Re: Fahrenheit BS

In article <e3unnp$qfh$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Brian Tung <brian@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Paul Schlyter wrote:
Btw, the reason I mentioned Burma and Liberia along with the US as the
three countries of the world who have not gone metric was not to associate
Burma and Liberia with "evil", but to associate them with "inefficient"
or "backwards".

My objection stands, whether they are "evil" or "inefficient." It's
far from clear that they are inefficient primarily because of their
measurement system, and even if they were, they are also sufficiently
different from the U.S. that what's good for the goose may not be good
for the gander.

Of course they're not inefficient because of their measurement system.
It's the other way around: they haven't gone metric because they are
inefficient.

No--if the U.S. is better off with the metric system, it is because
the metric system is intrinsically better, not because the only other
countries that use it are backward. There might be a correlation, but
it's always better to use the actual reasons the system is better.
There are simply too many reasons why a country might be backward.
It's not as though we're lacking for reasons why SI is better!

There's another reason too: because virtually all of the rest of the
world uses the metric system.

You lost the Mars Observer becasue some engineer failed to do the
proper unit conversion between English and metric units, didn't you?
Of course that wasn't just a US loss, it was a loss of all of the
astronomical community. So the question of whether the US goes
metric or not isn't just a US issue, it also affects all those who
deal with the US in one way or another -- and many many many do that.

Finally: using powers of 10 as the factor between different sized
units is not quite optimal, since 10 is evenly divisible by 2 and 5.
Using 12 would have been better, since it's evenly divisible with 2,
3, 4 and 6.

In case you're serious <g>:

We don't use a duodecimal system when calculating; we use a decimal
system. If we were to use a metric system based on powers of 12, it
would gain a moderate benefit of having a few more even divisors at the
substantial cost of having to deal with powers of 12. Do you really
want to remember that a kilometer is 1,728 meters? I doubt it.

Of course 1728 becomes 1000 in base 12, so that's no big deal. It's
awkward only for us who think in base 10. If evolution had given
us 6 fingers on each hand, things would have been different.






--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://stjarnhimlen.se/
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ridiculous candidate
    ... took a beating there from weapons the US supplied to the Mujahadeen, ... I don't know if it's a great strategy however, it makes sense that the bad guys would find countries like Spain or England less risky a target to attack. ... Americans will be puzzled over the reasons why we invaded Iraq for 25 or so years. ...
    (rec.music.classical.guitar)
  • Re: Diseases have become the latest "import" to America
    ... > airlines from foreign countries, ... > REAL health reasons! ... immigrants or refugees would ever be able to go to the United States. ...
    (sci.anthropology)
  • Re: England has cheated.
    ... all-conquoring WI ahead of Walsh, Ambose, Bishop, Patterson and the ... A player might want to do this for many reasons; ... countries play under. ...
    (rec.sport.cricket)
  • Re: Stoning to death - Barbaric
    ... >>> with me to go through a few of fatwas issued by these two countries ... >> Firouz, can you articulate for me what are your intentions in this ... Or when you don't seem to want to listen to the reasons I give. ... I'm not *blaming* your motives. ...
    (soc.religion.bahai)
  • Re: Cover up in Iraq
    ... I wouldn't use Zyclon-B although it can kill people it's grossly ... inefficient for a whole host of reasons ... ...
    (uk.legal)