2007-09-11 14:29:36.190087+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments
EU abandons forcing Britain and Ireland to go metric only. Hopefully more people will wake up to the fact that the metric system uses antiquated base 10 units, has scales which were shoehorned into meaning something rather than being evolved to have real value to humans, and we can abandon this silly experiment.
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-11 15:19:26.859155+00 by: topspin
I'm gonna take your comment with about 64.8mg of salt, Dan.
#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-11 20:27:13.326793+00 by: Dan Lyke
Well, 28.35 grams of prevention is worth .435Kg of cure. But I never criticize a person 'til I've walked 1.61 kilometers in their shoes.
And how come we don't go into a McDonald's and order a .1134 Kilogrammer?
Of all the things that make the metric system absurd, using base 10 rather than the base 2 fractions we use with the imperial system is the worst.
#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-11 21:40:13.372988+00 by: ziffle
I found out that Mind your P's and Q's meant 'Mind your Pints and Quarts'. Ahh the Irish..
#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-12 02:11:57.251902+00 by: Larry Burton
Is there anything preventing me from pouring a 1/4 liter of milk into my cereal? How about walking 1/8 of a kilometer from the parking lot to the store? Or cutting a board 23 and 3/16 centimeters long?
#Comment Re: made: 2007-09-13 23:43:50.072495+00 by: Dan Lyke
I think it's the lack of a 3/4cm diameter bolt where the silliness of the metric system really starts to shine. Nothing's keeping you from using fractions in your use of it, but the whole thing is set up around base 10, with all of the flaws inherent in a base 10 system.
Especially when you're dealing with precision at human sizes, factors of 2 are much better ways to both specify error and convey scale than factors of 10.