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So a system of measurement determines whether people are in the "dark ages." I see.

by jayess 8y ago

okket 8y ago
When you set human extremities as references instead of fundamental physical properties, yes.
- ihsw2 8y ago
  The US put a god damned man on the moon, they're far from dark ages.
  - okket 8y ago
    And lost a mars orbiter thanks to the US customary units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_... Think what could have happened if the Apollo Program was an international effort and not a U.S. only one.
    - adolph 8y ago
      Probably wouldn’t have left low Earth orbit [0]. For better or worse more effective organizations generally present themselves as a unit with aligned interests. Organizations with misaligned internal interests get as far as the lowest common denominator among their interests weighted by the relative power of members. That’s a far more significant factor than choice of measurement standards. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station
- rainbowmverse 8y ago
  You're misinformed. A foot as a measurement in 2018 has no more to do with a human foot than a computer chip has to do with a potato-powered calculator. Imperial units have had standard metric translations for a long time.
  - okket 8y ago
    Of course, you can use or invent whatever measure system you like, if you provide a translation. But why translate? Why not use what the rest of the world uses? When you come from the outside, it feels like a trip to middle ages reading about 'furlongs', 'hogsheads' and 'pennyweights'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      "There's this widespread legacy system. Why won't those stupid people just migrate to the newish and better one?" (Key words: legacy, migrate. I still see dozens of WinXP systems around, alive and kicking.)
      - rainbowmverse 8y ago
        That's exactly it. Metric is on every single food item. Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. I would have to convert back to feet and miles if the article didn't have it because I'm not used to those units since I never have an opportunity to use them in my daily life. Metric is not as intuitive as its promoters insist. Intuition is developed through use. Civilization-scale issues require civilization-scale solutions. I can't unilaterally convert to metric in every context because it would be terribly impractical. I would spend my days doing conversions. That's a huge waste of finite time and energy.
        mschaef 8y ago
        > Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. The problem with that analogy is that a 64-bit computer is inherently, in isolation, much more powerful than an 8-bit. For the vast majority of cases, the same is not true for a switch from from, say, ounces to ml to measure the size of a bottle of water.

So a system of measurement determines whether people are in the "dark ages." I see.

by jayess 8y ago

So a system of measurement determines whether people are in the "dark ages." I see.

okket 8y ago

When you set human extremities as references instead of fundamental physical properties, yes.

ihsw2 8y ago
The US put a god damned man on the moon, they're far from dark ages.
- okket 8y ago
  And lost a mars orbiter thanks to the US customary units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_... Think what could have happened if the Apollo Program was an international effort and not a U.S. only one.
  - adolph 8y ago
    Probably wouldn’t have left low Earth orbit [0]. For better or worse more effective organizations generally present themselves as a unit with aligned interests. Organizations with misaligned internal interests get as far as the lowest common denominator among their interests weighted by the relative power of members. That’s a far more significant factor than choice of measurement standards. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station
rainbowmverse 8y ago
You're misinformed. A foot as a measurement in 2018 has no more to do with a human foot than a computer chip has to do with a potato-powered calculator. Imperial units have had standard metric translations for a long time.
- okket 8y ago
  Of course, you can use or invent whatever measure system you like, if you provide a translation. But why translate? Why not use what the rest of the world uses? When you come from the outside, it feels like a trip to middle ages reading about 'furlongs', 'hogsheads' and 'pennyweights'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    "There's this widespread legacy system. Why won't those stupid people just migrate to the newish and better one?" (Key words: legacy, migrate. I still see dozens of WinXP systems around, alive and kicking.)
    - rainbowmverse 8y ago
      That's exactly it. Metric is on every single food item. Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. I would have to convert back to feet and miles if the article didn't have it because I'm not used to those units since I never have an opportunity to use them in my daily life. Metric is not as intuitive as its promoters insist. Intuition is developed through use. Civilization-scale issues require civilization-scale solutions. I can't unilaterally convert to metric in every context because it would be terribly impractical. I would spend my days doing conversions. That's a huge waste of finite time and energy.
      - mschaef 8y ago
        > Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. The problem with that analogy is that a 64-bit computer is inherently, in isolation, much more powerful than an 8-bit. For the vast majority of cases, the same is not true for a switch from from, say, ounces to ml to measure the size of a bottle of water.