• nano (unregistered)

    The sun drinks coffee! Who would have guessed?

    CAPTCHA: something really annoying that I will recite because it has a vague connection to something.

  • Paul (unregistered) in reply to Mike
    Mike:
    Its not. (Unless of course you use "imperial speed limits" and metric distances. But who in his right mind would want to do this? (the UK...)
    Hang on - in the UK we use mph for speed and miles for big distances. Also, short distances on road signs are measured in yards (we can't use metres on road signs, or the abbreviation 'm' would be ambiguous).

    (The Department of Transport's guide to traffic sign design (http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tss/tsmanual/trafficsignsmanualchapter7th) is quite strange, because all the sign measurements are in mm, but the signs have to give distances in miles or yards.)

    OK, we use metres for short distances for other things (so 'm' can mean 'miles' or 'metres' - but we're clever enough to know which is meant).

    TBH, I don't know anyone who's confused by this - most people aged 50 or less seem to be able to handle both basic imperial measures (pints, pounds, feet, inches, yards, miles etc) and metric measurements without too much difficulty or confusion. It's not a big deal for general life. For science/engineering we use metric. For everything else, most people seem to use whatever they want, and everyone understands...

  • solaraddict (unregistered) in reply to Your Name

    "70 mph limit on 2-lane highways would be suicidal." Is that why Montana (until recently, AFAIK) had no speed limit?

    Anything above 5 MPH is dangerously fast, anyway ;)

  • xybre (unregistered) in reply to sweavo
    sweavo:
    AlpineR:
    This moon and star symbolism is used in lots of places and I cringe every time I see it.

    Choices:

    (a) fix every graphic designer, icon designer, and amateur maker of hallowe'en posters in the entire world one by one.

    (b) remember it's just a symbol and get the hell over it.

    I know which I'd choose.

    With the power of the internet it can't take more than a month or two, with a bit of door-to-door for those who aren't on the net.

    Maybe we can just release the fix under the guise of a security patch.

  • babedarla (unregistered) in reply to Mike

    it's 70mph max in California--wish it were 75,but we leave that to New Mexico and Texas during the day!

  • babedarla (unregistered) in reply to Mike
    Mike:
    Paul:
    Mike:
    Well and at least in europe most countries have a (metric) speed limit of about 120km/h. This makes the 4km a 2min ride. Not that difficult, is it?

    Don't tell him that...

    Americans think 70mph is dangerously fast (watch their 'police chase' TV programs if you don't believe me) the concept of 70-80mph speed limits will blow their minds! ;)

    At least now we know why they have a slow speed limit - so you can work out how long it will take to get to the next exit (???)

    At least in California they increased the speedlimit at some highways to 75mph. (Which also screws up the nice and easy time estimate :-P...). But having spent most of my life in germany for most parts of my live this still is rather slow.

  • babedarla (unregistered) in reply to babedarla

    I obviously don't know how this thing works!!!

  • Steve Ward (unregistered) in reply to rumpelstiltskin

    In many parts of Europe the speed limit is 120 kms per hour. So if you see a sign saying 4 kms you know you're going to be there in about 2 minutes if you're going at the speed limit.

    It's all relative (cue the Einstein jokes)...

  • ELIZA (unregistered) in reply to Bosshog
    Bosshog:
    Madis:
    I've always not loved non-metric systems :) Did you know that 123 mi² is 493 782 220 800 in² while 123 km² is just 1 230 000 000 000 cm² or even simpler 1.23*10^12 ?

    Btw, the saying goes "a couple of words say more that a crappy picture".

    Yeah, but to be fair, you're changing base units in your Imperial example. The only real complexity in Imperial is the fact that you have a choice of base units (some of which divide others for historical reasons).

    Needless complexity. Also, many units have similar names, such as Troy and Aviordupois lbe.: Quick, how many ounces of gold in a pound? Also, the micrometre divides the inch precisely 25400 times, to take a single example, for the historical reason that no-one else was able to properly define the inch. And the other source of real complexity, which must have...
    slipped your mind
    ... is that in metric, F=ma, for example, means F=ma rather than F=32ma which it unaccountably does in the Roman units... or were you unaware of which empire gave you your libra ("scales", like calling a unit of volume a "barrel" now) and mille passus (or "thousand strides").
    Bosshog:
    If you stick with one unit, say the "foot", it's not a lot different to metric. The use of "powers of ten" prefixes was introduced by metric, but it's not exclusive to it. In fact "kilofeet" are sometimes used for cable distances in the US.

    Furthermore, these "metric prefixes" are not always your friend. It wasn't immediately obvious that you'd got the right number of zeroes in your cm² measure (though you did ;). Schoolkids often struggle with the difference between 1000m² and 1km².

    As opposed to 63360 in² and 1 mi²? ASIDE: 1km is wrong; the correct way to note one kilometre in SI is either 1 km or 1 km.
    Bosshog:
    Also interesting(ish), "centi-" is not a regular metric prefix, as it's a power of 100, not of 1000. It is an anachronism left over from an older version of metric.
    Riiight... and your point is? Or is your point that since Metric doesn't fit into a three-place relationship, that excuses Imperial from fitting into a place relationship at all?
    Bosshog:
    Finally, the real WTF is that the SI base unit of mass is the kilogram, not the gram!
    Perhaps you should call it the Grave, symbolised by G, like they did before the revolution (did you rename all of your units after the closer revolution to the US that occured around then?), and I do in my unpub. Spec. F..
  • shortround81 (unregistered) in reply to foxyshadis

    I know you posted this eons ago, but where did you find this picture? Do you know who drew it??

  • shortround81 (unregistered) in reply to shortround81

    ^^Clarification of my above post. The picture of the giraffe eating the moon. Do you know who painted that picture?

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