Metric musings
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I wish the world *would* use the metric system. It's a nightmare developing printable reports for business software that work on metric and non-metric sized paper. Here in Canada where we are officially metric, the actual fact on the ground is that we are about 50% metric which is maddening and primarily because of the influence of products from the U.S. that flood our market. I'm of a generation that was the first to adopt 100% metric and it's frustrating making the conversions mentally all the time. Paper here is all sold in inch formats, so we use the U.S. system for paper sizes. The metric paper sizes make infinitely more sense when you take one and try folding it in half you find every size is exactly the size below doubled, neat! The grocery store is probably the best example of this craziness. Go into any grocery store in Canada, all the packaged goods will be listed in grams or kilograms except the canned items which generally have both milliliters and ounces. Go to the meat section and the shrink wrapped packaged meat has little stickers showing the number of grams or kilograms for weight, but right above it will be a big handwritten sign saying the price in dollars per pound! Then go to the veggie and fruit section, all prices will be listed in pounds, if your lucky there will be tiny text under it listing the price per kilogram. Then go to the "bulk food" section where they have barrels of dry goods you can scoop out and put in a bag and buy by weight. Everything will be in kilograms and priced in kilograms. If it's a hot day outside in the summer people will generally give the temperature in fahrenheit, i.e. "Did you hear it's over a hundred today" In the winter they will *always* use metric "Did you hear? It was minus 30 in Ottawa today" (followed by laughter from those of us who live on the west coast where it never gets that cold at all). Distances are always written in kilometers and gasoline is always sold in liters and never priced any other way. No one's height is ever given in centimeters unless for official reasons, no one will ever say "Gee Bob, your son must be over 100 centimeters by now". Just never happens, everyone will say feet and inches for height and pounds for weight of a person. Personally I was raised metric in school, so I really wish we would just get into it fully, but I doubt it will ever happen. On this topic, I recently noticed a lot of references to measurements in metric on U.S. television and in reality shows etc. I don't know wha
>No one's height is ever given in centimeters Same here strangely. Everything is metric here except height. Even weight is metric (good god I get frustrated changing my weight from kilograms to lb for some imported systems). Canada sounds darned confusing though. regards, Paul Watson South Africa The Code Project Pope Pius II said "The only prescription is more cowbell. "
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I was reading another post where temperatures were being discussed... some on degrees Fahrenheight, others in degrees Celsius... this started me wondering - whatever happened to the U.S. push towards the metric system? In the US while I was in grade school, I had been taught all about it, and about the conversions from the "other" systems to metric. (Gotta love the degree conversion formulae!) It was the "wave of the future," we kids were told. Years later, all I see that has been converted in the US is the soda bottle (two liters is the "regular" family sized bottle). Oh yes, we can't forget the b@st@rdized version of the metric system for bytes- who decided that 1024 was "close enough" to use metric terms for it? Just curious about the opinions of others throughout CP, through out the world... does everyone else use metric but the US? How about Great Britain? Anyone know why the US hasn't converted (please, no flamewar- this isn't a troll nor flamebait- honest curiosity here). Thanks, blueSprite:rose:
Here they made the switch while I was in high school. It took about 20 years for people to completely assimilate. Although most poeple now talk metrics here, some measurements are done using the US system, even among the youngs (like the height, and the weight). For many years, we were used to see strange measurements on products (like 454 grams of butter, equivalent to 1 pound). This was probably it was too expensive to recalibrate the machines. But overtime, the metric system settled in and we are quite happy with it, I think. -------- "I say no to drugs, but they don't listen." - Marilyn Manson
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I was reading another post where temperatures were being discussed... some on degrees Fahrenheight, others in degrees Celsius... this started me wondering - whatever happened to the U.S. push towards the metric system? In the US while I was in grade school, I had been taught all about it, and about the conversions from the "other" systems to metric. (Gotta love the degree conversion formulae!) It was the "wave of the future," we kids were told. Years later, all I see that has been converted in the US is the soda bottle (two liters is the "regular" family sized bottle). Oh yes, we can't forget the b@st@rdized version of the metric system for bytes- who decided that 1024 was "close enough" to use metric terms for it? Just curious about the opinions of others throughout CP, through out the world... does everyone else use metric but the US? How about Great Britain? Anyone know why the US hasn't converted (please, no flamewar- this isn't a troll nor flamebait- honest curiosity here). Thanks, blueSprite:rose:
blueSprite wrote: Anyone know why the US hasn't converted It has been hinted at in other posts but mostly it is just the cost of converting factories and the subsequent supply chain. You just can not say to a lathe operator to start cutting metric threads on his equipment with imperial gears. I do not mind getting old. It beats all the other options that can think of.
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I believe Burma (Myanmar) and Liberia, along with the US, still use the imperial system. From what I've heard, it was the big auto makers who fought it becuase they'd take a big hit having to convert bolts, etc. to metric sizes. But I wish we would change over... my last job involved some code dealing with mechanical engineering... the units conversion code was always a nightmare... X| X| X| Even if we sold only to cusomters in the US, we still would have had problems, since many calculations can be very difficult to do with non-SI units (weird conversion factors everywhere, etc.) An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
Navin wrote: From what I've heard, it was the big auto makers who fought it becuase they'd take a big hit having to convert bolts, etc. to metric sizes. Not true anymore. Many cars are built using metric nuts, bolts, etc.
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Navin wrote: From what I've heard, it was the big auto makers who fought it becuase they'd take a big hit having to convert bolts, etc. to metric sizes. Not true anymore. Many cars are built using metric nuts, bolts, etc.
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I was reading another post where temperatures were being discussed... some on degrees Fahrenheight, others in degrees Celsius... this started me wondering - whatever happened to the U.S. push towards the metric system? In the US while I was in grade school, I had been taught all about it, and about the conversions from the "other" systems to metric. (Gotta love the degree conversion formulae!) It was the "wave of the future," we kids were told. Years later, all I see that has been converted in the US is the soda bottle (two liters is the "regular" family sized bottle). Oh yes, we can't forget the b@st@rdized version of the metric system for bytes- who decided that 1024 was "close enough" to use metric terms for it? Just curious about the opinions of others throughout CP, through out the world... does everyone else use metric but the US? How about Great Britain? Anyone know why the US hasn't converted (please, no flamewar- this isn't a troll nor flamebait- honest curiosity here). Thanks, blueSprite:rose:
blueSprite wrote: It was the "wave of the future," we kids were told. Years later... the US realized it is very comfortable to live in the past? :cool:
we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is Vonnegut jr.
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen -
I wish the world *would* use the metric system. It's a nightmare developing printable reports for business software that work on metric and non-metric sized paper. Here in Canada where we are officially metric, the actual fact on the ground is that we are about 50% metric which is maddening and primarily because of the influence of products from the U.S. that flood our market. I'm of a generation that was the first to adopt 100% metric and it's frustrating making the conversions mentally all the time. Paper here is all sold in inch formats, so we use the U.S. system for paper sizes. The metric paper sizes make infinitely more sense when you take one and try folding it in half you find every size is exactly the size below doubled, neat! The grocery store is probably the best example of this craziness. Go into any grocery store in Canada, all the packaged goods will be listed in grams or kilograms except the canned items which generally have both milliliters and ounces. Go to the meat section and the shrink wrapped packaged meat has little stickers showing the number of grams or kilograms for weight, but right above it will be a big handwritten sign saying the price in dollars per pound! Then go to the veggie and fruit section, all prices will be listed in pounds, if your lucky there will be tiny text under it listing the price per kilogram. Then go to the "bulk food" section where they have barrels of dry goods you can scoop out and put in a bag and buy by weight. Everything will be in kilograms and priced in kilograms. If it's a hot day outside in the summer people will generally give the temperature in fahrenheit, i.e. "Did you hear it's over a hundred today" In the winter they will *always* use metric "Did you hear? It was minus 30 in Ottawa today" (followed by laughter from those of us who live on the west coast where it never gets that cold at all). Distances are always written in kilometers and gasoline is always sold in liters and never priced any other way. No one's height is ever given in centimeters unless for official reasons, no one will ever say "Gee Bob, your son must be over 100 centimeters by now". Just never happens, everyone will say feet and inches for height and pounds for weight of a person. Personally I was raised metric in school, so I really wish we would just get into it fully, but I doubt it will ever happen. On this topic, I recently noticed a lot of references to measurements in metric on U.S. television and in reality shows etc. I don't know wha
John Cardinal wrote: I recently noticed a lot of references to measurements in metric on U.S. television and in reality shows etc. I don't know what this means exactly, but I was wondering if some Americans are thinking it's cool and or different to use metric. I don't watch much reality TV aside from Amazing Race, but in the crime dramas like CSI or L&O, the scientist characters will often use metric to add a touch of realism, since the real people would do the same. --Mike-- LINKS~! Ericahist | 1ClickPicGrabber | CP SearchBar v2.0.2 | C++ Forum FAQ | You Are Dumb
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Sure, I bet Toyota, Nissan, Honda, etc. are... :-D :-D An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
I'm pretty sure European Ford (GM, DaimlerChrysler) models are designed and built with metric components too. I wonder if that's a factor in why the North America Focus is much less reliable than the European model it's derived from. It's probably just build and component quality. The UK model costs about 2x the US list price (I saw models advertised under $10,000 when I was there in September - the UK model starts at around £10,000). Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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I was reading another post where temperatures were being discussed... some on degrees Fahrenheight, others in degrees Celsius... this started me wondering - whatever happened to the U.S. push towards the metric system? In the US while I was in grade school, I had been taught all about it, and about the conversions from the "other" systems to metric. (Gotta love the degree conversion formulae!) It was the "wave of the future," we kids were told. Years later, all I see that has been converted in the US is the soda bottle (two liters is the "regular" family sized bottle). Oh yes, we can't forget the b@st@rdized version of the metric system for bytes- who decided that 1024 was "close enough" to use metric terms for it? Just curious about the opinions of others throughout CP, through out the world... does everyone else use metric but the US? How about Great Britain? Anyone know why the US hasn't converted (please, no flamewar- this isn't a troll nor flamebait- honest curiosity here). Thanks, blueSprite:rose:
On top of other comments, this is one of those things that sound great in theory, but offer very little real economic advantage. Even if the change were dictated by decree, you'd still have a hodge-podge system for quite a long time. (I still hear Britains and Autstralians use "stone" for someone's weight. For the curious, I weigh just under 12 stone [13.99 pound = 1 stone.]) In cooking, converting to metric would actually have rather severe consequences since it would require everyone convert their myriad of recipes with little upside to doing so. Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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On top of other comments, this is one of those things that sound great in theory, but offer very little real economic advantage. Even if the change were dictated by decree, you'd still have a hodge-podge system for quite a long time. (I still hear Britains and Autstralians use "stone" for someone's weight. For the curious, I weigh just under 12 stone [13.99 pound = 1 stone.]) In cooking, converting to metric would actually have rather severe consequences since it would require everyone convert their myriad of recipes with little upside to doing so. Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
The reasons that every has come up with make a great deal of sense. So with those in mind, sounds like the US most likely will never convert over to metric. OK, I'll bite, I don't remember the conversion and I'm too lazy to google it. How many pounds to a stone? :-O blueSprite:rose:
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Sure, I bet Toyota, Nissan, Honda, etc. are... :-D :-D An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
Lots (All, perhaps?) of the bolts on my Saturn are metric
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I'm pretty sure European Ford (GM, DaimlerChrysler) models are designed and built with metric components too. I wonder if that's a factor in why the North America Focus is much less reliable than the European model it's derived from. It's probably just build and component quality. The UK model costs about 2x the US list price (I saw models advertised under $10,000 when I was there in September - the UK model starts at around £10,000). Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
That is just generally because motor dealers in the UK rip everyone off. Although it is getting better. About 5 years ago it was cheaper to fly out to the Netherlands or Spain and buy a car there and then drive it home.
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That is just generally because motor dealers in the UK rip everyone off. Although it is getting better. About 5 years ago it was cheaper to fly out to the Netherlands or Spain and buy a car there and then drive it home.
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Would you get some sort of penalty tax on the car for doing so? Or could you "import" a car as you describe without any grief from the UK gov't?
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I'm pretty sure European Ford (GM, DaimlerChrysler) models are designed and built with metric components too. I wonder if that's a factor in why the North America Focus is much less reliable than the European model it's derived from. It's probably just build and component quality. The UK model costs about 2x the US list price (I saw models advertised under $10,000 when I was there in September - the UK model starts at around £10,000). Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Mike Dimmick wrote: I'm pretty sure European Ford (GM, DaimlerChrysler) models are designed and built with metric components too. I have not seen/used anything but metric sockets and wrenches in the domestric cars I deal with. Even my mower and ATV are metric.
"Opinions are neither right nor wrong. I cannot change your opinion. I can, however, change what influences your opinion." - David Crow
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The reasons that every has come up with make a great deal of sense. So with those in mind, sounds like the US most likely will never convert over to metric. OK, I'll bite, I don't remember the conversion and I'm too lazy to google it. How many pounds to a stone? :-O blueSprite:rose:
1 Stone = 13.99 pounds (I also erred in pluralizing stone; it's never plural when used as weight.) Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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- If we wanted to use tenths of anything, it would be inches, feet, and miles. 2) Someone high up in the government decided it wouldcost too much to convert all of the rulers and street signs. 3) The French use metric, so we'll be damned if we're gonna do it. 4) Nobody's been able to come up with a viable metric alphabet. 5) All measurements in space are still meausered in miles (or light years). Where the hell do we get a metric light year from? 6) Metric measurements screwed up one of the Mars landers because the altitude on foreign bodies is measured in miles. We're not gonna loose any more landers because of some fairie measuring system ever again. :) ------- sig starts "I've heard some drivers saying, 'We're going too fast here...'. If you're not here to race, go the hell home - don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Why don't you tie a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: 5) All measurements in space are still meausered in miles (or light years). Where the hell do we get a metric light year from Try the AU - nope couldn't use that or the down unders will get uppity. Not to mention how hard it would be to get Bubba down at the garage to give up his 3/4 inch socket set:) Richard "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer --Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
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>No one's height is ever given in centimeters Same here strangely. Everything is metric here except height. Even weight is metric (good god I get frustrated changing my weight from kilograms to lb for some imported systems). Canada sounds darned confusing though. regards, Paul Watson South Africa The Code Project Pope Pius II said "The only prescription is more cowbell. "
Paul Watson wrote: Even weight is metric (good god I get frustrated changing my weight from kilograms to lb for some imported systems). If you are into the puglistic arts try figuring out why the English still give a fighters weight in stones." And heres Jow Blow weighing in at 15 stone 7 and 1/3 lbs". Richard "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer --Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
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I was reading another post where temperatures were being discussed... some on degrees Fahrenheight, others in degrees Celsius... this started me wondering - whatever happened to the U.S. push towards the metric system? In the US while I was in grade school, I had been taught all about it, and about the conversions from the "other" systems to metric. (Gotta love the degree conversion formulae!) It was the "wave of the future," we kids were told. Years later, all I see that has been converted in the US is the soda bottle (two liters is the "regular" family sized bottle). Oh yes, we can't forget the b@st@rdized version of the metric system for bytes- who decided that 1024 was "close enough" to use metric terms for it? Just curious about the opinions of others throughout CP, through out the world... does everyone else use metric but the US? How about Great Britain? Anyone know why the US hasn't converted (please, no flamewar- this isn't a troll nor flamebait- honest curiosity here). Thanks, blueSprite:rose:
blueSprite wrote: Anyone know why the US hasn't converted? it got as far as the 2.54cm worm and halted because everyone got confused. :) I speak both, internally my applications are all metric because conversions/calculations are easy to remember, visually I have to adapt speed/acceleration/position to english for the user. :) _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Would you get some sort of penalty tax on the car for doing so? Or could you "import" a car as you describe without any grief from the UK gov't?
blueSprite wrote: Would you get some sort of penalty tax on the car for doing so? Or could you "import" a car as you describe without any grief from the UK gov't? You fill in some special documents that means that you don't pay tax in the country you are buying the car from, instead you pay VAT in the UK at 17.5% (Spain has IVA at 16%). To me that is wrong because for other items you pay the tax at the point of sale - When I was flying in and out of Spain a lot I would buy Scotch Whisky and reimport it back into the UK because it was cheaper to buy it in Spain than in a shop just down the road from the distillary.
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I was reading another post where temperatures were being discussed... some on degrees Fahrenheight, others in degrees Celsius... this started me wondering - whatever happened to the U.S. push towards the metric system? In the US while I was in grade school, I had been taught all about it, and about the conversions from the "other" systems to metric. (Gotta love the degree conversion formulae!) It was the "wave of the future," we kids were told. Years later, all I see that has been converted in the US is the soda bottle (two liters is the "regular" family sized bottle). Oh yes, we can't forget the b@st@rdized version of the metric system for bytes- who decided that 1024 was "close enough" to use metric terms for it? Just curious about the opinions of others throughout CP, through out the world... does everyone else use metric but the US? How about Great Britain? Anyone know why the US hasn't converted (please, no flamewar- this isn't a troll nor flamebait- honest curiosity here). Thanks, blueSprite:rose:
We're metric here in australia, except for a few things... Tyres for instance, are particularly strange. My car takes tyres in the following size: 205/45-16 Which is 205 millimetres wide, 45% aspect ratio on a 16 inch wheel. A nice mix of metric and 'imperial'
