Metric system dumbs us down.

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by Cavalier

Explains why an imperial pint is around 20% larger than a US pint!

Sent from mTalk

yes - well everyone knows that British appendages are larger than American appendages

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by carstenb

yes - well everyone knows that British appendages are larger than American appendages

Again, exercise may account fer that.

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by carstenb

yes - well everyone knows that British appendages are larger than American appendages

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

I find the imperial system easier. Think about it. It's basically base 8 - octal - like computers use.

Example: Cup, pint, half-gallon, quart, gallon. Easy.

Funny thing about Canada. All through the Maritimes last year I paid for slips and line by the foot, and when getting directions it was always in miles. One place even asked how many gallons of fuel I needed, even though the pump read liters. Only thing that messed me up was trying to buy deli meats in grams. Wonder what would have happened if I asked for a half-pound?

Really? How about 3 feet in a yard, 5280 feet (is it?) in a mile, 640 acres in a square mile, 2000 pounds in a ton - I could go on. I crew up with the Imperial system and now live in the odd mixed system in Canada. As the video here mentioned, we are stuck with this until the US changes - and it will as some point.

BTW, the nautical mile is an SI unit (even though not based on meters), the statute mile is not.

[Mirage35]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Reminds me of a common response when people ask about the perfect boat:

"Horses for courses."

Standard units tend to be geared toward their purpose. If you are loading a truck with barrels of beer, it makes a lot more sense to say I have 20 barrels rather than calculating out how many liters or cubic meters of beer you have.

It's only when you start doing more complicated engineering calculations that metric units become advantageous.

Yes, I know I've told this one before

Years ago, working as a programmer on a pipeline control system, I had to find a unit conversion: we knew the diameter of the pipeline in feet and its length in miles; we needed to calculate its volume in barrels.

[Moon rise]

mmmm, the base 10 system removes most of ******** left over from, Chains furlongs, Dick size, 1/64 2/128 and the rest. you have decimal dollars but measure in 128, 64 32 16 8 4 .................. 1m2= 1000 kg fresh water, so simple

some places like to run on BS help the robbers, rob

[Mithril Bham]

Originally Posted by Scott Berg

So a pint is NOT a pound the world round... in fact the last pint I bought was about 2.3£!

A pint weighs a pound and, yes, I know the exception which is insignificant.

[grae]

As a Brit schooled in the 70s/80s being taught both and also been in the states for the last 14 years I'm pretty bi-lingual (old-money/new-money) but I'm always reminded of a quote I once saw.....

"If God had wanted me to use decimal measures he'd have given me 10 fingers to count on......"

Grae Morrison

[Mithril Bham]

Metric is so much easier I find it hard to believe anyone who measures things all the time could disagree. 31 32nd's. Give me a break. My brain works too hard as it is.

[Jason Flare]

I used to hire kids on co-op out of the HS building trades. I'd ask a kid, "What is half of 112 7/8""

Half of 112 is 56. Half of 7/8" is 7/16". To a man, even after 11 or 12 years of public (government) education everyone was amazed that to find one half of a fraction all you had to do was double the denominator. (1= 1/1. Half of 1 = 1/2 etc.)

Another lesson was, I would ask them to show me 5" on the tape measure. Invariably they would point to the number 5. No. 5" is the distance from the beginning of the tape to the number 5 on the tape.

And yes, some kids couldn't read a tape measure to begin with. They couldn't show me 78 5/8".

[Cheechako]

Yeah, why aren't there 10 hours a day if we are metric?
Also, should be 100 degrees on a compass.
Oh yeah.... and the speed of light needs to be rounded up to the nearest 1,000,000.
Longitude should be 0 to 100...
-Pi is now 10 not 3.1416.....

[double u]

Originally Posted by magellanyachts

Metric is so much easier I find it hard to believe anyone who measures things all the time could disagree. 31 32nd's. Give me a break. My brain works too hard as it is.

[double u]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Yeah, why aren't there 10 hours a day if we are metric?
Also, should be 100 degrees on a compass.
Oh yeah.... and the speed of light needs to be rounded up to the nearest 1,000,000.
-Pi is now 10 not 3.1416.....

quite obviously there is an argument to be found in favour of ANY sort of idiocy...
& the best idea can be ridiculed!

[Jason Flare]

Also, the exact length of a nautical mile is undetermined. It is a portion of the circumference of the earth

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by magellanyachts

A pint weighs a pound and, yes, I know the exception which is insignificant.

The saying of "The pint's a pound, the world around!" is very US-centric.

Traditionally, one pint was 1/8th of a gallon, however, there are different gallons.

1 US Pint = 1.04375 pounds (16 US fluid ounces) 568ml ..used in the US
1 Imp Pint = 1.25 pounds (20 imp fluid ounces) 473ml..used in UK and Commonwealth nations

The US also has a liquid pint and a dry pint, the latter which is 1.1636 of a liquid pint.


Metric mostly used everywhere else.