Imperial/Metric Discussion

[Kryten]

You are familiar that the term 'learning disabilities' can cover many, many things right?

I wasn\'t-here in Britain, it\'s the current official euphemism for \'retarded\'-looking it up, what you mean is what we would call leaning difficulties.

Are you familiar with that certain phrase of 'Minecraft is the <noun> incarnate' or 'Minecraft players are all <noun>'

I\'ve never seen it-it\'s probably not as common as you think.

[Reflector]

I wasn\'t-here in Britain, it\'s the current official euphemism for \'retarded\'-looking it up, what you mean is what we would call leaning difficulties.I\'ve never seen it-it\'s probably not as common as you think.

Leaning difficulties... As they have poor balance?

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

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/learningdisabilities/learningdisabilities.htm

Anyways, I will get to the point: I know students from special education and I will be very respectful towards them because they are much more capable of converting metric to metric than... Mainstream students. (Sadly, including those that you could say are 'the wheelchair stereotype.') However I have not met special education students in higher education before so I cannot comment on how they in that environment.

So mind me if I say this but:

Minecraft is an autism incarnate*. Minecraft players are 'autistic.'

*Terraria counts too.

And let me say this: They take every bad trait of autistic kids I know about and then make that into a player base. Somehow. It defies my logic in how they can condense the worst possible stereotypes into general playerbase. And perhaps I should remark that actual, diagnosed kids (Not 'fad diagnosis' or 'internet type') that are autistic should have every reason to feel offended by that. Just like rutabagas and potatoes should feel offended for being compared with many of the players.

Because my god, many Minecraft players are just bad. Extremely bad. Horribad.

[foamyesque]

So you prefer a crippled smartphone OS that does not have integrated remote desktop, SSH or any other useful features?

I\'m pretty sure that didn\'t have remote desktop or SSH either. Keep up, Rocket Surgeon.

[Kryten]

Leaning difficulties... As they have poor balance?

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

From that article:

In the UK, the term 'learning disability' refers to a range of developmental disabilities or conditions that are almost invariably associated with more severe generalized cognitive impairment.

The phrase \'cognitive impairment\' is a link to the \'mental retardation\' article.

[Reflector]

I\'m pretty sure that didn\'t have remote desktop or SSH either. Keep up, Rocket Surgeon.

http://pocketnow.com/how-to/tutorial-setting-up-remote-desktop-in-windows-mobile

Keep the ignorance flowing, please!

Also you missed Maddox\'s fun usage of being able to reboot a server with a E70.

From that article:The phrase \'cognitive impairment\' is a link to the \'mental retardation\' article.

>leaning difficulties.

Somehow all the humor of my posts has been lost due to argument over phrase definitions.

[Sordid]

Keep up, Rocket Surgeon.

I\'m reasonably sure it\'s not him, unless he moved to another continent in order to get back in here.

I would also recommend that you lot take Skunky\'s advice to simmer down to heart. Just sayin\'.

[Reflector]

Gosh, was I accused of being a sockpuppet? I\'m actually honored by that because I never knew that my heavy sarcasm would cause others to believe I was somebody else.

Time to scheme!

[Eat Uranium]

OK, I\'m lost. I\'m entirely unsure about what point both Reflector and Foamy are trying to make at this point. Something to do with operating systems?

[Reflector]

Here is a summary of my point:

Using either system isn\'t bad. The imperial system has some really good users. The metric system has some really good users. System zealotry/fanboyism is however bad because it comes off as endless bickering at people that are competent at converting between both systems, mentally or with a calculator instead of being able to tolerate or even accept that other people use something different from them.

That and math errors are a human problem because people screw up with the metric system even if moving a decimal place is easy.

Perhaps you should read from the beginning?

[foamyesque]

OK, I\'m lost. I\'m entirely unsure about what point both Reflector and Foamy are trying to make at this point. Something to do with operating systems?

My point is primarily that Imperial is a clunky, antiquated piece of crap used by the dumb, the ignorant, and Americans-- but I repeat myself.

And, also, that Reflector doesn\'t understand metaphor.

[Capt'n Skunky]

My point is primarily that Imperial is a clunky, antiquated piece of crap used by the dumb, the ignorant, and Americans-- but I repeat myself.

Dude, you need to go watch some more of your ponies, you\'re getting a little touchy there. The United States isn\'t the only country that uses Imperial and you just called them all dumb and ignorant.

This thread is about 1' or 25.4mm from getting locked. Lighten up or reap what you sow.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[Sordid]

The United States isn\'t the only country that uses Imperial.

That is true, technically. There is one other country besides the USA that uses it. The other 200 or so use metric.

Other than that, yeah. Lighten up. Or else.

[JupiterII]

That is true, technically. There is one other country besides the USA that uses it. The other 200 or so use metric.

There\'s 3 countries in total that have not officialy adopted the metric system. Every other country uses it.

[Kryten]

There\'s 3 countries in total that have not officialy adopted the metric system. Every other country uses it.

And one of them, Burma is planning to switch.

That leaves The US and.. Liberia, a country very heavily influenced by the US, and founded by US citizens.

[Capt'n Skunky]

According to Wikipedia there are several countries still using it or at least one or two unit measurements. Either way it\'s has no bearing on anything as it gets the job done and it\'s not that bad if that\'s what you were raised using. To suggest that one using one or the other makes one better is arrogant.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[JupiterII]

According to Wikipedia there are several countries still using it or at least one or two unit measurements. Either way it\'s has no bearing on anything as it gets the job done and it\'s not that bad if that\'s what you were raised using. To suggest that one using one or the other makes one better is arrogant.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

Lot\'s of countries use both but have metric as their official system. Like here in Canada you always see Imperial alongside metric but if you\'re less than 30 years old(Canada switched in the 70s) then you usualy use metric.

[Sordid]

According to Wikipedia there are several countries still using it or at least one or two unit measurements.

Well let\'s see what that article says:

United Kingdom: That\'s the 'one other country' that I was referring to.

Canada: 'In 1973 the metric system and SI units were introduced in Canada to replace the imperial system. Within the government, efforts to implement the metric system were extensive; almost any agency, institution, or function provided by the government uses SI units exclusively. The law requires that measured products (such as fuel and meat) be priced in metric units.' In other words officially metric, with imperial in everyday use due to simple cultural inertia.

Australia: 'imperial measurements are still encountered peripherally' So pretty much the same as Canada.

Republic of Ireland: 'The Republic of Ireland has officially changed over to the metric system since entering the European Union. The imperial system remains in limited use - for sales of beer in pubs (traditionally sold by the pint). All other goods are required by law to be sold in metric units' That made me chuckle.

Other countries: 'Some imperial measurements remain in limited use in India, Malaysia and Hong Kong.' 'Petrol is still sold by the imperial gallon in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Burma, the Cayman Islands, Ecuador, Grenada, Guyana, Sierra Leone and the United Arab Emirates.'

So my reading of that is that basically imperial units are surviving in limited and peripheral use largely due to the fact that, to put it bluntly, the older generation that\'s used to them hadn\'t had the time to die off yet.

To suggest that one using one or the other makes one better is arrogant.

Agreed.

[JupiterII]

So my reading of that is that basically imperial units are surviving in limited and peripheral use largely due to the fact that, to put it bluntly, the older generation that\'s used to them hadn\'t had the time to die off yet.

I can imagine that in a generation or two everything will be only measured in metric.

[Capt'n Skunky]

I can imagine that in a generation or two everything will be only measured in metric.

Once everyone is on the Metric system, some asshat will come along with a 'better' system and bitch and moan over people using the 'old and antiquated' metric system. ;P

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[Reflector]

Once everyone is on the Metric system, some asshat will come along with a 'better' system and bitch and moan over people using the 'old and antiquated' metric system. ;P

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

I was waiting for this to be brought up. Thank you Capt\'n Skunky!

[Kryten]

Britain\'s mostly metric-the only real exceptions are miles and miles/hour, and beer and milk in pints.

[SchildConstruct]

I was waiting for this to be brought up. Thank you Capt\'n Skunky!

You are both wrong, though. The SI units are deeply entrenched in the scientific literature.

You two are also, consistently, ignoring the fact that SI units are derived from cosmological constants. You only need a 'better' system when the old system cannot be defined properly any more due to scientific advancements in measurements. And the rate of nuclear decay and the speed of light are fixed.

Plus using Base 10 is as easy as it gets, since most people have 10 digits on hands and/or feet.

[Alchemist]

SI units are derived from cosmological constants

Do not mix initial and modern definitions. The way meter was defined initially makes no much sense (1/10000000 of... how precise could they measure it anyway? And then made an ethalon), but do definitions like size of foot or arm of a human make more sense, especially knowing than the are no two identic men.

Modern definitions are like 'take something that can be reproduced precisily and gets in the uncertainity limit of the old definition'. They are made just for scientific top precision reproducibility and don\'t really affect lower precision measurments.

But what is really good in metric system is it\'s conversions - it has derived units of any widely used scle (centimeter-inch, meter-foot, kilometer-mile) that can easilly be converted (if some guys can\'t do even this, that\'s not the problem of the system). And also metric system was created different from popular archaic units (every nation had them once, often with similar names and sizes, but still different, that was always causing problems) to not make any uncertainities (like every nation had it\'s own foot-like unit that could differ a bit, but meter is the same fo all) caused by 'it\'s almost the same as foot - let\'s change label, but keep the number'

And I\'m not a fanatic of converting everything to SI - unless you are adding pounds to kilograms and don\'t understand what you should get. Atomic mass unit, electronvolt, light year - all those are perfect for use in the scale of the objects they were defined by. But for some calculations they still have to b converted to a single basis - and it\'s beter not to argue why meter was selected for this...

Any non-system and archaic units are good only at their scale: while you measure your house in feet and field in miles it\'s okay. When you try to compare these (and several centuries ago nobody could even think to compare such different things) these units make problems.

The strange thing is why after introducing the universal metric system that had been accepted by most nations replacing their archaic measures one of these survived until now?

However, the only thing I can\'t accept is when some nations start talking to others using only their own measures even knowing that words like 'pint' or 'inch' mean completely nothing to almost all the other nations. Or have a different definition.

[SchildConstruct]

Do not mix initial and modern definitions. The way meter was defined initially makes no much sense (1/10000000 of... how precise could they measure it anyway? And then made an ethalon), but do definitions like size of foot or arm of a human make more sense, especially knowing than the are no two identic men.

That\'s a couple of historical lengths of feet for a handful of European countries. And different German *cities*. So, how many feet *are* in a meter?

Speaking of accuracy: The last meter prototype was accurate to 10^-7. The original meter prototype was accurate to 10^-4. So, to answer your question: The prototype is much more accurate than you or I ever measure.

[JupiterII]

Once everyone is on the Metric system, some asshat will come along with a 'better' system and bitch and moan over people using the 'old and antiquated' metric system. ;P

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

Except the metric system will be used everywhere by then. Imperial is just used by older generations and those 3 countries. You can\'t have a better system than 1 that everyone understands.