Metric system VS .......

[MOTOMYSZOR]

 

[balky1]

Awesome. And you don't need to buy special metric wrenches to fix your Yamaha. 

[Charlie-brm]

Succinct and to the point. I'm going to steal that.

The beautiful thing about Standards is that there are so many of them.

[JPaganel]

Where is this from?

[fj1289]

I think there is way too much being made of this....

"How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?" 







Just enough to turn on the stove!

[FJmonkey]

I think there is way too much being made of this....

"How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?" 
Just enough to turn on the stove!

At what altitude???   

[JPaganel]

The thing that pisses me off the most about Imperial is the fractional fastener and wrench sizes.

Seriously, WTF do I need to do math to figure out which wrench is the next biggest?


Also, I am finding that even Americans increasingly don't know how many feet are in a mile, because it's some stupid counterintuitive number.

[racerrad8]

Also, I am finding that even Americans increasingly don't know how many feet are in a mile, because it's some stupid counterintuitive number.

A mile never mattered to me; it was all about 1320'

Randy - RPM

[TexasDave]

Also, I am finding that even Americans increasingly don't know how many feet are in a mile, because it's some stupid counterintuitive number.

A mile never mattered to me; it was all about 1320'

Randy - RPM

A mile never mattered to me either until the Marines made me run 14 of them non stop!  Dave

[racerrad8]

A mile never mattered to me; it was all about 1320'

Randy - RPM

A mile never mattered to me either until the Marines made me run 14 of them non stop!  Dave

Now, I can relate to that too now that you mention it.

Randy - RPM

[Alte Fahrt]

1320' 1/4 of a mile point a to point b from a dead stop. Been there and done that back when gas was about 32 cents a gallon.

5280' a mile. After 20 years in the Army, I've run my fair share of them. Could be why my knees don't work right anymore and hurt when it is cold and wet.

Tools. I have a box full of both types, just have to remember to keep them separated.

I live with the metric system every day and believe it is a good system. I had to really learn it to help my kids with it in school. Did you know that 1 cubic meter is 1000 liters?

[balky1]

1320' 1/4 of a mile point a to point b from a dead stop. Been there and done that back when gas was about 32 cents a gallon.

5280' a mile. After 20 years in the Army, I've run my fair share of them. Could be why my knees don't work right anymore and hurt when it is cold and wet.

Tools. I have a box full of both types, just have to remember to keep them separated.

I live with the metric system every day and believe it is a good system. I had to really learn it to help my kids with it in school. Did you know that 1 cubic meter is 1000 liters?

That's simple math. 

[Bones]

We got metric here in the 70's, I remember my mother sending me to the shop once to get a pound of tomatoes but when I got there the scales were in kg's.  I stood there like an idiot for a couple of minutes just staring at it before the shop assistant who was still learning herself said roughly about half a kilo.

One high speed night run on my 250 Elsinore trail bike beside my brother on his new Gt750 Suzuki water bus resulted in a down hill speed of 145 km/h, at the time none of us knew how fast that was in mph so we  went to a servo where the attendant happened to know the maths and worked it out to be 90mph.

The metric system once accustomed to in my opinion is so much easier than imperial, especially in measurements where you don't have to count 16th's, 1/8's or 1/4's of an inch, just look at the tape and straight away know what it is.

[Charlie-brm]

Where is this from?

Google Wild Thing by Josh Bazell
or just click in to http://www.adamriff.com/2012/05/24/that-beautiful-border-between-nightmare-and-morning-when-you-realize-that-all-of-the-monsters-menacing-you-have-evaporated-like-smoke-leaving-behind-only-the-warm-blankets-and-the-pale-sunlight-of-a/
for some other samples of his style.

[Charlie-brm]

In Canada we're pretty much bilingual on metric and imperial or standard, whatever you want to call it. In one conversation we can be mixing sizes of metric bolts and guessing their weight in pounds. eg. I inspect camshafts and it's totally a metric business which I am comfortable with, but if I was to tell you what they weigh, I looked at the scale, it said 1.5 Kg, but the next day I'll be telling someone I lift over 2,500 lb. of camshafts at least 3 times a shift, or it's almost a hundred yards to Plant 1. It still feels dorky to use metric for stuff like that.

Temperatures we're almost exclusively conversing in Celcius now. Fuel economy is officially liters per 100 km and fuel is sold in liters which is a great system to estimate costs planning a long trip, but guys will still chat about miles per gallon. You can't even buy a "gallon" anywhere. You'd have to convert Canadian distances on maps and signs from km to miles and then convert your liters purchased to gallons. Then convert the whole mess back to liters per 100 km to see if you're getting close to the rating on the dealer spec sheet.

Funny story - many years ago I went to a hardware store to order enough rope for a small boat anchor. I asked the young guy at the counter for 50 feet.
He asked me if that was close to 15 meters because it's sold in meters and I nodded, thinking 'cool, kids are finally learning metric in school. This is the future.'

Next thing I know, the kid is kneeling on the floor and reeling out rope, holding it against the length of three floor tiles and counting it out in his head. When he was done, he stood up and pulled out another length as far as he could stretch his arms, which for an adult is about 6 feet. I guess his manager told him that would allow for any error short changing the customer.
The kid was pleased, I was pleased, but I wonder if anyone told this kid that he was counting meters on floor tiles that are 3 to the yard, or if he even knew what a yard was. LOL.