• (cs) in reply to mkb
    mkb:
    European:
    You, Moron!! The same way you don't fucking use the bloody metrical system (inches... measured from a King's hand... ha!) we use diverse decimal separators. And also use something different from you: the BRAIN!

    Are you trying to make sense here? You completely missed the joke about the band 'Europe' and made yourself look like a jingoistic moron. I think you'd fit in well with the American attitutde you purport to detest.

    BTW, start mocking other nations when yours get something like a decent history... At least, our forefathers weren't outcasts come from England's jails

    That's Australia.

    Both are right - the English used the Amercian Colonies first (and not only for penal prisoners but also legitimate Scottish resistance fighters and civilians after Culloden), then they got kicked out by the Americans and only afterwards started sending penal prisoners halfway around the world to Australia - Cook's discoveries were considered a godsend by them in that aspect.

  • (cs) in reply to mrprogguy
    mrprogguy:
    There are lots of reasons not to use the Metric system, the first of which being that there's too many units that no one actually uses. For example, the decimeter. No one actually uses the decimeter. It's there, of course, because it has to be there, but nobody uses it. Common usage is millimeter, centimeter (although I see 0.3cm and the like all the time), the meter, and the kilometer.

    When was the last time you saw something listed in megameters? You just don't--which leads to a lot of confusion on the part of people trying to convert to metric. ("Why are there all these names I have to learn but will never, ever use?")

    And, when you get right down to it, what's so weird about making a unit of length based on any arbitrary thing you happen to like? After all, the original definition of the meter was 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole through Paris (through Paris!). That's right, ladies and germs, the unit of straight-line measurement was determined as 1/10,000,000 of a particular arc! (Those wacky French!)

    Now it's a bit better defined (distance travelled by light in a perfect vacuum in 1/c seconds), but it's still arbitrary.

    Learning the Imperial system isn't that difficult, either--really little more difficult than learning an alphabet. Since I have training in the sciences, I know both the Imperial and Metric systems--which I believe, under your qualifications, means I have a brain. Maybe more of a brain than you Metric-only goons.

    It could happen.

    Are you aware that for volume and weight measurements the units used in the US on one side and the UK on the other are actually different ? You guys are still stuck in the 19th century and should be ashamed of yourself.

  • (cs) in reply to The Fox
    The Fox:
    Let us not forget that extremely popular unit of measurement, which is used extensively anymore for specifying moderate distances and areas: That is, the football field.

    Please, please, don't go there. You might not be aware that the term "football" has some interesting localization issues as well.

    You guys are talking about Football, Rugby, Australian Football or American Rugby ?

  • (cs) in reply to Rank Amateur
    Rank Amateur:
    What a long boring argument about whether metric or English system is better. You would think that on this forum of all places everyone would understand that the superior measurement system uses only multiples evenly divisible by 16. --Rank

    Oh holy enlightened master forgive us our simplicity but we work hard on system divisible by 2.

  • (cs) in reply to mnature
    mnature:

    < SNIP >

    The biggest advantage to the imperial system is that it is based roughly upon the human body, which you carry about with you all the time (well, most of us do, anyway).

    < SNIP >

    So it is with the imperial system, where 12 inches equal one foot.

    < SNIP >

    Everybody has twelve finger now or what ?

  • (cs) in reply to Scottford
    Scottford:
    !Z:
    Infact there are simply no technical reasons not to use the metric system - it makes just too much sense. Only ecominical and political ones.

    True, but the economic reasons are substantial. Houses are built out of standard-length 2x4s, 8' wallboard, etc. Homeowners are not screaming for 2.4384 meter ceilings.

    No, we want 2,5 m ceilings.

  • suomynona (unregistered) in reply to Mikademus
    Mikademus:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_arguments_and_counter-arguments:
    However, only few parts of the Imperial or US customary systems actually feature the factor twelve, namely the inch-to-foot ratio and the rarely used troy ounce-to-troy pound ratio. Powers of two are more common, especially in volume measures, along with other factors including five, seven and eleven.

    The powers of two then seems like the software engineer's drea! ;-)

  • iogy (unregistered) in reply to mnature
    mnature:
    [ The biggest advantage to the imperial system is that it is based roughly upon the human body, which you carry about with you all the time (well, most of us do, anyway).
    That's not an advantage because not everyone looks exactly alike.
    Makes for quick-and-dirty on-the-fly measurements and approximations.
    Freely translated from an engineer's axiom: "A guess is a miss, a measurement is a fact."
    Imperial is convenient if you need to do quick estimates or are using a lot of fractions (which are much more accurate than decimal numbers).
    Fractions? You're aware how much people suck in fractions, right? Add 3/17 + 4/23 + 12/11 - and how good will your guess be on the sum of this? As for accuracy, why'd you need accuracy if you're only using it to make quick and dirty estimates in the first place?
    Let us not forget that extremely popular unit of measurement, which is used extensively anymore for specifying moderate distances and areas: That is, the football field.
    This is why those NASA things crash.
    In this case, neither Imperial nor metric has a length or area unit which fits easily into news reporting.
    We've got soccer fields in the EU.

    Quick, add a mile, a yard, and a foot and give me the outcome in inches. You get exactly 5 seconds.

    See how ridiculous it is?

  • suomynona (unregistered) in reply to suomynona
    suomynona:
    The powers of two then seems like the software engineer's drea! ;-)

    I meant 'dream'.

    CAPTCHA: gotcha -- yep, my fingers got me on that last post. (or was it the forum software playing a cruel joke on me? Hmmm....)

  • Jens Fudge (unregistered) in reply to yet another Alex

    I (European) really find the metric system annoying... Why the F.. is there 1.000 (thats a european thousands separator) meters to one kilometer, or 1.000 grams to one kilogram.. Surely we in this forum, easily should agree that kilo means 1.024, so one kliometer should really be 1.024 meters...

    Whether we live in America or Europe, or any place else for that matter :-)

    BTW, I always sing "We are the World" between dollars and cents.

  • iogy (unregistered) in reply to Jens Fudge

    [quote user="Jens Fudge"]Surely we in this forum, easily should agree that kilo means 1.024, so one kliometer should really be 1.024 meters...[/quote] [/quote]

    Do you have 10 fingers or 8 fingers? Or perhaps 16 fingers? Now there's a "derived from the human body" argument for metric!

    1024 only looks good in binary or hexadecimal anyway.

    captcha : craaazy :D

  • BruteForce (unregistered) in reply to mnature
    mnature:
    wayne:
    It's always fun when someone starts to defend the imperial system.

    You gave exactly no reason against the metric system and you gave exactly no reason for the imperial system.

    The only advantage of the imperial system in countries like the U.S. is that you guys already know it.

    The biggest advantage to the imperial system is that it is based roughly upon the human body, which you carry about with you all the time (well, most of us do, anyway). Makes for quick-and-dirty on-the-fly measurements and approximations. If you look at languages, the verbs that tend to be most irregular are the ones that are used the most (I am, you are, he is, etc.). So it is with the imperial system, where 12 inches equal one foot. Seems like a rather odd number, but if you do woodworking or metalworking, it can be very handy to have a standard such as 12 inches that can be easily subdivided into 1/2's, 1/3's, 1/4's and 1/6's. In the case of volumes, a gallon of water is 8 pounds, making a quart 2 pounds, and a cup 1/2 pound. If you are using a simple balance, where you place a known weight on one side versus what you are measuring out on the other, you can then use specific volumes of water (easily available) to measure out weights of anything else.

    What appears arbitrary was simply based on convenience. Metric is convenient if you are using decimals (though that is usually limited to multiplying or dividing by powers of ten, and makes no difference for addition and subtraction). Imperial is convenient if you need to do quick estimates or are using a lot of fractions (which are much more accurate than decimal numbers).

    Let us not forget that extremely popular unit of measurement, which is used extensively anymore for specifying moderate distances and areas: That is, the football field. Most news articles that need to talk about distances and areas are now using the length or area of a football field (or multiples thereof) when reporting on particular distances and areas. Which simply proves that people will tend to use some familiar popular standard when the official standards do not match with their needs. In this case, neither Imperial nor metric has a length or area unit which fits easily into news reporting.

    And then we have the slight oddity that different nations had different lengths of each annotation. In sweden, for instance, the foot is something like 10-20% longer than the american foot (The measurement, not the body part, although, the second might be true too) Otoh, we have not used the imperial system since like, forever, since base10 is easier to work with. We also have larger pints. ;) An oddity is that a barrel (127 litres) should be the same all around the globe because the artisans that made them safeguarded the secret of making a proper one. ;)

  • Jens Fudge (unregistered) in reply to iogy

    [quote user="iogy"][quote user="Jens Fudge"]Surely we in this forum, easily should agree that kilo means 1.024, so one kliometer should really be 1.024 meters...[/quote] [/quote]

    Do you have 10 fingers or 8 fingers? Or perhaps 16 fingers? Now there's a "derived from the human body" argument for metric!

    1024 only looks good in binary or hexadecimal anyway.

    captcha : craaazy :D[/quote]

    Oh, really... I never thought of it that way.. I thought 1024 worked anywhere... This was definatly seriously meant, but I see your point exactly... The reason why we use the decimal system is because thats how many fingers we have... WAUW, that is just Soooo smart.. Thanks for enlighting me iogy.. You make the world a better place, spreading little tidbits of your vast knowledge like that :-)

  • (cs) in reply to welcor
    welcor:
    Zylon:
    Mikademus:
    I know exactly the fraction of my handspan a decimetre has or the amount of mu height a metre is.
    Then you're weird, and shouldn't consider yourself a representative example of anything.

    Hey, what's up with the namecalling ? As a matter of fact, from the tip of my thumb to the tip of my little finger (pinky? - who knows?) I can span just about 20cm when my fingers are fully extended. A meter is just about a step length (actually slightly shorter, but for short distances it's accurate enough). My shoes are 27cm long - about 4 on a meter.

    Really, convenience is no argument for using imperial units.

    Unfortunately, what is lacking is the will to change.

    QFT. The point is, the Imperial is not truly "closer to the body" than the metric just because some of the names of its units correspond, or are traditionally defines related, to body parts; the "close to the body, the body being something we all carry with us" is really something personal for every individual in that we all tend to relate smaller measurements to our bodies. In that way the metric is really no less "bodily personal" than the Imperial. As I said, I know on my hand the length of a decimetre (which is a very convenient length measurement, and a metre is ten decimetres; Zylon above relates a metre to a stride, which incidentally is what many Imperials do with a yard) as a know a metre on my body. Further, it is easier visualising tenths of a metre (decimetre) or hundreds of a metre/tenths of a decimetre (centimetre) than 36ths or a yard or 12ths of a foot.

    Anyway, great debunking follows:

    cklam:
    mnature:

    < SNIP >

    The biggest advantage to the imperial system is that it is based roughly upon the human body, which you carry about with you all the time (well, most of us do, anyway).

    < SNIP >

    So it is with the imperial system, where 12 inches equal one foot.

    < SNIP >

    Everybody has twelve finger now or what ?

    However, the counter-argument is of course that the Imperial system has never attempted to be internally consistent, rather "I get forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I like it!".

  • iogy (unregistered) in reply to Jens Fudge
    Jens Fudge:
    I thought 1024 worked anywhere... This was definatly seriously meant, but I see your point exactly...
    1024 works only if you count in binary - then the bits flip at the right time and the stuff makes sense (when performing arithmetic).

    The downside is that you (early on) get big numbers that are hard to decipher and hard to remember, unless you write them in hexadecimal, and 1024 (0x400) isn't particularly "hexadecimal" as a number - 256 and 4096 are. Doing long division by hand in hexadecimal or any kind of floating point stuff: try it. It'll make Roman numerals seem simple.

    Now, if you'd propose to replace the horrible time and calendar system by a binary system - I'm all for that. Whatever possessed those Babylonians, I don't know.

  • Some Random Memetic Engineer (unregistered) in reply to cklam
    cklam:
    danixdefcon5:

    ... In Soviet Russia, threads run YOU!!!!

    Soviet Russia ?!? What is this - isn't the Russian President called Vladimir Putin and not Vladimir Lenin ?

    Or did we all miss a revolution there in the past few days ?

    No, but you appear to have missed an internet meme in the past few years, based off of the late 80's stand up comedy routines of Yakov Smirnoff.

  • Stof (unregistered)

    All you should know about the fight between Imperial units and metric units, courtesy of the great Internet Oracle: http://cgi.cs.indiana.edu/~oracle/digest.cgi?N=365#365-10

  • Flo (unregistered) in reply to Jens Fudge
    Jens Fudge:
    I (European) really find the metric system annoying... Why the F.. is there 1.000 (thats a european thousands separator) meters to one kilometer, or 1.000 grams to one kilogram.. Surely we in this forum, easily should agree that kilo means 1.024, so one kliometer should really be 1.024 meters...
    No. Kilo- means 1000. And I think it's better to have 100 g being 0.1 kg than 100 g being 0.09765625 kg. 1024 is only used for filesizes etc. and even there a 100GB HDD actually has 100*10^9 byte = 93.1*1024^3 byte storagecapacity. So 100GB is 93.1GB for some strange IT-reason (hey, a WTF).

    This is why this 93.1GB are "officially" called Gibibytes (GiB) to make sure the 1024-multiplier is recognised.

    If you really like it, you can talk about kibigram and kibimetre. Noone will understand you and you won't be able to tell what's 1360m in Kim, but it's defined.

  • Jens Fudge (unregistered) in reply to iogy
    iogy:
    Jens Fudge:
    I thought 1024 worked anywhere... This was definatly seriously meant, but I see your point exactly...
    1024 works only if you count in binary - then the bits flip at the right time and the stuff makes sense (when performing arithmetic).

    The downside is that you (early on) get big numbers that are hard to decipher and hard to remember, unless you write them in hexadecimal, and 1024 (0x400) isn't particularly "hexadecimal" as a number - 256 and 4096 are. Doing long division by hand in hexadecimal or any kind of floating point stuff: try it. It'll make Roman numerals seem simple.

    Now, if you'd propose to replace the horrible time and calendar system by a binary system - I'm all for that. Whatever possessed those Babylonians, I don't know.

    Oh, darn it.. I forgot to mention I was being a tad sarcastic here... My bad... ;-)

  • (cs) in reply to cklam
    f@:
    mrprogguy:
    There are lots of reasons not to use the Metric system, the first of which being that there's too many units that no one actually uses. For example, the decimeter.
    wayne:
    You gave exactly no reason against the metric system

    Um... I counted at least one reason in that quote...

    Nope, cause it's wrong [] While it's definitely not the most used one, the decimeter is used (you may have heard of the fact that 1 liter is defined as 1dm^3 for example) [] And "decimeter" is not a unit, it's a sub-unit of the meter (official SI unit) using using an official SI prefix meaning "10^-1", so "decimeter" is merely a convenience for "10^-1 meter", just as "centimeter" is a convenience for "10^-2 meter" and "yotameter" is a convenience for "10^24 meter"

    !Z:
    I might also add that centimetre, although in common usage (and decimetre, in not so common usage), is not a SI (International System of Units) unit which is used in science and engineering
    "centimeter" (or "decimeter" for that matter) is the combination of a perfectly "legal" SI prefix and a perfectly "legal" SI unit, it's therefore just as "legal" as millimeters, kilometers, zeptometer or terameter.

    And it IS used in science and engineering.

    cklam:
    Scottford:
    !Z:
    Infact there are simply no technical reasons not to use the metric system - it makes just too much sense. Only ecominical and political ones.

    True, but the economic reasons are substantial. Houses are built out of standard-length 2x4s, 8' wallboard, etc. Homeowners are not screaming for 2.4384 meter ceilings.

    No, we want 2,5 m ceilings.

    Remember, while most of the european populations are getting bigger, americans are probably getting smaller.

    Jens Fudge:
    Surely we in this forum, easily should agree that kilo means 1.024
    no?

    Well not for SI units anyway. Bits are not SI units.

    Fact is that kilo, mega, giga and other SI prefixes were used for computer storage sizes as analogies to the aforementioned SI units.

    And whoever

    Flo:
    So 100GB is 93.1GB for some strange IT-reason (hey, a WTF).
    Marketting reason, actually.
  • iogy (unregistered) in reply to Jens Fudge
    Jens Fudge:
    Oh, darn it.. I forgot to mention I was being a tad sarcastic here... My bad... ;-)
    My meter only whacked out at the "wauw, that's just so smart" part :(. Time to have it re-calibrated, I guess.
  • (cs) in reply to cklam
    cklam:
    Scottford:
    True, but the economic reasons are substantial. Houses are built out of standard-length 2x4s, 8' wallboard, etc. Homeowners are not screaming for 2.4384 meter ceilings.

    No, we want 2,5 m ceilings.

    Well actually, when I go to a builders merchants in the UK the sizes are metric but are effectively rounded off versions of the old imperial sizes. So instead of 8x4 (feet) plasterboard (approx 1219mm x 2438mm) you are sold a sheet exactly 1200mm x 2400mm. Wood lengths are sold in 30cm (about 1 foot) multiples with a minimum of 90cm (about 3 feet). Cross sections are 50x25 and 100x50 rather than 2x1 and 2x4 which would be slightly larger. This is of course rough sawn with the usual confusion remaining that planed sizes are actually smaller than the quoted dimensions.

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to f@
    f@:
    mrprogguy:
    There are lots of reasons not to use the Metric system, the first of which being that there's too many units that no one actually uses. For example, the decimeter.
    wayne:
    You gave exactly no reason against the metric system

    Um... I counted at least one reason in that quote...

    That maybe so, but I'm with wayne on this one. There were no good arguments for the metric system, except the one wayne gave. The advantage of the metric system is that the prefixes are the same, no matter what you are talking about.

    Does anyone know how many chains there are in a gallon? (spot the deliberate mistake). How many roods in a furlong? ..... No????

    How many metres in a kilometre? How many litres in a kilolitre? How many tonnes in a megatonne? All these are simple and easy questions in metric, even if you don't know what a litre or a tonne is.

    I'll admit that some variants are rarely used, but then, why worry about them. The problem is much, much, much worse in Imperial. In Imperial, even a tonne or a mile means something different, depending on where you ask. (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton#Units_of_mass)

    I always expect that anyone defending Imperial is doing it as a joke, but then I remember that even NASA used it for their Mars mission (the mind boggles) - that would be the Mars mission that achieved a smallish crater on the surface of Mars.

  • pipTheGeek (unregistered)

    No seems to have mentioned that the UK currently use both metric and imperial (Proper 20fl oz to the pint imperial, not US imperial). I can go to the supermarket and buy 2 pints of milk or a litre of milk, depending on the brand of milk. Other stuff is sold in metric but is often an 'exact' number of grams for some imperial measure. For example, buying 454 grams of mince. We buy petrol in litres but road distances are measured in miles and yards. I have NO IDEA how long a yard is, only how long it takes to drive 100 yards at 70 mph. If I measure something I will normally prefer metric units bacause I am awful at mental arithmatic, but will sometimes use imperial if it means I can use whole numbers. I was only really taught metric at school and it is a pain when half the country you live in is still using imperial, I wish we would either use all metric, or stop pretending that we dont still use imperial and actually teach it!

  • Da' Man (unregistered) in reply to PS

    I'm one of these Europeans, and I just wonder what this thing called "Dollars" is that some people keep talking about.

  • Lee (unregistered)
    The true WTF about the imperical system is that water freezes at 32 degrees...

    Pure water freezes at about -43F (-42C).

  • (cs) in reply to Da' Man
    Da' Man:
    I'm one of these Europeans, and I just wonder what this thing called "Dollars" is that some people keep talking about.

    Funny green pieces of paper worth approximately 3/4 of a Euro. (.760647 right now according to xe.com)

  • Alan (unregistered) in reply to mnature

    a gallon of water is 8 pounds

    No. An [i]American[\i] gallon of water is 8 pounds. A UK pint is 20 fluid ounces, not 16, and the ounces aren't quite the same size either. This is one reason that Americans tend to fall over after an amount of beer they thought they could handle. Them not being used to real beer is another reason of course.

  • Gygax (unregistered) in reply to iogy
    iogy:
    Doing long division by hand in hexadecimal or any kind of floating point stuff: try it. It'll make Roman numerals seem simple.
    This is only because you are used to a 10-based system for long division and floating point. Doing these in hexadecimal is not at all different; you just have to wrap your mind around the different number base.
  • (cs) in reply to powerlord
    powerlord:
    Da' Man:
    I'm one of these Europeans, and I just wonder what this thing called "Dollars" is that some people keep talking about.

    Funny green pieces of paper worth approximately 3/4 of a Euro. (.760647 right now according to xe.com)

    If Dollars were in base-12 then the fractions would be easier to calculate.

  • pipTheGeek (unregistered) in reply to Mikademus
    Mikademus:
    If Dollars were in base-12 then the fractions would be easier to calculate.
    Not if you wanted to do tenths.
  • Blue Demon (unregistered)

    Internationalization is an art form.

    And if you don't sit there with your ethnocentric head up your jacksie, you'll realise that there really IS something to be said for letting the operating system handle this.

    The big WTF in this is that first of all the application is trying to format the data as opposed to the operating system so any effort by an admin to set currency formatting values will be scuppered by the program. Also, as more countries come on line expect a giant switch statement or more probably a bunch of nested ifs.

    I tried to explain patiently to a USian company that not all countries format like this:

    $12,456.35

    for the locale we were targetting it needed to be 12 456,35$

    And they gave ME trouble for "screwing up" their whole entire GUI.

    NEVER hardcode stuff like

    PSEUDOCODE if first letter of account type = P do "PREMIUM" else do "STANDARD"

    Nor if IS_IN_US format this way else format that way

    unless you're on an embedded system and absolutely HAVE to.

    Oh, and also

    Don't hire an i18n consultant at the 11th hour, get him or her involved EARLY. There's more stuff you need to change than you think. There is no 1:1 mapping between languages.

  • JL (unregistered) in reply to cklam
    cklam:
    < SNIP >

    Everybody has twelve finger now or what ?

    I find it amusing that metric system proponents are so enthusiastic when discussing length, volume, or weight but are decidedly quiet when it comes to discussing time measurements. Metric countries use the same hours, minutes, and seconds that the Imperial countries use -- no powers of ten! Why not? It would be so much easier to convert between units if, say, a minute were 10 seconds, an hour were 1000 seconds and a day were 10 hours. It's only logical! ("We don't have 60 or 24 fingers!")

    When you ask a metric proponent why they do not use a metric scheme for time, you get exactly the same arguments that you get from an Imperial proponent on why they do not use the metric system:

    • It's always been done this way.
    • It would cost too much to change.
    • It's a natural measurement.
    • 60/12/24 are easy to divide by 2, 3, or 4.
    • You don't need to convert between units that often.

    In reality, none of these arguments are especially persuasive. The truth is that people will use the system to which they are most accustomed, regardless of how "logical" it is.

  • (cs) in reply to JL
    JL:
    cklam:
    < SNIP >

    Everybody has twelve finger now or what ?

    I find it amusing that metric system proponents are so enthusiastic when discussing length, volume, or weight but are decidedly quiet when it comes to discussing time measurements. Metric countries use the same hours, minutes, and seconds that the Imperial countries use -- no powers of ten! Why not? It would be so much easier to convert between units if, say, a minute were 10 seconds, an hour were 1000 seconds and a day were 10 hours. It's only logical! ("We don't have 60 or 24 fingers!")

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_time

    I'm all for it - I've considered the 24/60-system strange since early childhood. It's France's (or rather, Napoleon Bonaparte's) fault for discontinuing the decimal time system back in the late 1700's.

    wikipedia:
    The most common use of decimal time of day is as fractional days used by scientists and computer programmers. ... Fractional days are often used by astronomers to record observations

    Hopefully it will be introduced soon. Swatch made an attempt in a similar vein, the "Swatch Internet Time", which divides a day into 1000 beats corresponding to ~86 seconds. Nonetheless, when the time comes, my wager is that USA will be enormously more recalcitrant to change than Europe and the rest of the world.

    Oh, btw, the only three countries in the world persisting with non-metric systems are the USA, Liberia and Myanmar; one is an African third work country on route to modernisation and one is a military despotism (I'm talking about Myanmar). So you're in good company for retaining the "Imperial", go USA! ;)

  • Scottford (unregistered) in reply to Gygax
    Gygax:
    iogy:
    Doing long division by hand in hexadecimal or any kind of floating point stuff: try it. It'll make Roman numerals seem simple.
    This is only because you are used to a 10-based system for long division and floating point. Doing these in hexadecimal is not at all different; you just have to wrap your mind around the different number base.

    And memorize a multiplication table with 256 entries instead of 100.

  • Scottford (unregistered) in reply to Lee
    Lee:
    The true WTF about the imperical system is that water freezes at 32 degrees...

    Pure water freezes at about -43F (-42C).

    Nonsense.

    As for the 32 degrees, the Fahrenheit system was chosen so that the usual range of outdoor temperatures would fall between 0 and 100. Not a WTF at all. And since that is the most common usage of temperature it makes much more sense than using the freezing/boiling point of water to set the range.

  • (cs)

    Yay, not only is it going to fail, it's not going to work for anything other than period or comma. At least they though about i8n

  • See (unregistered) in reply to JL
    JL:
    cklam:
    < SNIP >

    Everybody has twelve finger now or what ?

    I find it amusing that metric system proponents are so enthusiastic when discussing length, volume, or weight but are decidedly quiet when it comes to discussing time measurements. Metric countries use the same hours, minutes, and seconds that the Imperial countries use -- no powers of ten! Why not? It would be so much easier to convert between units if, say, a minute were 10 seconds, an hour were 1000 seconds and a day were 10 hours. It's only logical! ("We don't have 60 or 24 fingers!")

    When you ask a metric proponent why they do not use a metric scheme for time, you get exactly the same arguments that you get from an Imperial proponent on why they do not use the metric system:

    • It's always been done this way.
    • It would cost too much to change.
    • It's a natural measurement.
    • 60/12/24 are easy to divide by 2, 3, or 4.
    • You don't need to convert between units that often.

    In reality, none of these arguments are especially persuasive. The truth is that people will use the system to which they are most accustomed, regardless of how "logical" it is.

    Decimal time has really been used for a few years in France at the end of the 1700's, though it never really caught on... my mother actually has an old 10-hours/100-minutes/100-seconds clock, but it doesn't work anymore (and it has been broken for a very long time anyway). The Republican calendar was more widely used, with 12 months of 30 days each (the extra days at the end of the year were holidays), and ten-day weeks. Sadly you can't be completely decimal on days and years as you can't really change the number of days in a year :/

    I often wish we had not abandoned this calendar (and time system), as this was probably the last time such an attempt could be made, and even a bit too late it seems - I don't think such a change is realisable now, and I don't think it will ever be made... just look at the difficulty the USA have today to switch to the metric system... the more you wait, the harder it gets.

  • Jens Fudge (unregistered) in reply to Lee
    Lee:
    The true WTF about the imperical system is that water freezes at 32 degrees...

    Pure water freezes at about -43F (-42C).

    Think you need to catch up on reading your science books. By definition Water freezes at exactly 0.0 degrees... And boils at 100 degrees (thats centigrade...)

  • Adriaan Renting (unregistered) in reply to warren
    warren:
    The Real WTF is that "System.Globalization" uses United States-centric spelling!
    This is true for all programming languages I have encountered until now. When I was in highschool I was learning both English and BASIC, so confusing these I used color in my English and COLOUR in my BASIC, both were considered wrong by the interpreter/teacher.

    Did learn something about the difference between English and American that day.

  • (cs) in reply to Scottford
    Scottford:
    As for the 32 degrees, the Fahrenheit system was chosen so that the usual range of outdoor temperatures would fall between 0 and 100. Not a WTF at all. And since that is the most common usage of temperature it makes much more sense than using the freezing/boiling point of water to set the range.
    Define "normal". Then reflect for a moment about the various environments humans inhabit. In many inhabited places temperature "normally" exceeds 100F or goes below 0F. Thus "normal" really mean "ethnocentric" and has severe portability issues. Unlike centigrade, which is Standard. Which we programmers really should like. TRWTF(tm ) is that so many technicians and programmers here prefer unscientific, non-standard, incongruent measurements to well-defined, scientifically based, consistent and universally standard/stable ones.
  • Flo (unregistered) in reply to Scottford
    Scottford:
    And since that is the most common usage of temperature it makes much more sense than using the freezing/boiling point of water to set the range.
    Sure... I guess everyone can build a simple °F-termometer by just taking the hottest day as 100°F and the coldest as 0°F. It only takes a year to do so and it will be extremly inaccurate.

    lol

  • nelle (unregistered)

    I had simmilar problems when trying to build an SQL query ..

    I do not know what settings the user has on his browser, and I do not know what will he enter as a decimal separator (. or ,) and I have to parse his number and send it to MSSQL server (with a . as the decimal separator) ...

    That is peachy as long as the user does not enter a number > 999 and uses , or . as a thousand separator ... Then the joyride begins ...

  • Lee (unregistered)
    Think you need to catch up on reading your science books. By definition Water freezes at exactly 0.0 degrees... And boils at 100 degrees (thats centigrade...)

    Or maybe yourself.

    Water droplets it extremely high altitude do not freeze, but remain as water - it's one reason why aircraft flying at those altitudes need de-icing mechanisms, as soon as the super cold water hits them it freezes instantly.

    The reason is not to do with pressure (which affects boiling point quite substantially, but not freezing point) but the fact that at that altitude the water is pretty pure so it won't freeze until around -42C. Down at our level water is often not so pure which allows it to freeze at around 0.0C.

    In simple terms, for water to freeze at about 0.0C it needs impurities like dust particles around which ice crystals can readily form. In that absence the crystals won't form.

  • (cs) in reply to poochner
    poochner:
    Veinor:
    mrprogguy:
    There are lots of reasons not to use the Metric system, the first of which being that there's too many units that no one actually uses.

    Oh, and I suppose everybody uses the peck, bushel, rod, link, chain, gill, hogshead, dram, and stick then?

    The bushel and dram, certainly. Produce (fruits and vegetables, in case there's confusion) is sold by the bushel when you buy that much; we use bushel baskets for carrying things. I still see pharmacists (chemists, whatever you call them over there) using the dram when something has to be mixed rather than just sold as a package. Same goes for the grain.

    Funny; I've usually seen produce sold either by weight (in pounds) or by number (and I'm in the US). And the funniest thing of all is that the 'perch' is both a unit of length (1 perch = 16.5 ft = 5.03 m), area (1 perch = 272.25 ft^2 = 25.3 m^2) and volume (1 perch = 24.75 ft^3 = 700 L).

  • (cs) in reply to Scottford
    Scottford:
    !Z:
    Infact there are simply no technical reasons not to use the metric system - it makes just too much sense. Only ecominical and political ones.

    True, but the economic reasons are substantial. Houses are built out of standard-length 2x4s, 8' wallboard, etc. Homeowners are not screaming for 2.4384 meter ceilings.

    Do you ever go to the store and ask for the 122.04 cubic inch soda bottle?

  • Scottford (unregistered) in reply to Lee
    Lee:
    The reason is not to do with pressure (which affects boiling point quite substantially, but not freezing point) but the fact that at that altitude the water is pretty pure so it won't freeze until around -42C. Down at our level water is often not so pure which allows it to freeze at around 0.0C.

    In simple terms, for water to freeze at about 0.0C it needs impurities like dust particles around which ice crystals can readily form. In that absence the crystals won't form.

    Well I did a little research and actually learned something today. You can in fact supercool water well below 0C. But that doesn't change the freezing point (as defined in physics): 0C.

  • AN (unregistered)

    All computer programmers should know that both metric and imperial systems are cheap hacks, and that any proper numeric system would have to use a base-2 system for conversion. Witness the epic disaster that results from HDD manufacturers using real metric "megabytes" and "gigabytes."

    At least there are a few things that the imperial system doesn't screw up, such as 1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups = 256 tablespoons. Of course, teaspoons pretty much bork the whole thing.

    </sarcasm>
  • (cs) in reply to Flo
    Flo:
    kilo-, milli-, deci- are just references to a 10^n multiplier so you don't have to talk about 0.00000001 meter (0.01 micrometer or 10 nanometer). All you have to know is how long a meter is... Are there milliinches in the US? :)
    Actually, some things are measured in milli-inches, also known as mil or thou. The standard thickness of credit cards, driver's licenses, etc. is 30 mil.
  • (cs) in reply to gwenhwyfaer
    gwenhwyfaer:
    warren:
    The Real WTF is that "System.Globalization" uses United States-centric spelling!
    Well, there's a little town in the south west of England which prefers that spelling too. They write a dictionary there - for some reason they think that makes them authoritative.

    They also have a college there. Thames Valley Poly, I think it's called.

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