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I never thought you would be the first mralisn as i have loved your input over the years.
As long as you know this was posted with tongue in cheek.
The following i was taught at a young age by a Buddist mate when i was missing the "sunday family ritual"of going to mass ;
Still missing 80%
*Primum non nocere [ as in the hippocratic oath] ......in Oz mate it means..... **Harm none or Do no Harm.............and non was intended when discussion was posted.
Ahh I forgot. And then you have English pounds and foot, American pounds and foot, etc. etc. Small feet/big feet/yards, fathoms, etc... No wonder we miss the planets!...pounds vs kilograms...
Unfortunately for the rest of the world there is a domestic market of over 300 millions so the girls and boys from the "good old USofA" don't really care that much - until they go to Canada or Mexico and find everything changed. Still the more educated/widely travel citizens do know what KGs/KMs are and usually start thinking in these units when "in country". CheersWell, miles, inches, farhenheit etc. are dying measures. Better convert to the right stuff as soon as possible.
They cause all kinds of problems. A spacecraft was lost because some of the measures were in cms and other in inches.Most of the world is using cms and kgs. Get used to it ;-) We are winning.
Ahh I forgot. And then you have English pounds and foot, American pounds and foot, etc. etc. Small feet/big feet/yards, fathoms, etc... No wonder we miss the planets!Come into the comfortable fold where all is equal!
Unfortunately for the rest of the world there is a domestic market of over 300 millions so the girls and boys from the "good old USofA" don't really care that much - until they go to Canada or Mexico and find everything changed. Still the more educated/widely travel citizens do know what KGs/KMs are and usually start thinking in these units when "in country". Cheers
Just recently I opted to do a questionnaire about cancer research started in the US.Agreed, American are at a real disadvantage in this area....and nothing is changing, they are still not teaching metrics to kids in school here. I mean there is a chapter in the books about it but it's more to make kids aware there is another way, but the kids don't really have to learn it or even know how to convert it. Thank goodness for conversion calculators or we would all be lost!!
As I live in the Asian hemisphere I am aware of these two "little!!??"Last time i looked Mike there was 2.2 -2.4 billion people in India and China and they went Metric 40 years ago ?
Just to stir up Henry Ford's mob .
I cannot understand how people mention miles to walk each day when every sign they will come across on any camino in France or Spain have distance in km's.
Hey Falcon old mate, do you think they alter the MMDD pages into miles from km's before arriving?
Buen Camino to all
US Military has used Metric for at least 60 years--all artillery is metric. And "Burma" also uses "US" (Un -Scientific) system, so it does not matter who else does not use it..Guatemala uses metric for linear measurements and US system for Vertical, i.e. a volcano 5 kilometers away is 5,000 feet high.
I remember going to Ireland a few years ago and on the roads distance signs were in km but speed limit signs were in km/h.
That's right. Up until recently road signs were in miles per hour and the switchover took a bit of time to get used to.
Possibly a little too much of the black stuff at midday clouding your vision.
Left/right hand traffic:Just to stir up Henry Ford's mob .
I cannot understand how people mention miles to walk each day when every sign they will come across on any camino in France or Spain have distance in km's.
Hey Falcon old mate, do you think they alter the MMDD pages into miles from km's before arriving?
Buen Camino to all
If I were you Falcon I would be worried you have just said that everyone is wrong. You do know what that is the first sign off?Everyone is wrong. The Nautical Mile is one minute of arc, therefore perfect for measuring distance as it relates to our globe. Don't forget the cubit. Three hundred of them get you the other ark, and even Emma Watson and Russell Crowe.
If I were you Falcon I would be worried you have just said that everyone is wrong. You do know what that is the first sign off?
Happily not all ;
View attachment 9226
Knowing that I am wrong, too?If I were you Falcon I would be worried you have just said that everyone is wrong. You do know what that is the first sign of?
Everyone is wrong. The Nautical Mile is one minute of arc, therefore perfect for measuring distance as it relates to our globe. Don't forget the cubit. Three hundred of them get you the other ark, and even Emma Watson and Russell Crowe.
C'mon, lets have a shout for "rod, pole, and perch" - still used when measuring allotment sizes....."Just to stir up Henry Ford's mob ." Which I take to mean our colonial cousins.
It will, no doubt, gratify you, Thornley, to know that here in Old Blighty your stirring is working well!!
Little ole GB's population is just over one fifth of "Henry Ford's" mob (in one thirty-ninth of the area!) and we like our miles and we are doing our best to hang on to the tattered remnants of our once glorious confusing Imperial system despite all the efforts of that upstart johnny-come-lately lot called the European Union!
But incursion to our isle's esoteric system of measurements has happened.
However it has to confessed we are rather confused in our use of Napoleon's blasted artificial and un-anthropomorphic metric system.
For example when it is a hot day we talk of the temperature in Fahrenheit ("phew, high 80's today") but when cold in Centigrade (brr, minus 3 today).
Horse races are run here and in Europe over furlongs (one eighth of a mile) and horses are sold in guineas (21 shillings or in modern money 1 pound 5 pence)
Petrol/gas is sold in litres but we buy it in pounds sterling "I put £20 of petrol in the car today"
Builders use a mongrel mix of metric and imperial "Can I have 4.5 metres of 4 by 2", plywood sheets (here and Europe) are sold in Imperial disguised as metric 2440 x 4880 i.e. 4' x 8'
Pubs sell beer in pints (here 20fl oz) and you can still buy pints in some parts of France, Germany and Switzerland....
....and as to shoe sizes..... (an American shoe size unit is equal to one barleycorn!)
Now as to the Camino Frances - I know it is 500 miles but 800 kilometres sounds a lot further doesn't it?
C'mon, lets have a shout for "rod, pole, and perch" - still used when measuring allotment sizes.....
There is about as much chance of the U.S. changing to the metric system as the world changing to a common language and currency.
Well, miles, inches, farhenheit etc. are dying measures. Better convert to the right stuff as soon as possible.
They cause all kinds of problems. A spacecraft was lost because some of the measures were in cms and other in inches.Most of the world is using cms and kgs. Get used to it ;-) We are winning.
Alexwalker, I agree. I have been practicing with metrics and temperature since the start of my journey (getting ready for the camino). I wish we had changed over to metric a long time ago. I don't know why we haven't but I suspect the cost of changing over equipment in manufacturing, etc. is the reason. But I don't hear any talk of changing over these days.Well, miles, inches, farhenheit etc. are dying measures. Better convert to the right stuff as soon as possible.
They cause all kinds of problems. A spacecraft was lost because some of the measures were in cms and other in inches.Most of the world is using cms and kgs. Get used to it ;-) We are winning.
English? Euro?
I think much better in km's myself. now those degrees C, well the fahrenheit, system is pretty good, because 0 is just too cold. and 100 is just too hot.
So where are you going to get a single furrow plough and 1 oxen? But don't worry about your allotment our "deep north" state of Queensland still measures domestic house blocks in "perches" - which I think is around 5.3 square metres, whil the rest of the county converted to "just" square metres about 10-15-20 years ago. Hope your allotment is productive this summer - nothing tastes better than home grown tomatoes.indeed my allotment is 10 rod or to those outside the allotment world here in the uk about 250sq meters, I was told by a fellow gardener the way they measure a rod/perch etc is reputedly the distance from the back of the plough to the nose of the oxen..
To add to your vast knowledge (sincerely) - 30C = 86F. But if your are in Minnesota on a warm January morning -40C = -40F. CheersFor some reason, like some of the other posters, I've gotten to the point that I don't even translate kms and kilos/grams into miles and pounds/ounces, but centigrade is much harder for me. For years I've relied on the following two pairs of degree correspondence to help me through. 16 centigrade is 61 F, and 28 centigrade is 82 F. From there I go up and down and muddle through.
So where are you going to get a single furrow plough and 1 oxen? But don't worry about your allotment our "deep north" state of Queensland still measures domestic house blocks in "perches" - which I think is around 5.3 square metres, whil the rest of the county converted to "just" square metres about 10-15-20 years ago. Hope your allotment is productive this summer - nothing tastes better than home grown tomatoes.
For some reason, like some of the other posters, I've gotten to the point that I don't even translate kms and kilos/grams into miles and pounds/ounces, but centigrade is much harder for me. For years I've relied on the following two pairs of degree correspondence to help me through. 16 centigrade is 61 F, and 28 centigrade is 82 F. From there I go up and down and muddle through.
And our commonwealth colleagues are complaining about US not getting with the program!!!Sorry, I am from the UK where we drive on the left as well (well at the moment anyhow).
Not budging 25.4mmAnd our commonwealth colleagues are complaining about US not getting with the program!!!
Rambler
Not budging an inch...
Only the UK based ones - the rest of us - India/NZ/Canada/Aust are all fully metricated. Those in the "old dart" have to have a foot in each camp. Under EU rules their road speed signs are in both Miles and KMs; their food scales (in delis/butchers etc) are in both lbs and kilos. AND!. I understand you can now import a "left-hand" drive car, you just have to drive on the left hand side of the road!! Keep taking those 25.4 mmAnd our commonwealth colleagues are complaining about US not getting with the program!!!
Yes, I was referring to the driving on the left and sitting on the right. In Burma, they switched driving lanes for a few years and then switched back so the old buses now let people out into moving traffic!!!Only the UK based ones - the rest of us - India/NZ/Canada/Aust are all fully metricated. AND!. I understand you can now import a "left-hand" drive car, you just have to drive on the left hand side of the road!! Keep taking those 25.4 mm!!!!
Let's make a deal...When You Brits switch to the "right" side of the road, we Yanks will measure our Cokes in mls, not ounces.
Hey Thornley, great question (and great thread). Although I know it's meant to be "tongue and cheek, I will offer up the following reply including a quote from Wikipedia, which (sadly) speaks to both my experience as a classroom teacher in the U.S. and my own experience growing up in the U.S.:Just to stir up Henry Ford's mob .
I cannot understand how people mention miles to walk each day when every sign they will come across on any camino in France or Spain have distance in km's.
Hey Falcon old mate, do you think they alter the MMDD pages into miles from km's before arriving?
Buen Camino to all
Agreed, American are at a real disadvantage in this area....and nothing is changing, they are still not teaching metrics to kids in school here. I mean there is a chapter in the books about it but it's more to make kids aware there is another way, but the kids don't really have to learn it or even know how to convert it. Thank goodness for conversion calculators or we would all be lost!!
Metric is just so much easier. There is no way I would ever want to go back to imperial. Australia converted its currency, weights, measures and temperature ratings when I was a young adult. So I've lived with both. It was one of the good and rather brave things that our politicians did. The only thing I still find slightly difficult is envisaging someone's height when described (usually in police media) in centimetres instead of feet and inches. I know someone at 6 foot is tall, but I'd have to convert that to get the metric equivalent.
May I confuse the issue further by saying that in our part of the world we have clatters and weens both meaning a vague number. These expressions are used by older country folk and there is a debate as to whether a ween is greater than a clatter. If you were asking a country man how far it was to Santiago he would say its a ween of miles down that road and you would only know that it was more than two, but if you were near the border he might tell you that it was a clatter of kilometres down the road in the Irish Republic which might mean, because a kilometre is less than a mile, it is not so far, but that would depend on how big his clatters were. Three weeks from now I will be sleeping in St Jean and heading off for forty days of peace perhaps I will return feeling better!
St. Mike, I don't know how accurate the following is but the author(s) of this site stated (and I think it speaks to what you wrote):As I live in the Asian hemisphere I am aware of these two "little!!??"countries - but I think you missed my point. The US domestic market is far more important to local producers than the international one. I see tools produced in Taiwan, obviously for the US market, that are marked in ft/inches & metres/mm. So I don't think there is going to be a significant change until the rest of the world demands that ALL products; documents; treaties only refer to metric measurements. But I am not holding my breath. Please don't get me wrong - I have family in Ohio - it just the way they think!!
If I were you Falcon I would be worried you have just said that everyone is wrong. You do know what that is the first sign off?
BUT! I am not British - 5th or 6th generation Australian borne - 3/4 Irish!!Let's make a deal...When You Brits switch to the "right" side of the road, we Yanks will measure our Cokes in mls, not ounces.
I should say that is Brits and colonists that didn't revolt...BUT! I am not British - 5th or 6th generation Australian borne - 3/4 Irish!!
I can't win for losing..."We Brits" are very comfortable with fl.oz. - it's mainland Europe who want mls, so we'll stick with the correct side ;-)
We'd probably describe the Camino as a long walk, taking bout a month or more. Or perhaps 1.5 moons!!If we couldn't measure it, would distance matter? If we didn't have words to describe distance, would we still have the concept?
We'd probably describe the Camino as a long walk, taking bout a month or more. Or perhaps 1.5 moons!!
Only if we get to speak with cool accents! And get to lift 20 oz pints instead of 16 oz pints. I always thought the US pint was cheated by comparison to the 1/2 litre, until I read this thread and realized that being Imperial was even better!(we might even take America back - but not Detroit).
Personally, I would lobby for use of base 16 hexidecimal so as to align our material world and the digital world, and we can all become cybernetic members of the Borg hive collective mind. Perhaps resistance is futile . . .What I love about the metric vs. imperial system is that is in base 10, which is much simpler, (in my opinion). However, Greg Grothaus makes a wonderful argument for why using a base 12 system would be even simpler.
Vive la difference!I think the confusion of the conversion really helped my wife last year when we walked the camino. If she was having a rough day of walking, I would tell her "Well we already walked 20 km today and only have 5 miles to go". I don't think she ever caught on, and it helped her keep going
Personally, I would lobby for use of base 16 hexidecimal so as to align our material world and the digital world, and we can all become cybernetic members of the Borg hive collective mind. Perhaps resistance is futile . . .
Today is ANZAC Day.All in jest. I sit next to an Aussie at work and he is planning a big party for ANZAC day. Vegemite and beer...
Rambler
and then there is binary - do you know that there are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
Ha ha, you are cracking me up! But wait, I thought there were 11 types of people in binary: those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who don't care.and then there is binary - do you know that there are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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