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why is the US not Metric
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vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 05, 2019, 05:07:38 am ---^^^ thought re: vk6zgo

--- Quote ---Not really, millennia refers to "thousands of years", not "millions of years".
--- End quote ---
Yeah, thanks. It's  kiloyears, I take it.


--- Quote -------there are no "Long Tonnes" or " Short Tonnes".
--- End quote ---
Agreed. Bringing up long tons and tower oz is a strawman argument. It's 2019.

--- End quote ---
You would certainly know, as you have strewn strawmen higgledy-piggledy throughout this thread.
It appears you were a little premature in consigning long & short tons to the"ancient history" category.

It turns out that a "short ton" is the US "customary measure" of 2000lbs, which is what an American would mean when referring to a "ton".(yet another US "rationalised measure----pity the Brits didn't adopt it, instead of sticking with their silly figure).
A "long ton" is the "Imperial ton" of 2240 lbs.

They also both seem to be alive & well & used in commerce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton

--- Quote ---
In the normal metric form you ought to call it a megagram, though. "Ton" was and is still in usage. The fact you use the word ton instead of megagram shows an example of the metric benefit that doesn't hold up to real world language and usage. In the multiple kiloyears of usage of what I still call imperial (American Customary?) the names of units somehow became quite efficient.

"Ton" is a good start for metric. And if you say a "ton" is a metric ton without qualification, then I welcome you to it. Majority rules, right? I hope that holds up and becomes even legally recognized in America. I would have thought it might require occasional clarification even in formerly imperial countries, and I hope it is as you say. When you're buying/selling tons, the $$ is usually pretty important. Now, since I can do that, can you stop bringing up long tons? The long ton now really, really doesn't matter anymore, to me, seeing as I have essentially agreed never to use the word "ton" again in my own country, and I'm totally fine with that. For the sake of world progress. I hope the world can enjoy metric's second halfway decent unit name, unmolested by the ghosts of the short ton and long ton. (Gram is awesome).


--- Quote ---Like, maybe, metres?
--- End quote ---
Of course they use meters in China's ATC. That was my point.
--- End quote ---
And your point was a "strawman".
Nobody ever suggested you should use the more obscure prefixes.
Various fairly unuseable units have faded out of general use over the years.

Who ever uses the "Bel"?
It is still a recognised unit, but "dB" are far more convenient'

How about "Nepers"?

Hell, I learnt the unit resistivity of metals in "circular mil-feet"!

--- Quote ---
And in the majority of the world, they use feet. The fact there is such a weird number of 6075 feet in a nautical mile doesn't matter to a pilot, because they only use feet for altitude. Same as they only use meters in China. The "decimal point shift" is one of the supposed advantages of metric that looks great on paper but actually doesn't mean a lot in the real world in this particular context.


--- Quote ---You can blame all that [the lack of say centiliter and hectogram in common usage] upon the SI system.
--- End quote ---
I wonder now if a unit such as centiliter would be allowed in legal documents? Even if it weren't for "SI" or legal acceptance, I still think your friends would call you a dumbass. The imperial units are mostly 1 or 2 syllables for a reason. There are only so many 3-4 syllable unit names you want to use/recognize to avoid confusion, and there are only so many good shortened versions that you will come up with. This is why SI made its recommendations. The lego plug n play works great on paper, in text, in computer programs, in emails. Not always so good in real time conversation, though.



--- Quote ---To my understanding"clicks"was a Vietnam Veteran "thing"-----I've heard a few people in Oz use the term, but most people just say "ks".
Context is everything in using shortened forms, & nobody would think you were referring to kHz or kg, if you said:-
"Fred lives a coupla "k" down the road."
--- End quote ---

Yeah, that works. Like "quart" is a quarter of a gallon. You have "kay" for kilometer, and I would assume "kee'-low" for kilograms. And that pretty much covers it. Cuz you probably don't need kilo-anything else for common language.

--- End quote ---

In Australia, kilo is mostly pronounced as "kill-uh", as the full form of most units is mostly used.
Among the exceptions which occur, we have "k" as above for kilometre, & for mass, we would normally say, using the shortened form, 'one"keelo", two "keelos", etc.

 Ohh, &, I forgot to add, we use the term "K" Ohms.

Most people have Electricity connected, which is charged for in kilowatt-hours. ("kiluhwatt hours") ;D
KL27x:

--- Quote from: vk6zgo on December 05, 2019, 09:42:35 am ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 05, 2019, 05:07:38 am ---^^^ thought re: vk6zgo

--- Quote ---Not really, millennia refers to "thousands of years", not "millions of years".
--- End quote ---
Yeah, thanks. It's  kiloyears, I take it.


--- Quote -------there are no "Long Tonnes" or " Short Tonnes".
--- End quote ---
Agreed. Bringing up long tons and tower oz is a strawman argument. It's 2019.

--- End quote ---
You would certainly know, as you have strewn strawmen higgledy-piggledy throughout this thread.
It appears you were a little premature in consigning long & short tons to the"ancient history" category.

It turns out that a "short ton" is the US "customary measure" of 2000lbs, which is what an American would mean when referring to a "ton".(yet another US "rationalised measure----pity the Brits didn't adopt it, instead of sticking with their silly figure).
A "long ton" is the "Imperial ton" of 2240 lbs.

They also both seem to be alive & well & used in commerce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton

--- Quote ---
In the normal metric form you ought to call it a megagram, though. "Ton" was and is still in usage. The fact you use the word ton instead of megagram shows an example of the metric benefit that doesn't hold up to real world language and usage. In the multiple kiloyears of usage of what I still call imperial (American Customary?) the names of units somehow became quite efficient.

"Ton" is a good start for metric. And if you say a "ton" is a metric ton without qualification, then I welcome you to it. Majority rules, right? I hope that holds up and becomes even legally recognized in America. I would have thought it might require occasional clarification even in formerly imperial countries, and I hope it is as you say. When you're buying/selling tons, the $$ is usually pretty important. Now, since I can do that, can you stop bringing up long tons? The long ton now really, really doesn't matter anymore, to me, seeing as I have essentially agreed never to use the word "ton" again in my own country, and I'm totally fine with that. For the sake of world progress. I hope the world can enjoy metric's second halfway decent unit name, unmolested by the ghosts of the short ton and long ton. (Gram is awesome).


--- Quote ---Like, maybe, metres?
--- End quote ---
Of course they use meters in China's ATC. That was my point.
--- End quote ---
And your point was a "strawman".
Nobody ever suggested you should use the more obscure prefixes.
Various fairly unuseable units have faded out of general use over the years.

Who ever uses the "Bel"?
It is still a recognised unit, but "dB" are far more convenient'

How about "Nepers"?

Hell, I learnt the unit resistivity of metals in "circular mil-feet"!

--- Quote ---
And in the majority of the world, they use feet. The fact there is such a weird number of 6075 feet in a nautical mile doesn't matter to a pilot, because they only use feet for altitude. Same as they only use meters in China. The "decimal point shift" is one of the supposed advantages of metric that looks great on paper but actually doesn't mean a lot in the real world in this particular context.


--- Quote ---You can blame all that [the lack of say centiliter and hectogram in common usage] upon the SI system.
--- End quote ---
I wonder now if a unit such as centiliter would be allowed in legal documents? Even if it weren't for "SI" or legal acceptance, I still think your friends would call you a dumbass. The imperial units are mostly 1 or 2 syllables for a reason. There are only so many 3-4 syllable unit names you want to use/recognize to avoid confusion, and there are only so many good shortened versions that you will come up with. This is why SI made its recommendations. The lego plug n play works great on paper, in text, in computer programs, in emails. Not always so good in real time conversation, though.



--- Quote ---To my understanding"clicks"was a Vietnam Veteran "thing"-----I've heard a few people in Oz use the term, but most people just say "ks".
Context is everything in using shortened forms, & nobody would think you were referring to kHz or kg, if you said:-
"Fred lives a coupla "k" down the road."
--- End quote ---

Yeah, that works. Like "quart" is a quarter of a gallon. You have "kay" for kilometer, and I would assume "kee'-low" for kilograms. And that pretty much covers it. Cuz you probably don't need kilo-anything else for common language.

--- End quote ---
In Australia, kilo is mostly pronounced as "kill-uh", except for mass (but only if using the shortened form).
Most people have Electricity connected, which is charged for in kilowatt-hours.

--- End quote ---

Good grief. 
Look, pot. I'm not the one constantly bringing up the "well, you'd have to clarify barrel or IMPERIAL barrel. That's why imperial sucks." I'm not saying it is you doing it, but that is one of the petty arguments against imperial, and you ARE the one that brought up LONG tons and short tons. I know pretty much the last country that still uses imperial has one ton that is also is known as a short ton in UK... the country that no longer uses imperial so why you keep bringing it up?

But now here you are claiming "we just say ton, and everyone automatically knows it's a metric ton!!!! Even though there are at least two other tons that wikipedia says are still in use!! Cuz metric is magic!?!?"

I'm seriously ok with you believing that, and wish you luck when you use ton, and you never get asked for clarification. Because everyone you ever talk with will never have known about any other ton. Just by hearing you say "ton" means metric ton, I'm done with it. It's meaningless now. Maybe in some years, it will have a meaning again. If I were to need to use (metric) ton frequently, I'd be all over megagram, just to avoid confusion, esp seeing as other systems were already using ton at the time?!


--- Quote ---Nobody ever suggested you should use the more obscure prefixes.
--- End quote ---
I brought up the stupid exotic prefixes because of the idiots bringing up long tons and tower oz and rods and chains and hogshead. It cuts both ways. 

Lots of folks tout the superiority of metric because you can "just shift decimal places to turn one unit into the other totally different unit with a different prefix!" But as you confirm, this is not really practical to use every type of unit in metric because it will create more confusion. There are only so many units you will want to commonly use before you start to have to pause and doublecheck what the heck you are hearing. In many real world uses of units, we stick with just one. As you agreed, when flying a plane or a glider or w/e, you will stick with just one. When driving a car, you don't change miles to feet, either. So this conversion issue really doesn't hardly ever mean anything in the real world daily usage. I think we agree then. That there is absolutely no reason for Americans to not use imperial for daily life. Unless you have some stake in the politics.

The way we use metric in the world in daily life is nearly identical to the way we use imperial units in real life. When you plan a hike, you picture it as a certain distance in km or miles, the number of which you can cover in so many hours. With so much effort, time, and food. We don't say, well, I can cover 1 meter in about 1 second. And I might need one almond and 1mL of water for that step. So multiply that by 1000.

The way we skip over centiliters and hectograms is the same way we skip over rods and perches and furlongs. Cuz like no one cares about saving a zero here or there.

There is nothing magical about metric until you start doing physics or chemistry. And Americans (who do physics and chemistry) use metric for physics and chemistry. We have no problem using both systems. And no problem using metric when you want to attract or address a foreign audience.

As for ATC, I would be inclined to believe that no pilot has ever had to do mental conversion between feet and meters other than the ones that have to change.* If the pilot learned in feet, he flies the plane in feet. He didn't have to do a conversion to figure out how high that looks. He didn't know how high that looks until he got up there and looked at his gauge in feet. I would believe that the EU pilot that has already learned and got his license and experience will NOT want to change to metric. I mean, if I go up in the sky and come back down alive in feet, just once? I'm sticking with feet. But maybe I am wrong.

*Or flights between metric and imperial ATC. And since most of the world uses imperial, already...
Tepe:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 04, 2019, 06:35:19 pm ---Do you wonder why centi seems to only ever be used for centimeters... hecto only ever seems to be used for hectares; all this versatility, and not that much of it actually useful in practice? If you use centiliters or hectograms in your communications, do you think people would thank you for saving them the hassle of a couple zeros? Or would your friends tell you to stop being a dumbass?

--- End quote ---

cl, hg, hPa:










KL27x:
^Wow, lol. Those pics do not help the case for Americans to change to metric. Hg is mercury, lol. Cl is chlorie? The last one, I don't even know what that is. :-//

JK. Of course, here, we would be listing the price of candy as $ per 100 grams over that atrocity. Soda is already labelled in ml, here. But it's nice that other countries can use metric rods and perches if they choose.
Tepe:

--- Quote from: KL27x on December 05, 2019, 11:34:13 am ---^Wow, lol. Those pics do not help the case for Americans to change to metric. Hg is mercury, lol. Cl is just... The last one, I don't even know what that is. :-//

--- End quote ---
Mercury is Hg everywhere, of course. Context is everything, like kg is "kilo" in everyday speech, hg is "hekto".
Using cl instead of ml for soda and beer seems reasonable to me, as the latter indicates more precision than is reasonable.

The last one shows our local weather service uses hPa for atmospheric pressure (instead of mbar).


--- Quote from: KL27x on December 05, 2019, 11:34:13 am ---JK. Of course, here, we would be listing the price of candy as $ per 100 grams over that atrocity. Soda is already labelled in ml, here. But it's nice that other countries can use metric rods and perches.

--- End quote ---
Atrocity? Totally reasonably use of prefixes, I'd call it   :box:
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