4 ms·

There are many extremely valid arguments for why the US should change to the metric system, but I don't think that "maybe we'll round down and be more efficient

There are many extremely valid arguments for why the US should change to the metric system, but I don't think that "maybe we'll round down and be more efficient" is one of them. > We ship liquids in gallon containers. A gallon is 3.8 liters. If we worked with liters, might we buy and ship three liters instead? Perhaps generating less waste? Might we buy and ship 4 liters instead? That's closer to 3.8. Anyway, if we rounded down to 3, what about those people who really need 3.8 liters? They'll buy two jugs, which is double the packaging, and if they don't need the extra 2.2 liters, it's a waste of the liquid. Also, many things are sold by the pound. But a pound is ~0.45 kilograms. Surely by your reasoning people would round up to 0.5 kilograms, and thus be less efficient.

robomartin 13y ago
I see your point and raise you 0.35mm. In working on a design I specified 1/4 shafts. Why? Well, from the commonly-available range of sizes this is what met the specs. Then I went to price manufacturing. No issues here in the 'States. My Chinese CM comes back to me and says I can save money if I go with a 6mm shaft rather than 6.35mm. The 6mm shaft is more common, weighs less and costs less per unit length. And so the entire design slowly changed to metric units and we saved both money and weight. Of course, this is a loose and probably really flawed hypothesis with nothing but personal data points and random observations for support.
- humbledrone 13y ago
  Your hypothesis is that all common measurements in imperial units round down when expressed in metric units, and that somehow by switching and rounding, "efficiency" will be gained, and therefore metric units are superior. Please think about this for a moment. Really think about what you are saying. It's ridiculous.
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    Er, I'm not him, but I suspect the reason 6mm shafts were cheaper is because that's what the rest of the planet orders (not anything to do with rounding or whatever)... Rare or custom specs almost always increase the price.
    - humbledrone 13y ago
      robomartin is the OP -- read his original post and also the comment that I was replying to. It doesn't matter that in some circumstances rounding imperial units to the nearest-but-lower metric equivalent results in cheaper parts (perhaps due to better availability). What I'm saying is that it's absurd to use that as an argument for switching from imperial units to metric. (Don't get me wrong, imperial units are completely backwards and horrible, and I would love for the US to switch. It's just that this particular argument for doing so is stupid.)
      - robomartin 13y ago
        Well, it's only absurd because my data points are easy to attack. I'm with you on that. It would be very interesting if a study looked at various efficiency metrics to compare the systems. Like I said, I know my argument is weak and calling this idea nonsense at this stage is probably not without merit. At the same time I've seen this effect more times than I can remember in my career, which leads me to believe there might be a number of cases where it may very well be factually correct to assume that imperial is costing us money and creates more waste.
rtkwe 13y ago
Yeah rounding efficiencies would probably just wind up being mostly a wash as some things round down and some round up or amount to a very small difference over all. There are better arguments that can be made for changing over to the metric system.
sitharus 13y ago
Rounding will happen eventually, but it's a slow change. Initially I'd expect everything to be in the old units but labelled metric. As an example, here in New Zealand most bars sell beer in 500ml glasses, but the one I go to sells 568 ml glasses. The same happened when I was in the UK and the milk had to be sold in metric quantities. You don't need to force people to change their thinking, but if you start labelling things in metric it will change over the generations.

robomartin 13y ago

I see your point and raise you 0.35mm. In working on a design I specified 1/4 shafts. Why? Well, from the commonly-available range of sizes this is what met the specs. Then I went to price manufacturing. No issues here in the 'States. My Chinese CM comes back to me and says I can save money if I go with a 6mm shaft rather than 6.35mm. The 6mm shaft is more common, weighs less and costs less per unit length. And so the entire design slowly changed to metric units and we saved both money and weight. Of course, this is a loose and probably really flawed hypothesis with nothing but personal data points and random observations for support.

humbledrone 13y ago
Your hypothesis is that all common measurements in imperial units round down when expressed in metric units, and that somehow by switching and rounding, "efficiency" will be gained, and therefore metric units are superior. Please think about this for a moment. Really think about what you are saying. It's ridiculous.
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  Er, I'm not him, but I suspect the reason 6mm shafts were cheaper is because that's what the rest of the planet orders (not anything to do with rounding or whatever)... Rare or custom specs almost always increase the price.
  - humbledrone 13y ago
    robomartin is the OP -- read his original post and also the comment that I was replying to. It doesn't matter that in some circumstances rounding imperial units to the nearest-but-lower metric equivalent results in cheaper parts (perhaps due to better availability). What I'm saying is that it's absurd to use that as an argument for switching from imperial units to metric. (Don't get me wrong, imperial units are completely backwards and horrible, and I would love for the US to switch. It's just that this particular argument for doing so is stupid.)
    - robomartin 13y ago
      Well, it's only absurd because my data points are easy to attack. I'm with you on that. It would be very interesting if a study looked at various efficiency metrics to compare the systems. Like I said, I know my argument is weak and calling this idea nonsense at this stage is probably not without merit. At the same time I've seen this effect more times than I can remember in my career, which leads me to believe there might be a number of cases where it may very well be factually correct to assume that imperial is costing us money and creates more waste.

rtkwe 13y ago

Yeah rounding efficiencies would probably just wind up being mostly a wash as some things round down and some round up or amount to a very small difference over all. There are better arguments that can be made for changing over to the metric system.

sitharus 13y ago

Rounding will happen eventually, but it's a slow change. Initially I'd expect everything to be in the old units but labelled metric. As an example, here in New Zealand most bars sell beer in 500ml glasses, but the one I go to sells 568 ml glasses. The same happened when I was in the UK and the milk had to be sold in metric quantities. You don't need to force people to change their thinking, but if you start labelling things in metric it will change over the generations.