Random Babbling Thread CXVIII

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Logical smooth sailing, you say?

I wish I had some acid. I could use a good trip.

 

Are you honestly telling me the metric system isn't easier to learn ? It's a decimal system, much easier to figure out ! Nevermind the fact the entire world uses it. Seriously America, get metric already.

 

Both are easy to learn. It's conversions that suck because imperial system doesn't make much bloody sense.

Also, the US bureau of standards has been trying to get Americans to move on to the metric system for over 50 years now. Sadly, the consumers are too set in their ways, and neither the education system nor the state as a whole are prepared to push for it, being satisfied with saying it's everyone's own choice. Ultimately, that's true, and trying to force the issue would have a large impact on the economy. At this point, I think Hawaii is the only state that's really going for it, and should be switching to metric in a few years. Who knows, maybe others will follow suit.

 

Wait, are you saying the US isn't using the imperial system of measurements ???? But, what ? Since when ?

I will say though that my country successfully did a "forced" conversion back in the 70s and though some older folks still cling to the old system the universe didn't explode. Just sayin', it happened, and it ultimately worked.

Still though, f*&k the old system.... Water freezes at 32 ? Feet are dividable by twelve ? Yards are dividable by 3 ? The hell....

 

That's a common argument, but in truth, divisors don't really help me one bit. I prefer the decimal system in almost all cases. I even use decimal time.

 

The people's poet has died. Even the young ones perish in the end.

 

In other news, I made pizza tonight. It was awesome.

 

Yes because of course the distance measurements in the imperial system are all based on 12 base. 12 inch in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yard in a mile. Unless you mean the nautical mile, in which case it is 1852 m instead. And how would you define the wavelength of blue light in imperial units?

And of course pounds are much better than grams (or kilograms). Just as long as you figure out if it's a pound mass or a pound force.

And that's the easy stuff. Thermodynamics becomes nearly incomprehensible when you start with the imperial units.

 

Speaking of measurements, what the hell is up with cooking recipes in the States? A cup? A teaspoon? Huh? Oh, it's a measuring cup. Wait, what?

Although, to be fair, countries in the Commonwealth sometimes use those measurements for volume too. Except they're not the same. Bah!

I'm surprised the temperature isn't measured on a pain scale.

Liters and grams, ffs. It's 2014.

 

Really ? Most of the cooking recipes I use has both systems. I mean you can't get more commonwealthy than Canada, can you ?

FUN TRIVIA:

Did you know that "A mari usque ad mare" comes from the Bible ? It's Psalm 72 to be exact.

Et dominabitur a mari usque ad mare et a flumine usque ad terminos orbis terrarum. -- He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. --

We kinda skip the "unto the ends of the earth" part didn't we.

 

All those complaints about not being random any more.

Got a DSLR a year ago, and a nice bag to put it in with room for a second objective. An expensive bag. Of course the new lens does not fit.

 

I figured it might be that

But I have some bad experience with the mess that they call the imperial system, so I feel the need to vent frustration on occasion.

Like when I was designing a compressor stage and a lot of the books I read were referring to some paper from the 60s. Apparently something to help determine how well your design is holding up. So I try to use the formula, but the quantities used in the formula are all in imperial units. And all I have is in SI units, naturally. Of course I can convert the values, but when I see something that has units ft.lb/lb.R, I get kind of lost. because apparently one of the lb refers to pounds mass and the other refers to pound force. Good luck trying to figure out which is which and why.

The lack of distinction is rather confusing in the imperial system. Did you know there are 10 different definitions of the unit ounce? And that's only considering the ounce mass. Not to be confused with the ounce force nor to be confused by the fluid ounce.

No wonder they keep crashing mars landers into mars if they keep calculating in vague units like that.

And then there's the insidious stuff like calculating horse power differently in continental europe than in the UK and US. The difference is slight, but makes comparing data confusing, especially if you're not sure if a source is referring to brake horsepower (UK/US style), or PS (pferde starke - german for horse power and prefered in continental Europe). I'm still not sure what they use in Asia when they refer to 'horse power'. At least kilo Watts only has a single definition.

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And that's why even men end up with huge collections of (photo) bags. Or you get one huge bag so that everything you might ever buy would fit in. And then never use it because it is too big.

 

It doesn't help that the US ounce is ~4% larger than the Imperial ounce, but the Imperial pint/quart/gallon is ~20% large than the US pint/quart/gallon because there are more (but smaller) ounces in the Imperial measure vs. the US measure.

Yeah, kW would make it so much easier. Ironically, the guy that came up with the unit for horsepower (James Watt) is the same guy the watt is named after. You'd think there would at least be some consistency there.

 

lol, I studied science 5 years and played car card games for 10+ years as kid, and I never knew that Splunge. Gotta love "important irrelevant" facts

*damn you James Watt*!

 

I suppose it makes sense in that he set up a measure for power so when they standardised it, they named it after him. Though he was probably not the first to come up with such a measure, just the most famous.

Was just looking up the history of the horse power and I see that the imperial horse power is defined as 550 ft.lb. I can deduce that the lb should be pound force because I know that Watts can also be written as N.m. But if you just look at it, it might as well be pound mass.

Also, I never got the imperial units for volume. That was just way too confusing.

 

It's all binary to me.