How long, do you think...

[Araciel]

yeah -40 is 'damn i'm gonna get frostbite', 0 is where water freezes, and 40 is 'damn i'm gonna get heatstroke'

quelle confusion

[Denmark]

but -40 celsius and -40 fahrenheit are the same thing!

ten degrees difference celsius = eighteen degrees difference fahrenheit. but i suppose that only really helps if you care about thinking in both systems and are good at simple pointless mathematical operations. such as i. i kind of grew up using both systems fairly interchangeably, despite being american.

i measure driving speed in mph, but driving distance is time-based anyway (that place is 20 minutes away, per se). this is more logical than measuring driving distance in miles or kilometers, except on a small scale when, say, you're on a highway and you see a sign saying "Boston 150" meaning Boston is going to be somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2 hours more driving time - IF you were able to go between 60 and 75 miles per hour for the entire remainder of the drive. which is not something you're going to be able to do, because for one your destination is likely not exactly 150 miles away, and for another thing your driving speed will fluctuate once you get closer to the city and have more traffic and have to make numerous turns and stop at traffic lights and other such things. and since the metric and imperial units of time are equal, there should be no argument about how to measure travel distance at all, since as long as you choose one system or the other, the units cancel out leaving you with something everyone is familiar with, namely time. (distance / rate = time)

straight distance, not related to travel, is typically used in a place where a simple conversion is possible. (1 mile = 5280 feet = 1609ish meters. we can all multiply, right? that's all this is!)

weight and mass. nobody uses Newtons because they're impractical in a real-life, non-scientific setting. (how many pounds to a Newton? don't know? exactly.) and when you're talking about weights on this planet, using kilograms as weight is applicable as long as you convert correctly (approximately 2.2 pounds per kilogram).

[Shiny]

Using feet seems more plausible than using centimeters for some reason.

[Meat Puppet]

Obviously too many people are not going to change because of the comfort they have with the system they grew up with. And why shouldn’t they? It’s only natural. I tried to switch to Imperial when I was 12 (school project or something), but I just found it too ridiculous and gave up—I’m sure it wouldn’t be much different for someone on the other side of the fence (with the systems reversed, of course).

[escobert]

A while. America tried to go metric in the 90s, and it was ultimate failure. I'm sure the metric system is easier when you're raised on it, considering it's all based in 10s, but no one is going to switch now. ;o And I'm pretty dandy with the Imperial system.

Pretty much, it's what we've used our entire lives.

[oddler]

There's a reason our time system is based on 60 minutes, 24 hours and everyone accepts it.

What's the reason? I'm just asking because I don't know what the reasoning behind it is.

Time makes sense given you're dealing with circles rather than fixed distance.

A circle has a fixed circumference, right?

I think the metric system is much smarter overall, though; 4 ounces in this, 4 cups in that, 8 of these in one of those, it's all needlessly complex.

I agree.

The only real flaw I see is that you can't take it off our planet xD (what with the mass=gravitation pull it does)

Can't take what off the planet?
Mass is mass no matter where you are. Not trying to be a dack but I can't tell what you mean.

I'm all for changing to a system based on 10s.

[Raistlin]

The metric system will never catch on in the US. It's been tried before. (and failed because it sucks).

The metric system is the best system to use in a lab setting. Science in every country uses metric measurements. But for day-to-day lives, people here like using the imperial system, including me. Fahrenheit, feet, and pounds, especially, would be hard to do away with. What do you have equivalent to a foot in metric? You jump from a tiny centimeter to a huge meter, whereas in imperial you have inches, feet, and then yards. Decimeter I guess would be a bit better, but does anyone use that?

Also, being divisible by 5 and 10 is nice, but being divisible by 3 and 4 is also really nice. There's a reason our time system is based on 60 minutes, 24 hours and everyone accepts it. Just like 12 inches in a foot, it's easily divisible by a bunch of common numbers (2, 3, 4, especially). Who needs to measure a tenth of a meter?

Millimeter -> centimeter -> decimeter -> meter.

Decimeter = 10 centimeters, with a meter being 10 decimeters.

... did you miss the part where I specifically mentioned decimeters? But I've never really seen it used, not in the way imperial systems use feet (for basically all measurements).

What's the reason? I'm just asking because I don't know what the reasoning behind it is.

Our time system is nice and easy to use because it's easily divisible into a bunch of common numbers: 2, 3, 4, etc. The base 10 in metric doesn't matter so much in daily live, but stuff like 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 does. Half-hour, quarter-hour, etc, are expressions heard all the time, and those times are easily calculated. The same goes for the imperial foot: 12 inches, 36 inches to a yard. You can easily divide that into half, thirds, or fourths. Whereas in a base-10 system, the numbers 10, 50, 100 are not divisible by 3, which is a fraction used much more commonly in daily life than 1/10.

There's really not much sense to Fahrenheit, but it's just what some people grow up on. Celsius is no easier in and of itself to use on a daily basis.

[Bolivar]

May our American Empire last 1,000 years! We shall march our armies across Europe before we surrender to their ways!!!

j/p. but it was the romans who came up w/ this system, b/c of how long their legions were, right? well maybe we're holding onto the idea that we are the next in line of great empires???

Lol, whatever. But my dad runs a small flooring (and blinds) business, and the carpet industry would be the 1st to get affected by it, having to change their whole way of business. no way they'd let that happen, believe me, with their money, their lobbyists in washington are making sure it doesn't. Also, carpet is one of the few production-industries in America still today that gets it done domestically, so they have alot of say in the matter. Our government is controlled by (you could say composed of) our businesses. Kinda scary how in more than one way we're pretty....fascist....

[rubah]

weight and mass. nobody uses Newtons because they're impractical in a real-life, non-scientific setting. (how many pounds to a Newton? don't know? exactly.) and when you're talking about weights on this planet, using kilograms as weight is applicable as long as you convert correctly (approximately 2.2 pounds per kilogram).

9.2 or so for N <-> lbs?

The only real flaw I see is that you can't take it off our planet xD (what with the mass=gravitation pull it does)

Can't take what off the planet?
Mass is mass no matter where you are. Not trying to be a dack but I can't tell what you mean.

Mass is, but gravitational pull isn't.

[oddler]

What's the reason? I'm just asking because I don't know what the reasoning behind it is.

Our time system is nice and easy to use because it's easily divisible into a bunch of common numbers: 2, 3, 4, etc. The base 10 in metric doesn't matter so much in daily live, but stuff like 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 does. Half-hour, quarter-hour, etc, are expressions heard all the time, and those times are easily calculated. The same goes for the imperial foot: 12 inches, 36 inches to a yard. You can easily divide that into half, thirds, or fourths. Whereas in a base-10 system, the numbers 10, 50, 100 are not divisible by 3, which is a fraction used much more commonly in daily life than 1/10.

Nice and easy is relative to the person, I guess.

Here's the real question: Are fractions or decimals better?

The only real flaw I see is that you can't take it off our planet xD (what with the mass=gravitation pull it does)

Can't take what off the planet?
Mass is mass no matter where you are. Not trying to be a dack but I can't tell what you mean.

Mass is, but gravitational pull isn't

So, you can't take weight off the planet?

[Quindiana Jones]

10MPH. 35000FT. 200M. 25C. 1KG. That's what I use and I'll keep on using it if we change.

[Raistlin]

So, you can't take weight off the planet?

Did you take 5th grade science?

What is weight? It's an amount of pressure an object pushes down onto the earth. I step on a scale, my body naturally pushes down with 145 pounds of force. What's causing that pressure pushing down? Gravity. When gravity changes, the weight changes.

[escobert]

So, you can't take weight off the planet?

Did you take 5th grade science?

What is weight? It's an amount of pressure an object pushes down onto the earth. I step on a scale, my body naturally pushes down with 145 pounds of force. What's causing that pressure pushing down? Gravity. When gravity changes, the weight changes.

got it before me

example, you weight less on the moon since it has less gravity.

[Jessweeee♪]

We will never change and we will fall because of it

[oddler]

I'm about to fall asleep, Raistlin. Come hold onto me until I do.