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Presidential Candidate Lincoln Chaffee Proposes That US Go Metric
New submitter Applehu Akbar writes: The good news is that for the first time in years, a candidate in the next presidential cycle has proposed completing our transition to the metric system. Though unfortunately it's Lincoln Chaffee, let's all hope that this long-standing nerd issue gets into the 2016 debate because of this. Warning: Lame CNN autoplaying video.
It's a non-starter of a proposal from a non-starter of a candidate. There is no huge push in the US to go fully metric right now.
I don't know the stances of Lincoln on other issues, but trying to push the metric system is a great start and bound to fix the economy as soon as people can figure out how to measure things. Why can't one of the main stream candidates get this?
Place something witty here
Bernie Sanders was nuts
It's great that he's finally talking some sense. I just wish he weren't doing it to an empty room with only his mom and kids present.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I am surprised the republican field has not proposed we get rid of the english system for Biblical set of measures in units of Palms, Spans, and Cubits.
"We want Metric. We want it now!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
I love Alan Smithee's films.
You're pushing an unimportant issue nobody cares about.
Really, with all the important issues that should occupy a president's attention, if this is even on your radar, you're not qualified for the job.
Not until those Eurowussies go all the way and start measuring temperature in Kelvins. Only hardcore!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The same way that gas stations in the 70's tried to sell gas in liters. People just thought, divide by four, but since there are more than 4 liters in a gallon, they though they were getting ripped off when in many cases they were saving a bit of cash. America just isn't ready for that sort of progress.
Vote Barns, Furlongs, Fortnights and Hogheads for America! Metric is a Communist plot, I tell ya!
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
And while we're at it, let's make the national sport SOCCER!
America is a contrarian country, we will never fit in with the rest of the planet. Forget trying, the only way to be sure is to nuke it from orbit.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Go metric and your dicks will become about 2.5 times larger!!!
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!"
Didn't the US officially go metric back in the 80s? Not that it means anything obviously, but there was a push to make sure Metric was taught in schools and used where convenient.
I read the internet for the articles.
They want their metric ruler back.
I remember when all the interstate signs showed their metric equivalents (in smaller print under the miles/mph). It was sad to see those removed some years later.
Nor is there any need to for the majority of people.
This.
It's irrelevant, unless you are a hard science scientist, and if you are a scientist in a hard science, you are already metric.
All measurements systems are arbitrary.
the advantage of metric is that it is a global standard and the units are all divisible by ten.
That's it.
However in the US, we're familiar with the current system so it isn't a big deal... and the US has never really cared what was standard in other countries. We just don't care.
The US tried to go metric in the 1970s.
First, most people just ignored it and used the existing imperial system.
Second, it was the middle of a bad economic time and transitioning costs money because you have to change everything to suit the new system. It was just a tough sell in hard times.
Third... and this can't be stressed enough... I feel like the metric advocates really don't get this... Americans don't care about joining a global standard. At all. Not even a little.
When you factor it out, what you're left with is advantage of their divisible by ten units versus the more varied divisions in imperial.
That's pretty much it. And then you have to factor that Americans know imperial so it isn't a hardship to use it. And they don't know metric as well so it is inconvenient.
What does this leave us with? The US is not going metric any time soon. Just isn't happening.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Yeah I'm kind of curious about that myself. Never heard of the guy, and a very quick perusal of his Wikipedia page doesn't look like he's too crazy, while still actually coming from politics.
Maybe the "unfortunately" is related to the fact that I've never heard of him, and probably neither have most people...
I would like to sit down and have a pint with.
Metric is socialist! America beware!
A liberal Republican, Chafee was frequently ranked as the least conservative Senate Republican, and to the left of some conservative Democrats. He opposed eliminating the estate tax, voted to increase the top federal income tax rate, voted against allowing drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, supported an increased minimum wage and was the only Republican Senator to vote against authorising the use of force in Iraq. Chafee is pro-choice, supports same-sex marriage, affirmative action, gun control and federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and opposes the death penalty and a Flag Desecration Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I don't know what to make of this, but he seems better than all the Republicans running so far.
Let's be honest here, going metric is just like banning guns: regardless of how you feel about the subject, the cost of changing the way it has been for hundreds of years is just too great.
Just *think* of all the make-work *jobs* ("work for one person for one year") this would create for people whose major talent in life is "smoking weed" and their other major talent in life is "installing new road signs and other manual labor, as needed"!
One wonders how many /. readers even remember Carter.... Or realize how much history is repeating itself...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Why is mandating metrification the government's job? Schoolchildren are ALREADY universally taught the metric system and anything the government BUYS is specified in metric. If I want to make or buy products using Imperial measurements, shouldn't that be my own business?
we can only hope that other candidates will pick this up. it is a good idea.
You don't count (almost) all the other countries on the planet being metric as a huge push?
Nope. Most people in the US could not possibly care less what other countries are doing. We tried going metric once about 30 years ago and couldn't handle it. I don't expect the US to convert in my lifetime. The longer we wait the less likely conversion becomes.
Metric is NOTHING! Do you realize that fluoridation of water is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?
A foreign substance, introduced into our precious bodily fluids, without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice... that's the way a hard-core commie WORKS!
I first became aware of it... during the physical act of love. A profound feeling of FATIGUE... a feeling of EMPTINESS followed... loss of ESSENCE! Women, women sense my power, and they seek the LIFE ESSENCE. I do not avoid women... but I DO DENY THEM MY ESSENCE!
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Of all the issues important to the American voter; income, taxes, security, Chafee decides to waste several lungfuls of hot air on the metric system.
I think blatant stupidity like this should automatically disqualify one from being president, but sadly we let them continue in their quest.
Where it is useful, we use the metric system. Where it is useful, we also use British units. Let the engineers and scientists figure out when to use which system.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
If we are going to change systems why not use the International Standard?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
And note that the US was one of the initial signatories of Metre Convention and that our "customary" units have been actually defined from Metric units since 1893. The problem being that the people have been rather slow to stop using the customary units and the government hasn't really done much to encourage a total switch.
Well except in the 70's, Carter got blamed for that even though it was Ford who signed the legislation. The Reagan administration that came after was full of nostalgia addled traditionalists including the president himself, so the encouragement ended.
We set it to 22 C and i'm still alive.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
http://rs1img.memecdn.com/why-...
Really, with all the important issues that should occupy a president's attention, if this is even on your radar, you're not qualified for the job.
Converting to metric is not just a fun science nerd issue no one cares about.
Really it's an economic issue, and I'm surprised it hasn't been made more of a big deal. When we follow international standards, we can better share ideas and better trade goods. If the US used metric, we'd be in a much better position to sell our goods worldwide, as we wouldn't need to re-tool or re-calculate all the time.
Great example: our US engineers are mostly trained in the English system. My wife used to work in an industry that is now heavily developing and building things overseas. The American engineers had to build everything to metric standards, since they were building in India and what not, and really had trouble with it, as they weren't properly trained to do metric calculations and the equipment they wanted to buy from American companies didn't always come in a metric size. Instead, the engineers would have to half-ass some crazy scheme (like buying parts and then cutting them -- makes sense until you realize you'd have to pay field guys to do this 10,000 times) to get it to work. The quality suffers, and since there's all these problems, I get the sense that many international companies would rather just hire Germans or whatever to do it.
This is an anecdote of one industry, sure, but if our engineers were trained in metric, and our businesses made the jump to make metric products in the first place, we'd probably be a lot more competitive in the world market. We wouldn't need to spend all this extra time and money on customization, we could just do it. I imagine all this effort has long ago exceeded the cost of buying new tools once; we should have just switched then and told businessmen to shut up about costs.
All the nuts and bolts in my car and bike are metric. The bike is made in the good old US of A. Everyone knows what a 2-liter soda is, why can't they figure out what a 2-liter bottle of milk is? We are partially converted. We use 35mm film (old people, at least) and 9mm ammo. Anyone who has been in the military has done everything in metric, it's not that difficult. It is hard to change everything. Even countries you changed decades ago still use old units. England and Ireland are full of examples of that. The most noticeable change will be road signs. It's not that hard to learn that 60 mph is 100 kph. We will have to watch out during the transition. A Canadian airliner ran out of fuel half way due to bad conversions from gallons/pounds to liter/kilograms during their changeover.
I'll resist this with every ounce of my being.
I'll resist this with every gram of my being.
I won't give an inch on this issue.
I won't give 5 centimeters on this issue.
They came at us with a shit ton of rockets and mortars!
They came at us with a shit kilogram of rockets and mortars!
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
An gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
First, the US is officially metric.
The problem most non-Americans can't understand is that the US government/system ostensibly has few tools to compel this transition, CERTAINLY none that are worth political cost of using on an issue that most people don't give two shits about.
In short: the people who need/want metric use it.
The people who don't would strongly resist doing so.
Second: there's no "automatic" value inherent in the metric system. It's a SHIT TON easier to use with computers and calculators, certainly, as it's all decimal. But otherwise its less wieldy in daily use as 10 doesn't divide neatly by 3 or 4.
If your pro-metric argument is about the value of universalization, hell, we can't even agree that we should all speak ENGLISH in this country, and the 'universalization' value of that would be orders of magnitude more useful/immediate than all switching to a measuring system most of us don't use in the first place.
-Styopa
Even going just partial metric can also lead to big problems.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
For years I have been using the metric system during discussions, it's fun to say "Oh yeah that's only 3 KM from here" or "I'm 2 meters tall" and watch the confused looks on most peoples faces.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I remember a push to get the US on metric in the 70s. The bank temperature displays had Fahrenheit and Celsius, and they used it on newscasts. We talked about it in high school. But for the most part it went nowhere.
Why is mandating metrification the government's job?
Because if the government doesn't do it then it will never happen. Construction companies in particular will never switch unless it is mandated by law.
Schoolchildren are ALREADY universally taught the metric system
Which they quickly forget because they never use it in their daily life. I learned to write in cursive too but guess how much I use that? The mere fact that it is covered in school is pretty much meaningless in the real world.
anything the government BUYS is specified in metric
So what? Relatively few companies supply the government directly so that's not going to be a game changer. I run a manufacturing company and maybe 1 out of 5 drawings I see are in metric. Most are in US Customary units and that isn't likely to change. The only way I see it changing is if the biggest manufacturers drive it into their supply chains and construction codes mandate everything going forward be in metric. Otherwise we'll muddle along with this two system fiasco indefinitely.
If I want to make or buy products using Imperial measurements, shouldn't that be my own business?
Of course it is your business. That doesn't make it a good idea however.
I don't know what to make of this, but he seems better than all the Republicans running so far.
Talk about damning with faint praise... I haven't seen a candidate yet from either party that doesn't have oversized shoes and a red squeaky nose.
I actually feel the opposite way - I'd like to see all other measurements move to metric (for ease of conversion between them) but temperature stay as is.
I just like having a scale where as cold as it gets outside is around 0 degrees, and as hot as it gets outside is around 100 degrees.
Meh! The Europeans are wimps! They complain about the heat when the temp hits 30. We Americans don't gripe until it hits mid 80s.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Isn't there an interstate highway in Arizona or New Mexico that is all metric?
I would like to sit down and have a pint with.
People said the exact same thing about Bush the Lesser and that didn't work out so well. I don't give a crap how personable the guy is because that has NOTHING to do with his ability to effectively execute his duties as president.
imperial measurements were already redefined to be based on metric.
1 inch = 25.4mm
Fahrenheit is also aligned to Celsius
32F = 0C
Now that his series from the 90s is on Netflix, I noticed that he used Metric for all his measurements. Moving metric would eventually cut the number of wrenches/sockets I need in half and require fewer trips to the toolbox (@$%$# metric....#$$# nope imperial...)
the advantage of metric is that it is a global standard and the units are all divisible by ten. That's it.
"That's it"? That's HUGE. The economic costs alone should easily justify the switch. It won't matter but being on the global standard is a huge deal.
What does this leave us with? The US is not going metric any time soon. Just isn't happening.
I believe you are quite correct. The only way I see it happening is if two things happen. 1) The big manufacturing companies drive it all the way through their supply chains. 2) We require all construction documentation and specifications to be in metric and metric alone by code. Until those things happen we simply aren't going to see a switch. Since both of those things are quite unlikely I don't see the US converting within my lifetime.
I think it says that because he doesn't have a realistic shot at the candidacy.
When you measure in centimeters, the numbers get bigger!
A vote for metric is a vote for a bigger penis, numerically speaking!
The US is already metric
Not in any way that really matters. Technically what you say is true but pretty much nobody except some engineers actually uses it.
About the only thing they could do is post signs in metric, which they have already attempted several times, and the experiments pretty much failed.
Not true at all. They could require all construction documentation and specifications be done in metric. They could require all packaging deprecate or eliminate US Customary units. They could require surveys to be done in metric instead of acres. They could do all sorts of things to force the change but our "leaders" would rather argue about gay marriage and other inconsequential nonsense.
Currently this in the US not using the metric system aren't because there is no reason to and for those who are, there is.
It's NOT true that there is no reason to switch. What is true is that there is insufficient political will to endure the short term inconvenience such a switch would require. The economic benefits are long term and mostly indirect. Well beyond the next election cycle. So nothing happens.
Metric is a bad choice for industry and engineering. Because it isn't aligned on a power of 2, it's constantly subject to rounding error when we do any computation. And we do computation. We rarely work with these numbers by hand. Rounding errors bite us again and again.
The Imperial system isn't any better, but at least the funkiness leads us to expect errors and check for them more vigilantly.
I await the politician willing to push the octal system!
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Well... the guy does have a lot of other political positions. This was the minor point that made it to Slashdot. Everybody else is talking about his position on the Iraq War: he voted against it while Hillary Clinton voted for it. That boosts his foreign policy credentials, though it's still extremely unlikely that he's going to win. It puts him competing with Martin O'Malley for a shot at the VP chair, unless on the off chance something totally tanks Clinton between now and February. Which isn't impossible. (There's also Sanders, but he doesn't want the VP chair and I don't think he really wants to take over if she does tank. He's just trying to force everybody else to run to the left in a party that has run very hard to the center.)
His announcement is news, but not for nerds. The minor point about the metric system is for nerds, but not news. Slashdot, being Slashdot, tried to make news-for-nerds out of it, but all it generated was a lot of the same old talk about the merits and difficulties of switching to metric, all of which is decidedly Not News.
My 2000 Explorer is mostly, if not all, metric.
It's already done. Get over it.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Why use a rational system of measure that's easy to remember and based on something useful when you can instead use a system that was (almost literally) pulled out of someone's ass and is different for every fucking thing you do.
Wait, is it 4 ounces per pint or 12 or some other random number?
I loathe the English system or measure for the same reason I hated most subjects in school aside from math: why memorize random facts when you could just figure them out instead?
...of a less relevant or critical issue we should be spending our time and money on.
That alone explains the resistance (pun intended).
The French Revolution was a case study in the usurpation of power by those with the worst motives. To be avoided by all peaceful people.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Yep, exactly the same here. Similarly I think of temperatures in Celsius, but use feet / inches when building stuff.
a paperback from 1970s says all about how to prepare as in a few years the US will be metric. I found it a month ago but now I lost it. So I guess if Chaffee becomes president I will be stuck with an outdated measurement system.
mfwright@batnet.com
If metric is so awesome why aren't computers 10 based?
Checkmate.
I am not sure that Mr. Chaffee understands the issue.
Let me start by quoting the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST a division of the US Department of Commerce]. Appendix B "Units and Systems of Measurement Their Origin, Development, and Present Status" to their publication Handbook 44 "Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices" [pdf] states:
Perhaps Mr. Chaffee wants non-metric units to be outlawed. That is not US policy (see above). I doubt that there is any enthusiasm for changing the policy, or any money to implement such a change.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
What system was in use in the US during the planning and design of the Apollo missions?
What system was in use in the US during WWII?
Need I go on?
The funny thing is that the US is already moving to support Metric units in lots of things, and we're getting better at "guesstimating" metric lengths as that happens. But apparently some people want to force the change to happen overnight rather than letting it gradually take over, like millions of people will die tomorrow if it doesn't happen. I wonder what agenda is at work here, since honest scientists/mathematicians/engineers realize that needlessly perturbing things when it's already evolving in the right direction absent critical need is counterproductive.
That can't be it, I've never heard of any of the USA presidents until they became presidents.
Except Geroge Bush, of course. And I hear that if the Democrats win this time, its going to be Clinton again.
The US has been a signatory to the Metric convention for years -- longer than the UK I believe though I could't rapidly find reference on the net. In addition the inch was fixed at precisely 2.54 cm (we'd say 25.4 mm these days) 56 years ago. So Americans are already metric.
I am not much of a fan of the metric system, actually. I do use celsius (mainly because I , and do engineering with it, but for day to day use (fixing a stair, cooking etc) I find the customary units superior.
And I curse whatever god (Finnagle?) put five digits on each limb! Should have been six. Even four would have been superior.
"Going Metric" really has nothing to do with measuring in Centimeters and Celsius and never did. It really has to do with retooling industry and parts to new standard sizes. The problem is it is very costly to do so. Think about the metric and common wrenches you have, is used to be you had one set of tools and best of all because there were not really that many commonly used sizes, and the differences were visually apparent, you could just reach for the right wrench by looking at it. Right now you might be thinking "ah but of only the U.S. would just use the parts the rest of the world uses, things would be fine.". First, remember that goes both ways as metric nuts are in no way better than common ones. Second, well, frankly most industries have fairly specialized tools, in other words you care more about those immediately around you, the sizes of available nuts have nothing to with board lengths. But, we are entering a new custom manufacturing world. We may soon be manufacturing boards AND nuts to the specific needs of the product rather than standard sizes. When that happens, well, you can measure in inches, meters or cubits and the computer will be able to convert and manufacture just fine.
Which is kelvin shifted by 270Â approx. With celsius the zero is the temperature of pure ice melting/freezing at standard STP, and 100ÂC the temperature of boiling water. The scale zero and 100 were precisely used due to that, to the point it was kept for kelvin and jsut shifted to the new hypothetical zero. 1ÂK=1ÂC.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The problem is that it would cost a ton of money to switch.
Plus, most Americans aren't rational enough to see the benefits.
Yep.
Issue was money. The US is BIG
http://saveie6.com/
why do you want to divide by 3 or 4 ??
aaaaaaa
Issue was money. The US is BIG
But Carter had just peanuts.... I know, I know...
Now let's all turn our thermostats up to 75 in the summer and down to 65 in the winter and start driving no faster than 55 MPH... (Excuse me, I mean 24C, 18C and 90K/h)
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Ha! Yeah, well, Canada is just as huge and is only bordered by ONE country. And they use metric.
If are you living near the US border, as almost every Canadian does, you have to be comfortable using both systems.
Everyone knows most of Canada is uninhabited, but seeing really is believing.
This Is How Empty Canada Really Is (MAPS and PHOTOS)
Suppose your boss asked you to have an automated server task run "3 times a day". The time values would look awkward and be hard to mentally verify if our clocks were 10-based.
Things are often partitioned by 2, 3, and 4 in "domain land". Five is used less often, and only usually due to our usage of base 10. (60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 5, but it's too large to be practical in my opinion. 12 is the best compromise.)
Table-ized A.I.
The US has done both for decades. Not a measuring cup nor speedometer made does not have metric measurements on it. Sure, we use miles and Fahrenheit. Big deal. No mechanic doesn't have a metric set of sockets and wrenches. No serious scientific research doesn't use metric measurements.
The fact is, we can multi-task using two measuring systems and the rest of the world can't.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
I remember driving on I10 and/or I19 between Phoenix and Nogales having had dual signage. I'm not sure there's ever been an all metric marked highway in the US.
--Jim (me)
... what's in it for me?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Hooray! After all, this just becomes more and more important, as conversion gets easier and easier and more at our fingertips and even voice ... oh.
Finally, even with silly little distractions like terrorism, the economy, foreign threats to our security, and other things, there is a candidate that is ready to tackle the real issue of our time - our unit system! Seriously, this has to be the biggest threat to our prosperity since the Spanish Flu and George W. Bush.
Even if he doesn't win the nomination, which I admit is a long shot given how incredibly obvious it is that our unit system is the most compelling issue of our time, I'll write him in.
Go metric!
Pardon me but I do not get what you are saying
Just because all the other countries on the planet are doing something doesn't mean that USA has to follow suit
I was from a country where the Metric system has been used since the 1950's - 1960's, but I still prefer to get a GALLON of milk, measuring distance in MILES, getting temperature reading in FAHRENHEIT, knowing my weight in POUND than the bland metric system equivalents
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It'll be one fewer thing that we can rib you lot about...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Issue was money. The US is BIG
But Carter had just peanuts.... I know, I know...
Now let's all turn our thermostats up to 75 in the summer and down to 65 in the winter and start driving no faster than 55 MPH... (Excuse me, I mean 24C, 18C and 90K/h)
Which is why people had enough and voted for Reagan. The issue is clearly it would cost money and hassle for no benefit when at the time people were paying 90% of their income to the government. ENOUGH! Inflation back then was caused by high oil prices and a government doing everything it can to limit the money supply by debt and high taxation.
http://saveie6.com/
There seem to be two main arguments, all of which (I'm reliably informed by my parents) were argued to death in Australia before our successful metrification starting in the 1970s.
1. Imperial is entrenched. It was in Australia as well; alas we bear the same burden you do with our British colonial heritage :). All our road signs, car dashboards, units for commerce etc were Imperial. We stuck things over signs, children were taught both systems, commerce migrated. With packaging in both units, the US is halfway there.
2. Imperial units make more sense. I can't speak personally for this, because I grew up using Metric. For the arguments that Celcius is less granular than Fahrenheit though, may I introduce the decimal point (that Americans so famously applied to their Metric currency while the Brits were still arguing over shillings). Most of these arguments appeal to familiarity, which are valid for the time, but will fade.
I'd say 2.1: All units are arbitrary. Indeed, all the more reason we all use the same ones, rather than having two systems.
Those said, I emphasise with unfamiliarity. Aussies laugh at me, but I've actually been learning Imperial measurements in my own time so I can chat with my American friends about weather, etc. If that sounds condescending I don't mean it to, it's genuinely hard. "26 degrees" means something to me, "79 degrees" is a step away from being useful. I also appreciate it's easy for me to say "move to Metric" given it's the system I use.
I'd argue though the potential benefits far outweigh the negatives though, as they did in Australia. Along with NZ, it's proof that the Metric system can be used in the unwieldy Anglosphere after all.
The Wikipedia article explains Australia's metrification (metrication?) process pretty well actually, including the myths that switching causes more road accidents, etc.
Cheers, ~ Ruben
unfortunately it's Lincoln Chaffee
On the front page of any site, other than to get conservatives excited about someone they can bash? Besides, the conservative majority here already knows that Chaffee is not one of them, they would have seen his name and jumped in to tell us what a terrible evil person he is without needing the lead-in in the summary.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"A Pint's a Pound the World Around."
By Charles A. L. Totten.
International Institute for Preserving and Perfecting (Anglo-Saxon) Weights and Measures
They bid us change the ancient "names."
The "seasons" and the "times;"
And for our measures go abroad
To strange and distant climes.
But well abide by things long clear
And cling to things of yore.
For the Anglo-Saxon race shall rule
The earth from shore to shore.
Then down with every "metric" scheme
Taught by the foreign school.
We'll worship still our Father's God!
And keep our Father's "rule"!
A perfect inch. a perfect pint.
The Anglo's honest pound.
Shall hold their place upon the earth.
Till Time's last trump shall sound!
CHORUS:
Then swell the chorus heartily.
Let every Saxon sing:
"A pint's a pound the world around."
Till all the earth shall ring.
"A pint's a pound the world around"
For rich and poor the same;
Just measure and a perfect weight
Called by their ancient name!
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fullt...
A History of the Metric System Controversy in the United States. U.S. Metric Study Tenth Interim Report. National Bureau of Standards (DOC) , Washington, DC
REPORT NO NBs-SP-345-10 August 1971. 307p. Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 (Catalog No. 0 13.10:345-10, $2.25)
Cans and bottles of beer are in millilitres; I don't know what they call the size of a glass at a pub because I don't drink.
A 10oz glass is a little less than 300ml, 16oz (pint) a little less than 500ml, 24oz a little more than 700ml, 32oz (quart) a little less than 1L. The differences are quite minor.
And no, people will not "use whatever they are used to". They'll use what's on the package and all of the road signs.
In the US our packaging has included both systems since the 1970s. In the 1970s many of our roadsigns listed both miles and kilometers as well as we were about to switch to metric. We all learned the metric system in school at the time. The US Government Board that was promoting the switch was eliminated during budget cuts in the 1980s. Replacement roadsigns went back to miles only but our speedometers in cars still indicate both systems. Packing remained imperial (well its US variant, not the same as UK and Canada) and metric.
Things are **slowly** switching in a voluntary manner, basically industry involved in foreign trade and the sciences. The US military is largely metric.
Its wasn't much bother to use metric. Calculators were rarely needed. Very rough approximations worked for most circumstances, ex: 1 meter was slightly over 3 feet, a kilometer a little more than half a mile, a liter was slightly more than a quart, a kilogram a little more than 2 pounds. It was only temperature measurements that required something approaching a "formula" to roughly approximate, F -> C then subtract 32 and divide by 2.
The article states:
Though unfortunately it's Lincoln Chaffee
What's the problem?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Come to the UK and temperature is in Celsius when its cold and Fahrenheit when its hot.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
it's been a long time the world has settled for a base 10, except computers, whre it's base 256.
Live with it.
aaaaaaa
Why not decimal time?
Day -
Deciday - 2.4 hours
Centiday - 14.4 minutes
Milliday - 1.4 minutes
and so on.
US units of measures are already defined in terms of metric units; they just happen to be oddball multiples. So, in that sense, we are already using the metric system. International standards use many different choices of dimensions, some of which are simple numbers in US units, others that are simple numbers in metric. That's not going to change. Nor are US tools, devices, or domestic standards going to change, because that would be too expensive.
As far as I can tell "let's go metric" is mostly political signaling: it is supposed to label a candidate as international and scientific ("become internationalist"). What it means in practice is wasting a whole bunch of money on changing highway signs, supermarket scales, and gas and water meters, plus a huge amount of software development, all for no discernible benefit. Whether you measure gasoline in units of 1 l or units of 3.785411784 l (1 gallon, exactly) makes no difference.
What such suggestions should label a candidate as is "wasteful" and "ignorant".
The trouble is that you also come out with some strange ones.
An acre foot? Weight in pounds but no major units? Farenheit???
Fortunately, there is google to convert things and I am pretty good at mental arithmetic.
An acre foot is 325,851 and 2 fifths US "gallons" or 271,328.07 normal gallons. For those of us here on Earth, that is 1,233,481.84 litres. We laugh at "furlongs per hogshead" but this is pretty similar.
When old people here give their heights, they use feet and inches and I presume people in the US do too. How is that people in the US insist on things like saying their weight is 178 pounds or that item of equipment is 3,500 pounds? There are 14 pounds in a stone so that is 12 stone 10 and 2000 pounds in a "short" ton so that is 1.75 short tons. Why not drop larger units from distances and give all distances in furlongs then?
Water freezes at 0 and boils at 100. It's just simpler. With apropriate equipment and facilities, I can live between -50 and plus 50. I know the historical stories about the fallacies that 0F was the coldest you could get water and 100F was the temperature of the human body. Both of those are incorrect. If they were the only reason, there would be even less reason for people to use that I remember my parents explaining to my grandparents quite a few decades ago.
Using Celcius is probably the simplest change but it has the least pushing it as the sensible option.
I am 1.81 metres tall and a proper geeky 129 Kg. The weather is a balmy 22 degrees and the wind is only a couple of metres a second. I Have a litre sized water bottle on my desk. Those are pretty human sized units...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Drive faster: 115 instead of 70!
Run farther: 8 instead of 5!
Weigh less: 99 instead of 220!
Go metric!
Way too many family plots and small farms are already determined by acres, or by length of road frontage. Having to redo all of that to metric for every property as it changes hands through sale or inheritance would be a nightmare.
I really doubt that. I've seen surveying documents using simple 3 digit precision decimal numbers of feet (1.234 feet) rather than feet plus inches and fractions of inches. Converting to meters would seem quite trivial and a one-time event.
Similarly in manufacturing I've seen simple 3 digit precision decimal numbers of inches. Fractions often being converted to a decimal 1/1,000th of an inch. Again, converting to millimeters would seem quite trivial and a one-time event for a legacy blueprint as its converted to a CAD document.
It really seems about a legacy personal preference, not technical issues.
Yes, pretty much everything in construction is still imperial, inches, feet, etc... However that is largely due to the fact that there is a huge amount of legacy non-compatible construction out there to build upon. You can't exactly charge over on a dime. Certain things are more metric than others, over a long time it will eventually happen.
Same goes for the height and weight. It is about common usage having momentum that takes a while to sort out. For example while I refer to myself in feet and inches as well, I have no idea what my father is talking about when he starts spouting about Fahrenheit... I'd need a calculator to convert it to C. Having said that... my oven is in Fahrenheit... so yes confusing.
However, it isn't so much that it is "forced" by government as some of the libby's in the US seem all afraid of. It isn't like Big Brother is going to come around collecting your 1/4 inch socket sets... However when you get your Driver's Licence it might have some weird number for your height like 180cm which isn't all that meaningful to you.
However that is something, perhaps one of the only things governments are good at, longer term things that over time make sense.
We are in a place where historians will likely refer to as the metric transitional period if at all.
National Rationals Association:
You can take my fractions from my cold dead hand!
Technically there is already such a thing as a metric ton.
In fact it is already in the urban usage you describe:
I don't give a metric fuckton about your imperial units...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
Metric VS Imperial? How are we not discussing Slashdot unit equivalents (Other than to call Metric Rebel Scum!)?
Volume: Libraries of Congress
Length: Football Fields
Weight: Cowboy Neals
etc...
OK, when France switches to a metric calendar... Seriously, if we can tell time with a stupid 12/24 hour clock and dumb seconds/minutes/hours/days/weeks... why can't we deal with inches/feet/yards/fathoms/leagues/miles whatever.
Damn, next think you know you'll bring in gun control too!
US land area is 9,161,966 km^2, Canada's land area is 9,093,507 km^2.
So it's so significantly larger that it's smaller?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire