I'm from Canada. I learned everything coming up through school in metric. Absolutely everything. Imperial is still easier. For programming computers etc, metric is easier. For engineering, Metric is easier.
I work in the contsruction industry and on a job site, Imperial blows metric completely away. Not because of understanding/lack thereof, but because of how everything is built.
A roof has a 12:3 pitch. Ok, thats fine, it goes for 12 feet and goes up 3. Now jackasses, do that in metric. It goes for 4 meters and goes up 1? Nope. It'll be something like 22.6 degree roof pitch. You have to be pretty damned good at math to figure it out from there. I can, most job site foremen can't, and not just the old ones, the younger ones too. Adding 3/4 + 1/16 is faster in your head than adding 2.7 + 17.8. I'm used to both, I use both on a regular basis. 3/4 + 1/16 is faster, and thats about as complicated as it gets for those measurements.
Everything with metric is full of decimal points and fifteen different units of measure, which self important engineer assholes seem to want to use all of at every turn(yes, this is pretty much ALL of them). Imperial? 2 and then fractions thereof. Engineers don't have a choice except to keep it simple as there are no other units of measure available.
Its getting so bad I'm seriously about to start a company where I do nothing but charge a fee to fix engineered plans into easy to read proper measurements for job site construction.
The actual cost to the Canadian people of switching to metric was estimated at 3-4 billion(up from what they called a looney bin maximum cost of 1 billion) back in 2000 or so. The rate of cost is only increasing and I can completely understand why Americans don't want to switch. Other than purely scientific or mathematical pursuits, metric is by far the inferior system. IMO Metric should be reserved for trained professionals in super high precision practices.
As an aside, for construction purposes. MM lines on a tape measure are actually hard to distinguish from each other because they're so small. Imperial has even smaller ones if you really need them but 1/16th is as far down as you get on most measuring tapes, and is 50% larger than a MM, making it easier to identify by eye. In my opinion, this and things like it are the prime cause of the US not switching. People actually tend to listen to their work force down there. Crazy thought, I know.
I'm aware of the 4 light year distance, but currently with top end projected attainable speeds from what I understand the trip will still be better measured in decades than years.
Even 50 years means traveling at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light.
Well then, thanks for all the responses showing how wrong I am >_.
Its something that has never stuck well with me however. I believe that with the evidence its probably(99.9e10^20 %) right, but won't be terribly surprised if they discover some other weird QM effect or something that causes the evidence to appear like what we think should confirm the theory. Basically I'm cynical about it. So sue me.
All the rest of that stuff is really cool though. Never knew the thing about the magnetic effect. Wouldn't that stuff also go a long ways towards figuring out exactly what gravity is?
*hopes for links explaining exactly what gravity is*
Relative to the speed of light. Meaning walking saves you a nearly infinitesimal amount of time.
Theoretically, as you get closer to the speed of light, time should slow down for you. Hence all the mumbo jumbo about a flight to Alpha Centauri taking maybe 50 years, but at that speed it would only be 20 years to the people doing the traveling. Those numbers are no where near accurate, but hopefully you get the idea.
While not an expert in the field, obviously, I myself harbor serious doubts as to the accuracy of this particular portion of relativity. Given its nature it will be quite a while before it can be fully proven/disproven as well.
Yes, yes. I know the maths line up but the maths have lined up for other things that turned out to be wrong.
Really? I think that's you not understanding the situation. They know that some radioactive isotopes are loose outside the building. They also know that they're in such small concentrations that they would have come from the steam they vented while trying to prevent a meltdown previously.
They DO have a full fledged meltdown happening. IE, the fuel rods are now a pile of goo on the floor. However they don't know if they've left the concrete or not, and won't even be able to guess at it until those robots from the US get there, as radiation levels/isotopes inside the building, as far as they can currently get in to detect, won't change much whether the fuel has eaten through the floor or not. They're readings have spiked high enough that they know for sure that the fuel has melted its way through the first metal containment vessel. Beyond that they haven't got a clue. No one does.
Get your head out of your ass and pay attention sometime. You might learn something.
I would like you to back up that statement. They don't even KNOW if any radioactive material has escaped the concrete containment, so I find it damned difficult to believe anyone could know anything about how much ground is contaminated.
Besides that, 200 miles is a fucking ridiculous claim. Chernobyl literally BLEW UP and spewed chunks of uranium and it only has an exclusion zone that covers about 225 sq miles. What happened there =/= whats happening here.
My first was moneygrubbing, then porn for every one thereafter. Since it hasn't gone outside the bounds and I didn't get the error on any of them, I imagine we're not alone:D
To be fair, technically, Windows XP could easily be regarded as a service pack for windows 2000. If you've used both extensively you'll realize that there isn't actually that huge a difference. Windows XP was a UI upgrade and they hid a few user controls a bit better, plus some user request and bug fixes. Thats about it. Two of the service packs for XP made almost as many changes to XP as XP made over 2000.
Same deal with Win7 vs Windows Vista. They fixed some vista bugs, changed a few things as per user requests, added a Windows XP virtualization mode and sold it as a new version of windows.
10.0-10.8 are basically the same thing. There are two out of the 8 that are actually significant enough to call major releases, the rest are service packs with a bill attached.
Its more like saying that every new major Gnome release is an entirely new version of Linux(not a 100% analogy, but its closer than using the Linux kernel). I'd add something about them releasing and wanting you to buy a whole new copy of Linux every time there was a Gnome release but then theres that whole thing where Linux is free.
I mentioned that partly, but if there was proper education on the matter throughout the general populace from trusted information sources like schools, this would have less of an effect.
For instance, we have the same scaremongering news media pushing for ratings here in Canada, but while it does have a measurable effect, it doesn't have nearly as much impact as it does south of the border.
Of course pushing things like Intelligent Design etc down the throats of some schools will discredit those institutions in the minds of a fair number of your populace as well. Even among some of those that may believe in it, due to the severity of bias that something like that displays.
I have a friend here in Canada that is in that boat. He's from a pretty hardcore fundamentalist Christian family, and his beliefs are mostly in line with what you would expect someone from that background to have. However he feels that ideologies should be left out of school altogether and whatever theories/facts currently have the most scientific evidence for them should be taught.
Overall I believe that education is one very key component of what is currently a large systemic problem in the US.
There are other contributing factors, as I mentioned. However the fact that the history might still have that much of an effect after 40-50 years only really backs up my theory that there isn't enough education on the subject. If there was, the general opinion from 40-50 years ago would have a LOT less bearing on general public opinion now.
I'm a big fan of logitech products as well. I've had some bad experiences with them, but I bought their G7 wireless mouse years ago and found it better than all of the wired ones I had been using previously. I currently own 3 of them, the 8 year old one is still going strong but not in use anymore due to the coating wearing off and it looking very dirty no matter what I did in around year 5. After a year or so of the mouse the Logitech G15 came about, and I now have 3 of those as well, though two of them are spanish since they changed the keyboard and I couldn't find an english G15 first gen with 18 macro keys, the new ones have substantially less, with it topping out at 12:(
Those two product lines I have had no problems with, but I have had problems with other Logitech products, so your mileage may vary.
I blame a lack of education on the subject in the US for their current panic. It very much smacks of "We don't understand it therefore it must be bad" and media sensationalism.
Those factors along with a few others to nudge the populace in the "right" direction can very quickly create a severely slanted public opinion.
"If you are the most typical person who watch reality TV, drive 8.3 miles to work, has 2.5 kids and a slightly overweight frigid wife....well you are in the demographic for a LOT of vendors."
The company that produces the Fleshlight springs to mind.
Thats in the early stages, once you get to 40 games or so it starts throwing you for a loop on that. That said I'm @ 50-34-47.... winning by a slight hair.
A situation in which, as evidenced by the demographics, is where many video gamers find themselves. Which also lends credibility to the choice of dev's to have the "fanservice" girls in the game.
As long as you're not a total troll or cow and make it clear that you're serious about that statement, and the guys not gay ofc, theres a 90% chance you'll get a yes out of that. The other 10% are in relationships and actually faithful.
" In fact, even one of my non religious friends said he admired the way I stood up for my beliefs."
I had a very religious friend say the same thing to me. In fact I think I've turned him agnostic at the moment, largely due to how strong my conviction was when speaking about certain facts and how good my knowledge was on said facts.
Lesson: A lot of people are happy being sheep, and they'll happily follow the new sheepherder that comes along, whoever that may be. You just have to convince them that the new sheepherder is better than the old one.
Now we just need to somehow convince more scientists to take up whittling, playing the flute and watching sheep as a pastime.
They gave credibility to those guys a long time ago.
Just look at all the documentaries that have been produced in the last 20-30 years that come at things from a totally conspiracy theory viewpoint. Shit, some of the more outlandish ones have even been proven right, at least partially.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahem, quote only part of my sentence. Thanks.
Yes, if it were done that way, it would be great. As it is you need University level algebra to build a freaking building to the specs on these plans.
Its more a problem specific to how engineers that work in metric are trained to be honest.
The first one, by a long shot.
Now I have to qualify this.
I'm from Canada. I learned everything coming up through school in metric. Absolutely everything. Imperial is still easier. For programming computers etc, metric is easier. For engineering, Metric is easier.
I work in the contsruction industry and on a job site, Imperial blows metric completely away. Not because of understanding/lack thereof, but because of how everything is built.
A roof has a 12:3 pitch. Ok, thats fine, it goes for 12 feet and goes up 3. Now jackasses, do that in metric. It goes for 4 meters and goes up 1? Nope. It'll be something like 22.6 degree roof pitch. You have to be pretty damned good at math to figure it out from there. I can, most job site foremen can't, and not just the old ones, the younger ones too. Adding 3/4 + 1/16 is faster in your head than adding 2.7 + 17.8. I'm used to both, I use both on a regular basis. 3/4 + 1/16 is faster, and thats about as complicated as it gets for those measurements.
Everything with metric is full of decimal points and fifteen different units of measure, which self important engineer assholes seem to want to use all of at every turn(yes, this is pretty much ALL of them). Imperial? 2 and then fractions thereof. Engineers don't have a choice except to keep it simple as there are no other units of measure available.
Its getting so bad I'm seriously about to start a company where I do nothing but charge a fee to fix engineered plans into easy to read proper measurements for job site construction.
The actual cost to the Canadian people of switching to metric was estimated at 3-4 billion(up from what they called a looney bin maximum cost of 1 billion) back in 2000 or so. The rate of cost is only increasing and I can completely understand why Americans don't want to switch. Other than purely scientific or mathematical pursuits, metric is by far the inferior system. IMO Metric should be reserved for trained professionals in super high precision practices.
As an aside, for construction purposes. MM lines on a tape measure are actually hard to distinguish from each other because they're so small. Imperial has even smaller ones if you really need them but 1/16th is as far down as you get on most measuring tapes, and is 50% larger than a MM, making it easier to identify by eye. In my opinion, this and things like it are the prime cause of the US not switching. People actually tend to listen to their work force down there. Crazy thought, I know.
That would be traveling AT the speed of light.
I'm aware of the 4 light year distance, but currently with top end projected attainable speeds from what I understand the trip will still be better measured in decades than years.
Even 50 years means traveling at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light.
Well then, thanks for all the responses showing how wrong I am >_.
Its something that has never stuck well with me however. I believe that with the evidence its probably(99.9e10^20 %) right, but won't be terribly surprised if they discover some other weird QM effect or something that causes the evidence to appear like what we think should confirm the theory. Basically I'm cynical about it. So sue me.
All the rest of that stuff is really cool though. Never knew the thing about the magnetic effect. Wouldn't that stuff also go a long ways towards figuring out exactly what gravity is?
*hopes for links explaining exactly what gravity is*
Relative to the speed of light. Meaning walking saves you a nearly infinitesimal amount of time.
Theoretically, as you get closer to the speed of light, time should slow down for you. Hence all the mumbo jumbo about a flight to Alpha Centauri taking maybe 50 years, but at that speed it would only be 20 years to the people doing the traveling. Those numbers are no where near accurate, but hopefully you get the idea.
While not an expert in the field, obviously, I myself harbor serious doubts as to the accuracy of this particular portion of relativity. Given its nature it will be quite a while before it can be fully proven/disproven as well.
Yes, yes. I know the maths line up but the maths have lined up for other things that turned out to be wrong.
Really? I think that's you not understanding the situation. They know that some radioactive isotopes are loose outside the building. They also know that they're in such small concentrations that they would have come from the steam they vented while trying to prevent a meltdown previously.
They DO have a full fledged meltdown happening. IE, the fuel rods are now a pile of goo on the floor. However they don't know if they've left the concrete or not, and won't even be able to guess at it until those robots from the US get there, as radiation levels/isotopes inside the building, as far as they can currently get in to detect, won't change much whether the fuel has eaten through the floor or not. They're readings have spiked high enough that they know for sure that the fuel has melted its way through the first metal containment vessel. Beyond that they haven't got a clue. No one does.
Get your head out of your ass and pay attention sometime. You might learn something.
I would like you to back up that statement. They don't even KNOW if any radioactive material has escaped the concrete containment, so I find it damned difficult to believe anyone could know anything about how much ground is contaminated.
Besides that, 200 miles is a fucking ridiculous claim. Chernobyl literally BLEW UP and spewed chunks of uranium and it only has an exclusion zone that covers about 225 sq miles. What happened there =/= whats happening here.
I do terribly hope that they're collecting all the data on the changes and will release it later :)
On topic, I don't know if this is an april fools joke or not... :/
My first was moneygrubbing, then porn for every one thereafter. Since it hasn't gone outside the bounds and I didn't get the error on any of them, I imagine we're not alone :D
To be fair, technically, Windows XP could easily be regarded as a service pack for windows 2000. If you've used both extensively you'll realize that there isn't actually that huge a difference. Windows XP was a UI upgrade and they hid a few user controls a bit better, plus some user request and bug fixes. Thats about it. Two of the service packs for XP made almost as many changes to XP as XP made over 2000.
Same deal with Win7 vs Windows Vista. They fixed some vista bugs, changed a few things as per user requests, added a Windows XP virtualization mode and sold it as a new version of windows.
10.0-10.8 are basically the same thing. There are two out of the 8 that are actually significant enough to call major releases, the rest are service packs with a bill attached.
Its more like saying that every new major Gnome release is an entirely new version of Linux(not a 100% analogy, but its closer than using the Linux kernel). I'd add something about them releasing and wanting you to buy a whole new copy of Linux every time there was a Gnome release but then theres that whole thing where Linux is free.
I mentioned that partly, but if there was proper education on the matter throughout the general populace from trusted information sources like schools, this would have less of an effect.
For instance, we have the same scaremongering news media pushing for ratings here in Canada, but while it does have a measurable effect, it doesn't have nearly as much impact as it does south of the border.
Of course pushing things like Intelligent Design etc down the throats of some schools will discredit those institutions in the minds of a fair number of your populace as well. Even among some of those that may believe in it, due to the severity of bias that something like that displays.
I have a friend here in Canada that is in that boat. He's from a pretty hardcore fundamentalist Christian family, and his beliefs are mostly in line with what you would expect someone from that background to have. However he feels that ideologies should be left out of school altogether and whatever theories/facts currently have the most scientific evidence for them should be taught.
Overall I believe that education is one very key component of what is currently a large systemic problem in the US.
There are other contributing factors, as I mentioned. However the fact that the history might still have that much of an effect after 40-50 years only really backs up my theory that there isn't enough education on the subject. If there was, the general opinion from 40-50 years ago would have a LOT less bearing on general public opinion now.
I'm a big fan of logitech products as well. I've had some bad experiences with them, but I bought their G7 wireless mouse years ago and found it better than all of the wired ones I had been using previously. I currently own 3 of them, the 8 year old one is still going strong but not in use anymore due to the coating wearing off and it looking very dirty no matter what I did in around year 5. After a year or so of the mouse the Logitech G15 came about, and I now have 3 of those as well, though two of them are spanish since they changed the keyboard and I couldn't find an english G15 first gen with 18 macro keys, the new ones have substantially less, with it topping out at 12 :(
Those two product lines I have had no problems with, but I have had problems with other Logitech products, so your mileage may vary.
Its much the same here in Canada.
I blame a lack of education on the subject in the US for their current panic. It very much smacks of "We don't understand it therefore it must be bad" and media sensationalism.
Those factors along with a few others to nudge the populace in the "right" direction can very quickly create a severely slanted public opinion.
However I believe this policy could only serve to drastically improve the overall facebook experience.
Hmm, I just tried this and you're absolutely right. The veteran mode is actually easier.
Thats pretty funny.
Just goes to show that a learning AI will trump a pre-programmed one.
Since humans are basically just I's without the A that learn, well....
"If you are the most typical person who watch reality TV, drive 8.3 miles to work, has 2.5 kids and a slightly overweight frigid wife....well you are in the demographic for a LOT of vendors."
The company that produces the Fleshlight springs to mind.
Thats in the early stages, once you get to 40 games or so it starts throwing you for a loop on that. That said I'm @ 50-34-47.... winning by a slight hair.
A situation in which, as evidenced by the demographics, is where many video gamers find themselves. Which also lends credibility to the choice of dev's to have the "fanservice" girls in the game.
As long as you're not a total troll or cow and make it clear that you're serious about that statement, and the guys not gay ofc, theres a 90% chance you'll get a yes out of that. The other 10% are in relationships and actually faithful.
I'll give you 10:1 odds that he's french or italian.
Go go stereoypes.
" In fact, even one of my non religious friends said he admired the way I stood up for my beliefs."
I had a very religious friend say the same thing to me. In fact I think I've turned him agnostic at the moment, largely due to how strong my conviction was when speaking about certain facts and how good my knowledge was on said facts.
Lesson: A lot of people are happy being sheep, and they'll happily follow the new sheepherder that comes along, whoever that may be. You just have to convince them that the new sheepherder is better than the old one.
Now we just need to somehow convince more scientists to take up whittling, playing the flute and watching sheep as a pastime.
They gave credibility to those guys a long time ago.
Just look at all the documentaries that have been produced in the last 20-30 years that come at things from a totally conspiracy theory viewpoint. Shit, some of the more outlandish ones have even been proven right, at least partially.
If driven the same way then yes, manuals however have all sorts of things that can be done by the driver to reduce fuel consumption.
Skipping 4th gear while on a flat or slightly downward slope comes to mind.