"Florida Man" is still at it

[Argent Stonecutter]

Australia managed it.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Australia managed it.

It has taken 50 years and is still not quite complete. From reading Metrication in Australia - Wikipedia, it sounds something like the Canadian system where it is a mix of metric and Imperial.

This leads to things like my vehicle which, it turns out, was made in Canada for the Canadian market and, per my mechanic, mixes metric and Imperial at semi-random!

Still, yes, it is doable. If your country doesn't have the IQ of a goldfish.

 

[danielravennest]

* I have no idea what a cleavis pin is, but I feel like some sort of very knowledgeable mechanical insider when I say it.

Clevis Pin -

Clevis: A connection that allows a degree of motion between two objects. Clevis is related to the word "cleave" as in split in two.

 

[WolfEyes]

Yes, I know - I was in 3rd grade then. First year in a parochial, stateside school, too. But there is a difference between using both and switching to. And while we were -sorta- taught metric, we were mostly just taught imperial.

I was a sophomore in high school. Rather difficult to undo 9 years of being taught imperial and just flip over to metric without a hitch. It wasn't going to happen.

 

[WolfEyes]

It has taken 50 years and is still not quite complete. From reading Metrication in Australia - Wikipedia, it sounds something like the Canadian system where it is a mix of metric and Imperial.

This leads to things like my vehicle which, it turns out, was made in Canada for the Canadian market and, per my mechanic, mixes metric and Imperial at semi-random!

Still, yes, it is doable. If your country doesn't have the IQ of a goldfish.

They do the same in the US. It ain't all metric.

 

[Ashiri]

It has taken 50 years and is still not quite complete. From reading Metrication in Australia - Wikipedia, it sounds something like the Canadian system where it is a mix of metric and Imperial.

This leads to things like my vehicle which, it turns out, was made in Canada for the Canadian market and, per my mechanic, mixes metric and Imperial at semi-random!

Still, yes, it is doable. If your country doesn't have the IQ of a goldfish.

From what I have learned, Canada is far less SI than either Australia or NZ. In NZ Imperial is only used in a handful of situations (wheel size, monitor size and resolution, printing (dpi), aviation, and old farts talking about height (and seriously, anyone talking about pounds or stones gets a strange look)) and even for monitors dimensions are given in SI with the diagonal being legacy.

Perhaps our friends in Continental Europe can let us know if inches or feet appear anywhere apart from aviation.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Flight Levels will last forever.

 

[Sid]

Perhaps our friends in Continental Europe can let us know if inches or feet appear anywhere apart from aviation.

TV's and monitors are often sized in inches. Wheel sizes for cars are in inches as well. They are worldwide industry standards I guess.
And nautical miles are used at sea. Ships speed is measured in knots.

For the rest we use the metric system as far as I know. Also when we cook. We don't measure in cups and teaspoons.
The Euro system doesn't have quarters.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

TV's and monitors are often sized in inches. Wheel sizes for cars are in inches as well. They are worldwide industry standards I guess.
And nautical miles are used at sea. Ships speed is measured in knots.

For the rest we use the metric system as far as I know. Also when we cook. We don't measure in cups and teaspoons.
The Euro system doesn't have quarters.

Do you measure in grams? Even here, serious cooking seems to use that, especially for dry ingredients.

 

[Casey Pelous]

...And nautical miles are used at sea. Ships speed is measured in knots...

Nautical miles are sorta kinda metric, in that they relate to the planet in some useful way -- a nautical mile equals one minute of latitude. It really simplifies a lot of navigation, which is why they'll stick around for a long time. A meter was originally supposed to be a 10,000,000th of the distance from the north pole to the equator. Of course, that got refined to some number of wavelengths of something ....

 

[Essence Lumin]

TV's and monitors are often sized in inches. Wheel sizes for cars are in inches as well. They are worldwide industry standards I guess.
And nautical miles are used at sea. Ships speed is measured in knots.

For the rest we use the metric system as far as I know. Also when we cook. We don't measure in cups and teaspoons.
The Euro system doesn't have quarters.

Of course, there is no metric equivalent for time either.

 

[Ashiri]

Of course, there is no metric equivalent for time either.

We could always refer to ks and Ms as required.

 

[Sid]

Do you measure in grams? Even here, serious cooking seems to use that, especially for dry ingredients.

Yes dry ingredients are normally in grams and fluids in milliliters or centiliters. But of course cooking is no exact science. Normally household seasoning with small amounts of pepper, salt and other common herbs is done with a pinch of .....

 

[Sid]

Nautical miles are sorta kinda metric, in that they relate to the planet in some useful way -- a nautical mile equals one minute of latitude. It really simplifies a lot of navigation, which is why they'll stick around for a long time. A meter was originally supposed to be a 10,000,000th of the distance from the north pole to the equator. Of course, that got refined to some number of wavelengths of something ....

Historically the standard meter is the length of the original silver bar in France that they once made and called a meter, during the reign of Napoleon. Its length was calculated as a fraction of the earth back then. THAT silver meter is the mother of all metric calculation. Napoleon enforced the use of the metric system in all the occupied territories (a huge chunk of Europe).
A lot of countries had an exact copy of that meter in their possession as the official meter for that country.
Nowadays more museum pieces than anything else of course.

1/10 of that meter is a decimiter, 1/100 of it a centimiter. 1000 meters is a kilometer etc.
The content of a cube the size of a square decimeter is a liter.
A liter water weighs a kilo.
These are the standard definitions where the rest is calculated from. For instance a gram is 1/1000 of a kilo.

It is always divide or multiply with 10 to get to the next step.
Kilometer - hectometer - decameter - meter - decimeter - centimeter - millimeter -......
Kiloliter - hectoliter - decaliter - liter - deciliter - centiliter - milliliter ....
Kilogram - hectogram ..... rince and repeat.

Every step is a factor of 10.
So a hectometer is 100 meters.

Sounds a bit complicated with all these different names, but as you all know dividing or multiplying with 10, 100 or 1000 is extremely easy.
Not all these names are in daily use. Most people in the street will not be able to tell you how long a decameter, hectometer or decimeter is.

Of course it is not practical to go to Paris every time to check the exact lenght of the original meter, so later they defined the meter as well as a certain number of specific wavelengths so that extreme accurate measurement is possible in some scientific fields all around the world.

Entertaining question to ask in a classroom: How many people do you need to lift and transport a hectogram of flour in one go?

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Yes dry ingredients are normally in grams and fluids in milliliters or centiliters. But of course cooking is no exact science. Normally household seasoning with small amounts of pepper, salt and other common herbs is done with a pinch of .....

I was more thinking baking, which reminds me, I should get a scale. I learned to cook so long ago, and with a family cooking tradition mostly rooted in Europe [my mom learned to cook from her grandmother, who was from what is now Slovakia, and was Austria-Hungary when she left over 100 years ago. Sadly I didn't pick up as much from my dad - who also cooked, and did both german-american type things from PA, where he grew up, but also proper Mexican he picked up, most likely from his first wife's mom [who apparently still adored him even when her daughter decided she hated his guts!]

 

[WolfEyes]

In cooking, exact measurements are needed for those who have never cooked that specific thing before. That's why recipes exist so people can learn the right way first and then later on they can adjust to taste.

Entertaining question to ask in a classroom: How many people do you need to lift and transport a hectogram of flour in one go?

One since a hectogram is 100 grams, equivalent to 3.527 ounces

 

[Sid]

A lot of kids always chose for half the class or more, because of the hecto in the name. They forget that a gram isn't much weight at all.
And the word hectogram is never used.
Older people will use the older unit of measure ons (Dutch for ounce). This ons is exactly 100 gram. But that is no longer an official unit since somewhere in the seventies.

 

[Essence Lumin]

It is always divide or multiply with 10 to get to the next step.

Sounds a bit complicated with all these different names, but as you all know dividing or multiplying with 10, 100 or 1000 is extremely easy.

I think most of us (in the North American part of VVO anyway) know how it works. What doesn't come as naturally is thinking of a room temperature of 70F as being 21C or a typical human height as being 180 centimeters. Metric is obviously easier to work with but people have all these measurements in their head that are completely intuitive and learned since childhood. They are resistant to change and learning new numbers.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

In cooking, exact measurements are needed for those who have never cooked that specific thing before. That's why recipes exist so people can learn the right way first and then later on they can adjust to taste.



One since a hectogram is 100 grams, equivalent to 3.527 ounces

Eh - you cook long enough, you can eyeball a teaspoon vs a tablespoon, though I do use mine because I have them - but if you know the different flavours, and the flavours you are going for? you do not need precise - besides, if you need procise - you use grams for dry stuff anyways,.

 

[Sid]

I think most of us (in the North American part of VVO anyway) know how it works. What doesn't come as naturally is thinking of a room temperature of 70F as being 21C or a typical human height as being 180 centimeters. Metric is obviously easier to work with but people have all these measurements in their head that are completely intuitive and learned since childhood. They are resistant to change and learning new numbers.

IMHO America should not change to metrics for just that reason.
It is not practical and it would take more than a generation to get used to the new methode of measuring.
The end results are the same on both sides of the pond: some are very accurate when they measure something, others ain't.

The rule "measure twice and cut once" is far more important than if you do that in centimeters or in inches.