I wonder if the when the US stops burning dinosaurs in it's cars, and is fully electric, if the electric car chargers are going to work in the metric kilowatt hours, or if they are going to have them calibrated in Horsepower per fortnights or something...
@tadbithuman @quixoticgeek B-but freedumb joonits!!1! 🥺
@wonka @quixoticgeek younger people do prefer the simplicity of the decimal system and the SI system, I have never seen young people complain about cm, mm or m.
@tadbithuman @wonka and kg or tonnes. Makes so much sense. Seeing NASA launch streams talking about pounds just makes me shudder. The fact you get long and short tons as well... argh
@quixoticgeek @wonka football fields and Olympic swimming pools, those are the best.
It's usually the ignorance in editorial or copywriting level which is responsible for journalistic content.
There was a fatal plane crash due to weight measures being different. There is absolutely no logic in leaving units in US Imperial system.
@tadbithuman @wonka And when the units get so large... I remember the time a country the size of Wales played against a country the size of Belgium. (yes real headline).
I think Acre foot, and board foot are the units that make the least sense to me...
@quixoticgeek @wonka acre foot and hectare metres as irrigation units are better than so many others, especially because you have trans national transactions in other items.
@tadbithuman @wonka hectare meter has some logic to it. That's 1m x 100m x 100m, or 1000m³. Acre foot is what? 1ft x 22 yards x 1 furlong... Which makes a convenient what in cubic something?
In the old country, India, I learnt all metric, but farmers have been measuring their fields in acres and irrigation water in inches, so acre-feet for charging for water consumption etc. is still understandable. No reason that cannot be changed and people go straight to cubic metres.
@quixoticgeek @tadbithuman Remember "Large boulder the size of a small boulder?"
@tadbithuman @quixoticgeek @wonka You only have to look at the cock-up with the Hubble Mirror, because of the merican not understanding the metric system.
@Porcia @tadbithuman @wonka Mars polar orbiter is the better option for displaying the importance of using metric...
Not to distract from the stupid unit bashing, monarchies are probably more irrational a concept than stupid units. Keep bashing both.
Every maritime exchange is in (metric) tonnes, we buy most of our structural steel internationally, in tonnes, but my drawings have to show weights in pounds and (short) tons. It is supremely stupid.
@tadbithuman @wonka My deepest sympathies. That does sound distinctly unpleasant.
@tadbithuman @quixoticgeek They are correct there.
@tadbithuman
The problem is that the "useful" unit for charging is "how much additional distance can i travel with X additional charging time", but we are saved by the fact that "miles per hour" is already taken...
@quixoticgeek
@eichin @tadbithuman But that varies a lot by driving conditions. You don't think of I'm putting 300km of diesel in the car. So why think of it as 300km of electrons ?
@quixoticgeek @tadbithuman Sure, it varies by conditions, by type of car, by ambient temperature in extreme cases. But it's the number you care about, because with petro-fuels you'll have a filling station available within a mile or two of where you happen to stop, electric is still sparse enough (and slow enough) that you care very much about what *range* you're charging to, and make choices like "10m partial charge now to get home, then an overnight full charge in my garage"...
@quixoticgeek Should be in Furlongs per Fortnight, had a friend at college who answered and exam question in those units, just because it said "Use preferred units"
@Porcia Well yes. That is the other options...
@quixoticgeek He was a bit of a smart arse though.
@Porcia I got told off in high school woodworking class when I produced a cutting list with items such as '4" x 9cm x 12mm'
@Porcia in college I failed one test in electronics, I challenged the result, and the lecturer asked me to show my process (I had written all my workings out originally too). So I went through, keeping everything as fractions, and then only converting to a decimal number at the end. He had done it with decimals all the way, carrying floating point errors all the way through. I got 100% on appeal.
@quixoticgeek I grew up on both Imperial and metric, at college we used Imperial in the engineering shop, and I can visualize 3 thou as that the thickness of a green Rizla. At uni though, it was all SI metric units.
@Porcia 3 thou, that's about 75 microns right? I just remember that a thou is 25 microns, and a tenth is 2.5 microns. I watch too many american engeering gootubers...
@quixoticgeek I have a problem visualizing in Microns if I'm using an imperial Lathe.
@Porcia I am fortunate that the lathes I have access to are all metric. If I have to make something with a ¼-20 thread, I'll use a tap/die. Everything else I'll stick to metric.
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it."
-Grampa Simpson
@wakejagr quite...
@quixoticgeek My children complain that I have a Simpsons quote for every occasion. It's not 100% true, but I did watch a lot of that during my formative years . . .
@quixoticgeek thankfully motors are rated in kW and hP both and power is charged in kWh.