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Old 08-15-2015, 07:14 AM
 
Location: Kharkiv, Ukraine
2,617 posts, read 3,456,184 times
Reputation: 1111

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The 'intiutivity' of a scale depends of a scale you are used to. For people who are used to Celsius, it's Celsius, for people who are used to Fahrenheit it's Fahrenheit. But anyway, I'm insist on 0 degrees being on freezing point. There are no dramatic changes between 1F and -1F, while at -1C the water freezes and the ice doesn't melt, and at 1C it's vice versa.
As for date: I think that YYYYMMDD is the most logical order, since bigger units are most important. There is, say one August in every year, and one 15th number in every month in every year, while it's only one 2015th year and only one August 2015. But the DDMMYYYY is handier for everyday use, since we usually know which year and month it is, and mostly we want to know today's day.
I think it would be good if we switched to decimal time, because while converting units is not always necessary, adding a certain number of minutes is an everyday task, and it's easier with decimal time. For example, if it's 3:45 and you're calculating which would be the time 35 minutes later, you're first sum up 45 and 35, and then subtract 60 and add 1 to number of hours: 45+35-60=20; 3+1=4 minutes, so it will be 4:20 then. In decimal time, if it's, say 3:75 and to calculate which time will be, say 55 minutes later, you have to sum up the 75 and 55, and then only remove the first digit and add it to the number of hours: 75+55=130; 3+1=4, so it would be 4:30 then. But probably 10 hours in a day would make the hours too big.
As for measurement units, I again say that measuring units based on human body would make sense if all human bodies were the same. Especially considering that most of us learn the units while we're children, while the units are based on adult bodies.

 
Old 08-15-2015, 08:10 AM
 
Location: Portsmouth, UK
13,485 posts, read 9,030,344 times
Reputation: 3924
Quote:
Originally Posted by SFX View Post
Exactly! It's just like how the US still uses pounds instead of Euros. Why hasn't the US switched to Euros like the UK did?

Currency is not the same at all, it's a bit different to changing your weight measurements from pounds to kilograms
 
Old 08-15-2015, 08:23 AM
 
Location: New York
11,326 posts, read 20,335,876 times
Reputation: 6231
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sickandtiredofthis View Post
Yes I do. They're always harping on about Kate etc.
The royal family fad ended after their wedding, which is what the media/people seemed to care most about (for whatever reason). I've heard of Kate, obviously, but I honestly couldn't pick her out of a crowd of two, nor do I know (or care to know) the name of the royal she married. And I thought most Brits didn't care about that stuff in this day and age.

Quote:
The UK isn't that far away, Ireland/Scotland is closer to Maine than California. Are you saying California is on the other side of the world to Maine!?
I think California is a bit closer to Maine than Ireland is, but even if that wasn't the case, they're in the same country, and aren't isolated from one another. The UK is a different country, on a different continent, on the opposite side of a vast ocean. It doesn't feel all that close, to me.
 
Old 08-15-2015, 08:28 AM
 
Location: Northern Ireland and temporarily England
7,668 posts, read 5,261,452 times
Reputation: 1392
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infamous92 View Post
The royal family fad ended after their wedding, which is what the media/people seemed to care most about (for whatever reason). I've heard of Kate, obviously, but I honestly couldn't pick her out of a crowd of two, nor do I know (or care to know) the name of the royal she married. And I thought most Brits didn't care about that stuff in this day and age.



I think California is a bit closer to Maine than Ireland is, but even if that wasn't the case, they're in the same country, and aren't isolated from one another. The UK is a different country, on a different continent, on the opposite side of a vast ocean. It doesn't feel all that close, to me.
It's not. Houlton is 200 miles closer to me than it is to San Francisco.

Never the less I get what you mean but I think the use of "the other side of the world" is a bit of an exaggeration. To me that term means Australia, South Africa, Singapore - places that are actually thousands and thousands of miles away.

And would take more than half a day to get to.
 
Old 08-15-2015, 09:08 AM
 
Location: Buckeye, AZ
38,936 posts, read 23,903,106 times
Reputation: 14125
Quote:
Originally Posted by Max96 View Post
The 'intiutivity' of a scale depends of a scale you are used to. For people who are used to Celsius, it's Celsius, for people who are used to Fahrenheit it's Fahrenheit. But anyway, I'm insist on 0 degrees being on freezing point. There are no dramatic changes between 1F and -1F, while at -1C the water freezes and the ice doesn't melt, and at 1C it's vice versa.
As for date: I think that YYYYMMDD is the most logical order, since bigger units are most important. There is, say one August in every year, and one 15th number in every month in every year, while it's only one 2015th year and only one August 2015. But the DDMMYYYY is handier for everyday use, since we usually know which year and month it is, and mostly we want to know today's day.
I think it would be good if we switched to decimal time, because while converting units is not always necessary, adding a certain number of minutes is an everyday task, and it's easier with decimal time. For example, if it's 3:45 and you're calculating which would be the time 35 minutes later, you're first sum up 45 and 35, and then subtract 60 and add 1 to number of hours: 45+35-60=20; 3+1=4 minutes, so it will be 4:20 then. In decimal time, if it's, say 3:75 and to calculate which time will be, say 55 minutes later, you have to sum up the 75 and 55, and then only remove the first digit and add it to the number of hours: 75+55=130; 3+1=4, so it would be 4:30 then. But probably 10 hours in a day would make the hours too big.
As for measurement units, I again say that measuring units based on human body would make sense if all human bodies were the same. Especially considering that most of us learn the units while we're children, while the units are based on adult bodies.
I believe body parts were used years and years ago before we went to both the imperical and the metric systems. The problem is anything is inituative and have their drawbacks. To those use to Fahrenheit, hearing 1 degree, makes you feel super cold as it is below freezing while those using Celsius feel cold but not as cold. In a bigger case, hearing 22 degrees would make a Fahrenheit user feel cold but a Celsius user feel hot (which is why I think there was the point about 23 degrees sounds weird for hot days in the city.)
 
Old 08-15-2015, 09:59 AM
 
3,490 posts, read 6,100,905 times
Reputation: 5421
The author of the book is a moron. Metric systems make vastly more sense.
 
Old 08-15-2015, 10:11 AM
 
Location: South Jersey
14,497 posts, read 9,435,900 times
Reputation: 5251
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkpunk View Post
Which could hinder metrication as people will question "well golf uses yards, football uses yards, why can't we in our regular life?" This part of the reason the 1970's metrication failed. There were not enough people in support of using the metric system for the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 to actually switch from the imperical measurement system to the metric system.
It matters less for golf. Obviously, with football, it would change the game. Trust me... it would have to remain yards. For it not to change the game, "first and ten" would have to become "first and 9.144."

And, really, the loss of tradition is another reason I prefer keeping imperial measurements.
 
Old 08-15-2015, 10:13 AM
 
Location: Freiburg
1,387 posts, read 1,189,310 times
Reputation: 648
I don't think sports were the reason the metrication in the US failed.
 
Old 08-15-2015, 10:30 AM
 
Location: Buckeye, AZ
38,936 posts, read 23,903,106 times
Reputation: 14125
Quote:
Originally Posted by alphatier View Post
I don't think sports were the reason the metrication in the US failed.
Apparently there was a metric game of American football that was not well received. The field was 100mX50m with 10m lines rather than 10y. The Liter Bowl: The First NCAA Football Game To Use The Metric System
 
Old 08-15-2015, 01:07 PM
 
28,671 posts, read 18,795,274 times
Reputation: 30979
Perhaps someone has already mentioned this, but Thomas Jefferson designed and proposed a metric weights and measures system for the US at the same time the US abandoned the British monetary system for the current American semi-metric dollar.

Jefferson's intention was to institute a system that would be easier for the unschooled to adopt and use. And this was more than a century before Europe went metric.

Too bad the US did not accept Jefferson's plan.
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