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DOH! Is that inches or centimeters?

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Jason Hutchinson said:
Andrew Cawte said:
I've never heard that phrase. What does it mean?
Click to expand...
Rolling up a window was derived (I assume) from the fact that
windows almost all used to be adjusted by rotating a crank on the
door to adjust the window height. More commonly these days, we
have an electrically operated motor driven from a switch. Despite
this, the phrase "rolling up a window" is still used, and will
probably stick for quite some time. Despite the fact that the term
has little meaning much of the time, it's just a phrase or name
that gets attached to an action or event.
Jason Hutchinson said:
Did the name seem strange to you until I mentioned it? Why?
Click to expand...
I think there is a language barrier on this question. I think what
you're asking me is "did the name not seem strange to me until I
mentioned it?"

To answer that, the name has never seemed strange for the same
reason as "rolling up a window" doesn't seem strange. To me, it's
a name attached to an event.

You could argue that back in the first World Series in 1903, they
should have picked a better name. Times were certainly different
then, however. Could we have even dreamed about flying a bunch of
teams into one location on the 4 o'clock 747 leaving Sydney?
Jason Hutchinson said:
Who writes a thousand as 1.000? (Did you mean 1,000?)
Click to expand...
Being an ignorant American,
Click to expand...
Ahhh.
Jason Hutchinson said:
I can't rattle off the list of
Countries that do this right here. I will say that I translate
German software all the time that interprets numbers this way, and
only this way. Also, you see this syntax used here on the forum
regularly.
Click to expand...
 
Teppo Hytönen said:
What a fight :D
Well. All I can say is that I really do think metric is better. I
mean, jumping from 199cm to 200cm makes much more sense than
jumping from 5'11" to 6' :) And adding up is indeed much more
easier in the metric system.
Click to expand...
It certainly is, but not as much fun when someone drops off - see my earlier post about 14" being 1'4" ;-)
Teppo Hytönen said:
And weight. A liter of water is a kilogram. A good system :)
Click to expand...
Actually that is only true for a given standard temperature (20 degrees C maybe?)

Just like other things, a given mass of water changes it's volume according to its temperature.

;-)
Chris
 
Jason Hutchinson said:
Andrew Cawte said:
I've never heard that phrase. What does it mean?
Click to expand...
Rolling up a window was derived (I assume) from the fact that
windows almost all used to be adjusted by rotating a crank on the
door to adjust the window height. More commonly these days, we
have an electrically operated motor driven from a switch. Despite
this, the phrase "rolling up a window" is still used, and will
probably stick for quite some time. Despite the fact that the term
has little meaning much of the time, it's just a phrase or name
that gets attached to an action or event.
Click to expand...
Fair point - although I generally refer to merely 'opening' or 'closing' the window, whether electric or not. I think 'rolling' is used more in America than the UK.
Jason Hutchinson said:
Jason Hutchinson said:
Did the name seem strange to you until I mentioned it? Why?
Click to expand...
I think there is a language barrier on this question. I think what
you're asking me is "did the name not seem strange to me until I
mentioned it?"
Click to expand...
Not a language barrier, merely a case of tiredness-induced brain fade on my part - I've already been at work all day, of course.

What I meant to say was, 'did the name seem strange to you BEFORE I mentioned it', implying that you might have previously considered for yourself whether the name was a sensible or appropriate one given that it's really a domestic competition.
Jason Hutchinson said:
To answer that, the name has never seemed strange for the same
reason as "rolling up a window" doesn't seem strange. To me, it's
a name attached to an event.

You could argue that back in the first World Series in 1903, they
should have picked a better name. Times were certainly different
then, however. Could we have even dreamed about flying a bunch of
teams into one location on the 4 o'clock 747 leaving Sydney?
Click to expand...
Probably not - although arguably calling it the 'National Series' would have made more sense?

Andy.
 
Jason Hutchinson said:
aevoegels said:
That's just part of the arrogance. Most people in the US hate to
admit that despite all the sports here, soccer is by far more
popular worldwide...Like a lot of other things, there's a lot of
catching up to do.
Click to expand...
Very, very few people in the U.S. have a problem admitting that any
sport is less popular world-wide than soccer. I doubt you'll find
anyone on this forum who claims this. What seems to bother people
like you, is that not many people here care about soccer, or how
popular it is elsewhere. People here play what they enjoy. Soccer
here is gaining popularity, but not because it's popular elsewhere,
because people enjoy it.
Jason Hutchinson said:
That's anotehr weird thing. I thought only the US inverted the dot
and the coma.
Click to expand...
Talking about ignorance.
Click to expand...
What is ignorance? that you don't know what other countries use? I've only been to about 20 countries, so that's a far minority of the world, but than again, the world for some ends where you state ends…
 
Andrew Cawte said:
Fair point - although I generally refer to merely 'opening' or
'closing' the window, whether electric or not. I think 'rolling' is
used more in America than the UK.
Click to expand...
Definitely. There are lots of different words/phrases between the two nations. I have to pause sometimes while in England to process what I just heard, and I have seen the opposite, but to a lesser degree here.
Andrew Cawte said:
What I meant to say was, 'did the name seem strange to you BEFORE I
mentioned it', implying that you might have previously considered
for yourself whether the name was a sensible or appropriate one
given that it's really a domestic competition.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what I thought you meant, even though I didn't even write it right. If you're 20, and hear the name for the first time, you'd try to analyze it, and it'd sound odd. If it's something you grew up with from birth, it'd be more ingrained into the brain as a word attached to an event.
Andrew Cawte said:
Probably not - although arguably calling it the 'National Series'
would have made more sense?
Click to expand...
I don't know the specifics of how that name came to be. Someone suggested it was a name of a publication that sponsored it. I'll have to look into it some day when I'm bored. Obviously, only 2 nations compete in it. Although, if you offered up some money, I'm sure they'd let anyone in.

Jason
 
aevoegels said:
What is ignorance? that you don't know what other countries use?
I've only been to about 20 countries, so that's a far minority of
the world, but than again, the world for some ends where you state
ends…
Click to expand...
The ignorance would be assuming every nation does something a certain way. It's more an attitude than ignorance. To paraphrase, "The US must be the only nation that does it backwards."
 
Neither system makes more sense than the other, when it gets right down to it. Six one way, half-dozen the other.

Anybody who argues differently is just arguing, not using any rational thought. There's no reason to prefer one over the other. There isn't any "oh, the math is easier, because all I have to do is divide or multiply by 10" argument, either.

Why does it make more sense that water boils at 100 vs. 212? Or freezes at 32 vs 0?

That's like claiming base-10 is somehow better than base-16. Other than the fact we have 10 digits on our hands, what's better about it? If we used base-16 as our standard, programming in Hexadecimal would be a lot easier.
Steven Noyes said:
Everybody agrees Celsius's scale makes more sense than
Fahrenheit's. Trouble is, the original Celsius scale had 100 for
freezing, 0 for boiling. In other words, it was upside-down. (The
numbers were reversed after Celsius's death.)
Click to expand...
--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
Jason Hutchinson said:
Jason Hutchinson said:
The odd thing is, a lot of Americans seem to have no concept of
this. How many other countries participate in your 'World' Series?
Click to expand...
Because a bunch of rich guys that run MLB don't want to change the
name of a national past time's premier event, that means that
290million people don't have a concept of our place in the world?
Click to expand...
Well, considering that Canada has a few teams in our major league baseball, I don't think it's exactly a "national" series, either. I don't know if a Canadian team has made it into the "World Series" or not, but there's certainly nothing stopping them...
 
Some people have advocated converting from miles to kilometers in the US.

I already pointed out that this would cause conversion problems in the Section, Township, Range system. (A standard section is exactly 1 mile by 1 mile, and a township is exactly 6 miles by 6 miles).

In additon to this, many medium to large cities are set up with addresses such that the 1,000 block starts 1 mile away from some central reference point. So if somebody gives you an address of 16,250 Westheimer, you know it's about 16.25 miles away from downtown.

If things are converted to kilometers, then you'd either have to change all the addresses (not gonna happen), or you'd have to convert those 16.25 miles into kilometers to know the approximate distance.

Where's the advantage of expressing the distance from Houston to Nashville in kilometers instead of miles?

And don't forget about airplanes and ships. They use knots, which are different from kilometers AND from miles. Should they convert, too?

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
Gosh, this thread has gone a long way before I noticed it! But cannot resist throwing in my 0.02 (or is it 0,02?).

Anyway, I'm a European (French actually) but I've been living in California for the past two years. It's not been too difficult to adapt to the US system (actually I had to switch From french francs to Dollars also!).

It turns out that for every day use, using inches and feet did not bother me and I kind of liked it. I think the reason behind that is that because it's so complex to deal with fractions in the US system, a lot of measurements are integer number of inches (or simpler fractions like 1/2). It makes things pretty easy. When moving to an enginnering need, there's no question metric is king.

Also wanted to point out that print size in France are in cm (don't know for the rest of Europe). If I go to a lab and ask for a 10x15, I get a 4x6" print, not 10x15". The same applies for enlargements.

Back to the original post, I assume that if units are not specified, people are using inches. As was said, over 60% of the users of this forum are in the US, so they hold the majority here!!

Sorry if my post is not funny, I don't have the talent of others on this forum. I really enjoyed reading this one entirely, as it was funny in many occasions and away from traditional discussions.

BTW: regarding the Wolrd Series, I guess National Series would not work as the World Series is the ultimate confrontation between the American league and National league (and what the hell were the Giants doing in game 6???)
--
Didier
New baseball fan.
 
Since I now live in California, I tried to translate French cooking recipes for my new US friends. But no way they can use grams or centiliters to weigh the ingredients. So I started to patiently convert all the units to cups and fraction of (the most commonly used measure in the US kitchen) and apply an overall ratio so that most of the measures would be integer number of say 1/4 cup.

It's only much later that I realized that we French specify ingredients in weight (whether its grams or cl of fluid) whereas cups are a unit of volume. All my translated recipes are off!!

Anyone knows the relative density of flour versus butter? Water versus shredded Swiss cheese? Just kidding of course, but the story is true (and my neighbours found my recipe for the Crêpes to be a little to buttery!!!)

--
Didier
 
If you're using centi-liters as a unit of weight, that's a complete bastardization of the SI system.

I assume that (for example) oils are measured in centi-liters. If so, that's volume, not weight.

If you really need to convert grams of cheese/butter into cups, then the easiest thing to do would be to fill a cup and weigh it.
zounzoun99 said:
It's only much later that I realized that we French specify
ingredients in weight (whether its grams or cl of fluid) whereas
cups are a unit of volume. All my translated recipes are off!!

Anyone knows the relative density of flour versus butter? Water
versus shredded Swiss cheese? Just kidding of course, but the story
is true (and my neighbours found my recipe for the Crêpes to be a
little to buttery!!!)
Click to expand...
--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
More like 3 of one and 9 of the other. Adds up to a dozen just not
evenly split.

It does make sense to say that the math is easier. That is an important
aspect to both productivity and learning. If less time can be spent
learning a system and less time spent using the system, then there is
more time available to do other things. Design, education or research.

It is easier to remember 0 and 100 than 32 and 212. It is easier to
remember 1000 m/km than 5280 ft/mile. And the less details that people
have to remember, the more room for other things.

We have base 10 because we have ten digits on our two hands. When working
with computers, base 2 or 16 makes more sense. I can do math in any three
of the systems but I still prefer base 10 for my check book because it is
easier. I will admit that long division in base 16 and base 2 takes a bit
of work. And representing some decimal values simply impossible:-)

Being easier is a very compelling reason for us to finally teach and use
the official unit of measurement in the United States. That is a very
rational decision.

Steven
DavidP said:
Neither system makes more sense than the other, when it gets right
down to it. Six one way, half-dozen the other.

Anybody who argues differently is just arguing, not using any
rational thought. There's no reason to prefer one over the other.
There isn't any "oh, the math is easier, because all I have to do
is divide or multiply by 10" argument, either.

Why does it make more sense that water boils at 100 vs. 212? Or
freezes at 32 vs 0?

That's like claiming base-10 is somehow better than base-16. Other
than the fact we have 10 digits on our hands, what's better about
it? If we used base-16 as our standard, programming in Hexadecimal
would be a lot easier.

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
Click to expand...
--
---
My really bad Fall Adventures:
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/fall_adventures_2002
 
Good grief. Is this still going on?
I read this last night for about an hour. It was greatly entertaining.

As a 30 year engineer in the US, I have to side with most of what DavidP has said.

To a competent engineer, the unit system really doesn't matter that much, because he will have to deal with both, and convert either way. The answers are supposed to come out to be the same.

The Mars Surveyor wasn't lost because of the units system used. It was lost because someone didn't validate the code that was written.

What is much more important to an engineer is to have an intuitive sense of what he is handling. I have intuitive sense about 36-24-36, but I don't much respond to 91-61-91 :-)

I have an intuitive sense of a 100 ft-# of torque, or 200 horsepower. I personally have little intuitive sense of the metric equivalent, not because I say that it is wrong, but because I didn't grow up with it.

What is much more relevant in the original post that started all this is the prevalence for unclear communication. It really doesn't clarify the situation much if Americans only say 20" x 30", and the rest of the world says 20 x 30. How are we to know what units were meant? By omission? I think not.

If the Europeans are going to get so ansy over metric, then I guess we all should agree to write only in Italian as well.

BTW, I have no intention of converting. There is no value in it.

Bill
 
DavidP said:
And don't forget about airplanes and ships. They use knots, which
are different from kilometers AND from miles. Should they convert,
too?
Click to expand...
Yes. All units of measurements except SI are antiquated and obsolete and should be replaced as soon as possible.

sigh You're still thinking of the imperial system as the "standard" system and wonder why you should convert familiar numbers in imperial to complicated ones in SI. After an SI conversion, you wouldn't go out and get a 3.96 litre bottle of milk, you'd buy even litre bottles. You need to convert your way of thinking, not just the numbers.

And yes, converting is tough and complicated. But hey, if you want to stick to a inferior system, be my guest. :)

(Anyway, since it's my opinion that anyone who seriously thinks the imperial system is better than SI is either stupid or lying, and i have no wish to discuss with either, this is the end of the discussion for me)
 
Critter1 said:
Good grief. Is this still going on?
I read this last night for about an hour. It was greatly
entertaining.

As a 30 year engineer in the US, I have to side with most of what
DavidP has said.

To a competent engineer,
the unit system really doesn't matter that
much, because he will have to deal with both, and convert either
way. The answers are supposed to come out to be the same.
Click to expand...
The discussion was to the population in general. If the engineers are the only ones affected by converting to metric, I agree, depending on what kind of engineering you do. But that's a small segement of the population.
Critter1 #80734 said:
The Mars Surveyor wasn't lost because of the units system used. It
was lost because someone didn't validate the code that was written.

What is much more important to an engineer is to have an intuitive
sense of what he is handling. I have intuitive sense about
36-24-36, but I don't much respond to 91-61-91 :-)

I have an intuitive sense of a 100 ft-# of torque, or 200
horsepower. I personally have little intuitive sense of the metric
equivalent, not because I say that it is wrong, but because I
didn't grow up with it.

What is much more relevant in the original post that started all
this is the prevalence for unclear communication. It really
doesn't clarify the situation much if Americans only say 20" x 30",
and the rest of the world says 20 x 30. How are we to know what
units were meant? By omission? I think not.

If the Europeans are going to get so ansy over metric, then I guess
we all should agree to write only in Italian as well.

BTW, I have no intention of converting. There is no value in it.

Bill
Click to expand...
Makes me wonder if Canada, Australia and England (who came up with the British system) are just on an expensive excercise to convert to metric just for the heck of it. I personally don't think so. And England is usually more attached to their traditions than we are... that's what's really impressive.
 
As they say, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks...
Henrik Abelsson said:
DavidP said:
And don't forget about airplanes and ships. They use knots, which
are different from kilometers AND from miles. Should they convert,
too?
Click to expand...
Yes. All units of measurements except SI are antiquated and
obsolete and should be replaced as soon as possible.

sigh You're still thinking of the imperial system as the
"standard" system and wonder why you should convert familiar
numbers in imperial to complicated ones in SI. After an SI
conversion, you wouldn't go out and get a 3.96 litre bottle of
milk, you'd buy even litre bottles. You need to convert your way of
thinking, not just the numbers.

And yes, converting is tough and complicated. But hey, if you want
to stick to a inferior system, be my guest. :)

(Anyway, since it's my opinion that anyone who seriously thinks the
imperial system is better than SI is either stupid or lying, and i
have no wish to discuss with either, this is the end of the
discussion for me)
Click to expand...
 
Steven Noyes said:
Or maybe a magic pound?

Steven
Forrest said:
Steven Noyes said:
And weight. A liter of water is a kilogram. A good system :)
Click to expand...
A gallon is ten pounds, actually...
Steven Noyes said:
Also Celcius makes more sense than Fahrenheit. Below zero you get
snow and ice. Above you usually don't. Heh ;) And at 100 water
boils.
Click to expand...
The human body is 100 degrees. Well, it's supposed to be; no one
has ever been able to explain to me why it's 98.6 instead...?
Steven Noyes said:
BTW, why is CCD size given in inches, and lens in mm? Why not use
metric for all the measures, duh :) Wait, I know! Let's just all
start using inches for lenses? A 47,24" f5.6L sure would be nice...
Click to expand...
Large format lenses are in inches. Ever read Ansel Adams? "I made
this image with a six-inch lens stopped down to f/64..." Chip
sizes shouldn't need to be measured, though; they should all be
full-frame.
Click to expand...
--
---
My really bad Fall Adventures:
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/fall_adventures_2002
Click to expand...
--

No 1D, very few lenses, no camera bag or teleconverters thanks to some thief. Also, NO Canon 1200mm f/5.6.
 
amitis said:
It is. I am using both and I know how to use both. Metric is easier.

As for Americans - they just don't know that metric exists...
Click to expand...
RANT

Is the biggest lie on this entire thread. I just love how people outside
America love to say idiotic comments like this. The chances are there
are more people that know the boiling point of water in deg C than deg F.

We run 5K and 10K races (but Marathons are still 26 miles). What a
egocentric point of view.

END RANT

--
---
My really bad Fall Adventures:
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/fall_adventures_2002
 
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