The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

RevMike:
The metric system was created by the French revolutionary government while they executed tens of thousands.

Exactly! Without the metric system they would have executed some bizarre number of people like 1442000!

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

hank miller:
Anonymous:
Anyone who voices an extreme opinion on Metric vs. Standard should be shot, in the face.

That would be a good start.

I use either system.   Either works, though there are clear advantages to the "standard" system from time to time, while I've found less advantages to metric.

It comes down to this: metric was designed by scientists using the world knowledge of the late 1700s, while the "standard" system was designed over the years by people with real world problems. The scientists never needed to use measurements in the messy real world, so they never asked why the measurements were so messy.   The people who did the "standard" systems (who were above common) didn't care about things looking nice on paper, they needed to get a job done.

The "standard" system doesn't use base-10, which is about the worst choice you could make.   Base-12 is common in the "standard" system because the standard system was made for the real world where you need to take thirds and fourths often, and 12 allows both.   Base-10 doesn't give you either.

Yes in metric you can change units by moving the decimal.   Nobody does that though, so it is a moot point.

Maybe beacuse you can in your system... duh!

I guess you would wote for a "standard" system for your monetary system as well:

12 cents in a quarter
3 quarters in a dollar
1536 (or somethin) dollars in a thousand buck

However nearly everyone else uses metric, while there never was a single "standard" system that everyone used (Which is why I carefully put standard in quotes). Thus metric is important and useful in the real world.

I find it ironic that most Europeans are able to speak 2+ languages, but cannot deal with 2 systems of measurements, while Americans only speak English, but can handle 2 systems of measurements.

I can handle the two systems (went to school inthe US) but prefer to use the one that is useful...

FM

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
RevMike:

Now compare unemployment rates, growth rates, etc. Please tell me why I shouldn't be laughing.

Now compare:
- crime rate
- poverty rate
- the length you can be put into prison without even being told why
- the 'torture rate'
...

Now tell me:
How does somebody living on the street profit from your growth rate?
How does it help to be fully employed if you still can't feed your kids because there are no minimum wages?

Still laughing?

/Maxim

You really shouldn't have just assumed that he was correct about the growth rate etc. It is not good when you seem to corroborate incorrect statements.

E.g. Ireland Vs USA
GDP growth ~ 5% vs 4%
Unemployment 4.2% vs 5%
Poverty 10% vs 12%
Murder 0.09 per 100 people vs 0.4

Anyway RevMike you are a bad bad man. It may seem funny but it really is just trolling when you upset so many people.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Oh dear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._customary_unit

I won't comment any further, it really speaks for it self.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Perhaps more recent breeding habits have resulted in the majority of us in the civilized world to have 10 fingers and 10 toes, which makes the metric system easier to understand. In the U.S.A., however, there are regions where this is not necessarily the rule. It could imply that 1 foot = 12 inches makes sense.

An interesting corollary is that the same regions in the U.S. correspond to those that benefit from the U.S Electoral College System (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College) and might explain the dominance of Republicans in the U.S. government, and particularly the choice of president.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

I was just a young lad when the US made a (futile) attempt to adopt the system of measurement used in the rest of the world (and used in all scientific methods; where accuracy is crucial).

The primary argument I heard was, "The metric system is too complicated!"

Granted, what was really behind this statement was: "It is too complicated to CONVERT between the two systems" because the US system is based on bizarre and variable benchmarks.

My reaction to that statement, regardless, was always, "You don't find any difficulty in counting American money, do you?"

Why do we have so much trouble accepting a system (based on tens) that is already so integral to our daily life?

Sometimes I am not so proud to be an American [:S]

ZeoS · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Yeah!, all that 'Democracy" sh·t from the French Revolution!!!, bring the King back!

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anyone who voices an extreme opinion on Metric vs. Standard should be shot, in the face.

Agreed. Anyone expressing *any* extreme opinion, in fact.

vhokstad · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

RevMike:
Anonymous:
The real WTF here is that Americans still don't use the metric system.

No, the real WTF is that the rest of the world has been duped into using that inferior system.

I take it you aren't aware that the basis for all official measurements in the US is the metric system, then... Has been since the 1800's - and the US was one of the original signatories to the treaty of the metre. US units are defines in terms of their relation to the various SI units.

RevMike · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

You really shouldn't have just assumed that he was correct about the growth rate etc. It is not good when you seem to corroborate incorrect statements.

E.g. Ireland Vs USA
GDP growth ~ 5% vs 4%
Unemployment 4.2% vs 5%
Poverty 10% vs 12%
Murder 0.09 per 100 people vs 0.4

Anyway RevMike you are a bad bad man. It may seem funny but it really is just trolling when you upset so many people.

Ireland in the last decade has done particularly well righting the ship after centuries of complete and total mismanagement. Ireland, however, is a relatively small bright spot in a lackluster Europe.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/3/35644708.pdf

The unemployment rate in the "Euro Area" as of September 2005 was 8.4% compared to 5.0% in the USA. France was at 9.4%. You are almost twice as likely to be unemployed in France than in the US. September data is not available for the UK, but the UK was at a very strong 4.6% in 2005.

Likewise, the GDP growth rate has consistently outstripped that of France and Germany as well as the UK: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/17/19230458.xls.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Come one, surely 295 Kelvin sounds even hotter.

christoofar · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
More exactly is:
"The real WTF here is that people from USA still don't use the metric system."

the rest of the americans(yeah the american continent start in alaska and end in the patagonia): mexicans, cubans, peruvian, chilenian, etc use it !

Yeah, because... you can just never get more exactly.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

kipthegreat:

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

You yanks can't even SPELL metric!

Anyway, the choice of units nicely mirrors the state of the society as a whole - confused & backwards. Oh, and obstinate too.

christoofar · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
kipthegreat:

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

You yanks can't even SPELL metric!

Anyway, the choice of units nicely mirrors the state of the society as a whole - confused & backwards. Oh, and obstinate too.

Uhm, I've driven through Sussex. Care to explain why you still keep up the signs with distances listed in miles? Hmm? Thought so.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Actually, the math is pretty close. The numbers are clearly for a metric ton, ~2204 lbs = 1 metric ton. Using his math, 2204 lbs = 1.102 tons. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that he (a) got a rather imprecise conversion factor (I beleive the actual conversion factor is an irrational number), and (b) rounded poorly.

Even if the math is right. And what was asked for.

There's a simpler way to solve this formula: x = (p * f) / t = (p) * (f/t) ... find the f/t ratio as a number and muliply the incoming variable by the resultant f/t you find with your pocket calculator. Put the formula to find f/t in your comments. (I've called the return x, the variable pounds p, and the factors f and t respectively.)

I'd still give this a WTF? Why is he making the computer figure out f/t every time? Do they teach Algebra in school anymore?

RevMike · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Come one, surely 295 Kelvin sounds *even hotter*.

But 531 Rankine is even hotter than that!

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Grimoire:
Gene Wirchenko:
Which weighs more: an ounce of feathers or an ounce of gold?

An ounce of gold, obviously...

Wrong answer. Thanks for playing!

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

DUDE:
I disagree... a ton of excrement is equal to a ton of USAians.

What an insightful remark. Bravo!

hank miller · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
hank miller:

It comes down to this: metric was designed by scientists using the world knowledge of the late 1700s, while the "standard" system was designed over the years by people with real world problems. The scientists never needed to use measurements in the messy real world, so they never asked why the measurements were so messy. The people who did the "standard" systems (who were above common) didn't care about things looking nice on paper, they needed to get a job done.

The "standard" system doesn't use base-10, which is about the worst choice you could make. Base-12 is common in the "standard" system because the standard system was made for the real world where you need to take thirds and fourths often, and 12 allows both. Base-10 doesn't give you either.

Nobody does that though, so it is a moot point.

Who's asking 1/3 of a bread loaf, or cheese, or glass of milk?

Nobody does that, which is why the "standard" units don't define such a thing.

You buy a loaf of bread - I have never heard of any other unit used to describe bread.   Now loafs are often of vary different sizes, there is no standard.   If you think one loaf is too big/too small, you buy a different one, but it is still a loaf in size.

Cheese is sold by weight (generally not mass because they use a scale to measure it, not a balance - metric countries just have scales that do the conversion to mass automatically.   Though some places to use balances to measure cheese)

Anonymous:

hank miller:

Yes in metric you can change units by moving the decimal. Nobody does that though, so it is a moot point.

and 1/4 of a kilo is 250 grams (instead of 0,25 kilos), of meter is 25 centimeters (not 0,25metres), as you can see with metric you don't have to use decimals because it is easy to change units by moving the decimal. So your moot point doesn't stand, you're just more familiar to "standard" system.

Now try the same for 1/3rds.   The "standard" system defines easy thirds for things that in the real world are divided into thirds.    The measures that are never divided into thirds don't have easy thirds.

Nobody converts miles to feet or yards, so that the conversion is hard isn't important.

How many cm have you driven you car?   You don't know, and you don't care.

Base-10 is really nice in that you can move the decimal place around to convert units.   However generally you convert units because you are doing other math at the same time, and that other math is often harder in metric.

Mike R · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

mjonhanson:

Gee, anybody notice that the metric vs. english debates end up sounding like java vs. C++, etc.? Psst, all measurment is an abstraction, no matter what its based on.

You're right.

We should all program in machine language and measure things by the length, mass, and volume of the nucleus of a hydrogen atom. That would make life much simpler and we wouldn't have such arguments because everthing will be concrete.

Free · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

NASA isn't a great example of best measurements, they have had issues with metric vs.standard.

"Anyone who voices an extreme opinion on Metric vs. Standard should be shot, in the face."
- I find that a opinion a little extreme :P

Adrienne Clarkson had to publicly appoligize to a high school sudent. He and his class were kicked out by their tour guide after he asked a question about spending.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1108648196298_6/?hub=Canada

As for the new one, I had never heard her name, although I had seen her face on TV, before she was announced as the next GG. She seems like a more interesting person tha Clarkson, but even less well suited.
The qualifications for the job seems to be "years of touchy-feely stories" on our state run TV station.

As has been said a couple times, the imperial measures are closely tied to the people (the folk) and the things they do. I've never mastered the system, but when it was the standard, people were able to convert feet to miles and other such things.
Metric is much more abstract, based on facilitating conversions and calculations.

As systems of measurement they are equal: A pound is a pound, a kilo is a kilo and the conversion between them is well known

I consider myself relatively fortunate, I'm tall (6'4" , its 1 thing I never express it in metric) and my foot is almost one foot long and the length of the first segment of my thumb is about 1 inch long.

I use feet, inches because they are intuitive but I measure them in metric: I think of an inch as 2.5 cm and a foot as 30cm

The biggest obstacle to the adoption of metric is the fact that everything that is currently sold by the pound will seem twice as expensive when sold by the kilo.

The USA has pretty strong ideas about freedom of choice (even if they can be hypocrits about it) and people will use what works best. Many countries in europe have different ideas about some kids of choice.

The funny thing is that lots of people using "Imperial" mesures are doing so by choice where as metric is used primarily by dictate.

hank miller · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

dubwai:
Grimoire:
Gene Wirchenko:
Which weighs more: an ounce of feathers or an ounce of gold?

An ounce of gold, obviously...

Wrong answer. Thanks for playing!

No, he was right. Presure metals (such as Gold) are measured in Troy ounces, while everything else is measured in [I forget the name] ounces.

A troy ounce is 12 to the pound, everything else is 16. Don't ask me why, I don't know. We just do it that way.

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Graham:
Thats by far one of the funniest things I've read all week. I read it out loud to the guys at work here, we were all laughing so hard. 8-| well done, made my day.

However, although I know you say it just to rile people, it's not that far from how I found some people in the states actually think (sure not everyone, but a good number)...
I only recently returned from a 4 month work stay in the states... Damn... I guess I now know what makes a republican tick... and explode... I heard very similar stuff from a number of people on everything from taxes to health care to, of course, that f***ing war. That said those I met who had spent a decent length of time in euroupe, australia / NZ, asia or the like I generally found to be very nice people.. Just the 'america is the world, why the hell should I leave' types were the ones that made me sad.
Not saying americans are bad, just massivly contrasting. You get some absolutly awsome people, then some utterly unbelivable nut jobs.

On a completly unrelated note, while there I was at one point living in a house with 9 mormon students... There were about 2 guns in the house per person and I think they were probably quite glad to see me go.. what with my crazy 'liberal' views and such.

Thank god there are people outside the US who understand this. The US is a large diverse country. We also have a rural controlled, tyrannical government. People from highly populated states have much less per-capita representation than those from low-population states. Like anywhere else in the world, people in rural areas tend to have a more narrow world-view than those from cosmopolitan areas. Also, brain-drain tends to take educated people from these low-pop. states and puts them in large-pop. states.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:

I hate to calculate by head that 100Km/h are 360000000 meters per second.

360000000 meters per second? Woohaa, that´s really fast.

I love these "the rest of the world" against USA and USA against "the rest of the world" arguments. I´m from "the rest of the world". And I have just one thing to say to the rest of "the rest of the world": just let them. It´s the same people that chose Bush TWICE. I mean, common...

faster than lightspeed??? anyway 100 * 1000 / 3600 = 27,778 metres/second, which is difficult to compute by mind and can result in mistakes, like the one the former guy did. So, actually, he made his point clear...

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

hank miller:
dubwai:

Grimoire:
Gene Wirchenko:
Which weighs more: an ounce of feathers or an ounce of gold?

An ounce of gold, obviously...

Wrong answer. Thanks for playing!

No, he was right. Presure metals (such as Gold) are measured in Troy ounces, while everything else is measured in [I forget the name] ounces.

A troy ounce is 12 to the pound, everything else is 16. Don't ask me why, I don't know. We just do it that way.

You are right, however, the troy pound is lighter than the avoirdupois pound (the name you were searching for) so a pound of gold is lighter than a pound of gold even though an ounce of gold is heavier.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

You are right, however, the troy pound is lighter than the avoirdupois pound (the name you were searching for) so a pound of gold is lighter than a pound of gold even though an ounce of gold is heavier.

Damn, why does the captcha pass when you notice a typo as you press send?

I meant a pound of gold is lighter than a pound of feathers, obviously.

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

hank miller:
dubwai:

Grimoire:
Gene Wirchenko:
Which weighs more: an ounce of feathers or an ounce of gold?

An ounce of gold, obviously...

Wrong answer. Thanks for playing!

No, he was right. Presure metals (such as Gold) are measured in Troy ounces, while everything else is measured in [I forget the name] ounces.

A troy ounce is 12 to the pound, everything else is 16. Don't ask me why, I don't know. We just do it that way.

Oops. That's true. However, a pound of feathers (454 g) is heavier than a pound of gold (373 g).

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

kipthegreat:
Alex Papadimoulis:
public static decimal PoundsToTons(decimal pounds)
{
  decimal poundFactor = 0.4535924m;
  decimal tonFactor = 907.1847m;
  return Decimal.Divide((Decimal.Multiply(pounds, poundFactor)), tonFactor);
}
Anonymous:
What intrigues me is the little "m"'s at the ends of the numbers. Unless this is a code construct I am not familiar with, I'd love to see what role it plays.

I was confused by those m's as well. They have to be a language feature. What language is this code in? C# maybe? Looks kinda like Java but Java doesn't have a "decimal" type.

Maybe someone could enlighten us about these m's ??

Sincerely,
Neil Armstrong

It is C#, and the "m" defines the constant value of the number as a decimal type. I don't really understand why it is needed, since you declare the variable as a decimal in the first place, but I know the C# compiler bitches about invalid casting when you don't use it.

decimal num = 5; (invalid cast)
decimal num = 5m; (now you have a decimal of 5)

Like I said, doesn't make much sense to me, but that's what it is. Maybe someone else knows why?

Josh

Volmarias · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

All of the whining and flaming and confusion, stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it [:'(]

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
360000000 meters per second? Woohaa, that´s really fast.

I love these "the rest of the world" against USA and USA against "the rest of the world" arguments. I´m from "the rest of the world". And I have just one thing to say to the rest of "the rest of the world": just let them. It´s the same people that chose Bush TWICE. I mean, common...

I especially love the 'USA against "the rest of the world" arguments' because they're not really arguments and they help us make fun of them.

@RevMike, either you have a terrible sense of humor,satire,etc or you actually believe what you say and that makes americans look very ID-otic to "the rest of the world".
And remember that you owe a lot to the french revolution, as it was a catalyst for many of todays democratic countries, including USA (if anybody can call it democracy what they have over there).

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

RevMike:
Anonymous:
Come one, surely 295 Kelvin sounds *even hotter*.

But 531 Rankine is even hotter than that!

Rankine, what a funny sounding word. But Kelvins are the SI unit for temperature, right?

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

theRestOfTheWorld:
Anonymous:

360000000 meters per second? Woohaa, that´s really fast.

I love these "the rest of the world" against USA and USA against "the rest of the world" arguments. I´m from "the rest of the world". And I have just one thing to say to the rest of "the rest of the world": just let them. It´s the same people that chose Bush TWICE. I mean, common...

I especially love the 'USA against "the rest of the world" arguments' because they're not really arguments and they help us make fun of them.

@RevMike, either you have a terrible sense of humor,satire,etc or you actually believe what you say and that makes americans look very ID-otic to "the rest of the world".
And remember that you owe a lot to the french revolution, as it was a catalyst for many of todays democratic countries, including USA (if anybody can call it democracy what they have over there).

So because you don't get the joke, that means he has a bad sense of humor? "That's genius, bumpkin."

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

WTFer:
dabocla:
Maurits:
Anonymous:
More exactly is:
"The real WTF here is that people from USA still don't use the metric system."

the rest of the americans(yeah the american continent start in alaska and end in the patagonia): mexicans, cubans, peruvian, chilenian, etc use it !

So sad. Every year thousands of USA-nian children are forced to learn an obsolete system of measurement, which isolates them from the rest of the civilized world, all so that Detroit doesn't have to retool its factories.

Hrm, I think I would rather keep using the numbers like 5280, 1.54, (9/5)+32, 12, 3, 2000, 2200, 3.785 etc, than by factors of 10. See - the metric system just doesn't make sense to me. It sounds WAY too complicated, give me the standard system any day.
.jc

Ok, everyone can use anything they like, even if it makes you crash satellites, but why would they call it standard? there is nothing standard in it. Are they trying to mock it?

Wait, whose Mars lander didn't survive?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3972849.stm

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

dubwai:
So because you don't get the joke, that means he has a bad sense of humor? "That's genius, bumpkin."

So, any joke must be a good joke?!?! "That's genius, bumpkin."

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

@RevMike, either you have a terrible sense of humor,satire,etc or you actually believe what you say and that makes americans look very ID-otic to "the rest of the world".
And remember that you owe a lot to the french revolution, as it was a catalyst for many of todays democratic countries, including USA (if anybody can call it democracy what they have over there).

And another thing, get a history book, retard. The French revolution was after the American revolution and the American government was an inspiration for the French democracy. The French even gave us this really nice colossus. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's on an Island in the New York harbor area.

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
dubwai:

So because you don't get the joke, that means he has a bad sense of humor? "That's genius, bumpkin."

So, any joke must be a good joke?!?! "That's genius, bumpkin."

No but smart people with a good sense of humor are able to detect jokes whether they are good or not. So not getting the joke just means you are dumb.

pbounaix · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

dubwai:
Anonymous:
dubwai:

So because you don't get the joke, that means he has a bad sense of humor? "That's genius, bumpkin."

So, any joke must be a good joke?!?! "That's genius, bumpkin."

No but smart people with a good sense of humor are able to detect jokes whether they are good or not. So not getting the joke just means you are dumb.

QED.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

dubwai:
Anonymous:
dubwai:

So because you don't get the joke, that means he has a bad sense of humor? "That's genius, bumpkin."

So, any joke must be a good joke?!?! "That's genius, bumpkin."

No but smart people with a good sense of humor are able to detect jokes whether they are good or not. So not getting the joke just means you are dumb.

So, just because you get the joke, you are smart, the joke is good and made by someone with a good sense of humour, and I am dumb. Nice logic. What are you? an american?

But no, smart people with good sense of humour are able to detect when a joke is too bad to be a joke at all.

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

theRestOftheWorld:
dubwai:
Anonymous:
dubwai:

So because you don't get the joke, that means he has a bad sense of humor? "That's genius, bumpkin."

So, any joke must be a good joke?!?! "That's genius, bumpkin."

No but smart people with a good sense of humor are able to detect jokes whether they are good or not. So not getting the joke just means you are dumb.

So, just because you get the joke, you are smart, the joke is good and made by someone with a good sense of humour, and I am dumb. Nice logic. What are you? an american?

I specifically stated the joke doesn't necessarily have to be good. Apparently you cannot follow a simple logical argument. Good luck with that.

But no, smart people with good sense of humour are able to detect when a joke is too bad to be a joke at all.

So your basic premise is that if you don't understand someone, that means you are smarter than they are? That makes a lot of sense.

A contradiction (joke == not joke) is rarely a good way to prove a point.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

dubwai:
Yeah, David Burne wrote tha American money is the ugliest money in the world. But I'm not sure. A lot of Canadian money has a picture of the queen on it. It's hard to compete with that for ugliness. The inbreeding should eventually be dilluted but it seems to be taking a long time.

True - then again, you wouldn't look that flash either if your head was shoved into parking meters and vending machines millions of times a day...

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

dubwai:

Wait, whose Mars lander didn't survive?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3972849.stm

Ah, the selective memory. Let's look at America's history with Mars.

Mariner 3 (failed)

Mariner 8 (failed)

Mars Observer (failed)

Mars Climate Orbiter (failed, guess what, a software wtf involving...

.

Imperial to Metric conversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#The_metric_mixup)

Mars Polar Lander (failed)

Deep Space 2.(failed)

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

restOfTheWorld:
So, just because you get the joke, you are smart, the joke is good and made by someone with a good sense of humour, and I am dumb. Nice logic. What are you? an american?

I'll never understand how someone can spew out bigoted remarks about Americans while expressing their supposed moral/intellectual superiority. Bigotry are stupid. You are a bigot. If I had my druthers, we'd tar and feather all the bigots and run them out of town on a rail.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

You have a point in that yards and feet are easy to divide by three. But so are 90 cm and 30 cm. It's more about the numbers than about the units.

Apart from being divisible from three, U.S. customary units have no advantages whatsoever. You may say that it's in many cases not important that we can do conversion just by moving the decimal point. But even if it isn't, in those cases where it is it's a big advantage, and in the rest of the cases it's no disadvantage. You may say that your units are handy and more useful in everyday situations and for everyday objects, but that's just because you're used to them. The SI range of prefixes, together with halves and quarters, gives me approximate sizes for just about anything I come across daliy.

No sane person would prefer the "standard" system over SI, given no prior experience of either.

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:

You are right, however, the troy pound is lighter than the avoirdupois pound (the name you were searching for) so a pound of gold is lighter than a pound of gold even though an ounce of gold is heavier.

Damn, why does the captcha pass when you notice a typo as you press send?

I meant a pound of gold is lighter than a pound of feathers, obviously.

Probably because post too quickly. The captcha fails when you write a long rant and your session times out, I bet.

If so, this post should succeed...

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
dubwai:

Wait, whose Mars lander didn't survive?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3972849.stm

Ah, the selective memory. Let's look at America's history with Mars.

Mariner 3 (failed)

Mariner 8 (failed)

Mars Observer (failed)

Mars Climate Orbiter (failed, guess what, a software wtf involving...

Imperial to Metric conversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#The_metric_mixup)

Mars Polar Lander (failed)

Deep Space 2.(failed)

Wasn't the beagle also a software error? My point wasn't that all American spacecraft are perfect, it's the implication that America going to the metric system would prevent all such failures is clearly false.

I don't people like you. You think bashing America endlessly is just fine but if anyone points out a flaw in your reasoning, that person becomes a flag-waving anti-world American jingoist. It's irrational emotional behavior. Don't you see that?

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

No sane person would prefer the "standard" system over SI, given no prior experience of either.

And no engineer worth his/her salt would use anything but SI for anything that mattered.

But in the sceheme of things, does it really matter if I buy fish by the pound or by the kilo? Does it matter if my speedometer has mph instead of kph (actually, all American cars have both.)

2005-11-18 Reply Admin

dubwai:
restOfTheWorld:
So, just because you get the joke, you are smart, the joke is good and made by someone with a good sense of humour, and I am dumb. Nice logic. What are you? an american?

I'll never understand how someone can spew out bigoted remarks about Americans while expressing their supposed moral/intellectual superiority. Bigotry are stupid. You are a bigot. If I had my druthers, we'd tar and feather all the bigots and run them out of town on a rail.

So you didn't like my little joke. Are you the dump that didn't get it or is my sense of humour bad? Do you see now how someone overreacts at bad jokes?

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

masklinn:
dubwai:

Yeah, David Burne wrote tha American money is the ugliest money in the world. But I'm not sure. A lot of Canadian money has a picture of the queen on it. It's hard to compete with that for ugliness. The inbreeding should eventually be dilluted but it seems to be taking a long time.

Hah, wait till Camilla becomes queen, now you'll have ugly. The current queen doesn't come anywhere close.

Yeah, but Prince Charles in no great catch either (other than the money, I guess.) He looks like the love child of Chuck 'E Chesse and Alfred E. Neuman.

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
dubwai:

restOfTheWorld:
So, just because you get the joke, you are smart, the joke is good and made by someone with a good sense of humour, and I am dumb. Nice logic. What are you? an american?

I'll never understand how someone can spew out bigoted remarks about Americans while expressing their supposed moral/intellectual superiority. Bigotry are stupid. You are a bigot. If I had my druthers, we'd tar and feather all the bigots and run them out of town on a rail.

So you didn't like my little joke. Are you the dump that didn't get it or is my sense of humour bad? Do you see now how someone overreacts at bad jokes?

It wasn't a reaction to the joke. It was everything else you have written.

dubwai · 2005-11-18 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
dubwai:

restOfTheWorld:
So, just because you get the joke, you are smart, the joke is good and made by someone with a good sense of humour, and I am dumb. Nice logic. What are you? an american?

I'll never understand how someone can spew out bigoted remarks about Americans while expressing their supposed moral/intellectual superiority. Bigotry are stupid. You are a bigot. If I had my druthers, we'd tar and feather all the bigots and run them out of town on a rail.

So you didn't like my little joke. Are you the dump that didn't get it or is my sense of humour bad? Do you see now how someone overreacts at bad jokes?

Actually, I have to revisit this. If there's anything I hate more than bigotry, it's gotta be bullshit.

Where did I say anything about reacting to jokes? I only mentioned detection of them. This is more of the illogical crap that comes from unsupressed bigotry.

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