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Pirates of the Caribbean (Metric Edition) (2017)
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoInteresting article. “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Grave” would have been a better title.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoAs opposed to Living Man's Grave?
- TeMPOraL 3y agoWe've run out of titles that make sense a good decade ago.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoI don't know. A prediction of mine that titles would degenerate to single generic nouns like Plane came true, but there's plenty left in the dictionary. Ship, I suppose, could be a Pirates of the Caribbean reboot?
- euroderf 3y agoSo you have the film Tenet. If you wanted to make a version that ran the story in reverse, how would you name it ?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoteneT
- TeMPOraL 3y agonuqneH. Yes, new movies should have their titles in Klingon.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoWell, if the sequel involves a scheme enacted by a male character on an artificial Central American waterway, do I have the title for you!
- tylervigen 3y agoIt’s a well written story but I’m not convinced the metric system would have been adopted by the US even in the absence of pirates. By the story’s own account, they were going to Jefferson who had already unsuccessfully lobbied for the metric system, and when the instruments finally did make their way to the Secretary of State they were unconvincing. That said, I am still glad to have read the story and formed the opinion.
- cratermoon 3y ago[flagged]
- lsh123 3y ago[flagged]
- Voultapher 3y ago*and the ones that landed a Man on the moon using the metric system.
- redwall_hp 3y agoAnd crashed a probe into Mars because someone in the chain didn't use the metric system.
- nvy 3y ago>Although data was stored internally in metric units, they were displayed as United States customary units. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
- defrost 3y agoThe official US foot has been based on a metric measure for more than a century now though: The Mendenhall Order marked a decision to change the fundamental standards of length and mass of the United States from the customary standards based on those of England to metric standards. It was issued on April 5, 1893, by Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, with the approval of the United States Secretary of the Treasury, John Griffin Carlisle. At this point every US unit of measure (length, mass, volume, temp, second, etc) is defined in terms of a metric fundemental. The US public are really just pretending that they don't use metric. NIST and NASA don't pretend, they're metric to the core and just slap on some funny feet for the common pleb.
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago"""Montserrat is a lot nicer when you're not being held for ransom by pirates. """ """Despite his qualifications, Dombey lacked one important attribute: luck.""" I love the writing style. It's rare to hit that right balance of sarcasm and academia.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Tao3300 3y agoYou could maybe call it piracy if Britain was issuing the letters of marque after the fact or something, but it would seem to me this is "legit" privateering as they were at war with France at the time. I'm probably splitting hairs though. The popular opinion has always been "it's privateering when we do it, it's piracy when they do it". One man's terrorist and all that.
- seanhunter 3y agoCountries which use the metric system: Everyone except the US, Mynanmar and Liberia. And kind of the UK. As someone who grew up in a metric country and moved to the UK it sure doesn't feel like we use it here, but officially we use it. It's just we don't actually use it most of the time. So teaching in schools and tertiary education is in metric (including word questions about people travelling in a car on the motorway at "the speed limit of 112km/h"[1]), scientific stuff is universally in metric[2] and temperature is in C[3]. People measure distance in imperial, but volumetric measures and weights have come around to being sensible with just a bit of grumbling from extreme stick-in-the-muds like Jacob Rees-Mogg who have made a career out of living like it's still the 19th century. [1] Which is not a number you will ever see on a speed limit sign nor is the answer that will be given if you ask an actual driver what the motorway speed limit is. They will universally say 70mph. [2] Because of course [3] Because also of course. F might be the second-worst unit of measurement after perhaps only degrees Rankine.
- cm2012 3y agoF is better for use in human temperature comfort than C.
- RandomLensman 3y agoNot really. It's not like there are no decimals.
- stephen_g 3y agoNope, you’re just used to it. If you’re used to Celsius it’s basically no different…
- dagw 3y agoF is 'human scale' in that 0-100 is basically the range a human can operate without having to take serious extra precautions. Of course that doesn't make it 'better' and I'm sure if we'd grown up using Kelvin we would find that easy and intuitive.