#JAILTOTHECHIEF- Shit Just Got Real

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Kara Spengler

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-Metric. I've been using this as a bellwether when dealing with new people. If they can't get over themselves when handed a number in Metric, despite having a planet sized calculator at their fingertips, I take that as sign I might be speaking with an Imperialist Asshole. Three whole countries still use old system, one is/was a military dictatorship, and another elected Trump. The key here is, "able to get over oneself".
Rant mode on!

In addition to not seeing why anyone would think imperial units were easier (obviously not, sure I could look up the conversions but I can hop between units in a flash with metric, not so with imperial) even CONSTANTS are easier. In physics we always used metric because it was a no duh, just add or subtract 0s but want to take one guess what is the most used constant in your first couple of years of physics? Give you a hint, mechanics feature a LOT in that time. Yes, the force of gravity on earth, which is 9.78something meters/second squared. Or as my prof back then used it without an explanation: 10.

He was right too, for basic classes like that where the key thing is the concept 10 is good enough. Problems we were learning then became a string of adding and subtracting zeros so people could concentrate on things like the mass of the object. Sure, you could not round off like that in industry or at nasa, but that is what calculators are for. In imperial it is 32 feet per second squared. I guess you could add two zeros then divide by 3 to get a rough answer?
 
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Kara Spengler

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I know of one imperial measurement standardized worldwide despite metrication. Can you guess it?

And no I don't mean surf wave height. That's not standardized.
Probably the light year (or really any time-based unit). Next guess would be an AU.
 

Casey Pelous

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I know of one imperial measurement standardized worldwide despite metrication. Can you guess it?

And no I don't mean surf wave height. That's not standardized.
Gun caliber?
 

Tirellia

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I know of one imperial measurement standardized worldwide despite metrication. Can you guess it?

And no I don't mean surf wave height. That's not standardized.
The foot. Aircraft altitude is still measured in feet for some reason.
 

Innula Zenovka

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One month later!


To be fair, if you read the full news story, it's not as alarming as the headline makes it sound.

The story is about the US government's practice, when it's about to release important market-sensitive statistical reports, to allow specialist journalists access to the reports an hour or so before they're released, so the journalists have time to prepare their stories and analyses in time to have them on people's computers and being printed in the next edition of physical newspapers only minutes after the data is officially released.

The journalists' access has to be arranged so as to remove, as far as is possible, the danger of someone releasing -- whether intentionally, perhaps to make a killing on the market, or simply by accident -- any sensitive information ahead of the official release time.

This is obviously a security nightmare and an accident waiting to happen, and it seems the US government is curtailing some aspects of this advance access to the information. Since I struggle to see the public interest in the journalists' reports being available immediately the data is available rather than an hour or so later, as anyone, including a private individual, who is at all concerned about short-term market movements (which is all that these figures usually affect) will already have prepared positions to take and only be waiting for confirmation of very specific figures from the report before deciding how to react.

Since the main beneficiaries of the practice seem to be the journalists, since it's obviously very convenient for them to be able to start writing their stories a couple of hours early, and the dangers of the practice so huge, I can't say I blame the US government for opting for the more secure route, no matter how much it inconveniences the journalists to have to begin writing their reports an hour or so later than usual.

However, there may well be some important aspect of the government's decision that I've overlooked.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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I know of one imperial measurement standardized worldwide despite metrication. Can you guess it?

And no I don't mean surf wave height. That's not standardized.
My guess is the nautical mile, for oceanography purposes. Mostly because the whole world uses degrees latitude and longitude as a global coordinate system, and the nautical mile was invented to be the length of an averaged 1/60th of a degree of latitude, aka 1 minute of latitude. Trying to divide degrees into metric units gives you the kinds of weird scaling problems you USUALLY have with imperial measurements when it comes to most things.
 

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My guess is the nautical mile, for oceanography purposes. Mostly because the whole world uses degrees latitude and longitude as a global coordinate system, and the nautical mile was invented to be the length of an averaged 1/60th of a degree of latitude, aka 1 minute of latitude. Trying to divide degrees into metric units gives you the kinds of weird scaling problems you USUALLY have with imperial measurements when it comes to most things.
Add the knot for nautical and aviation purposes, and unless there's been a major change I've missed, feet for altitude in aviation
 

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Add the knot for nautical and aviation purposes, and unless there's been a major change I've missed, feet for altitude in aviation
I think there's a difference in aviation insofar as the ICAO has said those units are allowed but it has strongly recommended kph and meters to be used instead, and there's a few countries that use those.

But I'm not aware of any group anywhere suggesting anything besides knots for watercraft speed. It is definitely the worldwide standard.
 

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Look, if a clown is taking a sledgehammer to your living room it doesn't do much to laugh at the absurdity of it, they're still doing damage and you're still not solving the problem.
And enough Trump supporters and even on the fence types are still waiting on a hope chest that Trump will suddenly turn "Presidential" or that he'll get bit by a radioactive George Washington and suddenly have dignity for the office that letting them know that that crazy clown is only there to destroy things nets you a very quizzical look. It's been about three years of this bs and just now folks are realizing "Oh yeah, maybe we should actually stop the destructive clown instead of just mocking them".
I'm not saying that exposing Trump's bullshit doesn't do the job sometimes, but it was time for action like two years ago. He never really hid his evil, but it was obfuscated by his enablers to the point folks were just too tired.
 

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Gun caliber?
That's a mixed bag, it stays imperial or metric depending on the round, examples: 0.50 (caliber), 12G (imperial gauge), 7.62x39.(metric), 7.62x54R(metric). And while 0.223 is technically 5.56, it's important to keep them labeled differently because of differences in chamber/throat size. "It is safe to fire .223 through a 5.56 chamber, but not recommended to fire 5.56 through a .223 chamber. "
 

Clara D.

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My guess is the nautical mile, for oceanography purposes. Mostly because the whole world uses degrees latitude and longitude as a global coordinate system, and the nautical mile was invented to be the length of an averaged 1/60th of a degree of latitude, aka 1 minute of latitude. Trying to divide degrees into metric units gives you the kinds of weird scaling problems you USUALLY have with imperial measurements when it comes to most things.
And knots.
 
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Kara Spengler

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My guess is the nautical mile, for oceanography purposes. Mostly because the whole world uses degrees latitude and longitude as a global coordinate system, and the nautical mile was invented to be the length of an averaged 1/60th of a degree of latitude, aka 1 minute of latitude. Trying to divide degrees into metric units gives you the kinds of weird scaling problems you USUALLY have with imperial measurements when it comes to most things.
Of course if we pull in degrees we pull in parsecs too.
 

Kara Spengler

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Look, if a clown is taking a sledgehammer to your living room it doesn't do much to laugh at the absurdity of it, they're still doing damage and you're still not solving the problem.
And enough Trump supporters and even on the fence types are still waiting on a hope chest that Trump will suddenly turn "Presidential" or that he'll get bit by a radioactive George Washington and suddenly have dignity for the office that letting them know that that crazy clown is only there to destroy things nets you a very quizzical look. It's been about three years of this bs and just now folks are realizing "Oh yeah, maybe we should actually stop the destructive clown instead of just mocking them".
I'm not saying that exposing Trump's bullshit doesn't do the job sometimes, but it was time for action like two years ago. He never really hid his evil, but it was obfuscated by his enablers to the point folks were just too tired.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the next president requested the oval office, and its contents, was to be burned and rebuilt.

I certainly would not want to spend 8 years in a room he did who knows what to/in. For that matter, the entire east wing should get the same treatment.
 
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The foot. Aircraft altitude is still measured in feet for some reason.
Bingo. 100 feet between flight levels. Because switching to meters would absolutely cause crashes during the transition period, and the transition period would NOT be fast because (a) USA Fuck Yeah, (b) People keep planes running for a LONG time, and (c) everyone would need to replace the ADS-B out devices with ones that broadcast in metric flight levels and people JUST spent too much money complying with the ADS-B requirements for TCAS.
 

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I hate to say this but I guess the club of democratic countries just lost the member USA.
That happened in 2016.
I think I've mentioned it earlier in the thread but in 2016 EIU's democracy index downgraded USA from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" despite the fact that the index is mainly based on data from an oranisation founded by president Roosevelt and fully financed by the US government.
This had nothing to do with Trump btw. USA had been sliding downwards on the index for several years and it's just a coincidence that it crossed that border the same year he was elected.
 
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