The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

The imperial units were fashioned to be easily divided.

1 foot = 12 inches 1/2 foot = 6 inches 1/3 foot = 4 inches 1/4 foot = 3 inches 1/6 foot = 2 inches

1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 128 floz 1 quart = 2 pints 1 pint = 2 cups 1 cup = 8 floz 1 floz = 2 Tbsp 1 Tbsp = 3 tsp

The metric system is only more useful when dealing with powers of 10. How do you represent 1/3 of a meter? No matter how many decimal places you display it's only an approximation.

TRWTF is the UK getting after the US for using a system of measures THEY invented.

Kivi · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Anonymous Paranoiac:
I think we can all agree that the only 'correct' date format is the yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss standard.

You could make a case for yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

JAPH:
The imperial units were fashioned to be easily divided.
1 foot = 12 inches 1/2 foot = 6 inches 1/3 foot = 4 inches 1/4 foot = etc fractions forever...

Yes, I can see how you would want only half a beer or a third of a glass of beer. But hey, let's just call it "a third"? Why have another name for it? five and a half feet, or five and a third, is that really so much worse than five feet and four inches? Or just 160 centimeters, or whatever now it corresponds to. If you know a glass of beer is exactly half a litre (like it usually is outside US/UK), half a glass of beer is a quarter of a litre. I don't demand the use of the term "glass" when measuring other fluids just because of that. Litres, and deci- centi- and milli thereof are just fine. There are typically 6 centiliters of gin in a gin tonic. You can easily calculate how many you need to drink to get intoxicated. :)

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

If you still want to keep on this issue, then why 10s. Why don't we scale metric to a base that makes more sense. Nope, we chose 10s. 10 is a horrible number for fractions. 12 is much much better, 30 if you'd prefer using 1/5 over 1/4, 60 does it all but much harder to create a character system for. What's 1/4, 1/3, 1/6 of 10?
When cooking, do you measure your ground herbs by liter? I suppose you could do milliliter, or worse "cubic-centimeter", but have you compared recipes in metric vs. "standard"?

Actually standard (i.e. metric) recipes usually use milliliters for liquid ingredients and grams for the rest. Which is trivial to measure with a measuring cup and a kitchen scale. Also trivial to add up.

Why would you need to divide stuff? All the normal recipes give ingredient quantities either for two people or for one person, so you either have to divide in half or just multiply. And if you really need it, then any calculator will help you - hint, they are ALL in decimal!!! So instead of trying to remember that 1/6th of a foot is two inches (or whatever), 1/6th of a meter is .. 1/6th of a meter = 0.16667 of a meter, or 166.67 cm and you use the same process if you need 1/8th. Tell me, what is 1/13th of a foot?

Non-metric measurements are archaic relics of the 18th century with no practical value. I pity the fools that still cling to them. And same with the AM/PM system borne from the skill limits of ancient clock builders.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Huh... I always thought that a.m. and p.m. were made up as part of a reference to the most recognized and most significant part of the day: noon. What limits are you taking about?

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

silly quote system.

aigarius:
If you still want to keep on this issue, then why 10s. Why don't we scale metric to a base that makes more sense. Nope, we chose 10s. 10 is a horrible number for fractions. 12 is much much better, 30 if you'd prefer using 1/5 over 1/4, 60 does it all but much harder to create a character system for. What's 1/4, 1/3, 1/6 of 10?
When cooking, do you measure your ground herbs by liter? I suppose you could do milliliter, or worse "cubic-centimeter", but have you compared recipes in metric vs. "standard"?

Actually standard (i.e. metric) recipes usually use milliliters for liquid ingredients and grams for the rest. Which is trivial to measure with a measuring cup and a kitchen scale. Also trivial to add up.

Why would you need to divide stuff? All the normal recipes give ingredient quantities either for two people or for one person, so you either have to divide in half or just multiply. And if you really need it, then any calculator will help you - hint, they are ALL in decimal!!! So instead of trying to remember that 1/6th of a foot is two inches (or whatever), 1/6th of a meter is .. 1/6th of a meter = 0.16667 of a meter, or 166.67 cm and you use the same process if you need 1/8th. Tell me, what is 1/13th of a foot?

Non-metric measurements are archaic relics of the 18th century with no practical value. I pity the fools that still cling to them. And same with the AM/PM system borne from the skill limits of ancient clock builders.

Huh... I always thought that a.m. and p.m. were made up as part of a reference to the most recognized and most significant part of the day: noon. What limits are you taking about?

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
miko:
TRWTF is definitely the murican AM/PM over-complication of it all. Why bother? Why not just give in and do like the rest of the world? The day starts at zero (00:00) and ends at 24 (24:00) because there are 24 hours in a day. Simple as that.
Please convert to the metric system already, so we can speak to each other without confusion... "1 inch is 0.083333333 feet" and "1 cup is 0.0625 gallons" who can keep track of those decimal values? How do you even remember if it's 0.0833 or 0.0625?
I find it easier to remember 12 inches to the foot and 8 pints to the gallon which combines with 2 cups to the pint to give 16 cups to the gallon.

Of course, if you are worrying about the conversion between cups and gallons, you're probably doing something wrong. (Notably: why the hell are you measuring cooking ingredients - the normal stuff you measure in cups - in gallons?)

Bulk cooking springs to mind. This recipe says 1 cup of stock per person. I'm cooking for 50. I'm not going to pour 50 cups separately.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
Of course, if you are worrying about the conversion between cups and gallons, you're probably doing something wrong. (Notably: why the hell are you measuring cooking ingredients - the normal stuff you measure in cups - in **gallons**?)

Because I'm cooking for a Summer Camp feeding 1200 to 1400 people per meal. That's a lot of cups of grits, that is.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

If you think that the metric system is the only thing standing in the way of Americans and Europeans speaking to each other without confusion, then you are, to be kind, hyperfocused.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Jalopy:
Steve The Cynic:
miko:
TRWTF is definitely the murican AM/PM over-complication of it all. Why bother? Why not just give in and do like the rest of the world? The day starts at zero (00:00) and ends at 24 (24:00) because there are 24 hours in a day. Simple as that.
Please convert to the metric system already, so we can speak to each other without confusion... "1 inch is 0.083333333 feet" and "1 cup is 0.0625 gallons" who can keep track of those decimal values? How do you even remember if it's 0.0833 or 0.0625?
I find it easier to remember 12 inches to the foot and 8 pints to the gallon which combines with 2 cups to the pint to give 16 cups to the gallon.

Of course, if you are worrying about the conversion between cups and gallons, you're probably doing something wrong. (Notably: why the hell are you measuring cooking ingredients - the normal stuff you measure in cups - in gallons?)

Bulk cooking springs to mind. This recipe says 1 cup of stock per person. I'm cooking for 50. I'm not going to pour 50 cups separately.

You can't inform someone about the use and rationale of scale when they think that the lack of scale is the problem. You're trying to teach a chicken that it's ok to lay eggs when it think eggs are the problem.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

dpm:
miko:
The day starts at zero (00:00) and ends at 24 (24:00) because there are 24 hours in a day.
Technically, a day begins at 00:00:00 and ends at 23:59:59 --- you have an off-by-one error.

Actually, the range of time in a day is [00:00, 24:00), to be precise. You can measure a time arbitrarily close to 24:00, but not 24:00, since that's 00:00. Alternatively, you can argue that a clock is cyclic, so 00:00 = 24:00 so it doesn't even matter.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Zagyg:
Ode To A Small Lump Of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning

Is that a Vogon poem?

I don't speak PHP, but it seemed perfectly readable to me. Could easily be replaced by a standard library function, I would guess. I know that back when I started coding I probably (read: did) had several WTFs like this, particularly with the dates. Seems like part of the learning curve.

Isn't there some standard coding process, like parsing dates and times, that programmers consistently get wrong early in their careers?

Captcha: Jugis. You know, it is national nude recreation week...

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Hi,

xaade:
dpm:
miko:
The day starts at zero (00:00) and ends at 24 (24:00) because there are 24 hours in a day.
Technically, a day begins at 00:00:00 and ends at 23:59:59 --- you have an off-by-one error.

23:59:59.999...

Addendum (2013-07-09 10:28): Which is the same as 24:00:00.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...

Still wrong.

The day normally ends immediately before 24:00:00 (or immediately before 23:59:59.999...), unless a leap second is being added. For the leap second case, the day ends immediately before 24:00:01 (or immediately before 24:00:00.999...).

Brendan

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Seriously, I'm not sure anymore which of the comments defending the imperial system are actually sarcasm.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Jalopy:
Bulk cooking springs to mind. This recipe says 1 cup of stock per person. I'm cooking for 50. I'm not going to pour 50 cups separately.

Let's cook with Google!

Good thing I already know that .125 is 1/8.

eViLegion · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

All cooking ingredients should be specified in mol.

Particularly things like "sides of beef".

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
(Notably: why the hell are you measuring cooking ingredients - the normal stuff you measure in cups - in **gallons**?)

Beer.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

There's a reason why the Imperial system won't go away...

Metric version of the song 'I'm gonna be' by the Proclaimers:

"When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you. When I go out, yeah I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you.

If I get drunk, well I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you. And if I haver, yeah I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who's haverin' to you.

But I would walk 804.672 kilometers And I would walk 804.672 more Just to be the man who walked 1609.34 kilometers To fall down at your door"

Just doesn't work.

eViLegion · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

PedanticMan:
But I would walk 804.672 kilometers And I would walk 804.672 more ...Just to be the man who walked 1609.34 kilometers To fall down at your door"

"Baaaar da da daar! (Baaaar da da daar!) Baaaar da da daar! (Baaaar da da daar!) Baaar da da daar da da daaar da da daar da da daar daar daar!!"

That bit still works.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
miko:
You are right - something is wrong when you measure in cups or gallons ;) Different households have different cups - some even have different sized cups for coffee and for tea.

Take a FAIL point, dude. Whenmeasuringliquids a cup is a unit of measure, equal to half a pint. Of course that means a US cup is about 5/6 of an Imperial cup, because the corresponding pints are in about that ratio. (And, worse, they aren't the same number of fluid ounces, because a US pint is 16 US fluid ounces, while an Imperial pint (the only way to measure beer, even if you call it 568ml) is 20 Imperial fluid ounces.)

Yeah. Tea and coffee cups was a joke but you make a good point. Cups are even worse measurements than I had thought.

Steve The Cynic:

miko:
No, I wouldn't know which to use, I heard there is also a difference between dry and wet ounces, and that fact alone is enough for me to NOT trust those scales.
It's easy. A dry ounce is a unit of force, usually used for weights, while a fluid (not wet) ounce is a unit of volume.

Kilogram is a unit of weight. Litre is a unit of volume. 1 Kilogram of water = 1 Litre of water = 1 cubic decimeter of water. Wet. :)

Steve The Cynic:
miko:
I recently saw a graph of how much sugar is in a coke bottle, but the coke bottle volume was measured in ounces (I think) and the amount of sugar in it was measured in cups - how is that in any way relevant to each other? You guys mix your scales all the time, and it is so confusing.
Which 'you guys' are you talking about? You obviously haven't been paying attention. I'm an Englishman living in France. My everyday life (vie quotidienne?) is in metric, although I'll admit to still thinking of terrestrial distances and speeds in miles.

Ok. Miles to a gallon is also kind of difficult to calculate with. If I know how many miles there is to a gallon in my car (say.. 37? is that like normal?), and I'm about to drive 14 miles - how do I know how much gas will cost for the trip? Well let's see... Um, 1/37 * 14 = ... uh... Instead, use litres per 100 kilometres. Say 6. Go for 37 kilometres. 6 times 0.37 is like 2.22 litres. Easy.

Steve The Cynic:
miko:
1 cubic metre of water = 1000 litres = 1000 kilos. 100 degrees, water turns to gas. 0 degrees, water turns to ice. (under normal pressure) Same scale. Always 10 based. Simple. You should try it! :)
Actually, water turns to gas at any temperature below the critical point, if the partial pressure of water vapour is low enough. It's called evaporation above the melting point, and sublimation below. You meant to say that water *boils* at 100 degrees centigrade. (And that centigrade part is important because the F scale is also degrees. Alternatively, go 100% SI, where water melts (at standard pressure) at 273.15 K (not degrees, because the kelvin unit is not a degrees unit).)

Yeah. That's why I said "normal pressure". Of course pressure differs during the vaporization process, but if you push the temperature of your water to above 100 degrees celcius ("centigrade"), you will end up having all gas. And if you drop the temperature of all the water to below 100 you will have water again (or ice if you go below 0 as well). You know this. And you know it's what I meant.

pjt33 · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

xaade:
When cooking, do you measure your ground herbs by liter? I suppose you could do milliliter, or worse "cubic-centimeter", but have you compared recipes in metric vs. "standard"?

Did you miss the bit where everyone else agreed that using volume to measure things which vary dramatically in density is a bad idea?

Any half-decent cook measures ground herbs by experience and then tastes to check.

Recipes in metric only fail to make sense when they were originally written in Imperial and then converted by someone too stupid to round off.

pjt33 · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Kivi:
Anonymous Paranoiac:
I think we can all agree that the only 'correct' date format is the yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss standard.
You could make a case for yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss.

Or various other permutations supported by ISO 8601 - in particular, yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ.

DCRoss · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Sam:
TheLatinPig:
if you want to nitpick, someone, the Latin word would be like meridies, meridiem being like the accusative form.

Although in "AM" the word would indeed by meridiem, since ante takes the accusative.

But "Domus" takes the locative, which is...?

Er, "Domum"!

Understand? Now, write "Romani ite domum" a hundred times.

Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.

Hail Caesar ! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

JAPH:
The metric system is only more useful when dealing with powers of 10. How do you represent 1/3 of a meter? No matter how many decimal places you display it's only an approximation.

And there comes the advantage of imperial units: 1/3 gallon=77in³=256tsp. (trusting wolframalpha) Totally easy to remember and very intuitive.

If you want 1/3 of a liter you should manage to calculate 1000ml/3≈333ml. If your recipe requires accuracy better than 1‰, you first need to buy a very precise scale, anyways. The same goes for 1/3m. Basically, you need to know how much accuracy is required and how accurate you can measure. Calculating a decimal approximation of 1/3 is the easier part.

operagost · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

miko:
TRWTF is definitely the murican AM/PM over-complication of it all. Why bother? Why not just give in and do like the rest of the world? The day starts at zero (00:00) and ends at 24 (24:00) because there are 24 hours in a day. Simple as that.

What's a murican?

Please convert to the metric system already, so we can speak to each other without confusion... "1 inch is 0.083333333 feet" and "1 cup is 0.0625 gallons" who can keep track of those decimal values?

Only a moron, since they aren't decimal measures. One cup is 1/16 of a gallon. One inch is 1/12 of a foot, as if anyone measures things that way.

How do you even remember if it's 0.0833 or 0.0625?

It should be easy, right? Just like it's easy for us to change our entire culture to suit you.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

xaade:
See, this is why I don't understand bashing the standard system.
If you are stubborn enough to insist that 1 -> 10 is superior in every way. Why abandon that and convert 568ml to 20?

At that point you basically reintroduced the standard system, which is measure by whatever makes sense and not worry about being able to convert.

Do you really need to know how much beer it would take to fill the pipes in the water treatment plant?

No... You need a way to personally track how much beer it takes to get intoxicated. Which is best measurable in drinks, which is measured per drink type by alcohol content over total volume.

For example, you have a separate cup for shots than wine, and it's not just for style. Do you really want to drink wine in shot glasses, or shots in wine glasses.

Ok, so, if I'm understanding your reasoning correctly, If I measure the alcohol content in a shot glass of whatever it will be the same as in a pint of (whatever) beer or a wine glass of (whatever) wine? Because if not that's not really very precise, is it?

I can appreciate the value of knowing that, say, two pints of beer will make me tipsy, or two bottles, or two tankards, but that's not meant to be an exact measurement. I wont't say one night "Hey, I noticed I drank only 1 + 7/8 bottles tonight and it was enough to make me tipsy!"

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if youre drinking or cooking and you don't need to be super exact in your measurements, then it's ok to use whatever is at hand as your measuring unit (e.g. pints / bottles of beer or cups of flour). Sometimes the bartender will fill the shot glass a little more, sometimes the flour will be more packed in the cup, some apples will be bigger than others: precision doesn't matter that much in these contexts.

BUT when you need precision and standardization it does work better when your units click together and use a single coherent (decimal) scale. You can relate meters, grams, seconds, joules, watts, hertz, pascals, volts, ohms, etc without having to remember any extraneous constants. (like 1 (US) gallon = 231 cubic inches or 1 horsepower = 550 foot-pounds per second)

I won't argue that base 12 would be wonderful for working with fractions, but having used the metric system my whole life I can say that I (and most people I know) don't think in terms of fractions that much, unless we're eating cake or pizza. Fractions are great for dividing things, not so good for measuring and comparing. That's why - as you yourself pointed out - most fractions are meaningless to us humans.

You asked how to compare 5/12 to 1/3 or 2/3. What if it was 0.41666 to 0.33333 or 0.66666? Even if the decimals are recurring, there's no doubt as to which is bigger.

operagost · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

aigarius:
Non-metric measurements are archaic relics of the 18th century with no practical value. I pity the fools that still cling to them.

If they had no practical value, then ipso facto they would not be in use, i.e. "practice".

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Everybody should get over themselves. The easiest measuring system to use is the one you grew up using. Converting, especially as an adult, is difficult no matter what direction you are going.

cellocgw · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

JC:
TRWTF is Americans using cups for measuring cooking ingredients. Especially things like flour, which can vary in density quite significantly depending on if it's sifted, how well packed it is in the packed etc.

I suspect this started out 'cause it's a lot easier to transport and maintain some volumetric measurement devices (aka mug or barrel) than a reliable weight/mass scale of any type. But even in this newfangled country, top chefs tend to work by mass, not volume.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

BrunoTR:
You asked how to compare 5/12 to 1/3 or 2/3. What if it was 0.41666 to 0.33333 or 0.66666? Even if the decimals are recurring, there's no doubt as to which is bigger.

+1

cellocgw · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

dpm:
miko:
The day starts at zero (00:00) and ends at 24 (24:00) because there are 24 hours in a day.
Technically, a day begins at 00:00:00 and ends at 23:59:59 --- you have an off-by-one error.

Damn-- I've been cheated out of a second every single day!

([<{ please check for whoosh before angrily correcting me}>])

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

TRWTF is that when people get to things like this, though I imagine we're all guilty of it at some points, is why people never identify "man, this must be a really common problem, maybe I should actually look for the 'real' solution."

And as a corollary, when you DO look, and a "solution" like this is what comes up in google, not being able to identify that that's still way more clumsy than such a common problem "should be", and digging a bit more to see if there's a "real" answer.

I mean, PHP is bad, but do people really think we manually parse apart specific date formats, and do math, to get the hours/mins/seconds out of it?

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

JAPH:
TRWTF is the UK getting after the US for using a system of measures THEY invented.

And the Germans for using Fahrenheit which one of them invented.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

So what about 1/5 foot? Or 1/5 of gallon?

xaade · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

BrunoTR:
Ok, so, if I'm understanding your reasoning correctly, If I measure the alcohol content in a shot glass of whatever it will be the same as in a pint of (whatever) beer or a wine glass of (whatever) wine? Because if not that's not really very precise, is it?
I can appreciate the value of knowing that, say, two pints of beer will make me tipsy, or two bottles, or two tankards, but that's not meant to be an exact measurement. I wont't say one night "Hey, I noticed I drank only 1 + 7/8 bottles tonight and it was enough to make me tipsy!"

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if youre drinking or cooking and you don't need to be super exact in your measurements, then it's ok to use whatever is at hand as your measuring unit (e.g. pints / bottles of beer or cups of flour). Sometimes the bartender will fill the shot glass a little more, sometimes the flour will be more packed in the cup, some apples will be bigger than others: precision doesn't matter that much in these contexts.

BUT when you need precision and standardization it does work better when your units click together and use a single coherent (decimal) scale. You can relate meters, grams, seconds, joules, watts, hertz, pascals, volts, ohms, etc without having to remember any extraneous constants. (like 1 (US) gallon = 231 cubic inches or 1 horsepower = 550 foot-pounds per second)

I won't argue that base 12 would be wonderful for working with fractions, but having used the metric system my whole life I can say that I (and most people I know) don't think in terms of fractions that much, unless we're eating cake or pizza. Fractions are great for dividing things, not so good for measuring and comparing. That's why - as you yourself pointed out - most fractions are meaningless to us humans.

You asked how to compare 5/12 to 1/3 or 2/3. What if it was 0.41666 to 0.33333 or 0.66666? Even if the decimals are recurring, there's no doubt as to which is bigger.

I didn't mean that any drink can be in any glass. I'm saying that if you use the right glass for the right drink, you'll know without thinking how much you should drink. You won't have to... ok, this is 15% by volume so I usually drink this 3% by volume so I can fill the glass one third... oh crap, where's the 1/3 measuring line.

Exactly. If you don't need to be exact, there's no need to have a metric system. Use whatever measuring system is the most convenient, and I've found the standard system much more convenient for cooking. Much much more. Plus, it's much better to have a system that works better with fractions. Sometimes you want to divide the recipe by a third or fourth, much better to have a system that handles that better.

In terms of comparing height of people at glance, it's much easier to have feet than meters IMO. I find it better to have numbers that fit the context. It's not helpful to know that I'm 2 meters and my wife is 1.678 meters. How do I relate those two. 6 and 5 just work better.

Of course you could use decimeters. 20 and 17 is easier. But when I want non-exactness, I prefer fractions that are easier to relate in my head.

Yes, you could say 5/12 is bigger than 1/3 faster if you just compare the decimals, but it's more than just if one is bigger, it's bigger by how much. Ok, .41666 - .33333 = .08333. But how useful is .0833? Does that mean anything to you? It doesn't to me. 5/12 - 1/3 = 5/12 - 4/12 = 1/12. 1/12. I just prefer that number. I immediately know that 1/12 is 1/4 of 1/3. And if I was cooking, it's more helpful to have that in my head and have a 1/12 measuring cup, than to have my measuring cups labelled .08333.

But I guess I'm just biased.

I mean, if I'm doing machine computation, I just use binary and hex. I don't convert to decimal. I can even do float type computation in my head much faster than base 10.

eViLegion · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

JAPH:
TRWTF is the UK getting after the US for using a system of measures THEY invented.

Hahaha! Suckers... we persecuted all your ancestors for their religion so they'd piss off to some bullshit continent, and to add insult to injury we made you use imperial, taxed you up to the eyeballs so you'd rebel, then fucked off, thereby lumbering you with a preposterous non-decimal system.

Yeah... we did that.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

xaade:
The ONLY reason we have the metric system is because we're so pedantic on decimal-points of measurements. Which is great for working measurements of space and volume like designing a building. It's horrible for other uses like cooking, etc.

What's so horrible about, say, 1.5 liters of water? Seems all those "horrors" about decimals stem from using ridiculously over-precise values e.g. when converting, such as saying 3.785411784l for 1 US gallon instead of just 3.8l or even 4l, depending on context. Few recipes are that precise to start with.

If you still want to keep on this issue, then why 10s. Why don't we scale metric to a base that makes more sense. Nope, we chose 10s. 10 is a horrible number for fractions. 12 is much much better, 30 if you'd prefer using 1/5 over 1/4, 60 does it all but much harder to create a character system for. What's 1/4, 1/3, 1/6 of 10?

While 10 is certainly not the best base in any sense (you prefer 12 or 30, computers like powers of 2, mathematicians would like a prime number, 10 is in neither list), that's how we do all our calculations already. So using a 10-based system means no additional effort to do calculations, even the decimals points don't hurt. You know that 3*15 = 45, so 3*1.5l = 4.5l. I never got the American obsesssion with fractions. Do you really need to divide by 3 or 6 so often? I don't.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Rnd(:
So what about 1/5 foot? Or 1/5 of gallon?

0.2 feet and 0.2 gallons.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

JAPH:
How do you represent 1/3 of a meter?

Simple: 1/3 meter.

But anyway, your point is? Anyone can create an example of how the one system fails to display a certain measurement of the other system (25.5 meters is 83.6614173 feet, now tell me that this is any better...). But it doesn't change the fact (yes, from my point of view it's a fact. You might see that a little bit different though ;) ) that the metric system is way more logical: http://www.elauhel.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/imperial_vs_metric.png

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

xaade:
The ONLY reason we have the metric system is because we're so pedantic on decimal-points of measurements. Which is great for working measurements of space and volume like designing a building. It's horrible for other uses like cooking, etc.
When using different measurements for different sizes, they don't have to be related. We can measure a person by feet. 6 and 1/3, 6 and 1/2, 6 and 1/4, 6 and 1/6. We have all those specifications with feet and inches.

If you still want to keep on this issue, then why 10s. Why don't we scale metric to a base that makes more sense. Nope, we chose 10s. 10 is a horrible number for fractions. 12 is much much better, 30 if you'd prefer using 1/5 over 1/4, 60 does it all but much harder to create a character system for. What's 1/4, 1/3, 1/6 of 10?

When cooking, do you measure your ground herbs by liter? I suppose you could do milliliter, or worse "cubic-centimeter", but have you compared recipes in metric vs. "standard"?

The reason standard exists is because we used to measure by what made sense for the size/scale/object. Now we want all our measurements to relate so it's easier to compare. But outside of engineering, do you really need to compare the weight of your eggs to a skyscraper?

Addendum (2013-07-09 10:18): 10 was a number we should have abandoned when we could start recording amounts. 10 is only useful because we only have 10 fingers. What's the fractional granularity of 10. 1/10, 1/5, 1/2. That's it. 1, 2, and 5. With 12 we get 1/12, 1/6, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, or 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. We only miss 5.

It's much easier for humans to use fractions of 1/x or (x-1)/x. Other fractions are meaningless when we hear them. How do you compare 5/12 to 1/3 or 2/3? Takes a second?

How do you compare 4/10 to 9/10? We can compare 4/10 to 8/10 quickly because 4/8 is 1/2. But 4/9? Not that useful.

<rant>

Goddamn you're a douche. Basing the utility of the number base on how reducible fractions are is like voting Republican cause they got all the hot psychotic women.

As soon as you start arguing in favor of base 30 and 60 number systems you must have realized you leapt off the deep end. Think of the multiplication tables! Ze cheeldren weel never lern.

And then you (of course) left out base 8, which WOULD be awesome cause then floating point numbers would just be plain old standard scientific notation. No messy conversions, and no 1.955555555555's ever (unless you really wanted them). But your view is that 8 simply doesn't have enough prime divisors. Sigh.

Conclusion: numbers probably just confuse you, and if you genuinely like base 30, then you probably did vote Republican. Dumbass.

</rant>

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
And of 12:00:00 m being technically correct for the infinitessimal period at exactly noon, but for practical purposes there is no point in doing it. Imagine an LCD clock - in the time that the "m" takes to appear, it will have become invalid, so don't bother. And for specifying "noon", since there is a hypothecated quantum granularity of time, we can assert that it probably can never actually be exactly noon, but always a small fraction of a Planck interval before or after, it is always either am or pm.

As you say, this is only hypothetical.

However, due to the uncertainty principle, an observer can never be perfectly at rest relative to a watch, so due to special relativity, events are not synchronous between the watch and the observer. That's why it doesn't make sense to display exactly noon. It's really so simple.

Stan Rogers · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
*When*measuring*liquids* a cup is a unit of measure, equal to half a pint. Of course that means a US cup is about 5/6 of an Imperial cup, because the corresponding pints are in about that ratio. (And, worse, they aren't the same number of fluid ounces, because a US pint is 16 US fluid ounces, while an Imperial pint (the only way to measure beer, even if you call it 568ml) is 20 Imperial fluid ounces.)

No, not quite. A cup is 8 fluid ounces, and while there is a trifling difference between the official volume of a fluid ounce in the American and Imperial systems (something that won't affect real-world measurements to even the degree that variations in the height of the meniscus of liquids would), there is no perceptible difference between an American cup and an Imperial cup. Where we differ is where we attach the handy conversion value between water weight and liquid volume. In the US, a pint is a pound, yielding a 32-ounce quart and an eight-pound gallon. In the Imperial system, a gallon is defined as ten pounds of water, which yields a 40-ounce quart and a 20-ounce pint. (The definitions of a quart being a quarter of a gallon and a pint being half a quart remain he same.) So in the Imperial system, there are two and a half cups to the pint, or five cups to the quart.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

JAPH:
How do you represent 1/3 of a meter?

About thirteen inches.

aigarius:
Tell me, what is 1/13th of a foot?

About 0.0234 meters.

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

xaade:
In terms of comparing height of people at glance, it's much easier to have feet than meters IMO. I find it better to have numbers that fit the context. It's not helpful to know that I'm 2 meters and my wife is 1.678 meters. How do I relate those two. 6 and 5 just work better.

Interesting you brought up such an example, because I was gonna use almost exactly the same example against imperial.

So, how do you relate 2m and 1.68m? Well, just like you relate the numbers 2 and 1.68 in any other context. 2 is obviously bigger than 1.something, the difference 0.32 is not too hard to compute etc. (BTW, few people measure body size to 3 decimals, another example of unnecessary over-precision, like your .41666 stuff I cut; 0.01m is already more than twice as precise as an inch, so let's stick to meaningful comparisons.)

OTOH in imperial (unless the sizes just happen to be 5 and 6 ft, which is easy, but rather the exception): But how do you relate, say 6ft2in and 5ft8in? Sure, 6 and something is bigger than 5 and something, but by how much? You can't do a simple subtraction (like 6.2-5.8 = 0.4) because you have to carry 12, not 10. Oh, I'm sure, you can do it in your mind without much thinking because you're used to it, but it's something more to learn. In a decimal system, there's nothing more to learn because you learn to do simple arithmetics anyway.

BTW, I suppose it would be difficult for you (adults) to switch now (or at any point), but as long as you don't and you're teaching your children imperial, you make them learn extra unnecessary stuff (see above) and help to estrange them from the rest of the world (though your government does quite a good job of that as well).

herby · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Back to the topic at hand (time)... One should know that Time & Date calculations usually have system library functions in almost every computer language known (I don't know about Fortran & Cobol!). They ARE there and lots of people have gone over them to make sure they produce correct results. One should learn to USE THEM, and not re-invent them on the fly, as the implementation has a high likelihood of being WRONG, or at the very least inefficient.

As for cooking cups, gallons, feet and other such mundane stuff: Most European recipes are WEIGHT (grams, etc.) based, while most American recipes are VOLUME (cups, etc.) based. Plan accordingly when you go to the grocery store!

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
a US pint is 16 US fluid ounces, while an Imperial pint (the only way to measure beer, even if you call it 568ml) is 20 Imperial fluid ounces

As a child, I was taught the mnemonic "a pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter" for the relationship between pints and fluid ounces. Years later, I was delighted to encounter the American equivalent "a pint's a pound the world around".

Where "the world around" means "in the USA".

xaade · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Rollyn01:

Huh... I always thought that a.m. and p.m. were made up as part of a reference to the most recognized and most significant part of the day: noon. What limits are you taking about?

This is the problem with the contemporary mindset.

We're smart for using [latest system], and everyone before us was stupid.

A couple of problems with that mindset.

Everyone before us is valuable because we wouldn't have [latest system].
"Ancient" systems are still useful. It's not like we have that much better of a calendar with all the "oops, need to subtract one second here".
Said proponent of the [latest system] most likely didn't invent it, and can't improve it because they aren't that smart at all. Otherwise, they'd be looking for flaws instead of pointing out flaws of previous models.
They don't value alternatives. They don't see any benefit of previous systems. So when they get into a situation where [latest system] fails, and previous system is better, they'd never recognize it. They are the person that says, "I can't find my way home, GPS isn't working." I like Nick Fury in Avengers, "Is the sun in the sky? Put the sun on the left." Said person would be, "Oh, poor sods that must rely on the sun. I pity the fools." And then die when the ship drops out of the air.

I hate arrogance. Arrogance is a weakness that limits the mind. It can only be sustained by a comfortable lifestyle, and is useless in a pragmatic world.

Like when Europe looks down on America.

I view it like two guys on the Titanic, one on the part pointing in the air, laughing at the guy almost under water.

TheCPUWizard · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

xaade:
Do you really need to know how much beer it would take to fill the pipes in the water treatment plant?

Used or Fresh? [ducking and running]

xaade · 2013-07-09 Reply Admin

cretin:
<rant>
Goddamn you're a douche. Basing the utility of the number base on how reducible fractions are is like voting Republican cause they got all the hot psychotic women.

As soon as you start arguing in favor of base 30 and 60 number systems you must have realized you leapt off the deep end. Think of the multiplication tables! Ze cheeldren weel never lern.

And then you (of course) left out base 8, which WOULD be awesome cause then floating point numbers would just be plain old standard scientific notation. No messy conversions, and no 1.955555555555's ever (unless you really wanted them). But your view is that 8 simply doesn't have enough prime divisors. Sigh.

Conclusion: numbers probably just confuse you, and if you genuinely like base 30, then you probably did vote Republican. Dumbass.

</rant>

I voted republican because I like a certain number system? You've thrown totally unrelated topics together to find a way to create elaborate ad hominid.

I'm arguing that reducible fractions are useful, when baking a cake. I never said to use the standard system for conversion between systems, to calculate volume from density and mass. I explicitly said not to if you read my post.

I'm saying the standard system can be useful for certain things, and to think that metric is superior and therefore people not using metric are stupid, is a foolish mindset. The name "cretin" suits you.

I didn't leave out base 8. It's used with ounces in a cup.

Numbers don't confuse me. I'm saying that fractions are quicker to work with when you want to divide amounts. Isn't that obvious?

I just can't stand arrogance.

What did you do that's just so awesome that you're so much better than people who don't think like you?

2013-07-09 Reply Admin

Obviously, the "programmer" was used to one of those old-fashioned self-winding clocks, which ran forwards from midnight til noon, and then wound themselves up by running backwards from noon til midnight.

Epoch Fail

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