4 ms·

Chances are the tools they use are working in meters and convert to feet either in their front end display, or it's a manual process that the surveyers perform.

Chances are the tools they use are working in meters and convert to feet either in their front end display, or it's a manual process that the surveyers perform. But changing the definition of the unit whilst keeping it the same is a very pragmatic solution if they want to converge on the 'normal' foot. Software displays stuff with the right units, values which are old are probably close enough to be correct if just used directly, and anything large enough for the transformation to need to be applied will be hopefully rare enough that it can be calculated and applied with ease.

rhaway84773 4y ago
I’m not sure this is a pragmatic solution at all. You’ve now raised the possibility that someone who starts being educated in the field a few years down the line, and never used the old foot at all, will look at old data with SFT measurements and assume they are IFT and introduce all sorts of errors in their analyses and calculations. You’ve gone from 2 distinctly named standards with a 3x difference in value, which meansa mental sanity check should be sufficient to identify errors in most cases, to introducing a 3rd that is named very much like 1 of those and is close enough in value that a mental sanity check will not get you anywhere in most cases.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  All other countries had to transition but the US is sadly stuck as long as they perceive themselves as leading and modern. Once they get left behind maybe a politician will finally propose to "modernize" the whole thing but feh... the US will drag this crap for centuries like we still have a completely special keyboard layout in France for reasons no one seem to remember lol
  - nephanth 4y ago
    Most currently used keyboard layouts (like qwerty, azerty..) were made for one reason: to avoid jamming typewriters. They are old legacy that is clearly suboptimal, but no one wants to change it because it still works and the transition would be costly A bit like the imperial system
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    You are making the common mistake of assuming that the US political system works similarly to the standard modern democracy found in Europe and parts of Asia. It doesn’t. It is infinitely more deadlocked and slow-moving, mostly by design. Switching to metric wouldn’t be a matter of “a politician” proposing it and 50%+1 of the parliament agreeing. It would be a massive, years-long all-consuming struggle.

rhaway84773 4y ago

I’m not sure this is a pragmatic solution at all. You’ve now raised the possibility that someone who starts being educated in the field a few years down the line, and never used the old foot at all, will look at old data with SFT measurements and assume they are IFT and introduce all sorts of errors in their analyses and calculations. You’ve gone from 2 distinctly named standards with a 3x difference in value, which meansa mental sanity check should be sufficient to identify errors in most cases, to introducing a 3rd that is named very much like 1 of those and is close enough in value that a mental sanity check will not get you anywhere in most cases.

xwolfi 4y ago
All other countries had to transition but the US is sadly stuck as long as they perceive themselves as leading and modern. Once they get left behind maybe a politician will finally propose to "modernize" the whole thing but feh... the US will drag this crap for centuries like we still have a completely special keyboard layout in France for reasons no one seem to remember lol
- nephanth 4y ago
  Most currently used keyboard layouts (like qwerty, azerty..) were made for one reason: to avoid jamming typewriters. They are old legacy that is clearly suboptimal, but no one wants to change it because it still works and the transition would be costly A bit like the imperial system
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  You are making the common mistake of assuming that the US political system works similarly to the standard modern democracy found in Europe and parts of Asia. It doesn’t. It is infinitely more deadlocked and slow-moving, mostly by design. Switching to metric wouldn’t be a matter of “a politician” proposing it and 50%+1 of the parliament agreeing. It would be a massive, years-long all-consuming struggle.