7 ms·
File under the same category as: - everyone switches to Dvorak keyboards - British motorists start driving on the right* - United States adopts the metric sy
by FearNotDaniel 7y ago
File under the same category as:
- everyone switches to Dvorak keyboards
- British motorists start driving on the right*
- United States adopts the metric system
- Daily Telegraph admits a hard Brexit may have negative consequences for the population as a whole
* yes, I know, Dagen H, but 2019 UK is very different from 1967 Sweden
- henrikschroder 7y agoWell, switching to metric and switching to right-hand driving would be good things, painful in the short perspective, but extremely beneficial in the long perspective. Abolishing time zones is just an incredibly dumb idea, and the drawbacks heavily outweigh the benefits if you actually think about it. So I'm actually glad that human inertia makes it impossible to do.
- bostonpete 7y agoI wonder how beneficial switching to the metric system would really be. It's trivial to convert between systems if need be and pretty much all serious engineering/science work (where confusion can be costly) is done using the metric system these days anyways.
- falcor84 7y ago>Despite this being a "solved problem"(TM), it's not really trivial in any meaningful sense, neither for regular people nor for developers creating a system that should deal with units in both systems.
- bostonpete 7y agoIt really is trivial for "regular" people as everyone has a device in their pocket that can quickly convert to any unit you want (which is an infrequent thing to need in daily life). As for developers, there's lots of changes we could impose on the world to make our (developers) lives easier but easing the burden on developers should rarely be a consideration when considering such changes IMO.
- kuu 7y agoDo you know what is easier and quicker than conversion? No need of conversion.
- falcor84 7y agoWell, by that metric it's about equally trivial for any maths student to solve indefinite integrals (e.g. using Wolfram Alpha), right? It's not that I disagree about the utility of modern technology, but I just think that some things are inherently difficult for humans even if there is a handy oracle to compute them.
- henrikschroder 7y agoThe imperial system has shortcomings for small units, which means that regular people will encounter grams/millimeters/milliliters in their daily lives, so they are effectively using a hybrid system already, which is just the worst of both worlds. Yes, converting is technically trivial, but you still have to reach for a calculator to do it.
- wlesieutre 7y ago>The imperial system has shortcomings for small units Don't forget the medium and large units! I guess miles on their own work fine, but it'd be nice if someone could say "2000 feet" and I didn't have to think about how many miles that means. And our two speed measures of feet per second and miles per hour are close to equivalent (1 fps is about 0.7 mph) but nobody knows that to convert it in their heads. It just happens that 3600 seconds is the same order of magnitude as 5280 feet. Not that metric is totally better in that regard since they're stuck with minutes and seconds too. There's 86,400 seconds in a day, maybe when we're making this big calendar change we can switch it over to 100,000 seconds at the same time. Or we could change miles to be 3600 feet so that feet per seconds and miles per hour are equivalent. Added bonus, that's not too far off a kilometer.
- mlok 7y agoFor time, I think the equivalent would be the "Internet Time" created 20 years ago : one day is 1000 beats. 1 beat = 1 minute and 26.4 seconds (86.4 seconds) in standard time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
- asavadatti 7y ago0.7 and 1 are not close to equivalent even when speaking informally. The difference is the same as driving normal highway speed vs license suspension (or jail) speed
- wlesieutre 7y agoI don't mean they're close enough to be interchangeable, just that they're close enough that it's dumb to have separate scales. They're useful for having people understand speeds at different scales, but only because the different scales of units line up stupidly. Of course the effort to change it isn't worth it, it just makes you wish we'd got it right the first time around.
- lloeki 7y agoSerious science experiments like the resoundingly successful controlled descent into martian terrain. IMHO this is just the tip of the iceberg. I can’t even begin to fathom the inordinate amount of conversion mistakes there might be but we never hear about or even detect because this is not NASA yet have possibly damaging consequences.
- syn0byte 7y agoThe lander crash could have just as easily been happened using 2 different metric units. It wasn't caused by improper conversion, it was caused by no conversion. Each part assumed the other was using the same unit.
- ajuc 7y ago> The lander crash could have just as easily been happened using 2 different metric units Nobody uses anything but meters and seconds with metric in science. But even if - using 2 different metric units would give answers differing by a factor of 1000 - a little easier to notice than Pound vs Newton (1 to ~4.45).
- saalweachter 7y agoAn object is moving 25. Is that m/s, km/h or kmps?
- bandy 7y ago> Nobody uses anything but meters and seconds with metric in science. Sure, now. It took the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter to end the Imperial madness at NASA.
- zeveb 7y ago> Nobody uses anything but meters and seconds with metric in science. A lander is engineering and science, and I can guarantee you that there is a non-zero probability of one part of a system working in m/s and another in km/h — which would lead to the exact same error.
- mauvehaus 7y agoThe fact that converting measurements is trivial in theory doesn't mean that you don't have those measurements embedded in physical artifacts in non-trivial ways. Any sort of machinery that deals with measurements, has some sort of "standard" embedded in it. I'm a woodworker, so I'm going to pick on the world of woodworking. A thickness planer (thicknesser if you're from the UK) dimensions wood to a consistent thickness. The adjustment is typically done by raising or lowering the bed relative to the cutterhead. There is generally a crank or handwheel that turns some kind of gear or screw mechanism that in turn moves the bed. In the US, woodworkers generally use inches, and work in thicknesses that are some even number of 16ths of an inch. It would be possible, in theory, to set any planer for any dimension in the continuous range of dimensions it supports. In practice, the adjustment mechanism is set so that a whole turn of the crank corresponds to some whole number of 16ths. Moreover, this is usually set up so that a whole number of 16ths lands at an easily repeated position: crank handle at 12 o'clock or 6 o'clock. This makes it blindingly easy to repeatably hit the same mark (within woodworking tolerances) every time you use the machine. So far, so good. The shop I belong to where I have access to a planer has a modern Powermatic planer. Powermatic no longer manufactures in the US, and the planer was a bit of a source of mystery to me until I dug up the docs and read them. One full turn of the crank is 1.5mm. I'll spare you converting: That's 1/16th of an inch, less 3.5 thousandths of an inch (thou, rhymes with cow). That doesn't sound like much, but it adds up. Over 16 turns of the crank, you're now 56 thou off where you expected to be, or, almost exactly 1/17th of an inch[0]. Moreover, hitting 3/4" exactly (within woodworking tolerances) requires a bit of guesstimating about how much extra you need to turn the wheel past 12 o'clock or 6 o'clock. Non-solutions to this problem: 1. Put a measuring device on the machine. They either aren't accurate enough, don't stay accurate, or cost a fortune (i.e. anything digital that is both accurate and stays accurate) 2. Work in metric. I would, happily, except for the fact that literally everything else in the shop is inches. Chisels in the US are an even number of 16ths of an inch wide. A dado stack for a table saw cuts dadoes an even number of 8ths, 16ths, or 32nds of an inch wide. The simple act of finding a measuring tape that's metric is a pain in the ass. I can go to Home Depot, Lowes, or any hardware store and find a dozen options in inches. If I'm lucky, there's ONE with metric, and it has inches on one side of the tape. But wait, it gets worse if you're a metalworker. Metal lathes have a leadscrew that rotates a fixed number of rotations per rotation of the workpiece (non-continuously variable by gearbox). Those are threaded either in either metric or inches. To do metric work on a lathe that's natively inches (or vice versa), you need gears in the ratio of 254:100, reduced to 127:50. If that sounds like a lot of teeth on one gear, that's because it is; making that set of gears requires either an impractically large gear (won't fit on the lathe), or impractically small teeth (incapable of transmitting the required torque)[1]. Once you start making actual physical things, you find that your system of measurement is embedded in nearly everything around you in ways that are difficult to work around while maintaining sufficient accuracy and precision. [0] Yes, this means that 1.5mm is almost, but not quite, exactly 1/17th of an inch. [1] There exists a very close approximate solution that can be used subject to limitations you'd need to find a machinist to expand on.
- maxxxxx 7y agoThe imperial system is a problem in daily life. Most of my American friends don’t know how many ounces are in a pound or how many teaspoons in a tablespoon. This makes price comparison at shopping very difficult and cooking is also harder. Sure you can survive but imperial is just an incredibly inefficient system.
- bandy 7y agoComparison shopping is difficult because the stores are allowed to get away with marking interchangeable items with wildly dissimilar units (type and/or magnitude), quoting per item, per ounce, per pound, per gram, per quart, etc., all on items that are sitting next to one another. All of the grocery chains that I've ever shopped at are guilty of this. People who are serious about cooking know about the volumetric units used in cooking and the relationships between them. (teaspoons/3 = tablespoons)/16 = cups. But your American friends who don't know how many ounces are in a pound? I hope you're kidding. That's basic stuff, taught in elementary (primary) school.
- maxxxxx 7y agoI am not kidding. Most seem to be resigned to the fact that it’s 12 or 16 and that’s close enough. Also nobody knows how many cups are in a pack of flour so buying something for a recipe is hard too.
- mlok 7y agoThese comparisons are much easier in the metric system : it is either per unit or per kg. If it is per gram, it's easy still because *1000 or /1000 is very easy. (basically you just move the decimal point, no calculator needed) It is because we count with base 10 numbers that metric is easy and imperial is difficult.
- llamathrowaway 7y agoIn UK it’s not uncommon to see price tags that say something like '50p per litre' (for bottled water) or '50p per 100 sheet' (for toilet paper). You can see the prices per unit on their websites: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=bottled%20water https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=bottled%2... Not sure if this is required by regulations or it’s just the supermarkets being customer-friendly though.
- mikeash 7y agoJust one example: when I’m working on a random unknown bolt, I have to try two sets of sockets on it because I don’t know if it’s metric or imperial. Worse, there are some sizes which are close enough to grip and seem like a fit, but which will damage the head when more than moderate torque is applied. There are lots of little things like this, multiplied by millions of people.
- Symbiote 7y ago(Numbers made up, based on what I read many years ago on [1], but most of the links are now dead.) Situation: mother and 6 year old boy in hospital in the UK. In the UK, everything is metric except casual discussion of body weight and height, and road distances and speeds. And beer in pubs. Doctor: I'm prescribing this drug, the nurse will give it to your son. Nurse to boy: can you stand on the scale please? OK, 45… that makes the dose 5mL. Did you notice the error? A 6 year old won't weigh 45kg, the digital scale is somehow set to pounds. The boy actually weighs 20kg — he's about to receive a double-dose. Neither the nurse nor the mother (or the boy for that matter) noticed the incorrect weight, and the boy was seriously injured (perhaps killed, I forget) through an overdose of the drug. The NHS then replaced any scale that could give a reading in pounds, to prevent a repeat of the error. In the rest of Europe, nurse or mother would have known 45kg wasn't a reasonable weight for a 6 year old boy, and investigated the problem. I'm sure you can think of other technical or semi-technical situations where unfamiliarity with the metric unit can lead to mistakes. [1] http://metricviews.org.uk/2009/12/nhs-risking-patients-lives-with-imperial-scales/ http://metricviews.org.uk/2009/12/nhs-risking-patients-lives...
- alasdair_ 7y agoThis is particularly surprising given that most people in the UK use “stones” as a measurement for weight, so pounds would be just as confusing as kilograms.
- Symbiote 7y agoThat makes both the kilograms and pounds value just "big numbers", compared to the 3 stone the boy weighed. The nurse is expecting a "big" value, but has no concept of either measure.
- mantap 7y agoWhat is the long term benefit of UK and Ireland switching to right hand driving? I guess it would make life easier for HGVs that's the only class of vehicles that regularly uses both systems. For everyone else it would be a lot of pain and little to no benefit.
- djaychela 7y agoI would think if -every- country changed to driving on the right, all cars could be LHD, and that would make vehicle design and supply chains simpler and lower cost? Depending, of course, if people are actually driving in the future, but having thought a bit about it maybe in the near future there won't be the need to have a physical connection to the steering rack or pedals so switching the driver's side will be easier and simpler in the future. Buying a car from anywhere in the EU or wherever would be a lot easier, as it is a lot of 'grey' imports in the UK tend to be from Japan, I think, as they're RHD and have interesting vehicles in good condition.
- jboles 7y agoIIRC it becomes difficult to register cars in Japan because of emissions standards once they are a few years old. That's why so many end up in Australia/NZ/UK.
- JetSetWilly 7y agoI can't think of any apart from marginal production costs for right hand drive. I can think of negatives though. For one, people for the most part are right eye and right hand dominant. That means that they can drive better on the left side of the road - if you look at racing cars where the driver can drive in any orientation, they generally historically had the gear stick on the left because you want your right hand on the steering wheel. Having your dominant right eye have a better field of view of the road and oncoming lane helps too. Despite being one of the more densely populated countries in Europe, UK accident rates are well below almost everywhere else in Europe let alone the world. I don't think this is because UK road infrastructure is superior to eg. German road infrastructure - I think it is because we drive in a more "natural" position. Driving on the left would mean chaos in the short term and then make our accident rates slightly worse for all eternity afterwards. Not really worth it?
- twic 7y agoWhy not abolish timezones AND switch to metric? Now that we live our lives on the information superhighway, surely it's inevitable that Swatch Internet Time will eventually become the standard: https://www.swatch.com/en_gb/internet-time/ https://www.swatch.com/en_gb/internet-time/
- evanb 7y agoSo, you want to abolish timezones? https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- kilroy123 7y agoAs an American who lives abroad, I would LOVE for the US to switch to the metric system. I truly don't understand why we haven't already.
- drdeadringer 7y agoI remember a school teacher explaining how we [the US] were going to make the switch soon. A healthy number of years later I realized nothing happened and wondered what was going on. Many years after that I used the "MPH/KPH" button in my vehicle as a form of useless rebellion.
- maxxxxx 7y agoThere was an effort in the 70s that got shut down by the Reagan administration.
- tastyfreeze 7y agoKinda, it wasn't shot down. The US actually started down the path of conversion. The real reason that US metrication failed was that conversion was voluntary. The UK went through a similar change but metrication was mandatory for all industries. In the US most businesses and industries just decided it cost too much to change so they didn't. https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/metric/1136a.pdf https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/m...
- asark 7y agoInches/feet/yards are pretty decent measurements. Better than metric, in some ways. It's miles where everything goes to hell. Fahrenheit's not really worth clinging to but does seem to be a closer match than celsius to sensible differences in temperature, using whole-number degrees only, and its 0-100 range (and somewhat beyond, with either basically translating to "effing cold" or "effing hot") matches up pretty well with common air temperatures in most populated areas, which is handy. I can see resisting a change there as it's "good enough". Being able to trivially convert volume to mass and vice-versa for anything that's mostly water is a killer feature for metric, at least when it comes to cooking, which is the main place most people actually use volume and mass measurements in their lives. Switching there seems like a no-brainer. Really, most people are using these measurements for household work, checking the weather and setting indoor temps, cooking, and travel distances (miles are fine there since they rarely/never need to be converted to anything else for that purpose). That's about it. The only place Imperial's a clear loser there, seems to me, is the kitchen. Most people aren't doing science—and it's telling that the kitchen, where they come the closest to it, is where metric might have a real advantage.
- juanuys 7y agoIf Britain switched from pounds to kilograms, it would cause mass confusion. (Just my 1.58 pence)