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why is the US not Metric
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KL27x:

--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on December 05, 2019, 05:32:43 am ---I never said that. What I said is that the common citizen doesn't understand the benefits of metrication.
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The common American citizen probably understands it fairly well. You seem to have some basic misunderstandings.


--- Quote ---I showed you that I paid 10 times more for an oilite bronze bushing just because it was imperial. And now I add that I also wanted some imperial screws to replace the old rusty ones. However, they also cost an unreasonable amount of money compared to the metric equivalent. So I passed and kept the rusty ones.
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Well, that cost the world a lost sale of a few metric screws. But I think the expensive bushing more than made up for it? That's a net win, is't it? That increased the GNP of the world. You seem really naive to think this is about you and your screws, and that this would be a benefit worthy of getting out of bed for, if metrication would even affect it at all. (Spoiler alert, it won't).


--- Quote ---If you engage no more than two of your brain cells to think about it, you'll promptly understand that those who really benefit from the refusal to metricate are certainly not you, not me, nor anyone down the street.
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Metrication will benefit those put in place to oversee the process. Those put in control of choosing the contractors. Those workers who get $100 an hour* to stand in a crane bucket, because of who they know. It will do next to nothing for the average American citizen. We just get to pay for it (well, our children, too, since we would need to borrow more money from China). The benefit of leaving things alone is to NOT do that.

Is this it? We view the world from the opposite perspective. I don't want that. You think ^ all that is good? That's just the tip of the iceberg. This is government mandated redistribution of wealth. And everyone in the chain will take their cut. The pricetag will shatter previous records due to the size of our road system and our politics and legal system. Anytime Congress lets out another chunk of money, it's the average citizen that suffers the "transaction fees." You're not paying for a road. You're paying the system from top down. And in the end you might eventually get some signs up.


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--- Quote ---You don't accept that Americans learn metric and use only metric in school. They know everything about metric that you do. Every single American. Knows everything you do about metric.
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They don't know how to use metric exclusively. And this shows that they don't know everything about metric.
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So you think if they knew everything about metric, they would exclusively use metric? Or are you saying that only by exclusively using metric can you learn everything about metric? I'm trying to debug the malfunction in your wiring.


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--- Quote ---And they also know what a quarter pounder is. The reasons they use imperial [...] [yaddayadda] [...] something better suited to our version of English for km. "Killems?" Maybe in another 30 years that would turn into "kims?" Our military might say "clicks," but maybe I saw that in a movie.
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If that kind of gibberish is all that the imperial fan boys can produce, any speck of doubt that imperial is doomed has now vanished.

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So do you say "clicks" or not?

*After manipulating schedules to intentionally cross overtime with hazard pay, you could be looking at more than than, realistically. Nothing but cockroaches, here, and government money brings out our best. We are top notch slackers and cheaters of any system, and when the purse strings open, it's business as usual. Oops? We didn't finish the job under budget? I guess we need more money, which Congress will ok as long as we keep splashing enough of it in the right direction.
Cubdriver:

--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on December 05, 2019, 05:32:43 am ---I showed you that I paid 10 times more for an oilite bronze bushing just because it was imperial. And now I add that I also wanted some imperial screws to replace the old rusty ones. However, they also cost an unreasonable amount of money compared to the metric equivalent. So I passed and kept the rusty ones.

If you engage no more than two of your brain cells to think about it, you'll promptly understand that those who really benefit from the refusal to metricate are certainly not you, not me, nor anyone down the street.

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That's an interesting example you cite.  You do realize that even if the US were to go totally, completely, 100% metric TOMORROW that it would not cause the legacy equipment you were apparently fixing to magically transmogrify from inch to metric, right?  Engage a few of your brain cells and you'll realize that if we go full on metric that the oilite bushing you're bitching about the price of now would likely become even more difficult to obtain, and its cost would be even higher than 10 times the metric one.  And you'd still need it, because that shaft wouldn't change size.  Same with those rusty imperial screws.  After the change they'd still be the same size, but even harder and more expensive to get.

I'm fine with our refusal to fully metricate.  Here in the US it effectively gives me the best of both worlds - both metric and imperial hardware is readily available to me.  Shame you're apparently hamstrung in that regard by living in your metric only world.  Maybe you should just ditch anything you have with inch-sized hardware and just replace it with all metric gear.  That would increase your efficiency and save you a lot on maintenance parts like that bushing, right?  Why do you even have any of that archaic, obsolete equipment, Mr. Metric?  Given the great advantages you've been touting here, I don't understand why you'd ever have any need for inch sized things, as you should have purged anything using that inefficient and outmoded system years ago. 

I'll stick with the option, especially given the vast base of currently existing legacy things out there with US standard sized hardware.

-Pat
m98:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 04, 2019, 06:35:19 pm ---Do you think China ATC gives planes clearance to ascend from 8 hectometers to 1.5 kilometers? Or do you think they stick with the one unit that makes the most sense for the scale?

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Don't know about China ATC, but here in Germany, Gliders already operate all-metric. Metric ICAO map, metric units over radio, only metric gauges. It just makes so much more sense. Why would the length of some old kings foot be the intuitive choice for altitude measurement? And why would altitude be given in a unit that can't be easily converted into the unit for distance? And what's up with knots, I ain't flying no boat. That unit is just inconvenient for most types of aircraft.
KL27x:

--- Quote ---Don't know about China ATC, but here in Germany, Gliders already operate all-metric. Metric ICAO map, metric units over radio, only metric gauges. It just makes so much more sense. Why would the length of some old kings foot be the intuitive choice for altitude measurement? And why would altitude be given in a unit that can't be easily converted into the unit for distance? And what's up with knots, I ain't flying no boat. That unit is just inconvenient for most types of aircraft.
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China ATC uses meters, alone, for altitude. That was my point. They don't change to kilometers when the plane gets high enough.  That's cool that Germany changed its gliders. It's their butt, and their butt alone, so if they want to kill themselves in meters, they ought to use meters. If they find it more better, then that's great.

It has been suggested that American fighter pilots have an advantage because they already think in feet. But I think it's BS. IMO, the system is just a knob on a guitar. For instance, what altitude is "scary low" isn't something you really know until you fly the plane. You will be taught some benchmarks numbers by an instructor. But after you take off and land and refer to your gauge is when you will get a feel for the scale. Or after you crap your pants after barely clearing a ski lift (or not). The altitude where you need pressurization and/or oxygen is just another number. The altitude where the air gets too thin for cruising (a given plane) is just another number. They're just numbers that you have to learn. And when you build and fly a plane that goes higher and faster and farther, you have to get calibrated to new numbers. If you can control the plane in meters, you can control the plane in feet, and vice versa.

I think the reason the rest of the world went along with imperial for ATC is they felt comfortable in following along. In WWI, over 50% of plane crews that took off were lost and killed by navigation errors and resulting failure to have a safe place to land. More were lost to weather and mechanical failures of the planes. Only like 10% actually completed a mission and returned to base. Safe air travel is an entire system that developed over a long period of time. And in plane development, itself, America's military and military contractors sacrificed 100 test pilots for every Chuck Yeager. Once you figured out the tech and systems and radar and ATC setup and protocols, it became safe. America had the tech and knowledge and experience, first (well, of the winning side of WWII, at least). And then they had a huge monopoly on equipment and planes (ATC equipment and radar and such; not just planes), you could say until Airbus. The units aren't important. They're there for consistency, though. If it ain't broke.
m98:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 05, 2019, 08:34:01 am ---China ATC uses meters, alone, for altitude. That was my point. They don't change to kilometers when the plane gets high enough.  That's cool that Germany changed its gliders. It's their butt, and their butt alone, so if they want to kill themselves in meters, they ought to use meters. If they find it more better, then that's great.
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Nobody is killing himself so far due to this. The gliders never changed, btw. They just never had to convert to the "international standard".
Of course changing the prefix for the same attribute without a change over several orders of magnitude is unnecessary and can lead to confusion.
Best example are kilometers for distance. There is just no relevant distance on earth long enough that you'd need to express it in megameters. Some combinations of prefixes and units are less useful than others. Ever used megaampere or picocandela?


--- Quote from: KL27x on December 05, 2019, 08:34:01 am ---It has been suggested that American fighter pilots have an advantage because they already think in feet. But I think it's BS. IMO, the system is just a knob on a guitar. For instance, what altitude is "scary low" isn't something you really know until you fly the plane. You will be taught some benchmarks numbers by an instructor. But after you take off and land and refer to your gauge is when you will get a feel for the scale. Or after you crap your pants after barely clearing a ski lift (or not). The altitude where you need pressurization and/or oxygen is just another number. The altitude where the air gets too thin for cruising is just another number. They're just numbers that you have to learn.
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I am familiar with both worlds. Still, by your argument, why don't we just use smoots?
Head-calculations with conversion factors of 0,164579 and the like are something I am personally not capable of, therefore it is a lot more inconvenient. But yes, this is less relevant for powered flying where you don't need to systematically care about glide distances. I still think it's just a unnecessary complication
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