4 ms·
Haha that thread is great... good old metric system.
by mrottenkolber 12y ago
Haha that thread is great... good old metric system.
- talideon 12y agoIt was like talking to a brick wall. A very dumb brick wall that couldn't get it through their head that the units didn't matter, and that what mattered was the ratio.
- willvarfar 12y agoThe A0 being 1m^2 is important too, if you're ordering paper by area?
- talideon 12y agoYeah, but that's really a different argument. Once you get the ratio argument, you get the utility of the system.
- RVuRnvbM2e 12y agoThe A0 being 1m^2 is important because paper weight is given in gsm - grams per square metre. Thus when calculating postage weight by counting the number of sheets you can calculate that, for example, the weight of one A4 sheet is 1/16 the gsm of the paper - 1/(2^4).
- michaelhoffman 12y agoOppose the totally insane system used along with U.S. paper sizes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_density#Basis_weight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_density#Basis_weight In order to figure out the actual mass of a sheet of U.S. paper from the reported basis weight, you must know how many sheets of paper were in the "basis ream" and what dimensions they were. The basis ream sheet dimensions may have nothing to do with your final sheet of paper, and the number of sheets varies too.
- skore 12y ago> It was like talking to a brick wall. I know those types of conversations. They stay with you for months and sometimes years, never ceasing to irritate.
- jschwartzi 12y agoSometimes the irritating part is when you realize that you're the brick wall.
- skore 12y agoExactly! Furthermore: In that case, it gets more vexing the longer it takes you to arrive at that conclusion. When it's the other way round, you can find peace at some point (even if it takes months or years). But if you were the brick wall, it first takes months or years and THEN, when you finally do realize the reality of the situation, it takes even longer to settle. shudders
- smcl 12y agoI feel your pain. The tough part is realising how pointless those "someone is wrong on the internet"[1] discussions are. I get embarrassed looking back at situations like that, and think "why did I even care if this random person didn't get what I was saying about <thing-we-were-arguing-about>?" [1] http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/
- talideon 12y agoOh, I agree. I was as dumb as him for participating in it. If I'd any sense, I'd never have engaged with him after it became clear that he was fixated on something completely separate from the actual point.