7 ms·

I think we should pick a day, not too far out, and we all should immediately switch to IPv6 and the metric system world wide. Just rip off the band-aids and mov

• themodelplumber 11y ago
  I can't begin to imagine what that would cost in lost business due to downtime.
  • k__ 11y ago
    This would probably have health implications. 220lb seem more than 100kg
    • Tyr42 11y ago
      I mean, it could have the opposite affect, since breaking the 3 digit barrier is a bit more important than 220.
    • na85 11y ago
      kilograms aren't a measure of weight.
      • omegaham 11y ago
        You are correct, but when I'm messing around with bumper plates, the red plate says 55kg rather than 539N. If you're not in the lab, a kilogram is simultaneously the mass and the force of gravity of said mass at sea level.
        • k__ 11y ago
          Is "Pound" more like "Newton" than "Gram"?
          • 8_hours_ago 11y ago
            Correct. Pound -> Newton Slug[1] -> Gram [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_%28mass%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_%28mass%29
            • Dylan16807 11y ago
              I've never heard of a slug in my life. Pound by itself usually means mass, but it's interchangeable. Pound-force is a common term. Pound-mass can disambiguate.
              • 8_hours_ago 11y ago
                Yes, that is what is most common these days. Unfortunately the "slug" unit never caught on, it's way more fun to say than "pound-mass".
      • andrepd 11y ago
        They are, in day-to day usage, up to a factor.
      • tzs 11y ago
        > kilograms aren't a measure of weight. When making obnoxious technical corrections in a discussion, there are two things you must do if you wish to avoid simply being a jerk. 1. Your statement must in fact be technically correct. 2. Your statement must be relevant. You have failed on #2. The person you responded to said: This would probably have health implications. 220lb seem more than 100kg Note that nowhere in there did he say anything about "weight". You are simply assuming that he meant "220lb weight seems more than 100kg weight". He could have also meant "200lb mass seems more than 100kg mass". You have also arguably failed in #1. Kg isn't a measure of weight in the SI system. It is a measure of weight in the de facto system people use in the real world, and is defined as the weight of a 1 Kg mass in a 1 g field. Even scientists use this de facto system much of the time.
      • dragonwriter 11y ago
        > kilograms aren't a measure of weight. True, but irrelevant to the comparison of pounds to kg since pounds are both a unit of force (sometimes disambiguated as pound-force) and a unit of mass (sometimes disambiguated as pound-mass), with the former equal to the force due to gravity on an object with the mass of the latter in a 1g field. So, kilograms are directly comparable to pounds (in fact, the pound is defined to be 0.45359237 kg -- and previously, in the US, the kg was defined in terms of the pound as 2.20462 lb -- so its clear that they are measuring the same thing.) Better pedants, please.
  • scott_karana 11y ago
    That's why we'd choose the day in advance. Businesses already lose loads of money due to metric<->imperial conversions. Let's stop the madness.
    • adventured 11y ago
      If you want to talk about vast loss of efficiency, let's talk about Europe having three dozen major languages, and ~50% of Europeans sharing no common language. Language is even more important than measurement. One of the biggest competitive advantages the US market has over the EU, is a dominant language. Obviously Europeans should all convert to either English, Spanish or Mandarin. Now, trying selling that pitch, and the only thing you'll get back is an emotional response about culture.
      • vardump 11y ago
        For better or worse, we already pretty much did convert to English, thank you. - Northern Europe
• paublyrne 11y ago
  The metric system has already been adopted worldwide.
  • 1ris 11y ago
    The metric system is a "worse is better" approach. Why is Kg, a base unit, even if it has prefix? Time in the SI is based on seconds, that relate very odd to the duration of a day. The same horrible base60 system is used for angles. Don't use SI. Use a system that fits for your Problem (e.g. the cgs system) Use Units that make sense (like Angstroms or barns) for the problem you are solving. Often SI fits. But SI shouldn't be a dogma.
    • pasiaj 11y ago
      Don't go fooling yourself into thinking all systems are equally complex just because all systems have sone complexities. I've read a at least half a dozen studies linking the US standards system to worse learning outcomes. Nobody's saying SI is perfect. It's just a lot, lot less worse.
      • 1ris 11y ago
        Of course the US or the Imperial System are a way worse, I never meant to imply otherwise. But SI is not particular good and it's not a non-brainer to choose SI. Units should be used because they are elegant to use. Like Angstrom and not because they are in the SI system. And there are other Systems that are just as valid. Instead of SI-Prefixes one could use Japanese numbers. (They have names for the numbers 10^n for n from -24 to 68 in steps of 4.)
    • vardump 11y ago
      Strictly speaking, Kg is a "kelvin gram". Kilogram (kg) is especially handy, because it's practically same as 1 liter of water, which is 10 cm^3. It's indeed rather difficult to calculate duration of time. Quick, how many minutes between 6h:37m and 19h:12m? Angles are simple if you just use radians.
  • shmerl 11y ago