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Another English/Metric "Spacecraft" Problem
SuperDry writes "There's been another spacecraft failure that's been attributed to an English/Metric units problem, this time at Tokyo Disneyland's Space Mountain. An axle broke on a "spacecraft" (a.k.a. roller coaster train) mid-ride, causing it to derail (nobody was hurt). The final investigation report has been released, and the root cause has been determined to be a part being the wrong size due to a conversion of the master plans in 1995 from English units to Metric units. In 2002, new axles were mistakenly ordered using the pre-1995 English specifications instead of the current Metric specifications. Apparently size does matter, even if it's only a 0.86mm difference."
It's more like an English spelling problem, no?
I could care less, but not without a lobotomy
How come everything Disney does ends up so Mickey Mouse?
The Japanese who, like the rest of the modern world, switched to metric years ago?
Or the American designers who couldn't even do simple multiplication in order to convert from English to Metric?
I have been pwned because my
I'm Canadian, so I have to assume that 'proble' is the... imperial spelling... of problem?
"I get five rods to the hog's head!"
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
We need a one world government with one way of doing things! How many more people have to die because we have to hang on to old ways of doing things? Stop this madness now! Surrender your nationalist ideals. Borders exist in the minds of dimwitted politicians. Borders can't be see from space. We must unite and work together to advance mankind.
Support the New World Order now!
From the Article:
In September 1995, the design specifications for the size of the axle bearing for Space Mountain vehicles was changed from inches to the metric scale. Accordingly, the axle diameter was also changed, in this case from 44.14 mm to 45.00 mm. However, appropriate action to revise and maintain the design drawings was neglected. Consequently, two different drawings existed within our company after the changes were made and the old drawing showing the 44.14 mm diameter was used to order (in August 2002) the axles that were delivered in October 2002.
They actually changed the specs. The conversions were all done correctly but they failed to update everyone.
I don't know about you, but us English call the measurement system the Imperial system. Isn't the American version slightly different, in respect to fluid units, etc?
Why do you call them 'English' units, when everyone else knows them as Imperial units? :-) We stopped using most of them some time ago.
It wasn't mentioned in the article, but for my own reference, I'm wondering how many Rods to the Hogshead this ride gets?
Or if that info. isn't available, how many stone per fortnight this ride has in lifting capacity.
TDz.
In the automotive industry being off by that 'gigantic' mile of a discrepancy can be the difference between an entirely safe system or a potentially dangerous event just waiting to happen.
Anything from rubbing away the lining of important wires or hoses, different stress locations resulting in tear apart pieces that shouldn't be tear apart can happen by being off by that much...
0.86mm might at well be 3 feet off. A part that comes out that far off is nothing but scrap material. (Well at least in our area of automotive work.)
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Proving once again that the average person has a hard time coutning to ten.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Please don't say English/Metric units. The UK is effectively metric now, all schoolchildren are only taught metric units and everything has to be priced in metric units. I don't even have intutitions about how long feet are or how heavy a stone is. Pretty much everyone under the age of 25 only deals with litres, metres and kilograms. The only exception is vehicle speed, which is still measured in mph (and hence all our road signs are in mph). You won't, however, catch any British Engineers or scientists using Imperial units.
Better ways to describe them would be "Imperial" (what we call them), "American" or "Archiac". I think it's about time the US caught up with the rest of the world and ditched these stupid and difficult-to-remember units once and for all.
>Apparently size does matter, even if it's only a 0.86mm difference. At this very moment there are hundreds of geeks around the world trying to think of a great punchline for this.
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
If you had read the article, you would know that the problem was, while converting to metric, they also changed the specification of the axle size, but didn't record the new axle size correctly. So, the problem really had nothing to do with any mathematical error, just an error in incorrect documentation.
A modern day witchhunt.
And suddenly the mods realized that "Problem" was fixed and they'd blown all their mod points on two-minute jokes.
Google's Cache is here.
Yes. We could call it "metric"!
The US needs to catch up to the rest of the world. The entire world uses Metric people. And it makes an infinite amount more sense to use Metric than the US system. If we don't, trade will continue to suffer as well as accidents such as this one.
http://www.laughingplace.com/News-ID108300.asp
Great set of columns, by the way. I've always been a fan of how some of the disney technology was invented and implemented.
HAHAHAH! No one uses hands anymore to measure distance! How ARCANE!
We use feet.
A side note: in New Zealand (and possibly other Commonwealth countries - I haven't checked) they don't even refer to "English units". Their term is "Imperial units". Which tells you how long it's been since they made the switch...
WRONG! See http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/brown/chpt2 .html
MANY persons, otherwise well-informed upon general topics, believe that railroads were constructed especially for locomotives, as the best-adapted road for the accom- modation of that peculiar machine and its train of cars. They never call to mind that a locomotive is a modern invention, and, for want of access to works such as we have referred to, they are not informed that a railroad is an ancient institution (if we may apply such a term to such a subject). They never have dreamed nor ever imagined that this peculiar kind of road was invented and in use several centuries ago, but, like the great auxiliary, the locomotive, was very defective and simple in its primitive state, and since that time, like the latter, has been subject to vast and continued improvements. Before, however, we enter upon the subject for which these pages were designedN" the history of the first locomotives in America"Nit will not, we trust, be deemed inappropriate here to devote a small space in our work in describing the peculiar kind of road upon which the locomotive travels, now known universally as the railroad; and to such information as we have gathered of its origin and early progress. Various devices have been employed, from the period when wheelcarriages were first used, for facilitating the movement over the ground in transportation. These devices, however, were mostly limited to the smoothing, leveling, and hardening the surface of the way. The early Egyptians, in transporting the immense stones they used in the erection of the vast pyramids from the quarries, learned the advantage of hard, smooth, and solid track-ways, and the remains of such, formed of large blocks of stone, are said to have been found on the line of the great road they constructed for this purpose. The ancient Romans made also some approach to the invention of railroads, in the celebrated Appian Way. This was constructed of blocks of stone fitted closely together, the surface presenting a smooth and hard track for the wheels. In modern times such tracks or roadways were constructed in several European citiesNLondon, Pisa, Milan, and many others. The first instance on record of rails being used on highways was as early as the year 1630, over two and a quarter centuries ago. They were invented by a person named Beaumont, and built and used for the transportation of coal from the mines near New castle, in England. Old Roger North alludes to railways as being in use in the neighborhood of the river Tyne in the year 1676, and he thus describes them: The rails of timber were placed end to end and exactly straight, and in two lines parallel to each other. On these bulky carts were made to run on four rollers fitting these rails, whereby the carriage was made so easy that one horse would draw four or five caldrons of coal at a load. We read of railways existing in Scotland in 1745, at the time of the Scotch rebellion. These railways were laid down between the Tranent coal-mines and the harbor of Cockenzie, in East Lothian. Improvements were made on these roads and continued until 1765, 2 when they began to assume the forms of our present roads, even to the use of flanges upon the wheels; but up to this period no iron surface was ever heard of The mode of constructing a railroad at that period was as follows: After the surface was brought to as perfect a level as possibleNor incline, as the case might be Nsquare blocks of wood, called sleepers, about six feet long, were laid two or three feet apart across the track; upon these two long strips of wood, six or seven inches wide mod about five inches deep, were fastened by pins to the sleepers, and parallel to each other, but about four feet apart. Upon this wooden rail was spiked a projecting round moulding of wood, and the wheels were hollowed out like a pulley to fit upon the round surface of the wooden molding upon the rails. The fir
The problem had nothing to do with eglish->metric conversion.
Also, there is nothing inherently better about the metric system of measurement, vs. the english system of measurement vs. any other standardized system of measurment. If something is measured at 1.5 inches or 38.1 mm, it's the exact same length. The only advantage is commonality and not having to do conversions (which is an advantage, I admit). But there is no inherent advantage as to how well one system can perform over the other.
A modern day witchhunt.
Errm... so 10000 metres is the distance between the equator and the North pole? (i.e. 10km). You live on a very small planet with a circumference of 40km then.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
What do you think would be the biggest hurdle in the US conversion to the metric system? I, at first, thought it would be automobile manufacturing/repair, but all auto shops already have to deal with foreign cars already with metric parts. My vote now would have to be for gas pumps and speed limits. I think it would take people a long time to adjust to liters and kilometers per hour.
'Hands' are used to measure the height at the withers of a horse.
Best Slashdot Co
Seriously. Metric is base 10, Imperial units are base 12.
Now, the cool thing about this is that 12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 6 - giving you the ability to easily measure a third for instance. It's why it's still used in the building trade. Metric only lets you divide by 2 and 5 - and is not as flexible.
Anyhows, totally off topic, but kinda interesting, and one reason why Imperial mesurements aren't going to disappear any time soon (no jokes about TIE fighter blueprint errors please).
In this case, the Imperial system isn't directly to blame : the article states that it's a communication problem that provocated the troubles.
I applause the initiative taken by engineers in this case : they did switch the plan to the metric system, and that's a good move. I just wish the whole US country would do the same.
Unfortunately (this is where I start drifting toward offtopicism), frenchs are the initial designers of the metric system. I wonder if this refrains US to switch completely to it, and keep the imperial system.
Still, doing the switch would be the most reasonable thing to do (widely used in the rest of the world AND simpler to manipulate), and could perhaps even have some beneficial political repercussions at the international level (and you can't deny US badly need some these days).
Some things that would be nice to standardize (but will probably not happen in my lifetime)
- imperial - metric
- Letter paper - A4
- Fahrenheit - Celcius
- AM/PM - 24 hr notation
- month/day/year - day/month/year
Anything I left out?
Upon careful examination it is clear that the Imperial system is at least indirectly responsible for most of the world's problems, including but not limited to:
* Government conspiracy
* Microsoft Windows
* Rap Music
* Hondas and their drivers
* Transistors
* Pokemon
* Jerry Springer
* Televangelism
* Toxic waste
* The Republicans
* The Democrats
* Defective and bogus hardware
* Wrenches that dont fit
* Starbucks coffee
* Communism
* Soccer
* The Dollar.
No. The meter is currently defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second. (The definition has changed a couple of times as science has advanced to make the definition more precise.) The meter is based on the Earth's merideans (lines of longitude) - it is 1 / 10 millionth of one meridian.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
> A fucking meter is almost exactly the length of one fucking yard.
Yeah, thats apparently what the disney people thought too...
I worked in automotive engine factories in Detroit for two years. We had a problem with a cylinder head casting from a South American supplier once that was a direct result of them not updating their tool drawing when they fixed the problem the first time. Since the print was never updated, when they built a new tool to cast the heads, they left in a certain ejector pin. Once again, the pin wore out, sand built up around the pin, and we ended up with a little hole in the cylinder head after we machined it.
We caught the hole on the assembly line via the standard air pressure testing, but the mistake ended up costing the supplier an entire warehouse full of scrap parts that they had shipped (by ship) to the U.S.
Moral of the story: Update the damn prints, people!
Before everone rants about why 'America' hasn't changed to the Metric system...
Note that:
-Virtuall all US University engineering and science education is done using Metric units.
-The US Federal government is required to use the Metric system for doing business (Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act)
-The US FDA requires all consumer products be labeled in Metric units (actually dual labeling)
I guess some Euros wonder why the US doesn't pass laws saying like "You're not allowed to sell gas in gallons, you must sell it in Litres". Well, the US just doesn't work that way. If someone wants to sell gas in Litres, they are free to. Mostly, businesses choose not to.
Dare I say at the risk of downward moderation and flaming, that the US 'hands off' approach to business is working quite well in comparison to EU countries, where the recent recession hit much harder, largely blamed on overly beaurocractic governments that ensure companies are inflexible in changing economic times.
On the other end, starting this year, the EU will ban dual labeling. So, not only will Europe require US products to have metric labeling (the already do) they will not allow Imperial units to appear on the labels! That's just spiteful.
I don't think the average slashdot reader is going to get near enough to a girl to find out!
This incident (although caused by a transition TO the metric system) leads us to the question how many more years until we finally get rid of the imperial system. The US standard bureau has a page that describes their effort in the conversion. They quote the metric conversion act of 1975, but i don't know how much has happened since then. How many years do I have to buy US stuff here in Europe that is half metric and half imperial? For god sake, even the UK has switched! Does anybody know a real time-table for the transition??
Obligatory Pulp Fiction quote:
If you ever run into a imperial system freak ask him to calculate how many square inch there are in a square mile
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
The problem has little/nothing to do with it being metric/imperial.
Someone ordered the wrong part. That's it.
This is why drawings should be controlled. Only current known valid drawings should be used for anything.
This problem is as basic as someone using patches for linux kernel 1.2.13 on a 2.6 series kernel
1m = 1000 mm
1km = 1000 m
1kg = 1000 g
1 Ton = 1000 kg
1 liter (water) = 1kg
1 hectare = 10000 m2
1 km2 = 100 hectares
Do you see the similarity with our numeric system ?
You only see 1's and 0's.
Don't you mean imperial. They actually stem from an arabic measuring system (as does our numbering system of base 10, we were roman until 17th century). Ive never heard of 'English units' and ive lived here practically my whole life.
(And the right term for "metric" is "SI").
SI units are legal in the United States and have been for a very long time. The inch was set at precisely 25.4 mm _by definition_ in July 1959.
The additional units, such as inches, miles, quarts, pounds, etc. which I believe are all legally defined by reference to SI units, are officially and properly referred to as "U. S. Customary" units. They have, of course, a strong historical connection to English units.
Unofficially, "Metric" and "English" are the U. S. customary designations for "SI" and "U. S. Customary."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If the U.S. hates the french so much, they should dynamite the Statue of Liberty, because that was a gift from the french to the U.S.
It would serve the french and the americans right!
See how stupid all this french or american bashing is?
Grow up, people.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
meridian
1. An imaginary great circle on the earth's surface passing through the North and South geographic poles. All points on the same meridian have the same longitude.
2. Either half of such a great circle from pole to pole.
So, the distance between the north pole and the Paris meridian == 0
Aren't these standards-based posts just wonderful for brining out the pedant in all of us?
Possibly you meant 'Parisian latitude'
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
What about the OPEC nations who sell 42 gallon barrels of oil? Or how about Volvo, BMW, Honda, Toyota etc. whose automobiles measure performance in horsepower? And what about your furnaces that are probably rated in BTUs. And there are probably a bunch of other units I am forgetting. If you think your country has gone totally metric you are fooling yourself.
And then of course there is time. Is there a single country that has converted to metric time?
I'm busy working on some robotics projects at home. So I go off to Ace hardware this weekend to get some measuring equipment as I need to do stuff acurately. Now I'm writing code that uses these real world measurements and most of the library calls for I/O of numbers (e.g. scanf, printf) support only the use of decimal to represent floating point numbers. So clearly it makes sense to use metric for measurements as I'm so lame I can't remember what a number like 3 7/32 looks like in decimal. Goddamnit! Do you think I could find any metric equipemnt anywhere in Ace? Maybe one steel ruler. And it was just a ruler. Stuff like levels, set squares and protractors all have rules on them marked in inches. It's pathetic. It's like waking up and suddenly finding myself in a medieval city measuring out my drinks in gills.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Bzzzzt. Thanks for playing!
From boson.physics.sc.edu :
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer (famous for making the first measurements that showed that the velocity of light is finite) devised a temperature scale of his own for use with the alcohol-in-glass thermometers that he constructed. His thermometers attracted the attention of Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736), a manufacturer of meteorological instruments in the Netherlands. In 1708 Fahrenheit traveled to Copenhagen to meet Roemer and see his thermometers, which were based on two reference points. For one reference Roemer used a mixture of ice, water, and salt to reach the lowest temperatures then attainable in the laboratory, which he called zero. His other reference was the boiling point of water, which he arbitrarily designated as 60 degrees.
Fahrenheit returned home to make thermometers like Roemer's. In 1714 he overcame technical difficulties with alcohol thermometers by substituting mercury as the expanding liquid. The use of mercury extended the range of temperature measurements from well below Roemer's zero to well above the boiling point of water. Furthermore, mercury expanded and contracted more uniformly than the other liquids then in use. As a result, Fahrenheit could mark his mercury thermometers more accurately and with finer divisions.
By 1724 Fahrenheit had adopted a new scale, similar to Roemer's but with much finer divisions. For the zero point he chose the same reference as Roemer. However, since his thermometer was intended for meteorological observations, he wanted a second reference point that would be nearer the maximum observed temperature for weather. He chose the normal temperature of the human body as the upper reference point, which he called 96. Fahrenheit gave no reason for his choice of 96, but it may have been due to his desire for a finer scale and because 96 is evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 8, and 12.
Why didn't Fahrenheit choose the freezing point of water for his zero reference, as Newton had done before him and as Celsius did later on? Perhaps Fahrenheit was influenced by Roemer, or he may have wanted to avoid the inconvenience of repeatedly using negative temperatures during winter. Also, in the early 1700s it was widely believed that water did not always freeze at the same temperature. Soon, using his newly calibrated thermometers, Fahrenheit learned that water always froze at 32 on his scale. He immediately added this third reference point to his instruments.
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Is that the metric system is flawed. It is defined in terms of the size of 18th century railroad tie sizes, which is totally arbitrary.
Mmm-hmm. So, clearly, defining length in terms of the feet of a 1200-year old dead Frankish king is a better choice?
Don't give me that crap about how much better the US economy performs than the EU. The median standard of living in the EU is higher than in the US. The US economy is great at producing wealth at the top, but conservative Americans have an aversion to using the economy to solve social problems ("communism! class war!"). I think this is a major reason why Europeans view the US as "backwards". Yes, both the US and the EU have economies that have solved the problems of food, shelter, and medicine. But the US has not seen to distributing those solutions to the people.
Many Americans have an ingrained sense that the only job of the economy is to grow. Things like social nets and environmental protections interfere with the ability of the (total) economy to grow at the fastest rate possible, so they must be inherently bad. This is the unifying economic philosophy of the conservative Republicans: government itself is inherently bad precisely because it siphons money (taxes) away from investment and consumption. If you believe in Reaganomics ("a rising tide lifts all boats") this makes some sense. But in the real world, it leads to a morally bankrupt society obsessed with money.
</rant>
So in conclusion, there are 36 inches in a yard.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Around Universities in the US every roadsign in kilometers. My father works for a vitamin company in the US, and he use the metric system anyway. Big deal if it's not official in the country, if enough many people start to use it, it's going to catch on -- just like the word THRU.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
A friend of mine in college in the late 80's did an internship with Disney Imagineering. At the time, they were redrawing plans for several attractions that were to be copied almost exactly from California and Florida version for use in Euro Disney. There was great concern that the Imperial to metric round-off would be a problem. The contractor's union in France mandated that they only use metric units in the blueprints, which is reasonable. But if you're trying to duplicate a ride that was originally designed in Imperial units, you need to keep in mind quite a few significant digits when you're measuring. For example, a section of track in a given ride might be 10 feet in the US. In metric that's 3.048 m. Would the French contractors really measure to that precision? Or would they round off to 3.05 or event 3.0? They were concerned that roundoff might be systematic causing the errors to accumulate in one direction. This was a big concern, and there were debates over whether some rides needed to be redesigned in metric from the start and possibly give up economies of standardized parts.
That this happened in Space Mountain is also interesting, because Space Mountain was the first rollercoaster to have ATIS (automated track inspection system). Since it was a tightly wound coaster in a confined space it was difficult to do visual inspections. ATIS uses two techniques to detect problems with the track. The rails are actually tubes and they're pressurized in sections. When small cracks start to develop, the pressure drop is detected. Sensors also time cars through different sections of the track. If there is a trend of cars slowing through a section over time, it indicates that the ties between the rails are starting to give. ATIS is so much better than visual inspections at detecting problems early that it's used on most modern roller coasters.
Hello, I live in Montreal, Canada. Here we use three different systems; officialy, we use the metric system, for example: - road signs and cars are in kilometers - the pumps calculate gas in liters - outside temperature is indicated in Celcius by the medias - only the metric system is shown in school But, we also use the imperial system, which is the system of the English empire that we used previously (Canada is part of the Commonwealth as being one of the oldest english colonies). For example, lots of my uncles and aunts (I'm 25) will talk to you about their cars doing miles per gallon, miles per hour, etc. They will also buy stuff at the store in pounds. I personnaly weight myself in pounds and mesure myself in feet. That is not close to change... even if then babies are weighted in kilos at the hospital, and measured in centimeters, they also indicate the conversion on the official papers, otherwise the parents don't have a clue. Also, I personnaly have trouble reading the inside temperature in Celsius... I know exactly how warn I like it, but it's in Farenheits... (even if we only calculate the outside temperature in Celsius, and nobody converts them to understand, not even my grandfather). Also, I have never seen someone calculate the temperature of the pool or spa in Celsius... Don't ask me if 25 Celsius is hot or cold for a pool, I really don't know ! And finally, we also use the American system. The american system is different that the imperial for some measures like "gallons". For example, an imperial gallon is almost exactly 4 liters, while an american gallon is 3.78 gallons... this is why it's always frustrating when you put windshield washer fluid in your car, and they sell you the fluid in 4 liters containers, but the damn US car's ww fluid container is only 3.78 liters ! You always have to carry the damn container because they is always some left... Also, all the contruction is done in feet and inches. We produce the materials, lots of them, but none of it is produced in meters, because the main market is the US, so they just don't bother with our small market and produce everything in feet. This means that architects and engineers, even if they only learn the metric in school, must learn the english and american systems when in university. The same applies for a lot of people that do plumbing, mecanics, and even furniture. However, the people here always use the same terms as before, even if the units have changed; for example, we will say "a pint of milk", even if nore it's no more a pint, but it's a liter... Which system I prefer ? Well, I don't really care... I find the metric system the best, but I would certaintly have problem purchasing furniture in centimeters when all my house as been constructed in feet. I do like the feet and inches, because I find them conveniently easy to estimates, but when you start evaluating distances that are longer than the terrain my house is built on, I will say "300 meters further, turn left"... and will calculate in kilometers. The thing is, if the damn US could convert to the same thing as the rest of the world (which will never happen, or perhaps never before China is the new superpower), we will be stuck with the three systems in Canada...
...the longer we wait to convert.
Gawdamm--Looks like Jimmie Carter was right.
Hey, Mr Neocon Cant-bash-the-UN-enough: a global economy needs a global system of weights and measures. The Imperial system ain't up to it, so quit the kittens and get over it.
</rant>
Hooopla! that was nearly as good as coffee.
I can live with people insisting on using Imperial measures.
What bugs me is when they then only halfway use the Imperial paradigm.
Case in point: when the iPod Mini was announced, I went to the web page to check out the specs. 2" x 3.6". Not having any intuitive feel for what that might mean, I wandered around the office trying to borrow a ruler, and once I'd found one, started to draw an iPod-sized square on a piece of scrap paper.
A 2" line across the bottom was easy. Then I set about drawing the vertical. 3", then another 6 gradations... oh, wait a minute, each inch is subdivided into 16ths. Tricky. Grab calculator.
So please, either use mm, or go the whole hog and state 3 inches and (10/16)".
"The Metric system is the tool of the devil. My car gets 40 rods to the hogs head and that's the way I likes it!" --Grandpa
I've seen some relatively smart comments here so far, but most people don't seem to realise that the USA inherited the imperial system from the UK. (Imperial....)
It would be really good to see the USA abandon Imperial units, especially when they have changed some of them so that they are not the same...for example, how many of you know that a US gallon is 3.8 litres and a UK gallon is 4.5 litres?
Who's being cheated in petrol price comparisons?
..we should use metric time too!
Oh wait. That would be fucking retarded.
Back in the early '80's, an Air Canada 767 made an emergency landing because it ran out of fuel.
The reason: The fuel was specified in kg, but was loaded in lbs. Needless to say, they plane only got 0.45 the distance it should have.
I pulled this from an article that I found via Google. From the same article:Also from the timeline:
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
A hogshead, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, is 54 gallons (3 kilderkins). Unless you're measuring wine, in which case it's 63 gallons (you get an extra firkin).
A yard is 3 feet. A rod is 5.5 yards. A chain is 4 rods. A furlong is 10 chains. A mile is 8 furlongs. A league is three miles. A cable is damn nearly metric, at 10,000 links, or a bit more than 12 miles.
A pound is 16 ounces. A stone is 14 pounds. A hundredweight is 8 stone. A ton is 20 hundredweight. I would break the ounce down into drachms and grains, if I could remember them, but I'm pretty sure no factors of twelve are involved.
--
E_NOSIG
:::begin humorous remarks:::
:::end humor:::
These damned foreign countries. Don't you understand that the US run's the world. If the metric system were so great, wouldn't we be using it by now? Of course.
But we're not. Resistance is futile. You know why we don't use metric? Because it was invented by the French. Now, I love France -- cheese, Bordeaux wines, wonderful cusisine, art -- don't get me wrong. But the Froggies should stick to what they're good at and not try to mess with basic units of measurement. If your units were so great, why were you invaded by Germany twice in the last century? And who bailed you out? The Americans. And what units do we use? Not metric, mes amis, but good old SAE.
Convert to SAE. The lives of space probes, amusement park patrons, astronauts, and la France depend on it!
In the UK, nothing requiring any degree of accuracy is measured in inches, pounds or any of the other weird medieval(sp?) units that come with them.
I buy beer in pints but I know that 1 pint is approximately 568ml (except in the US where pints are only 0.8 "English" pints). There are probably other things that we still measure in the same way that pre-industrial Brits did, but I can't think of any. The only other situation where pre-metric units have any relevance is in speed limits. Many tourists think they are "quaint".
I expect I am older than many people here - I can remember Neil Armstron walking on the moon. My wight is 114kg and my height is 1.82m. I could not care less about what it is in units of measure that would have been familiar to Henry VIII.
The English, and the rest of Britain are managing to move much of their units into the 20th/21st century. It is curious to see the USA stuck in the 19th...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
A 1mm gap/variance leaves bearings, seals, valves, and gears unusable in most situations.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I am still continually amazed that the English System is still used at all. I can somewhat understand NASA needing to use some english measures for old lathes and such. But for our entire country to still use the english system for all applications is ridiculous.
I was getting a haircut the other day. I didn't want a whole inch off. So I asked for a centimeter taken off. The stylist had to ask me how long a centimeter was.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
here is a page that shows just how different the English and American versions of units like gallons and tons etc. Even fluid ounces are different.
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imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie...
So? Being somebody with a better education than a hair stylist, you could have politely told her that you wanted a little less than half an inch taken off, and moved on with life.
The amazing thing is not that the English System has lasted so long in the US, but that Napoleon's system was adopted so quickly in Europe. The reason is simple: until the early 20th Century, most of Europe was ruled by dictators and monarchs, who could tell you to use their chosen measuring system and like it. In the US, the system which would get used is the one which the most people were using, and nobody really had enough power to change it.
The English still use pints to measure beer for much the same reason... there's only so much that even people under a monarchy will put up with. Drop inches in favor of cm if you must, but don't you dare mess with the beer. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
This really isn't the problem. The problem with the English system is derived units. For example, energy:
metric: 1 J = 1 N*m
English: 1 Btu = 778.169325 ft*lbf
If English units defined derived units in terms of its basic units, I'd find both systems equally appealing.
'Q' is for Dr. Tran