Re: Kanji for 'ishi' (stone) can be pronounced 'koku'

On 2006-09-04 11:49:35 -0700, mtfester@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx said:

Sean <sean@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2006-09-04 07:25:42 -0700, mtfester@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx said:

Sean <sean@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2006-09-02 17:08:39 -0700, mtfester@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx said:

Sean <sean@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

As far as I know, "gallon" is only in official use in one backwater country. The rest of world has long since gone metric.

Lemmings, anyone?

It's a bit difficult to see your point.

Terribly, terribly sorry.
How 'bout; just 'cause everyone's doing it doesn't mean it's necessarily
a great idea?

It is equally true that just 'cause everyone's doing it doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad idea.

Right; it simply means it's an idea.

It's interesting that aversion to the metric system is a pretty accurate indicator of an American person's views on other matters.

If by 'aversion' you mean 'used for over 30 years', you are correct. I
caution you that that that is a non-standard usage.

The greater the aversion to the metric system, the greater the likelihood that the person's views coincide with those of Ann Coulter.

I would've said something like "the sillier the specious comparison, the
closer to room temperature IQ (in Celcius) of the person making said
comparison."

It's just an observation. Those who get all hissy about metric seem to be the same people who love guns, hate the UN, and so on.


Using a common, logical, efficient measuring system is akin to rodents throwing themselves from cliffs?

How is this measuring system more "logical, efficient"?

1. Decimal system. Calculations are simple. That's why the American

As it happens, 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6 without remainder.



system of measurement (with 10 inches to the foot and so on). It's why celsius is better than fahrenheit.

Sorry, that does not make it "better". You are confused.

It does to me. I find doing mental calculations in the decimal system easier than doing the same thing with fractions. Perhaps it is because my IQ is around 20. Being so afflicted, it strikes me that zero is a nice number to associate with the freezing temperature of water. If you prefer 32 or whatever it is, fine. Most of the rest of the world won't understand you, but I expect that doesn't matter to you or Ann Coulter.


If you wanted something "better", you'd go with something like the
Kelvin or Rankin scales, which have actual use in various physical
laws.

2. Too bad Jefferson didn't hit on the idea of using a regular system of prefixes; maybe his system would have caught on if he had. Having this regular system of prefixes: milli-, centi-, kilo-, etc. makes the system easier to learn.

SOOOO much easier than "half, a third, quarter".

Actually, Jefferson's system was heavy on the names. A foot was 10 inches, an inch 10 lines, a line 10 points. 10 feet was a decade, 100 feet was a rood, 1000 feet was a furlong. A cubic foot was a bushel. A bushel of water weighed 1000 ounces.
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html
It seems it was the plethora of vocabulary that prevented his system from catching on.
The French came up with the metric system a little while later. It has caught on almost universally.


You get a nice symmetry too, with a gram of water occupying a volume of one cubic centimetre (a millilitre), a kilogram of water is a litre (of course, temperature and air pressure make a difference) and so on.

Um, it's not a "symmetry"; it's a definition.

You don't see the symmetry? How many ounces is a cubic foot of water?


3. International: In a world relying on global trade, having one system just makes sense.

I believe this is the "Ann Coulter" school of international politics.

4. In the USA a foot is legally defined as 0.3048 meter (by which they mean metre), and a pound is legally defined as 453.59237 grams.

Comes the dawn.

So in a way the USA has gone metric anyway. <

So, your complaint is moot.

Is it? What about the lemmings?

5. The Mars lander crash underlines the silliness of not moving to the international system. http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/

This explains the resounding successes of the European, Japanese,
Chinese, Canadian, etc., space programs.

Actually, when it comes to rushing headlong towards disaster, that gallon-using country would seem to take the prize.

Right. I'm certain that if that nation's economy sneezed, no other
nation's would catch pneumonia.

Hmm. Methinks

A first for everything.

that is one of those straw men one I've heard so much about.

I'm not the one who brought up "headlong towards disaster".

I never said the disaster would be a good thing.

--
Always be sincere, but never be serious.
Allan Watts

.

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