You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
some duffers from their grandparents generation
No, some ambitious politicians who are trying to appeal to a minority which may be in that generation but DO NOT REPRESENT IT.
Why can’t the boomers just stop pissing about
Why can't some people stop gratuitously insulting people based on when they were born?
What really boils my piss, is that there is absolutely nothing to stop you from displaying prices in any units you want, as long as you also display the metric.
If they force traders to go back to imperial it will come at a significant cost. That was one of the arguments against going full metric in the first place.
Personally, I always used some imperial stuff, still do. Miles on bike and in car.
Some other stuff started using more and more metric, walking I use km as it makes absolutely perfect sense when using an OS map. My weight I think of in KG now.
Why can’t some people stop gratuitously insulting people based on when they were born?
I'll stop doing it when that generation stops ruining my country 😘 (TBF my parents are that generation and very anti Brexit/Tory/populism)...
Yes it's populist Tories doing it, but they've found their generational target group in the "marketplace of ideas" and let's be fair I doubt most of the Gammons under 50 are that much more comfortable with imperial so this one is definitely for the oldies...
let’s be fair
You're not being fair at all. You're erroneously discriminating against a whole group of people based on the behaviour of some of its members. You might as well criticise people on the basis of their race.
By all means have a go at Tory voters, they chose to belong to that group.
Besides which, you're wrong, because boomers were at school in the 1960's and were brought up metric.
It's got the exact feel of a surveymonkey done by a 15 year old to confirm something they already think is true for their homework, even though they're wrong.
Did it anyway but **** me.
Yes there was no pretence of impartiality about it at all. Done a couple of other government consultations recently and they were as bad. The one on reforming private parking was a classic, even though it was heavily weighted it still came out against what they were planning. So they ignored it and cried foul when they got taken to court for driving rough shod over their own procedures.
You’re not being fair at all. You’re erroneously discriminating against a whole group of people based on the behaviour of some of its members. You might as well criticise people on the basis of their race.
You're quite right, not all boomers voted for our collective ruin, but they are disproportionately represented in the demographics of those who did. I'm affraid I see it as a generational failing (unfortunately that includes those of you with a more moderate, measured outlook), especially from those that lived through the summer of love etc...
Don't worry my own generation is busy failing right now, those of us in our 40s are busily failing to challenge the status quo, and the populist drive towards Right leaning, nostalgia for a mis-remembered great imperial past that nobody alive ever knew...
Fine I'll stop bad mouthing boomers if it really irks you, but I'm still operating on a "dynamic, proportionate blame" model so they're currently indexed at 68% with Gen X making up most of the rest under my arbitrary utterly biased 'random bloke on the internet that's not worth the effort arguing with' scale...
And the bile spouted on this and the politics threads make me wonder if the death of STW would be a boost to nicer vibes on the world after all.
populist drive towards Right leaning, nostalgia for a mis-remembered great imperial past
I'm completely with you in opposing that. Your last paragraph does give me a hint that you might treat boomers as individuals if you meet us as people, so I'll accept that. As you may guess from my username, I do look like a boomer.
I found question 3a very troubling - If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items i) in imperial units: ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent?
It felt totally loaded and I could imagine Jacob ReesMoggs sitting there across a desk with no computer asking me it directly.
I seem to recall a problem for Nasa few years ago where there was a mix up between metric and imperial units - I gather it cost them a lot of money - https://everydayastronaut.com/mars-climate-orbiter/
If Nasa struggle I dread to think how modern UK consumers are going to find it.
I went to a pub today & asked for 570ml of IPA.
Barman looked perplexed.
Yeah cos he’s used to serving in 568ml measures.
There is one good thing about that survey, and its that for the questions that only offer an affirmative or slightly affirmative nod towards supporting imperial measurements, you can ignore the radio buttons and just make a comment, and it doesn't prevent you from proceeding to the next page 🙂
The crazy thing is I am pushing 50 and have no idea what mile is.
It is as far as you are likely to walk in about 20 minutes.
Or 4 laps of the average athletic track.
I get the conversations around nationalising utilities/transport, but with these clowns in power I struggle to see how it wouldn't be an utter shitshow.
Happy to be told I'm wrong, but it kinda fills me with dread to consider the reality.
Or 4 laps of the average athletic track.
Errmm Four. And a Quarter. And a bit.
I went to a pub today & asked for 570ml of IPA.
Barman looked perplexed.
I bought some 2x2 and 2x4 timber yesterday and the bloke in the builders merchant knew exactly what I meant
eddiebaby
Full Member
And the bile spouted on this and the politics threads make me wonder if the death of STW would be a boost to nicer vibes on the world after all.
We have food banks.
In the UK, in 2022.
It's not 'bile'.
It's hatred.
Hatred against every single Tory voter.
Genuinely bitter, angry, informed hatred against every person who has enabled this.
Get used to it.
Accept responsibility for your actions and be prepared for the consequences.
"I bought some 2×2 and 2×4 timber yesterday and the bloke in the builders merchant knew exactly what I meant"
I think the trade refer tto them now as a Sunack or a Truss? One's probably too flimsy and lightweight for the job.
The other seems almost the same from most angles, but appears to be much thicker.
For some reason completing that survey made me feel the more depressed regarding the state of our political class than any of the recent (numerous) fails and embarrassments.
How many Johnsons are there in a Mogg?
That's a horrible image that will take a lot of effort to shift from my brain, thanks 🤢🤢🤮
I get the conversations around nationalising utilities/transport, but with these clowns in power I struggle to see how it wouldn’t be an utter shitshow.
It's already an utter shit-show, the difference is that now rich people are making fat profits off it at the same time.
It is not overly difficult to people who are numerically minded but if you were coming up with a system from scratch would you use one that uses 3, 12, 16, 20 and so on or one that uses 10, 100, 1000?
That is an interesting question. I think I’d opt for base 12 if I were to choose from scratch.
One (small) reason for choosing imperial might be that at least most people can spell pints 😉😂
I know spelling is so passé 😂
Hatred against every single Tory voter.
Really? Why do you hate more than 10 million people?
And why is your hatred so great that it has to spill onto a thread discussing imperial v metric measurements?
In your haste to have a confrontation, did you skip the rest of his post where he told you why?
your haste to have a confrontation
Oh the ironing.
It isn't so much the reason for hating "every single" Tory voter which intrigues but the whole concept of hating people that you don't even know.
It sounds like bigotry to me - I insist on at least knowing someone before I feel that I can hate them.
And presumably it throws up all sorts of problems - obviously the hater hasn't got any friends who vote Tory but what about work colleagues and family members? Approximately a third of the electorate are Tory voters so it must be exceptionally hard to avoid them.
It must make for very unhappy circumstances.
Or 4 laps of the average athletic track.
Errmm Four. And a Quarter. And a bit.
Errmm: a standard outdoor track is 400m around the inner lane. 4*400~1600m. A mile is ~1609m
Errmm: a standard outdoor track is 400m around the inner lane. 4*400~1600m. A mile is ~1609m
Untrue, are you hugging the inner out outer line of the inner lane? how wide is the white line?
This is why it gets complicated... when your are designing machinery etc. these seemingly 'big tollerences' for runners or whatever, all of a sudden become critical points of failiure.
Untrue, are you hugging the inner out outer line of the inner lane? how wide is the line?
This is why it gets complicated… when your are designing machinery etc. these seemingly ‘big tollerences’ for runners or whatever, all of a sudden become critical points of failiure.
Untrue? Which part is untrue?
Someone said they didn’t know what a mile was. Someone else said it is approximately 4 laps of an average track. To my mind, that is a reasonable assertion. If, you know how far a mile is more accurately than that, then you know well enough what a mile is.
all of a sudden become critical points of failiure.
In that case my first suggestion - it is as far as you are likely to walk in about 20 minutes is even less likely to stand up to scrutiny.
It is probably best if A_A remains clueless as to what a mile represents.
a reasonable assertion
Does not cut it when you are designing and building things.
If you are a jogger, or a velo cyclist, or arguing how much beer you should have in a large glass, it's not so important, insignificant, almost.
Does not cut it when you are designing and building.
Fair comment, but in my defence anagallis_arvensis forgot to mention that he was designing a building.
That is an interesting question. I think I’d opt for base 12 if I were to choose from scratch
Base 12 makes a lot more sense than base 10. OK, not if you are used to base 10 when anything else will be confusing, but if you were starting g from scratch with nothing else to unlearn.
And we do use it in daily life anyway, measuring time for example, the French did try to decimalise that once but it never caught on. Or any time you refer to a dozen or half a dozen things.
Same reason a circle is 360 degrees rather than being divided into 100 degrees, we all cope with that perfectly well
And so it would logicaly follow, to avoid confusion, to use world-wide recognised systems of measurement.
If only such a thing already existed.
Any fellow asking Jacob Rees Mogg will surely understand that a mile is eight furlongs, thus making it far easier to work out for the great British worker.
Same reason a circle is 360 degrees rather than being divided into 100 degrees, we all cope with that perfectly well
Radians are preferable surely? 😀
Radians are preferable surely? 😀
No, they are a bit complex
No, they are a bit complex
Espesially the finishing moves, if you want a fatality.
The Imperial system has been around in various forms for a thousand + years.
Metric on the other hand is no more than 200y old. Relatively unproven in comparison.
Trust Imperial - it's the future!
Execute order 66!
maybe Emperor Truss will start an aggressive expansionist policy to restore the empire. I can't wait to see her gallantly stood on the brow of the ferry to Ryde, first to storm the beaches of the Isle of Wight.
Is my energy bill cheaper in imperial?
The Imperial system has been around in various forms for a thousand + years.
Is that Roman? French? UK? US measures?
Why can’t the boomers just stop pissing about
Most of those "pissing about" were born after 1964 and are most categorically NOT Boomers, they are Generation X.
Metric on the other hand is no more than 200y old.
Correct-ish - 1795 actually, as the first real statement and 1799 as practical implementations.
Decimal of course has been around way longer, which is the real benefit. The actual values are relatively unimportant, the original metre was first defined in 1793 as a fraction (1/10000000) of the distance from the North pole to the equator (passing through Paris, seeing as the French started it), but then they created a bar of that length and then said 'right, that's it' = the kilogram was then defined as the weight of a 0.1x0.1x0.1 cube of pure water and another artefact created for that.
But if the original definers had settled on a pound and a yard but then said a tonne is 1000 pounds, and an oz is 0.1lb and a mile is 1000 yards...... (and even better, called them kiloyards and decipounds) then we'd probably still have them. The argument is not really with pounds and yards, just the daft multiples between them.
Radians are preferable surely?
Theoretically, maybe, but practically they're pi in the sky.
Haha, jolly good.
the kilogram was then defined as the weight…
the kilogram is a measure of mass
the kilogram was then defined as the weight?…
the kilogram is a measure of mass
These statements are not contradictory.
Anyway, what's so great about base 10? We don't use it for time.(Unless someone is going to get smartarse about nano seconds etc.)
Base 12 and 16 make a lot more sense that 10. 14 on the other hand.......
These statements are not contradictory.
You cannot define “the kilogram … as the weight of a 0.1×0.1×0.1 cube of pure water”
Base 12 and 16 make a lot more sense that 10. 14 on the other hand…….
Hexadecimal is as easy as abc
yes, correctly stated should be mass.
Metric on the other hand is no more than 200y old.
Correct-ish – 1795 actually, as the first real statement and 1799 as practical implementations.
Reminds me of a Carl Sagan story where a member of the audience was relieved that the earth would be consumed by the sun in billions of years - not millions of years
I filled in the survey too
[img] 
[/img]
We still use imperial in almost every area, we measure most of our land mass via acres (and with that chains, rods, etc), we sell pints, we sell stuff in inches (materials, clothing, etc) and so on.
The reality is that the UK brought in metric with the idea of using both, with one leading over the other where required, so why this is being discussed now, or talked about as an issue is beyond me, we kept imperial due to other English speaking nations (predominantly the US) using them, so not sure what the issue is, or who it's being aimed at as a benefit?
Elsewhere, a South African was bemoaning that she found the differences between American and British English really confusing, particularly around weights and measures and the British interpretation of Metric. I replied and it got a bit wordy so, I thought it was relevant to copy it here.
>>
Honestly, the British approach to the Metric system confuses the British. We've got this messed-up hybrid approach where we're _technically_ Metric but back in the 1970s we took to change like a duck to custard.
Examples:
We buy petrol (gas) in litres, no exceptions. But we measure fuel efficiency in miles per gallon. No-one under the age of about 45 knows what a gallon is, but we know how many miles we get out of one.
We buy milk in litres, except we can't quite let go the concept of "a pint of milk" so a small bottle of milk is 568ml. (The UK pint is bigger than the North American pint because a fundamental core of the Imperial System is "bollocks to consistency".) Beer is also served in pints because if we suddenly decided to change to half-litres that'd be a 68ml smaller measure and there would be a civil war and I'm not even joking. Compare with buying beer in the US, I was asked "would you like a small or a large?" and I was like WTF does that even mean?
(Aside: there's a new pizza place just opened local to me and they offer small, medium and large pizzas. I have no idea what this means, I don't know what to order. I've seen small pizzas the size of a drinks coaster and large ones that had to be tipped at an angle just to fit through the door, throw me a bone here. Don't you have a tape measure? It shouldn't be this difficult.)
We use metres and yards pretty much interchangeably if the quantity is "about..." Countdown markers to motorway exits could be in Metric or Imperial but who cares when they're broadly the same thing, you're doing 70mph and who the frak even knows what 70mph is in Metric.
I know my height in feet and inches, no clue in metres. Similarly my weight, that's in stones and pounds. We weigh nothing else in pounds and I don't know as any other country uses stones. *We* don't use stones even, other for that one thing. Someone in the US may say "this guy weighs 200lbs" and I have to convert it to stones in my head to work out whether he's a fat bastard or not _despite it being the same gorram system_ 🤷♂️
Buying timber, you might get a plank 3m long and 4" wide. No, me neither. Don't even get me started on plumbing standards.
In cooking and baking we don't measure dry ingredients by volume because that's the sort of bottled insanity likely to summon Cthulhu. A US Customary cup, a US Legal cup and and a Metric cup (yes really, that's a thing, WTAF, I'm looking at you now Canada) are all different things. (Whilst we're on the subject of cooking: a pack of cake mix is not a recipe ingredient, doubly so if it's a specific brand which is unheard of outside of North America. Please stop.)
Many older people here _still_ haven't worked out Metric, I think by this point it's just wilful stubbornness. The old boy next door to me (I'd guess in his early 70s?) was getting a gutter repaired a couple of weeks back, he wanted a short replacement piece and the roofer told him "I can only buy them in five metre lengths." He replied, "I don't know what that is." Oh come on mate, you've had FIFTY YEARS to grasp that a metre is almost the same as a yard, this isn't rocket surgery. I chipped in, "it's about 16 feet, Richard" and he looked at me like I was some sort of witch doctor.
Oh, and on spelling, it's "metre" and "litre." It just is. I'm not one to rag on Webster's English (Simplified) revisionism and the US can happily keep it's "color" et al, no-one really cares beyond friendly teasing, but "liter" is flat out wrong. Sorry America, you know I love you but we need to talk about this. They're French units, if you can cope with Notre Dame (even if you can't pronounce it) then you can deal with metres. Get with the programme.
TL;DR - Here Be Dragons. Use Metric. Hope this helps. 😁
Re cooking, now we have accurate and precise electronic scales it's much easier to convert all recipes to grams, throughout.
Oh, and a bit I missed there,
In the original discussion an American guy was bigging up feet and inches for reasons some have touched on here, it can sometimes be handy to multiple divisors. I asked, but what happens when you get really small? You surely can't start using things like 7/64" or 17/512", can you?
"Oh, no," he replied, "then we use the mil[sic]."
The mil. AKA, the thou. A thousandth of an inch. You've literally just Metricised an Imperial measurement, WTAF.
Re cooking, now we have accurate and precise electronic scales it’s much easier to convert all recipes to grams, throughout.
Quite. Because a cup of flour is a different measurement depending on whether it's sifted or not and that totally makes perfect sense.
I accept metric is easier to learn, but clearly society was totally unable to function for hundreds of years while using Imperial measurements.
No, it wasn't. But then we found a better way. It's called progress.
I can't believe that even primary school children could the maths behind the imperial measurement system. I hadn't realised that it was that easy.
Were talking about 7-12 year olds right?
It's quite obviously a parody.
(For the LOLs, I worked out the ribbon question. I think it's 4d change, unless they only sell by the whole yard in which case she doesn't have enough. Also, that ribbon is about five quid a metre.)
I worked out the ribbon question. I think it’s 4d change
Two six inch ribbons is 1/3 of a yard. Half a crown is 2s 6d, or 30d, so the two ribbons would be 10d and the change from 2s would be 1s 2d.
It’s quite obviously a parody.
I don't think it is - I was in primary school from 1970, and distinctly remember older pupils being taught to add up currency in L s d columns. The same would have been done for cwt / lbs / oz etc. It's only number bases at the end of the day.
(Not that I'm advicating a return to it for 0.694 milli-days!)
These are from an 11+ paper from the 1930s (so obviously designed to tax 11 year olds)
NOTTS. EDUCATION COMMITTEE
JUNIOR SCHOLARSHIP EXAMINATION, MARCH 12TH , 1932
ARITHMETIC
(Time allowed – 1 hour)Answer as many questions as you can, taking them in any order you like.
Do not write out the question but give its number only.
Use both sides of the paper.
Show ALL your working.1. A grocer sold 2 cwt. 3 qrs 21 lb. of sugar at a profit of a halfpenny on each lb. How much did he gain altogether?
2. A ball of string contains 88 yards. What length will be left after tying 86 parcels, each requiring 2 ft. 9 ins. of string?
3. I have a dozen piles of pennies, each pile is 2¼ inches high. If each penny is 3/32 of an inch thick, what is the value of the money in the dozen piles?
4. (a) Add together 0.6 3.025 1.365 and from the total take away 3.275
(b) How much is 90% of 14s. 2d. ?
5. Arithmetic books cost £6 18s. 0d. for 144. The total cost of supplying each pupil in a certain class with a book is £1 15s. 5½d. How many pupils are there in the class?
6. In order to reach his office by 9 a.m. a man leaves his house at 8.15 a.m. and cycles at the rate of 10 miles an hour.
(a) What is the distance in miles from his house to the office?
(b) If his bicycle breaks down after he has cycled for 40 minutes, find the number of yards and feet he must walk to get to his office.
7. In a window there are 24 panes of glass each measuring 10 ins. 9 ins. Find the cost of the glass at 1s. 6d. per square foot.
8. Eleven boys and their schoolmaster went camping for a week. Each boy paid the same amount and the master paid 10s. 0d. more than a boy’s share. If the total expenses were £6 3s 6d. how much was each boys share?
Two six inch ribbons is 1/3 of a yard
It is, I doubled it twice for some reason and started with 2' of ribbon.
The same would have been done for cwt / lbs / oz etc
Would it? Would anyone ever say eg. 1 gallon 7 pints rather than just 15 pints?
"Just the right shade of Tory blue"?
Also, I can't find any source at all for that image outside of Facebook.
It is, I doubled it twice for some reason and started with 2′ of ribbon.
I think this perfectly illustrates why, with metric, as least we have a fighting chance of getting measurements correct.
What's the old saying? measure twice, cut once. Still true today and very good practice, however, the old saying...
To put it more accurately it should be phrased more like: measure 1 and 5 thirty five sevenths, cut once.
It's just bonkers. Why. The world does not need this, we have enough problems, lol!
To be fair, I don't think Metric would've helped me here. I thought "they are six-inch ribbons, and there's two of them so that's foot." Then I went off to look up what a florin was, came back and went "a foot of ribbon, and there's two of them..." again.
Ie, it wasn't an error of calculation, it was an error of concentration.
The question is badly phrased, so are we talking about two ribbons that are 6 inch wide, or long?
Presumably the ribbon is on a big spool so 6 inches refers to the width of the ribbon?
So the question is incomplete -- 2x6" of ribbon, but we don't know what length of ribbon is required.
Or conversley, we might know we need 2x6" legnths but we don't know the width requirement.
1/4 gill none of your 35ml nonsense please
Guitar standards drive me nuts, I only have metric measuring devices but most things guitar are imperial. Some helpful companies give conversions. Warmoth are very good in this respect, here are some examples which demonstrate just how much easier the metric system is. I partcularly like the use of both fractioons and thousandths:
1-5/8" (41mm) - Narrow
This is the smallest nut width. It is very comfortable for fingering chords and playing rhythm.
1.650" (42mm) - Vintage MediumThis width is considered "vintage" spec. It is very comfortable for fingering chords and playing rhythm.
1-11/16" (43mm) - Modern MediumThis is the standard nut width. It is our most popular nut width size, and the closest to modern Fender® necks.
1-3/4" (44mm) - WideThis slightly wider nut width increases string spacing and facilitates lead playing and string bending. Players with large hands or a background in acoustic guitar may also appreciate this nut width.
1-7/8" (48mm) - Superwide
It'd be hard to make pigtails with a 6" wide ribbon. 😁
It’d be hard to make pigtails with a 6″ wide ribbon. 😁
You say that, but what if you are the mother of the twins in 'The Shining' 😀
Curses, my secret identity is revealed!