A mini rant about the metric system--from Canada

"Hey Brian.. wanna REALLY mess with your kid's mind? School him in standard measurements and get the poor lad to measure a 2 by 4 with a standard tape measure!"
Hey, I'm a HAMBer...I only use real 2X4's from 1932 and earlier, from before when the accountants started messing around with their puppet "American Lumber Standards Committee"! Measure them, carbon date, reject all inferior modernisms!

 

link is messed up? try

http://www.metricsucks.org/

 

That's stupid. Why not use kilometers/litre? if you have a car that gets 3.0L/100Km that's the same as 33.3km/L. Which is simpler to understand and relate too?

I am neither for or agaisnt either system. I just want to see some common sense used in application.

And I totally with you on the whole screwed at the gaspump story you relate. I remeber my Canadian family bitchign about that too.

 

If the metrics people REALLY had their act together, the switch might not have been too bad. But, when they start using kilograms as force units, you realize there's no end to the confusion.

But, of course, there's no convenient metric unit for force. And, who was the idiot who came up with the "pond" (the weight of one gram)? Did he suppose there'd never be any confusion between "pond" and "pound"?

As for conversions, the only engineers who have problems are those who make their conversions piece-meal. I was taught to make a long horizontal line on the paper and then multiply by unity in the form of equivalence ratios. If this is done, wacky conversions like miles per hour to furlongs per fortnight can be made quickly and without error.

 

I thought that Newton [N] was the metric unit of force....

 

My Dad, my brother and I all wear size 14 shoes. And yes, my bare stinkin' foot is 12 inches. Real handy for stepping off distance, just walk heel to toe and Bob's your uncle!

Kurt O.

 

I prefer driving a mile a minute....60mph. What the fuck is a Kilometer? A guage that measures roadkills???

 

I'd totally agree with this statement. However the most annoying thing is there is no good equivalent to a foot measurement. I deal with many drawings being an estimator and most come in 1/8 scale or 1:100. When I get metric ones they are in mm which is crazy. (10 feet is 3000 mm!!!! Lordy!)
The 10 base is a good thing as we all (most!) have 10 fingers which makes it easy to fingure things out. I learned both during the 70's so although I drive in km/h, in my head I think in mph. I still can't figure out metric fuel economy so I figure it in mpg.

Most people don't even realize the "official" measurement system of the USA is metric it was just never really adopted in daily usage.

My brother who is a millwright calls the imperial measuring system "a cult" and he and I are both from England.
The U.S and Imp gallon are different due to the ounces per pint but most people don't knowe the ounces are different! The Imperial is .96 the size of the U.S. ounce. Ceeripes! try to figure out a 20 oz US beer conversion!

 

our total stations display to the third decimal in feet
we do virtually all our shooting in feet

to get a little more accurate we will shoot in meters
the gun shoots to the fouth decimal in meters

so in this case for us using meters is more accurate than using feet

 

I don't know....96,560 m/h (meters/hour) sounds pretty good too...

 

Oh and lets not forget how the height of a horse is measured....in Hands! Geeze! How many fingers are in an inch? how many inches are in a hand? sounds like Horseshit to me!

 

But you get to drive 100km/h!!! Thats 62 miles/hour, just liiittttle bit faster

 

there's a little stretch of freeway in the US, I-19, from Nogales to Tucson, that has metric signs (kil-o-meters). That's about as far as the 70s metric conversion made it....

 

I kind of like the Metric system because of its logic...

0 Deg Celcius is when Water freezes.
100 Deg Celcius is Boiling Water.

10 Cm X 10 Cm X 10 Cm = 1 Litre

1 Litre of Water = 1 kg.

 

please define accurate.....

Here's a test. Which of these is more accurate?

150.109375 inches (150-7/64")
or
3.812778125 meters

Based on what you wrote it implies that more decimals equals more accuracy. It's a trick question as they are equal.

 

Even worse,when i took my first course in Aircraft assembly.All metric dimensions on the blueprints were converted back to imperial measurements,and the course was taught by an instructor who spoke primarily french,which was translated to english by another instructor. The assembly instructions were also translated french to english,and we found many mistakes,because of this. Most of the students,were educated only in the metric system and didn't understand the imperial measurements. Makes you want to get on a Canadian designed and built airplane,doesn't it. Also,our American neighbors can't help think we must live in igloos,when our temps are in celsius. Theirs at 32 degrees=our 0 degrees. Invented by the "French",no wonder it's screwed everything up.

 

there is a great equivalent to the foot it's called the decimeter and it's 10 centimeters. I have no problems with the metric system, I use it all the time as I work on a lot of motorcycles as well...

 

I remember when they were bringing in the metric system here in Canada. Downtown in Vancouver, BC someone had sprayed on a wall, " Fight metric, don't give an inch! " Always liked that. I put a nice set of curved wings gauges in the T-tub and when the speedo was working I said to my daughter. Sure is nice to have a working speedo. She says it doesn't help. I said why? She says I don't do mph, only kph. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Out here on the prairies we don't measure distance in metric or standard. It is measured in hours and minutes. Pat.

 

Kilograms are not a force unit, they are a mass unit. Newtons are a force unit.

Kilograms become "slugs" and Newtons become pounds in metric to imperial conversions in physics.

 

Every day Japanese people fight the need to learn any English and bitch and whinge about it, when clearly, being bilingual to a useable extent is not that hard and vital when playing in a Global economy.

The Point......whichever one you know, it wont kill you to learn a little bit of the other.

In Australia I was completely educated in Metric, yet I can pick a 1/2" or 9/16th bolt at a glance.....as used on my Aussie built 65 Falcon.

It AINT that hard!

 

.......and as for "a foot".....we compare it to the 30cm ruler we all used for 12 years of school

 

We have no idea what u are talking about.......

 

Picas and points are where its at - all that other stuff is nonsense.

 

that depends....when I was taking all those engineering courses, we had "pounds-mass" and "pounds-force"

although occasionally we'd have to deal with a slug in a homework problem. Disgusting things, they are.

 

It's been 33 years and I haven't switched to metric yet, and I'm not about to!
HemiDeuce.

 

I can see why you guys were worried about learning the metric system - you didn't even get your pints and gallons right!

1 US pint = 0.8327 Imperial pint

 

Yes, the Newton is a unit of force. But, when shopping in a metrics country, you buy your produce and meat in kilograms, as determined by a spring scale.

And, spring force is usually given in grams per centimeter (or some multiple thereof).

And, this is why I say they (the metrics people) are as screwed up as we.

The "slug" is an attempt to avoid the constant of proportionality which is not shown in the common expression: F = ma. The force is PROPORTIONAL to the mass-acceleration product. It should be:

F gsubc = ma

where gsubc has the dimensions of (mass-length)/(force-time^2). Common units would be 32.2 (pounds mass X feet)/(pounds force X seconds squared). The pound force is the weight of a pound mass. The constant has the value of unity when slugs, feet, seconds, and pounds force are used. But, if you ignore the dimensional homogeneity provided by the gsubc, the possibility of errors is greatly increased.

 

I would feel the same way if I hadn't gone through an engineering program, and the sciences that go along with it. The English system really breaks down when doing complex equations, and conversions. The Metric system makes life easier once you get used to it.

For doing simple things like wrenchin', it isn't much different.

 

That is great! LOL

 

Hey, don't u Brits weigh yourselves in stones still?