- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
- Error'd
-
Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- Alex's Soapbox
- Announcements
- Best of…
- Best of Email
- Best of the Sidebar
- Bring Your Own Code
- Coded Smorgasbord
- Mandatory Fun Day
- Off Topic
- Representative Line
- News Roundup
- Editor's Soapbox
- Software on the Rocks
- Souvenir Potpourri
- Sponsor Post
- Tales from the Interview
- The Daily WTF: Live
- Virtudyne
Admin
In Australia we use the metric system alone. If you tried to measure something in feet here, nobody would have any idea what you were talking about. (Oddly, measuring a person's height is the only exception).
Admin
Anything involving 6 inches is, by default, awkward.
Americans miss the point, 6 inches or 16 centimetres... you decide which you find the better adjective. ;-)
Admin
Russian pilots participated quite a bit during the SEA conflict. As to whether this individual did or did not of course I cannot say. There were also numerous incidents after the war where warsaw pact or soviet fighters "mixed it up" so to speak, with US forces, (especially Naval force operating off carriers on deep water ops). Of course none of this would necessarily qualify as "vast experience in aerial warfare" ...
... but then since WWII, or compared with the experience of the average pilot in WWII, I wonder if anyone under the age of 90 can make that claim...
Admin
I absolutely cannot believe the number of humor-impaired anal-retentive halfwits in this thread who went off on the "communists use metric" JOKE. Yes, you blithering self-important maroons, it was a joke.
Admin
A bigger WTF is that people call it the US System, when it was created by Europeans (You may know them as the British, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons). Being a one-time colony of the British Empire, we inherited most of our definitions of distance.
Indeed, the fact that you so readily bash the US for doing things the British still do belies the underlying contempt you must have. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom illustrates that the British still use Imperial Units. Indeed her eis a quote from a group in Britain that opposes SI mandates:
"Each time we are successful [in getting metric signs changed], it is a small but significant step towards eradicating them from our country. The imperial weights and measures of this country are part of our traditions and part of our culture. Attempts to impose metric signs is one by stealth and deception and has been going on for many years."
Just so you know every one of your "examples" is an Imperial Unit. I'd wager that 99% of the people in the US don't know what a furlough is, nor a league (though they may know something could be 20,000 leagues under the sea), or a rod, or how far a hand is. And with good reason. Those aren't US measurements. Our distance measurements are the inch, foot, yard, and mile. Maybe when you went googling or searching for those measurements to make yourself feel and (in your mind) look smarter, you should have paid attention to the what countries use those units. Perhaps you would not have looked like such an ass.
Funny thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-SI_units_accepted_for_use_with_SI
Yeah, an accepted ("but not encouraged") unit for use in SI systems is, and I quote "barn". A measurement of area. There is also the units of time, the "are", knot, and nautical miles, as well as eV and AU. And last but not least, the litre.
And the real irony of the whole metrication argument of it being standard, blah blah, is that SI measurements of distance - and thus area and speed- are based entirely on a part of a non-metric unit of measurement: the second. The meter is officially defined as: the length light travels in 1/299,792,458th of a second.
Yeah, that's right. That was a distance looking for a definition there. A big WTF, so to speak. This was arrived at to fit the size the French thought a meter was (one ten-millionth of the length of the meridian through Paris from pole to the equator) but found they failed to take into account flattening of the Earth. To their credit they changed the definition without changing the measurement. But it does not change the fact that the entire SI distance system is built on non-metric definitions, and a very arbitrary one at that.
And metric proponents want to call Imperial or US Units arbitrary. Eghads, at least "a foot" makes sense, and is estimable by anyone who has seen feet. Even if they don't know the exact distance, they can get a feel for the distance.
Admin
Admin
Admin
...Bender with his outstretched arms? "I wrote <this> much documentation!"
Meh. I thought it was funny, but YKMV.
Admin
Here in the U.S., perhaps not. However, in most of the rest of the world 'liberal' is actually associated with a capitalist, free market, individual rights point of view. The closest U.S. equivalent would probably be either libertarianism or the fiscal conservative wing of the Republican Party.
Admin
Admin
Good God, I can't believe somebody actually asked for these stupid CAPTCHA comments. Kill me now.
Admin
Maybe someone can answer this for me...why isn't a "double quarter-pounder" called a "half-pounder"? I once confused the hell out of a poor countergirl at McDonald's with that question.
"Because it's a double quarter pound of meat, not a half pound." I kid you not. That was her reply.
Admin
I'm the same way. It's the way I was raised. But I swear, some of these young'uns (I'm 32 keep in mind) wouldn't know a foot from a hole in the ground...
But for anyone visiting...remember, the speed limit is 100km/h not 100mph!
Admin
I never noticed they were missing. I've been running the CAPTCHA-killer greasemonkey script...
Admin
The real WTF is that this is no longer called the Daily WTF. WHAT THE FUCK.
Admin
Admin
The other question is, how much was spent on the documentation?
Considering: $6,000 on 17 pages of instructions on buying Worcestershire sauce... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE3DD1F38F930A25754C0A967948260
CAPTCHA: slashbot? Slash...bot?
...
\bot.
Admin
Lol, you mean only Americans are afraid of a measuring system that makes sense? "I know, we'll measure these in 16ths, and these in 12ths, and theses in 3rds, and those in 1760ths! That's sooo much easier than to measure everything in 10ths, 100ths and 1000ths!" Time to come out of the dark ages USA!
Yeah, the UK is still "transitioning" to metric, so they use both. That must suck! Heh, one of the only things that I've seen people use the imperial system instead of the metric system over here for is selling pot. For some reason they use grammes for small amounts, then ounces and pounds... I dont know about on time or bug free, but I've heard of a few games companies being contracted by various armed forces groups before. yeah, thats one of the ones i was thinking of.Admin
His argument is the same as "I can write Fortran in any language" syndrome, insisting on forcing old ways in a new environment. His examples are basically saying it is difficult to measure in feet when using meters (note his insistent on using feet sized measurements even when using meters).
For his examples, how about simply:
"Oh, set it about half a meter away from the wall."
Note: a meter ~= 3.3 feet, 0.5 meter ~= 1.7 feet = about 1 to 2 feet.
Admin
Yeah, in Australia the Liberal party is in power, and they are exactly the same as the US's Republican party (i.e. the conservative, right-wing, capitalist free-market, down with public schools/health-care/welfare/etc party)
Admin
The Imperial/American unit of power is, of course, a horsepower, and we still use that for engines and probably other things. But hey, we also measure soda in liters a lot of the time (the standard size for large soda bottles is two liters, although single-serving sizes are typically twelve or twenty fluid ounces).
For those whining about how stupid the old system is: give me a break. How often do you actually have to calculate how many feet are in N miles? Almost never, that's how often, and we have calculators for that. Metric is more elegant, but not more usable by itself. And there's absolutely no intrinsic advantage to Celsius over Fahrenheit (you could make an argument for Kelvin).
The only real reason to switch to metric is, quite simply, that that simplifies international communication, removing a very minor annoyance and once in a while a substantial expense. If 95% of the world used some form of the Imperial system and 5% stubbornly clung to metric, the correct course of action would be for the holdouts to change to the less elegant system. Witness the French metrification of time. Shall we switch to, say, a 100,000-second day? Hell, if we're going for elegance, why not use Planck units?
Give me a break. The units don't matter, it's who uses them that matters. Right now almost the whole world uses metric, so for that reason and only that reason we should switch.
Admin
Oh, great. Even Canada, the UK and India officially (co-)use the metric system nowadays. Everybody else does it exclusively. Applying your logic, everybody in the world is a communist.
dork.
Admin
Maybe it is your (supposedly US-american) mental point-ofo-view.
From my european point-of-view, all US-american political parties look to be very close to fascism .....
Admin
The only metric measurement you americans ever care about is the 9 mm parabellum handgun cartridge ....
Admin
Who the wet flying fart cares ... and it's moron, not maroon.
Admin
If you're going to paraphrase Dave Barry you should at least properly cite the comment. And I quote:
-- Dave BarryAlthough personally, I prefer to repel home invaders with 0.45 caliber 230 grain jacketed hollow points. (that's 45 100ths of an inch or 11.43 mm for you commies ;)
Admin
Thanks for the info on the Dave Barry quote - I couldn't remember the proper reference and I was to lazy to google ... my bad.
As for your 11.43 mm thing: 9 mm also have hollow points. In 9 mm handguns certfied for it, you can use +P ammo.
As for home defense (and shooting in general), I believe aimed fire is vastly superior to un-aimed fire. To be proficient in aimed fire apart from good sights on your weapon of choice you require practice and lots of it. The practice a lot you need to fire a lot of rounds of ammo. And there you will find that 9 mm ammo has better economics than your 11.43 mm ammo - it will give you more practice rounds to fire for your buck. For this reason a lot of your 11.43 mm shooters will install 0.22" (5.58 mm) conversion kits in their 11.43 weapon in order to take advantage of the low price of 5.58 mm ammo. I rather prefer to practice with the real thing, though - that is the ammo I may have to use in the real thing than some bastardized conversions or putting up with curtailed practice sessions.
Admin
According to Bugs Bunny, maroon is quite acceptable.
For the rest of you, to quote Bobby Shaftoe, "Show some fucking adaptability."
In Aviation:
The adiabatic lapse rate is 1.98 degrees celsius per 1000 feet of elevation.
In north america: (I don't pretend to know how it works in the the rest of the world. . .)
Windspeed is measured in Knots (nautical miles per hour)
Distances are measured in nautical miles. (one nautical mile equals one minute of latitude (exactly). . . kind of nice when you're getting bounced around, trying to keep the blue side up in the dark, and trying to figure out how far you are away from "Thank God I'm on the Ground Again", with a chart in you lap and a shuddering control yoke in your hands.
Statute Miles are used for horizontal visibility, feet are used for vertical visibility.
And, finally, jet fuel is measured in pounds. Sure, gallons or litres is what you need to get to your destination, but with too many pounds, you won't even get into the air.
And should I remind anyone of the FUBAR of the Gimly Glider?
Show some adaptability. And recognize the limits.
Although Canada is officially a metric country, it should be noted that there is no metric equivalent to a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood.
That may be the major reason that the United States didn't convert to metric. Unlike Europe, in America most single-dwelling construction is wood-frame, on 16 or 24-inch centers.
The following space is left intentionally almost blank
OMY captcha = dubya
Admin
Soviet military presence (also including one war) in form of pilots and flight instructors during the cold war:
Afghanistan Vietnam Egypt Angola Cuba Syria Lebanon Zimbabwe
And of course Korea as you mentioned, so 40 years of active service without any trouble. That’s way I suspect this to be an ex-USSR republic my best guess is Ukraine or even Russia
Admin
Actually, you would only have to change the measurements. Most numbers on roadsigns are - at least here -adhesive foil, so removing them should be possible. If that does not work, you can always stick printed adhesive foil over them.
Admin
UK Pints < US Pints UK Gallons < US Gallons
Note: That's because the US takes everything and tries to make it bigger!!!
Admin
It might be more convenient to say "1 foot" than "1/3 of a meter", but look at what happens when you go below one inch.
Now, which drill bit do I need... 3/32 inches? No, that seems wrong. The 32 is big sounding, but it makes the size really smaller than one that ends in 16. What's the next biggest one to that? 4/32.. but i have no drill marked 4/32 (very brief mental work) that's 1/8. Oh yes, 1/8, that's clearly the next biggest to 3/32. No, too small... hmm, 1/4 - no, too big. what's between 1/8 and 1/4 inches? let's see... 1/8 is 4/32 and 1/4 is (hmm... 32/4, oh yes, 8 of course, that's 8/32).. so I need.. 6/32.. what is that? 3/16. I see, here it is. (Apologies if any of that is wrong, but I'm past caring, and fractions are taught in school to five year olds, but since they are not used where I am they have not been practised in the intervening decades). so to get the drill I want, I halve the big number. To go one size further up from that, I double the big number and add two to the small number (5/32). now, what was I doing again? never mind, it's lunch time. genious.
Metric: 2mm, way too small, oh here is a 6mm, that's a little too big.. 5mm.. perfect.
Maybe if you grew up with that deranged insanity you can do it without thinking, but I'm still going crazy either memorizing every 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 of an inch or multiplying everything by 25.4 in my head. And then when things start getting small, it all gets thrown out and you go to thousands of an inch... ooh, where have we seen the idea of dividing measuring units into decimals before?
drill bits and so on are one thing.. but when you are coding trading systems for american financial markets, one false move from a non imperial native speaker, and you hit the front page of this site.
also about the communism.. i know it was a joke but anyway, it's a system invented in one of the now great democracies of the world.. hint, the big green lady south of manhattan is a present from them.
Admin
agh! by 'it' I mean the metric system, not communism :-)
Admin
BTW, to all reading this, the country in question is actually Poland. Being a citizen of this country and having been through some of the military bureaucracy I can confirm that this is a completely believable story. As an added WTF, the new fighter planes were delivered this year, and apparently the military don't have enough funds for training.
Admin
Dude, you have it back to front.
Admin
I'm in England, use feet and inches, and I'm a communist.
Admin
Looks like people would rather discuss communism than documentation.
What country has the largest central government in the world? Which country has the most of its citizens in prison? Which country has invaded Afghanistan to fight a war on terror?
That's right, CCCP. What year is it?
Admin
I'm 5'11" tall and weigh approximately 14 stone and 11 pounds.
The whole world still uses imperial measurements on the football pitch. That is the "football" that the whole world plays. And the part of the world that plays cricket - well that uses imperial measurements too, in fact I think one of the measurements is actually named by the length between the two wickets.
The difference is in the olden days people knew how to multiply in different bases. People knew base 12 so if you were buying 7 apples at 9d each then it would cost you half a crown and a thruppenny bit.
Admin
Well, I think everyone can answer that.
Admin
Admin
Instead of going with an incredibly expensive, all-encompassing defense contractor, the Air Force was a gruff, old general with a vast knowledge of aerial warfare and forty years experience in the service. Naturally, he was very skeptical of the T-72 battle tank specifications and a series of old tomes labeled List of Suitable Locations for Auxiliary Cemeteries.
They loaded box after box onto the free shelf. Without opening a single book, the general continued, “for such expensive program, we require at least eight meters of free space and labeled with the fancy training hardware. And by fancy I mean a full-sized cockpit with six display screens, sixteen force-feedback motors, and an absurd amount of buttons and controls.
Everyone loved it. Pilots said it flew like the real thing and the general continued, “for such expensive program, we require at least eight meters of free space and labeled with the name of the systems I’ve written about here share quite a few weeks of printing and binding, they were finally ready to deliver the project on time and within budget.
After all, they did deliver nearly 500 printed pages of diagrams specifications. An awkward silence ensued.
“You see gentlemen,” the general started during one of their wrap-up meetings, “you have done very well.
Admin
They should use 250g paper (that way thay can print half less)
Admin
rest of the world uses metric system because it's universally accepted and standardized.
Admin
I've worked there, but that's irrelevant as the answer is obvious. Yes she was stupid, but in a round-about way she was also right. It's because it is made from two 1/4lb patties and not one 1/2lb patty. The fact that two 1/4lbs is 1/2lb is irrelevant. In fact I bet you anything that they are measuring the uncooked weight, and that a single 1/2lb piece of meat actually weighs a different amount after being cooked than two 1/4lb pieces.
Or at least that's the only answer I can think of.
I thank god I no longer work there, I could honestly feel my intelligence draining out while I did...
Admin
FWIW, I didn't know about the difference in fluid ounce sizes before doing research for writing this comment (and so previously believed the UK pint to be 25% larger than the US one). Goes to show that the SI system is Good (and non-WTF-y) since at least everyone agrees on what the units are there, even if they don't use them.
Admin
You've fallen prey to the old cold war Americanitis syndrom.
Communism and Capitalism are ECONOMIC SYSTEMS. Fascism, dictatorships, monarchies, republics, and democracies are GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEMS. You could say drug dealers are fascist capitalists. The soviet union was a communistic dictatorship. We (the USA) are a capitalist republic. The governmental system is independant from the economic system, so saying drug dealers are fascist is not incorrect, but neither is saying drug dealers are capitalist.
Admin
I never worked at McDonalds, nor do I ever eat there. However, I have worked at Wendy's before joining the USAF, and if you had asked me my response would have been: Doubles have two slices of meat that are each a quarter pound before cooking. They are called a "double quarter pound" because they have two distinct quarter pounds rather than a single, contiguous half pound. (Thinking, but not saying to customer: 'do you understand or do I need to set syllabic restriction to two?')
Admin
The REAL real real WTF is that people are on here trying to argue with pro-metric cranks. You can't argue with them. It goes like this:
Regular shmoe: Well, what would be the benefits of changing to a new system?
Metric Man: Why, you grit-sucking xenophobic has-been redneck!!! Can't you see that Metric is MORE PERFECT?
Regular shmoe: Well, maybe, I guess it might be -- what's the benefit of changing?
Metric Man: YOU ARE ENSLAVED BY THE LENGTH OF THE FOREARM OF KING HUBERT THE 79TH!!
Regular shmoe: Er --
Metric Man: GWAAARRGHHGGHGHGHG!!!
(Metric Man falls to the ground writhing and twitching and mumbling something about how metres are defined by the speed of light whereas feet are somehow not. Regular shmoe offers to get him a 12oz coffee at the store that's a few yards down the street but somehow it doesn't seem to make Metric Man feel better.)
Admin
Actually, the metric system kicks ass when it comes to distances.
Metric mile = 10km
So if you measure the distance between cities, you say 20 miles and not 200km. If you're American you are stuck with using miles for most large distances.
Admin