they can hardly wait to get me in the sack!!!"

 

Man I hear ya, conversions even screw up NASA, isn't that what killed one of the probe missions?

We all need to switch to metric, 100&#37;.

 

I have to say, growing up in Europe, the metric system is far easier to learn than the British Imperial system. 10mm=1cm, 10cm=1dm, 10dm=1m, 1000m=1km so on and so worth. But having lived here in the US for 14 years, I love the "standard" system. As a carpenter it was quite a challenge, in the beginning, when someone asks you to cut a piece of wood, that is 3'-15/16" long.

 

Metric is great for science, but you can't change manufacturing stuff overnight (or even in a decade). So the scientists are using metric, the engineers have to go from metric to whatever the shop is using, and somewhere along the way things get lost in translation.

 

Quit your whining and grab a kilo of beer and relax!!!

 

That was the reason the Hubble telescope took fuzzy pics the first time out and they had to spend a few billion $ of our money to fix it.

 

They have taught the metric system in Canadian schools now since about 1975. They have NOT taught the British Imperial system for about 30 years. My kid helped me build a shed, about 10 years ago. Me---"hand me up that 2 by 4." Him---That What?" Me---For Christs sake, that peice of wood, by your feet!!" Him---"Well, don't yell at me---We don't take inches in school!!!" Me---Okay then, hand me up that 50 millimeter by 100 millimeter board." Him---I don't know millimeters Dad---We only take centimeters." Me--Okay, then hand me up that 5 centimeter by 10 centimeter board' Him---"Which one?" Me "That one thats about 8 feet long." Him---How much is a foot?---Me--- Fuck it!!! Go in the house and send out your mother!!!
I know how those dudes in the Old Testament that were building the Tower of Babel must have felt!!!

 

Make that 3'- 15/16" strong please.

 

not quite...the Hubble mirror had a spherical aberration and needed "glasses"

http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/26/26.html

But the lost mars probe apparently was a metric conversion problem.

 

or 37" on the near side of the line

 

This is all funny shit but all to true. I'm too damn old to learn metrics. My frame is within 1/8" thats all I care about!

 

I had a 1980 Triumph TR7. The chassis was all metric, and the engine standard with some Whitworth here and there just to make it interesting. And yes, I have a pretty complete set of Whitworth tools. Necessary because of my strange attraction to thoroughly decrepit products of the late British motor inductry.

Kurt O.

 

"Aeroplanes ran out of fuel, and had to make emergency landings in Aswipe, Alberta at abandoned airstrips (Well Gee, they put 500 litres of fuel in at Toronto---Ya mean thats not the same as a gallon???)"

You know, Aswipe [sp] Alberta is not far from here - and the toilet paper squares are exactly 101.6 mm on each side . . .

Steve

 

I just about spit Mountain Dew all over my laptop, you funny bastard....lol

So, what do they call 2x4's at your lumber yards?

 

2x4's - outside of fluid and weight measurement (litres, millilitres, kilograms, grams, etc.) there is very little use of metric designations in "real" world applications up here - mostly on paper (blueprints, etc.) and in the scientific arena. Like mentioned earlier, the "shop floor" or in other words the guy that actually do the work tend to use imperial measurements.

I find the most frustrating use of metric is when a house's dimensions are listed in sq. metres - I'm pretty good at metric conversion but that just screws me right up!

On another note, KiwiKev's 9 inch tool would be an impressive 228.6mm tool up here!

Steve

 

in my line of work we do the majority of our calculations in decimal feet
so when we get the drawings from the archetects we convert it all to that
then we do our work and convert it back to foot inch for the various trades to use.
in cad I use a combination of foot inch, decimal feet and decimal inch depending on what I'm doing,
throw metric in the mix? we try to avoid it, but it does crop up sometimes.
at least we've evolved beyond rods and chains
or cubits and furlongs

how about we change the monetary system?
twelve dimes to a dollar and sixteen pennies to a dime

so 40 pennies equals two bits?
..................................
there are 10 kinds of people in the world
those who understand binary, and those who don't

 

I remember here in the good 'ol USofA being taught the metric system, it was the mid 70's and we were told that everyone was going to be using it by 1980....

 

The metric system is still taught in the US, mostly in Science classes.
I wouldn't mind a complete conversion to Metrics now as much as I did back when, but screw the rest of the world, let's keep it just to be American or Canadian. Scientists have used the system forever I guess but they don't design or build hotrods or cars or trucks, do they?

 

I kinda like metric time...ten seconds in a minute...ten minutes in an hour. Yeah...takes you about ten hours to get there....should be home on the tenth for my tenth birthday. Grab a ten pack and lets get ten sheets in the wind!!!

 

i work with both and i say screw the metric sysytem. if you want ease of conversion use decimals....... 3 3/4" = 3.75" !. i use fractions because i'm old school .

 

this just makes my head hurt..