7 ms·
Mildly surprising that we are not just using meters at this point.
by hadlock 7y ago
Mildly surprising that we are not just using meters at this point.
- kbar13 7y agothink renaming a software library is hard? try changing units of measure!!!!!
- oneplane 7y agoI think that's what they did in Canada and it worked out great as far as I can tell (except that they had a silly clock based on 10 hours instead of 12 IIRC which had little to do with metric units and nobody wanted it nor was it compatible with the rest of the world).
- kibwen 7y agoI suppose it depends on what your goals are; despite being officially metric, my Canadian and British friends still seem to exhibit a melange of imperial and metric in everyday life.
- saghm 7y agoI notice sometimes when watching British television that stones are commonly used as a unit of weight, which is interesting because it's imperial, not metric, but I've seen never it used in American contexts.
- moron4hire 7y agoThat's because we don't use the Imperial system. The system we use is called "US Customary".
- Someone 7y ago“1 stone equals 14 pounds” is (also) British. It dates back to Edward III (1350). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(unit)#England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(unit)#England. The idea to use physical stones as reference weights is way older.
- thrower123 7y agoSome metric units work well, and are scaled to human everyday measurements, and some are not.
- beerandt 7y agoBut the time thing goes to show the absurdity of people's frame of reference. The same people that judgingly ask why the US hasn't gone full metric will say how absurd the idea of base 10 time is.
- sudasana 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
- mark-r 7y agoI once tried to imagine a metric time system, with a deciday of 14.4 minutes. I realized that it would never catch on, because a half-hour TV show would have to be cut to 28.8 minutes losing at least 2 commercials.
- jonas21 7y agoThey actually tried this, during the French Revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar It didn't catch on then either.
- zokier 7y agoAnd again in the 90s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
- zokier 7y ago14.4 minutes is a centiday btw. For decimal time I think milliday is the most reasonable unit, being very close to conventional minute. In practice Mars might be the best opportunity for enacting decimal time, because Earth based units would be bit awkward on Mars.
- mark-r 7y agoThanks for the correction.
- salgernon 7y agoSaw this here somewhere previously: Sweden did something more insane: Högertrafikomläggningen. Do it once, get it over with? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
- irrational 7y agoWhat would the cost be to change everything for a country the size of the USA? I imagine it would be in the trillions.
- zamalek 7y agoThe situation is far more bizarre than "use" or "not use." As I understand it, America uses something along the lines of "converted metric units" - i.e. the entire imperial system is defined according to metric/SI. Some subset of public records have been, supposedly, converted to metric. If you have a recent car, it should have km/h alongside mph (in a smaller font, or as a different digital readout). You'll find metric all over the place if you keep an eye out for it.
- sbierwagen 7y agoUS cars have had dual speedometers for decades. One example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-1980-1981-FORD-MUSTANG-85MPH-SPEEDOMETER-ASY-/372373390303 https://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-1980-1981-FORD-MUSTANG-85MPH-SP...
- moron4hire 7y agoIt's called "US Customary", not "imperial".
- Taniwha 7y agoOnly in the US - except for gallons/fluid ounces - those genuinely are US only
- moron4hire 7y agoNo, that's my point. The system of units that is used in the United States is not "Imperial", it has differences from Imperial. We use "US Customary".
- spritecranberry 7y ago> The situation is far more bizarre than "use" or "not use"... "converted metric units" You're absolutely right. It's time we removed the quasi-metric garbage and replaced it with proper customary units defined on the same universal constants used by SI units.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- alexpotato 7y agoBack in the 90s, new construction for the US Govt was supposed to all be done using the metric standard even though all of the supplies were in US/Imperial units. Can't imagine the headaches that caused. Source: My uncle who is/was a contractor
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThe Comanche helicopter was subject to this dictum. The original drawings specified all metric fasteners. They found out nobody supplies aircraft grade metric bolts so everything had to be redesigned for the next size up in freedom-units with a corresponding weight penalty.
- analog31 7y agoWe are. All of the US standards are based on metric units. A large number of the products that we buy are made from metric components such as screws. CAD software and machine tools can switch effortlessly between unit standards. There are some standards that are so unique that they might as well be arbitrary, such as spark plug threads. Some building materials still have US dimensions, but if you measure plywood carefully, it's thicknessed in mm. And the "2 x 4" has never been 2 x 4 inches. So I think we've made great progress towards an age when units of measure don't matter much any more.
- big_chungus 7y ago> the "2 x 4" has never been 2 x 4 inches. Well, it used to be pretty close, until lumber manufacturers and builders cheaped out. They've been gradually "shrinkflating" by reducing the thickness, conveniently requiring less wood. This went along with the switch to fast-growing garbage pine. I lived for a long time in an early-fifties house, and the quality of the wood was vastly superior to what you'd find today. Though, the newer measurements did make things a pain.
- Taniwha 7y agoHere in NZ when we switched to metric nothing changed, 2x4s (well we call the 4x2s) were never quite 2x4, and 50x100s (the metric replacement) are close enough (but still not quite) that nothing really changed
- oivaksef 7y agofour buh two
- Jamwinner 7y agoNo the difference is that we process wood now. Look up dimensional lumber. Its confusing, but makes sense if looked at historically. Iy is not shrinkflation or any other such nonsense.
- beerandt 7y ago
- zokier 7y agoThey are using metric: https://geodesy.noaa.gov/INFO/Policy/files/SPCS2022-Policy.pdf https://geodesy.noaa.gov/INFO/Policy/files/SPCS2022-Policy.p... > The meter is the unit of the defining linear parameters for SPCS2022 > SPCS2022 coordinates are published in meters
- beerandt 7y ago83 was also defined in metric, but most states chose to use feet for their actual grid.