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To all Americans: about measure units

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kenw said:
Huh... While we're at being unit ****'s it appears that you've
missed the boat on another issue, namely, billion. Some places a
billion is 10^9, where as other places it is 10^12. I think in
kooky places like that 10^9 is called a millard or some such
non-sense.
Click to expand...
Ken,

Unfortunatly, the poms got it right that time. You look at 10^6 increments.

mi (one) 10^6
bi (two) 10^6 = 10^12
tri (three) 10^6 = 10^18
quad (four) 10^6 = 10^24

The "ard" means something on the order of "and some change".

milliard = 10^9
billiard = 10^15
trilliard = 10^21
kenw said:
(similar issue with trillion, 10^12 some places and 10^18 others)
Click to expand...
Our American usage is much more common theses days. We took "billion", a word that was virtually useless in its original form, and adjusted it a bit so that you could actually do something with it. Even Bill Gates doesn't own a British billion of anything, unless you start measuring things in terracents.
kenw said:
Anyway, to eliminate ambiguity you should have said "Six-thousand
six-hundred million".
Click to expand...
Quite correct. Actually, financiers often do.
kenw said:
And, if we're on an SI kick the correct measure would be 6.6
giga-people.
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The medical profession is the worst. They don't want to write µg or even ug. For a microgram, they write mcg. Technically, that's a milli-centi-gram, or 10^-6 gram, not 10^-6 gram. But they usually manage to avoid killing anyone becuase of it ;)

Or calories. I think we owe this one to "nutritionists", everybodie's favorite pseudoscientists. A food "calorie" is really a kilocalorie. Guess the nutritionists decided they didn't want to write kcal, so they just conveniently dropped the "k".

--
Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
DavidP said:
Metric = "factor of 10"

For angular measurements, I'd think that radians would actually be
the metric way of doing it, not degrees and seconds.
Click to expand...
Actually, radians are pi based. There are metic angular units called "grades", a right angle = 100 grades = 90 degrees = pi/2 radians.
DavidP #28649 said:
But it
hardly matters, as angular seconds aren't the same as time seconds.
Click to expand...
Exactly. They're off by a factor of 24 (as in hours in a day, or hours in an earth rotation). Details like that don't stop some people...
DavidP #28649 said:
toughluck wrote:
Click to expand...
some really weird stuff about angles...

--
Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
toughluck said:
Even your fellow Americans may wonder what
MS you have on your mind.
Click to expand...
MicroSoft on your mind. Eeeeew!

Personally, I'm not fond of a base 10 numbering system. Just because that's how many toes most people have? Is that a good enough reason?

12 is good. 12 inches in a foot, etc.

You can break 12 into 2, 3, or 4 even pieces. What does 10 get you? 2 or 5. How often do you need to divide something by 5? Did you learn the rule of fifths in photography class?

If you've got room for it, 60 is nice: 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 easy pieces. That's why it makes such a nice unit of time.

--
Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
Personally, I'm not fond of a base 10 numbering system. Just
because that's how many toes most people have? Is that a good
enough reason?
Click to expand...
The simpsons have 8, since they are already a reference for skin tone in some of the dpreview forums we should just start with a base 8 system ;)

Oh wait what will the marsians with their 6 fingers say.... hmmm
--
Dominic

'Old Europe', Word of the year 2003!

http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10
 
....courtesy. You can't assume that people will automatically read your mind & understand what you're talking about.

I don't really think this is an "English vs american", or "Metric vs. Imperial" issue at all.

I think it is an issue of communicating clearly .

We should all strive to be as clear as possible in our posts. Anything less would amount to pig-headed arrogance. their are posters of various nationalities on this site; let's try to include them (ie; take them into consideration as well) when writing our posts.

It's only common courtesy (which, like "common sense', is not so common....)

Yuletide greetings to all,

--
JF
 
.... it still doesn't help any of the "problems" ou cited.

However metric is much more simple to understand. Period.

therfore.... it's easier. Therefore..... it's a better system.

Best,

--
JF
DavidP said:
10 seconds to the minute
10 minutes to the hour
10 hours to the day
10 days to the week
10 weeks to the month
10 months to the year

And, a month would exactly equal the moon's rotation about the
Earth, and a year would exactly equal the Earth's rotation about
the sun, and a day would exactly equal the Earth's rotation about
its own axis.

The fact that this can NEVER be true is surely a sign from God that
metric is a stupid idea. LOL.
Mike Noren said:
Pointless trivia: when, after the french revolution, the metric
system was designed, time was also "decimalized", but that part of
the metric system never caught on. However, there were clocks made
at the time with 10 hour dials instead of 12 hour dials.
I don't know how many minutes there were to a decimal hour - one
might guess 100?
Click to expand...
--
http://www.outboundmusic.com
Your link to independent music!
Click to expand...
--
JF
 
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
"Counters" are fun, too. Different words for "three" depending on
if it's three stones, three pieces of fruit, three fish, or three
yards of cloth. And then you have to translate the "counters" to
modern devices, are computer chips "stones" or "fruit"?
Click to expand...
Well, if I remember it's like Korean, in that actually there is an item word along with the same 'three' each time - just as you used in english above, 'three pieces' etc..

But you are right, that the 'pieces' item word then varys with category, and that you just have to know what the category is. Somehow this is usually a little sweet and fun, perhaps why it lingers...and long enough ago for me in Korean that almost all is forgotten, koi ta ichoporiossumnida ;).

Since it's Christmas, I bet from prior conversations a fun book to mention might be George Lakoff's 'Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things'. This is a great read on categories as they occur in human languages - and if I remember right, the title is one of thirteen categories in an African language, perhaps !Kung. Just look what they lumped together, another smile for the accuracy of it, I think.

Best for the season, Joe.

Narrbl
 
Joe Farrugia said:
....courtesy. You can't assume that people will automatically read
your mind & understand what you're talking about.

I don't really think this is an "English vs american", or "Metric
vs. Imperial" issue at all.

I think it is an issue of communicating clearly .

We should all strive to be as clear as possible in our posts.
Anything less would amount to pig-headed arrogance. their are
posters of various nationalities on this site; let's try to include
them (ie; take them into consideration as well) when writing our
posts.

It's only common courtesy (which, like "common sense', is not so
common....)

Yuletide greetings to all,

--
JF
Click to expand...
 
...here comes another one of those funny landers, zzzaaappp!!
Dominic Groß said:
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
Personally, I'm not fond of a base 10 numbering system. Just
because that's how many toes most people have? Is that a good
enough reason?
Click to expand...
The simpsons have 8, since they are already a reference for skin
tone in some of the dpreview forums we should just start with a
base 8 system ;)

Oh wait what will the marsians with their 6 fingers say.... hmmm
--
Dominic

'Old Europe', Word of the year 2003!

http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10
Click to expand...
 
Maybe base 10 just does not work on Mars, thats what happened to all those Landers ;)
DMillier said:
Dominic Groß said:
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
Personally, I'm not fond of a base 10 numbering system. Just
because that's how many toes most people have? Is that a good
enough reason?
Click to expand...
The simpsons have 8, since they are already a reference for skin
tone in some of the dpreview forums we should just start with a
base 8 system ;)

Oh wait what will the marsians with their 6 fingers say.... hmmm
--
Dominic

'Old Europe', Word of the year 2003!

http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Dominic

'Old Europe', Word of the year 2003!

http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10
 
Try being a PCB (circuit board) designer these days. Besides the 0.1" being with us for the next 100 years, this group has really lost the plot. We have pin spacings in imperial and metric, often now NOT divisible by 0.01" or 0.1mm. Then there's imperial through-hole component pins being MOSTLY specified in mm, or tolerance given in thou (due to the machinery). Copper thickness / density is in ounces. Gold plating in micron. Half of all new S/Mount is metric, half in imperial. And wire sizes are in AWG or gauge, or sometimes ummm .. I forgot
JKirk
 
A few years back I went on a holliday in ireland for 3 weeks and hired a car.

Well, driving was no problem, even with them irish driving on the wrong side of the road. But navigating was. The difficulty was the distance markers on road signs. They had 3 kinds. brown, green and white. The trouble was that they used both KM and miles, but did not specify what was km or miles.

I finally figuered out the system. The White signs gave distance in miles, the green ones gave it in Kilometers and the brown gave it in Kilometers UNLESS it was miles...he he.

I was lost for 3 weeks.

Rune
toughluck said:
Could everyone PLEASE state whether they are using Imperial, or
Metric units in their posts? Just a moment ago, I've read a post
that stated temperature in 'degrees' - 24 to be exact. Now,
Americans already get shivers, and Europeans feel that's a quite
nice temperature, sure beats winter, anyway.
AFAIK, Phil Askey is British, and this site is (somewhat) British
as well. I'm not about to dwell into American vs. British spelling,
as that would be perceived as more of a flame bait than the above
question. Returning to the subject: since this site is based in UK,
we should either use SI measure units, or at least clearly state
that you are using the Imperial unit. Be wary that there are 400
million people using Imperial MS (and then some, in Liberia), but
the remaining 6,600,000,000 (six billion six hundred million)
people use SI units. Scientists in USA also use SI in their work,
taking some off the 400 million figure.
So, use SI. If not, state that you are using Imperial units, for
example: 24 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm not saying you should convert
units, switching over to SI, or providing both figures.

So, to Americans: what is clear to you, may be unclear to the rest
of forum members here. Even your fellow Americans may wonder what
MS you have on your mind. Take that into consideration, please.
Click to expand...
--
Rune Bjørnsen

View my stuff here
http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation.tcl?presentation_id=228622
 
DMillier said:
But should we call it centigrade or celsius (or perhaps Kelvin
would be better) ;-)
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The original poster was talking degrees, and Kelvin should actually never be referenced as degrees, it's just kelvin, for instance 300K.

and afaik it's a elementary SI-value so you could also say 3KK instead of 3000K :)
 
DavidP #28649 said:
Furthermore, it's logical to assume that MOST people posting here
are from the US, if you look at the demographics.
Click to expand...
Actually the demographics are quite a bit off...

Why? well i am quite certain that they are done by a dns-lookup of the users hostmask.

And since .net .com and .org are SUPPOSED to be meant for american corporations networks and organisations, they are all labelled as coming from the USA by many statistics-programs. which is a bit wrong since many ISPs here in europe and in other parts of the world use .net or .com in their hostmasks.

Another way of geographical "tracing" is using the language data posted in the headers by internet explorer, but that's not a goodway either, since a big percentage (me included) set them as coming from the USA, so that whenever i download for instance microsoft software i get it in english instead of my native language, for several reasons.

My guessing is that the real demographics are about 40-60 USA-rest of the world, on the visitors here, but i might be wrong... but the 60-40 that the demographics say are wrong.
 
Go to the front-page and next to the visitor count theres a link "statistics"

The stats say

Region % Visitor sessions
United States 60.9 %
Canada 6.7 %
United Kingdom 5.6 %
Germany 3.3 %
Japan 2.7 %
Netherlands 2.7 %
Rest 15.9 %

BUT below is my critique-post to these numbers...

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=7066973

I for instance have a webpage that is 100% in finish, and still i get allmost 10% of the visitors labeled as being form the USA (crawlers subtracted).
 
johngeek said:
"Decimals are easier" isn't a good enough reason for me to replace
everything I own that's calibrated in inches, pounds, or whatever
with something that calibrated in metric. It's not a good enough
reason to ask manufacturers to do it, or to ask everyone to get
used to "Km/hr" vice "mph" (even though running 100 Km/h sounds
like more fun than 60 mph. :) )
Click to expand...
Yeah i doubt it ever will be changed... think about the problems with a change "woohooo i can go 120 here!"

But then again changing to a standardixed system would be very good in many places, i don't remember the exact figures but if i remember correctly the major part of the "close to crash" situations at my local airport here in finland were due to differing measurment systems...

But if something would to be changed i surely would go for a metric system, it's SI, it has a counting base of 10, what more could you ask?
 
Think about it, allready the differing time-zones will mean hte people awake will anser it... i could invent about 10 other reasons why that would be biased in some way... the best way would probably be having to specify your country hen registering and then havign phil parse that information.
 
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