measurement unit consensus.
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Ozark Tinkering
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My first Journeyman couldn't read a tape measure any closer than a 1/4". Anything in between the quarter marks he'd count as itty bitty marks. Like... 3 itty bitty marks past 1/2". That was a real pain in the butt. He had just recently learned that he could see the back of his head with 2 mirrors once he began to let that 70s barber style his hair instead of keeping it in a forever summer cut.
They are doing percentage angle instead of percentage grade?! Wow, that is silly. Not many roads go due vertical...Back when I was young and lived in the UK the road signs to denote a hill were expressed as a ratio i.e. 1:5 and we all understood what they meant. Now the trend is to nominate the steepness as a percentage of the angle from horizontal to vertical i.e. 15%. Why anyone would want to make it more complex for those that have enough issues grasping the steepness of an incline I have no idea. I can‘t imagine many drivers relating to a sign that indicates a hill as a percentage of 90 degrees.
Ozark Tinkering
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3 would be close enough for my first journeyman.
He must have had very big hands. I'm about 5 shakas to a meter.
Ozark Tinkering
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U.S. Interstate System has used % of grade since Eisenhower and he did pretty much win the war.
Chains are a surveying measurement. 80 chain to a statute mile. 4 Rods to a chain, and 100 links to a chain (about 8 inches each link).
So 5280 feet per mile / 80 chain = 66 feet per chain.
66 feet per chain / 4 rods = 16.5 feet per rod.
What has always bugged me is that a square mile is 6,400 square chain, yet a square mile has 640 acres. They missed an opportunity to make acres easy to count. I guess you could always use square chain divided by ten to get acres.
By the way, even our great metric neighbor to the north (Canada) uses rods as a measure on their canoe trail portages, since one rod is very close to a common canoe length (you know, ~5.03 meters).
Horsefly
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I just go through driving around Ireland and Northern Ireland (U.K.) for almost two weeks. This discussion touches on something that was really notable in our experience.
We spent most of our time driving in Ireland. The distances were in km, the speeds were in km/hr, and the speedometer of our car (rented in Dublin) was in km/hr. Most importantly, the speed limit signs were a black number inside a red circle on a white background. The speed limits in Ireland had nothing to do with the safe speed for the rode you were on (a subject for a different discussion), but I could get my head around it.
About 9 days into our drive we crossed the border from Ireland into Northern Ireland. There was no marked border (that we noticed), and virtually nothing changed. Of note, the speed limit signs were black numbers inside a red circle on a white background. Just like in Ireland. So we just kept going for several hours, but noticed that everyone - and I mean everyone - was flying past us. Some even gave us dirty looks like we were driving way too slow, even though I knew we were just a bit over what was marked as the speed limit.
Then we took a break for fuel and I decided I should look something up. The signs may be exactly the same in Ireland and Northern Ireland, but in Ireland they are km/hr and in Northern Ireland they are in Miles/hr. WHAT?! So it seems that the U.K. went most of the way towards metric and then sometime in the 70's just gave up. So the miles as a distance and miles per hour as a speed stuck. The fact that neither Ireland nor the U.K. put any units on their signs is completely stupid, but so be it.
We spent most of our time driving in Ireland. The distances were in km, the speeds were in km/hr, and the speedometer of our car (rented in Dublin) was in km/hr. Most importantly, the speed limit signs were a black number inside a red circle on a white background. The speed limits in Ireland had nothing to do with the safe speed for the rode you were on (a subject for a different discussion), but I could get my head around it.
About 9 days into our drive we crossed the border from Ireland into Northern Ireland. There was no marked border (that we noticed), and virtually nothing changed. Of note, the speed limit signs were black numbers inside a red circle on a white background. Just like in Ireland. So we just kept going for several hours, but noticed that everyone - and I mean everyone - was flying past us. Some even gave us dirty looks like we were driving way too slow, even though I knew we were just a bit over what was marked as the speed limit.
Then we took a break for fuel and I decided I should look something up. The signs may be exactly the same in Ireland and Northern Ireland, but in Ireland they are km/hr and in Northern Ireland they are in Miles/hr. WHAT?! So it seems that the U.K. went most of the way towards metric and then sometime in the 70's just gave up. So the miles as a distance and miles per hour as a speed stuck. The fact that neither Ireland nor the U.K. put any units on their signs is completely stupid, but so be it.
Don B. Cilly
Energetic energy padawan
Yes, they still use miles (for roads) and pints (for drinks) in Britain. But then, they don't really need converting or dividing much.
Anything that needs simple conversions, like litres for big volumes (of, like, water) or square metres and the like, they use metric.
Pints and miles are quaint and harmless enough ;·)
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Anything that needs simple conversions, like litres for big volumes (of, like, water) or square metres and the like, they use metric.
Pints and miles are quaint and harmless enough ;·)
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brandnewb
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YESS, odd indeed. I had the same experience when driving in Ireland. They seem to allow ridiculous fast speeds on roads that could not ever handle those.
Yet, I am not aware of any more statistical fatal incidents than a norm.
StevieRuss
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The British are more middle left wing actually. Not that the choice of government shows this but corruption is everywhere in politics
brandnewb
Going for serious. starting as newb
very true. so once again, I am not dissing things.
Only stating that I find it odd there is this reluctance to adopt something that seems to work, dare I say, better.
I think it starts in preschool. Give it a few generations and we are rid of this debate if one would put their minds to it.
Also, please understand that the people on this forum are the 'smart' ones. I do not expect religious fanatics to attend a meaningful conversation here,. So what if we use our collective might to influence our school boards. 3 maybe 4 generations later and there will be more unity.
eXodus
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can second that. Most of the technical literature, research etc is written in metric.
Most cars - even US Makers have metric fasteners since the early 2000s. Even many bottle sizes are already metric (and just not get filled all the way to do some weird ounce things)
Outside of construction and food stuff - most things of what America uses is already Metric.
lol fraction inch are the most annoying part about the imperial system. Millimeter and Micrometer are just so easy.
Couldn't have someone come up with a unit smaller then inch? like Thumbnailthick and some random number one inch = 35 thumbnailthick fractions are just a so error prone.
brandnewb
Going for serious. starting as newb
I think no one ever came up with anything smaller because nobody at the time of settling on those units possessed the body part or tools to identify anything smaller.
I can't be entirely sure but I think I have learned it were mostly the royals and their body parts that were the root cause.
Now we live in a different era.
brandnewb
Going for serious. starting as newb
are you sure? construction yes. All inches and super complex fractions. But take a look at your food nutria label. It should be metric yes?
Or were you refering to cups, spoons and what have we? Yes I keep struggeling with those units as I try to learn how to bake good cuisine by America's best online chefs.
littleharbor2
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I like the way a thousand liters is based on the volume of a cubic Meter. Those liquid tanks with the cages around known as "Totes" come in a few sizes but the 280 gallon size is also a thousand liters and based on a cubic meter
brandnewb
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eXodus
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like I said, Metric is common exceptions are: construction and anything centered around food. I would consider baking related to food
A inch is the width of a average thumb, that is true. Yet, even in the antique (3000 years ago) - Clock Maker and Locksmith used smaller instruments and somehow got that working. The romans had their aqueduct on inclines as little as 1mm per 15m and to keep that accurate over hundreds of miles - you instruments must be more precise then a finger width.
- Just read up on roman fractions - actually pretty simple and genius . They had prefix - "unica" which means " one-twelfth of anything"
Just a quick reminder - 10 11 and 12 in old roman had their own symbols, like we still have in the language "ten" "eleven" "twelve". Those are irregular numbers since our language is still on a base 12 system.
1 "Unica-Inch" = 1/12 inch
2 "Unica-Inch" = 2/12 inch
....
12 "Unica-Inch" = 1 inch
Saves the fractions wuhu
Rednecktek
Solar Wizard
And on ships a Shot of Chain is 40ft, even on metric ships.
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