Imperial units are superior, period.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17350-nasa-criticised-for-sticking-to-imperial-units/ wrote:

Indeed, NASA lost an unmanned mission owing to a mix-up between metric and imperial units. In September 1999, its $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter probe was destroyed because its attitude-control system used imperial units but its navigation software used metric units. As a result, it was 100 kilometres too close to Mars when it tried to enter orbit around the planet.

Units have also played a role in other spacecraft problems. In 2006, the guidance system on NASA’s DART spacecraft went awry and caused it to ram into a military satellite it was merely meant to dock with.

Before DART’s launch, NASA found that GPS data on its position was mistakenly being read by its computer in feet. Ironically, correcting this to metres in a simulator resulted in an incorrect change to another parameter that was programmed into the spacecraft – a problem that led to the collision.

How else NASA is going to destroy precious space crafts worth millions of dollars ? Using C4 ? Pah !

no it's not : one meter = 3 feets

- broforce !

ElBrunzy wrote on 2020-11-29, 09:46:

no it's not : one meter = 3 feets

- broforce !

https://www.sonicmayhem.com/new-page

ElBrunzy wrote on 2020-11-29, 09:46:

no it's not : one meter = 3 feets

- broforce !

Pi equals 3.2 exactly!

But what kind of feet? Small ones, large ones, broad ones, narrow ones?

yawetaG wrote on 2020-11-30, 16:46:

But what kind of feet? Small ones, large ones, broad ones, narrow ones?

Explicitly the size of some schmuck's feet.

yawetaG wrote on 2020-11-30, 16:46:

But what kind of feet? Small ones, large ones, broad ones, narrow ones?

A light-nanosecond (the distance that light travels in a vacuum in a nanosecond) is actually surprisingly close to what Americans (and nostalgic Brits) call a "foot". Such a redefinition of the foot would make it even less arbitrarily defined than the Meter/Metre, which was derived from the size of the Earth, which is ultimately but one of the many many many planets in the universe.

I wouldn't mind standardizing on a unit of measurement that is based (at least in part) on an absolute constant from the laws of physics. Quite on the contrary. 🙂

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-11-29, 06:34:

Imperial units are superior, period.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17350-nasa-criticised-for-sticking-to-imperial-units/ wrote:

Indeed, NASA lost an unmanned mission owing to a mix-up between metric and imperial units. In September 1999, its $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter probe was destroyed because its attitude-control system used imperial units but its navigation software used metric units. As a result, it was 100 kilometres too close to Mars when it tried to enter orbit around the planet.

Units have also played a role in other spacecraft problems. In 2006, the guidance system on NASA’s DART spacecraft went awry and caused it to ram into a military satellite it was merely meant to dock with.

Before DART’s launch, NASA found that GPS data on its position was mistakenly being read by its computer in feet. Ironically, correcting this to metres in a simulator resulted in an incorrect change to another parameter that was programmed into the spacecraft – a problem that led to the collision.

How else NASA is going to destroy precious space crafts worth millions of dollars ? Using C4 ? Pah !

I only knew about the Beagle 🤣

In some way, these relatively archaic measurement units are somewhat fascinating to me. In The Netherlands I've seen the use of the "pond" (== pound) mostly on markets selling stuff like vegetables, fruit, nuts and cheese.
There even used to be a Dutch pound apparently (around 480 grams). Same thing with there being multiple versions of the miles. Same with tons for ships.

There's also the stone. Anyone here ever heard of the Roman Pound? I didn't either but apparently it was a real thing 😜

For me it is clear that the best way forward is for all of these measurements to become standardized. The metric system is the best standardized measurement system we have right now.

Concerning languages, the good thing is that it is easier (and perhaps in many cases even preferred) to not have to standardize languages in the same manner, if only because a language is something which has less to do with scientifically founded international standard units and is more a thing of habit 😜

if only because a language is something which has less to do with scientifically founded international standard

Ahem, Latin.

brostenen wrote on 2020-11-28, 23:34:

I did a quick lookup on wikipedia..... Holy f*** it is complicated. Just looking at yard and foot in inches requires you to calc […]
Show full quote

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-11-28, 21:37:

In USA pizza and apple pies are sold in inches. ( 8,10,12, 16,18, 21 )

I did a quick lookup on wikipedia..... Holy f*** it is complicated. Just looking at yard and foot in inches requires you to calculate when converting between units.

Inch, feet, yard, mile need calculation when converting between each type of units.
Centimeter, meter and kilometer only recuire you to move the comma/dott.

An example can be: 1 centimeter is equal to 0.01 meter.
Or: 1654 meter is 1.654 kilometer.
Or: 1 cubic meter of water is 1000 litre and one cubic meter of water is 1 ton of water.

The words of the units are self explanatory in the metric system
And in a way you are already using the prefix. You say kilobyte, and not poundbyte.

Metric prefix

EDIT:
Let me give you a quick one. Following the explanation and guide given on top. Then how many meters are 3473 kilometers?
It is quick to calculate my friend. 😉

Finally, try if you can figure out, how many feet 3473 miles are? Can you give the answer just as fast as with metric?

Part of the reason is these measurements were much more relatable in day-to-day life of long ago times, for example the acre was defined as how much land a yoke of oxen could plow in a day. There was also no practical way to 'standardize' these units across countries and continents up until the past few centuries, people and information could only travel so fast, countries were constantly warring, the scientific method is relatively new, etc.

Other common things just make a lot more sense to be done outside of metric system (e.g. time). No one says 'ill be there in a kilsecond' - no, it's 'ill be there in 15 min'

The USA had a few efforts to try and make everthing metrics' but ultimately no one cared enough to put the effort into trying to convert everything over to metric. Think about the massive change this would entail. It's easier to just teach how to use metric in addition to inches/feet/yards, pounds, and cups/ounces/quarters/gallons. Which is all that most Americans use anyway. And lets be fair, if you're at the point in your education or life where knowing metric is critical - you are probably smart enough to learn it (e.g. university).

talking about metric system, what's the current cpu die carving precision now ?

bump

Americans will not have noticed that in most of the world, yesterday was 12022021

In America houses are measured in Sq. Ft.
They are built by feet and inches.
And their weight in calculated in pounds.

Sports fields are measured in feet and inches.

Socks and Shoes are measured in Inches.

Clothes is measured in inches.

And your car gets 40 rods to the hogshead.

Cocaine is weighed there in kilos, though. 🤔

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2021-02-13, 19:36:

Sports fields are measured in feet and inches.

Oh. What happened to acre?

When I recently discovered that there was a google translation cell phone app that can put the translation right up on the screen in real time, I got excited.
I thought it might finally be possible to play Japanese console games.

Instead I discovered why "Let's Play Super Mario RPG with Google Translator" is a popular form of entertainment on youtube.

Hi everyone, I've just come across a funny news that I would like to share.
However, creating a whole new topic for this would be overkill, perhaps.
So I thought it may fit into this existing one.

Apparently, in the US, during lock-down the children watched a British cartoon show much more often than it is good for them. 😉

https://abc7news.com/peppa-pig-accent-british … eries/10898049/

Anyway, it's no big deal in practice - kids can/will unlearn that eventually.
But it's very amusing, at the same time.
Let's imagine the poor parents.

Or for the British people, let's imagine your kids speaking with one of the US accents. 😁

shamino wrote on 2021-02-14, 23:47:

When I recently discovered that there was a google translation cell phone app that can put the translation right up on the screen in real time, I got excited.
I thought it might finally be possible to play Japanese console games.

Instead I discovered why "Let's Play Super Mario RPG with Google Translator" is a popular form of entertainment on youtube.

I recently wanted to watch a Japanese video on Youtube which only had hard-coded Japanese subs. I did it by pasting screenshots into this website: https://translate.yandex.com/ocr

The translation was mostly OK, but there was still some translations that made no sense, at least to me.

Jo22 wrote on 2021-08-19, 08:51:

Apparently, in the US, during lock-down the children watched a British cartoon show much more often than it is good for them. 😉

https://abc7news.com/peppa-pig-accent-british … eries/10898049/

I think there are similar issues between north/east Germans and south/west Germans? I seem to remember my school German teacher (who was from southern Germany) saying that Berliners talked funny, but I no longer remember the details.