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why is the US not Metric
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KL27x:

--- Quote ---Ergo, those who think that 11's better are Nigels. Those who think 11 is still good when everybody else is using 10 are at least Ruperts*.
--- End quote ---

I am concerned with how well the guitar plays and sounds, and that it's nice and tightly joined. That the strings are as low as possible without buzzing against the frets. That the notes are all in pitch. That it's the right size. (The guitar, not the ruler used to make it). But you guys can worry about how much better 10 is than 11 or vice versa.
SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: KL27x on November 25, 2019, 07:40:32 pm ---[...] I wouldn't go so far to say America is the father or cradle of modern machining.  [...]

--- End quote ---

For that we probably have to look to England - in the midlands Black Country parts -  from which several heavy metal groups like Led Zeppelin etc. hail, probably a coincidence!

Historians might write that America was the star of the 20th century, it seems to me.  Space, nuclear, electronics, computing, ... 

KL27x:
^Yeah, Britain would probably get the credit for that. And they started in imperial, so that's what America started building from.

It was centuries of development and incremental improvement and additions to the existing tools that allow man to shape metal. Re-doing all of this is an enormous task compared to pulling out a calculator and converting a number. Americans are ok with converting between 10 and 11.

Knowing metric and being able to design something brilliantly in metric doesn't mean you can actually make the thing and have it work. If you had the tools (and knowledge and skill) to create this, properly, but they were in imperial, would you not use them? Or would you pull out a metric ruler and a hack saw and try to do it the True way, without using Evil tools? Would the resulting metric paperweight be better than the widget that actually works?

Do you think it's easy? You just design it in SketchUp, then you hit the print button, and your 3D printer does the rest? Do you think N Korea doesn't have intelligent people? Do you think with your modern education and intelligence you can just use metric and google to build an ICBM? Or do you need some actual experience and tools and know-how in making the physical world your bitch?

The guy that made the first rifle. Did he have a genius idea that no one in the world had ever thought about? Heck no. Imagining a rifled steel barrel is pretty easy; bringing it into reality was the hard part. Maybe in the end it would be a waste of time. But someone spent long hours building the tools to build the tools to even try it. Most of us here do not have this kind of capability. We think that getting the "right answer" is all that matters. It's about a score on a test. It's about knowing. The rest is just boring details. But these details matter. Ideas don't equal technology. This is where engineering comes in. Even without calculus and physics and metric, Romans performed incredible feats of engineering. Other societies surely thought about running water. A 6-year-old boy can imagine a giant canal in the sky that brings water to his  home. Other people had this idea, but then they went back to slinging mud. They didn't possess the technology and knowledge to make it more than an idea.

In a textbook, metric is better. Done. In the real world, the tools that make the best guitar are the ones I want. The numbers don't matter. Where you live, the best tools are all metric, I'm sure. I'm ok with imperial cuz I know it's just a scale. I can convert it to metric or vice versa.

If you were a cynic, you might say imperial is the metric of weapons and war since the Roman era. During the cold war, maybe inches were a matter of national pride to Jack and Jenny. Today, maybe the Free Masons are behind the continued use of inches. But to today's Jack and Jenny, inches are what we have at the local store and what is plastered all over our roads. And as a matter of practicality, it isn't broke, so we don't care to fix it. We do care that you care, though. We're not barbarians. So we have taken the note.

You guys don't like imperial fasteners very much.
Mr. Scram:

--- Quote from: Cerebus on November 25, 2019, 05:45:25 pm ---Not quite. If you use proper cook's measuring spoons, vis:

where you can level off the measured item with the back of a knife, so you're not into 'level teaspoon, rounded teaspoon, heaped teaspoon' territory, then a tablespoon is 15ml, a dessert spoon 10m and a teaspoon 5ml.

--- End quote ---
There isn't really a standard or there are many standards derived from the real thing. It boils down to the same.
Mr. Scram:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 25, 2019, 06:06:05 pm ---I must also point out that most of the world has made a lot of things illegal.  Like murder.  Driving faster than posted limits.  Stealing other peoples property.

And for reasons totally incomprehensible to some, those activities still occur.  Even though almost all agree that the world would be a better place if they didn't. 

I don't lose much sleep over the difference between a perfect world and the one we actually live in.

--- End quote ---
You don't lose sleep over murder? That sounds a bit psychopathic.
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