This is why I didn't get to meet TJ from Transgeneration...

[tekla]

I think the USA is the only place to use miles/hr and pounds. Why?

Some combination of exceptionalism and habit.  The metric system is taught and used in a lot of stuff, but miles still hold out over klicks, and the temp system has stayed in the English model, which is a bit more refined in a weird way.

[Simone Louise]

I think the USA is the only place to use miles/hr and pounds. Why?

Some combination of exceptionalism and habit.  The metric system is taught and used in a lot of stuff, but miles still hold out over klicks, and the temp system has stayed in the English model, which is a bit more refined in a weird way.

Actually, here in New England, snow and ice are measured in inches and cold in degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature predicted here for tomorrow when I'll be unloading trucks is 4 degrees, cold enough for fingers to turn gray even while wearing gloves.

It is so cold here a squirrel came inside while we were in Florida. She couldn't figure how to get back out, but in trying chewed a hole in the basement door and in the woodwork on every first floor window. She cleared most of the glassware and ceramics off the mantel, cut her left rear paw on the broken glass, and left bloody prints on windows and furniture. My wife declared only a male could cause so much damage, but further inspection showed this squirrel was female-bodied.

Today's paper says we need to prepare for the effects of global warming. By century's end Boston will have flooding such as Venice, Italy, has now.

Beware the attack squirrel,
S

[tekla]

OK, 'distance and temps' then.  But most soda, or pop, or whatever is sold in metric amounts now.  Pounds still are used a lot too, but most mechanical and all scientific stuff is metric.

[Nicky]

Americans don't like it because the french invented it and it is logical.

[tekla]

Well like I said, in almost every technical app its used. 

[Nicky]

Well, now the french don't like it cause the americans have started to use it....

[tekla]

Well there is the DIN stuff, its German, everyone hates the Germans.

[Alyssa M.]

Tekla, are you referring to ski bindings?

I don't get why so many people like the metric system so much. Decimals are nice if you're multiplying by 10 a lot, but, say, for cooking, I like ounces and cups and pints a lot more -- everything is powers of two, much simpler. For temperatures, zero is really cold and 100 is really hot -- what could be simpler? As to distances, well, I have a foot. It's about a foot long. I don't have a meter. It's not often I have to convert between linear and volumetric measurements, but in the westward explansion of the United States the conversion between linear and area measurements was very useful. One square mile is split into an 8x8 grid of 10 acre plots. Or a 4x4 grid of 40 acre plots. 40 acres and a mule makes a nice family plot. Fly over the Midwest on a clear day, and the impact is unmistakable. As for speed -- well, km/h messes it up with the annoying factor of 3.6 compared to m/s anyway. Why not invent a system in which a day is 100,000 ticks or something?

I hate using the metric system. It's so inconventient. The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s. Planck's constant is 6.62606896 x 10^-34 Joule-seconds. How ridiculous. Why not just make them both 1? Then I could say I'm about 6 nanoseconds tall, and the speed limit on the highway is 10^-7.

[Laurry]

As an American, which makes me think I'm important even though we all know I ain't, and as a Texan, which makes me an expert on every damn thing anyone has ever even thought about, let me state, for the record, that the reason America does not convert to the metric system is because "math is hard".  We might have to actually think, and we have been conditioned to let everyone else think for us.  Our heads might explode!  We wouldn't know how to read "that other line" on our speedometers to figure out how fast we were going.  And all the worry that this may impact my phone number and how can my friends text my new metric number?

Yeah, we're idiots

..Laurry

[tekla]

DIN stands for DIN - Deutsches Institut fur Normung a non-governmental organization established to promote the development of standardization and related activities in Germany and related markets.  Skis might use them, but a lot of electronic connections are based on these standards also.

And if math is hard the decimal and metric system is math for dummies, the English system is much harder.

[Alyssa M.]

I think that might be it, Tekla. I never could figure out the right search string to figure it out, but it looks like that's exactly where the binding release standard comes from. It's pretty much the only place DIN comes up in skiing, so DIN just means "ski binding release stiffness rating" to me.

Now that we've gotten off topic, I'd like to say -- 13F in Kentucky is COLD. Out here, it's pretty comfortable -- but the sun is brighter and the air is thinner and, most of all, it's a dry cold. Eastern cold cuts you to the bone. I guess below 0 it stops mattering, since the air stops holding any water anyway.

[Cindy]

Hi
I seemed to open a can of worms here. Not sure if you get ten worms to a can or twelve.
However, I notice that the USA has always had a metric money system, even if you make all the notes identical - never seemed to be a clever idea!
I have given a cab driver a $50 instead of a $20 and no way to get it back! In LA -lose a hand!

Find the same with clothes and shoes sizes!

I know I'm right and everyone else is wrong, that's the problem of being empress of the universe.

LoL
Cindy James

[RebeccaFog]

I've never seen real snow (except on tv) does everything stop (schools, services, governments (not that they do much anyway) )

Next time it snows, I'll put a giant box in my driveway. When it's filled, I'll ship it to you.

around here the schools and everything close only if the stuff is falling or if it finished falling but the roads aren't clean.  Or if electrical outages happen.

Post Merge: February 05, 2009, 09:58:43 AM

Well there is the DIN stuff, its German, everyone hates the Germans.

I don't.

But, the French? Yes.

[Eva Marie]

I think the USA is the only place to use miles/hr and pounds. Why?

Because we can, and to piss off the Europeans 

But seriously, the US IS slowly going toward the metric system. I have a late 70's US car and half of the fasteners are metric, and half are english. My newest US car is all metric. My kids speak of litres and metres and other nonsense. So the change is occurring, albeit slowly.

[Jaimey]

13F in KY is definitely cold!  Thanks, Alyssa!  Where do you live?  I've never experienced anything but eastern cold, so now I'm curious!  And if humidity makes 13F cold, you should be here when it's 85F and 98% humidity.  You'll swear it's 100F.    KY is so humid...

I think the USA is the only place to use miles/hr and pounds. Why?

Because we can, and to piss off the Europeans 

But seriously, the US IS slowly going toward the metric system. I have a late 70's US car and half of the fasteners are metric, and half are english. My newest US car is all metric. My kids speak of litres and metres and other nonsense. So the change is occurring, albeit slowly.

There's one road sign in Louisville that has km on it.  It's a 1 mile/1.6 km sign.  And it's in a strange place, way out in the 'burbs.  Weird.

[Alyssa M.]

Jaimey, I know, I grew up in Massachusetts. Summers, even that far north, when it got into the high 90's in August, were unbearable, along with the sleepless nights when it never got below 75, and the fan was humming away, and you'd just sweat in your sheets. Luckily, the really hot weather would never last as long as it does in the South. (And I like winter, so that was fine.)

Now I live in Colorado, where it's hotter in the summer (it's not unusual for the temperature to break 100) and colder in the winter (sometimes it never breaks zero during the day). But 100 isn't too bad, really; I've played soccer for 90 minutes and was fine. And when it's 13 in the daytime, a decent parka is all you really need. 20F is pretty comfortable. The snow is much less of a hassle too. It melts quickly in the sun. One October about 10 years ago it snowed three feet on Saturday, and it was all gone by the next weekend! It's so much lighter than in the East. Shovelling a foot of snow off the sidewalk is a piece of cake most of the time.

[Jaimey]

That's very interesting.  Makes me want to travel the US more.  I'm mostly interested in the rest of the world more than the US, but now I'm curious.  Hmm...

[tekla]

You almost don't have to go the the rest of the world, the rest of the world came here.  Largest polish speaking population in the world - Warsaw Poland, number two?  Chicago Illinois.

More Jews in the Greater New York area than in Israel, more Purto Ricans in NCY then in Purto Rico.  The two largest Spanish speaking populations?  Neither are in Spain, it's Mexico City, followed by LA.  Biggest Chinese New Year celebration not in China?  It's San Francisco.  There is a Chinatown - not tourist, but a total immersion in traditional Chinese culture in several places.  Several 'little Saigons' in Cali/Texas and Louisiana, huge populations of Indian and Pakistan refugees in Chicago.

There are several unique cultures within the USA, from the various - and extremely different Native Cultures, the Creole outside of New Orleans, and the descendants of slaves on the sea island off of Georgia and Carolina.

Not that I would discourage overseas trips, they will change your life, the world is a huge place to go and all.  But at 1K X3K miles, its not like the US is tiny.

 

[Jaimey]

True.  Not that I ever go anywhere anyway...requires money.  bleah.