Pointless Argument Thread

[dantheman0177]

Said the man from the place that invented haggis

Is it ever going to stop snowing here?

Said the man from the country (UK, I mean. Scotland isn't a country!) that doesn't even USE the Euro?!?!?!

[kieran]

Said the man from the country (UK, I mean. Scotland isn't a country!) that doesn't even USE the Euro?!?!?!

scotland is a country, as are england, wales and northern ireland. the act of union made them into a kingdom. unfortunately.

[BobD]

The mm is such a great increment for practical measurement. Most everyday tasks, construction work, etc only need the accuracy of 1/25 0f an inch.

[kieran]

Also, BTW, if you want to "lose" weight, start referring to it in "stones"....

i had a fun argument with my ex-wife about that one. also that she needed to lose weight .. but anyway;

i theorised that americans use feet/inches, but not stones/pounds because the rote multiplication table teaching in american schools only went up to 12.

[skatha]

The mm is such a great increment for practical measurement. Most everyday tasks, construction work, etc only need the accuracy of 1/25 0f an inch.

There differences in being able to wean someone from a ventilator with a 8 mm ETT v. a 6 mm ETT are remarkable. Plus, your cardiac artery stent is also measured in mm. If your pupil expands at night to 9mm but the microtome of the LASIK machine cuts to 8 mm, you will see halos around lights at night. The need to have accuracy to the mm is extremely important with what I do...

Got a 6 mm kidney stone, go home with a prescription for pain pills. Have a 10 mm stone-you'll need to see a specialist and get a ureteral stent (also measured in mm)

[C5 Golfer]

I find the fact that we aren't using metric incredibly embarrassing, actually. It's pathetic. Everybody else managed to switch over just fine; we're the only ones that utterly failed.

one of the big problems I see with the metric system is a basic building supplies... we are so used to a 2x4 2x6 ect and a 4 x 8 foot sheet and 16 in spacing for building homes and construction... How is it going to do that - "Hmm I need a 50.8 x 101.6 x 203.2 fir lumber.."

Those of you in a metric country-- that build stuff out lumber -- what is your equiv size of common sizes for our 2x4 2x6 type ? just curious how close we are or how far apart we are in home framing and building

[kieran]

one of the big problems I see with the metric system is a basic building supplies... we are so used to a 2x4 2x6 ect and a 4 x 8 foot sheet and 16 in spacing for building homes and construction... How is it going to do that - "Hmm I need a 50.8 x 101.6 x 203.2 fir lumber.."

the irony there is that a 2x4 is actually 1½x3½ ...

Those of you in a metric country-- that build stuff out lumber -- what is your equiv size of common sizes for our 2x4 2x6 type ? just curious how close we are or how far apart we are in home framing and building

i don't think there are any direct analogs, generally building supplies like cut timber are measured in whole mm, like 1800x38x92. and catalogues/websites will list firstly in mm, and then usually also in inches.

as far as metrication goes, here i go into a shop and buy two pints of milk. it's in a carton that says 1.136l on the outside, but it then also says '2 pints'. (2 pints being 40 fluid ounces...)

it's the same for most foodstuffs. for those that were a particular weight in imperial, like half a pound of mince, the packaging sizes didnt change. just the labelling.

[C5 Golfer]

the irony there is that a 2x4 is actually 1½x3½ ....

yes but with good reason...

Lumber's nominal dimensions are given in terms of green (not dried), rough (unfinished) dimensions. The finished size is smaller, as a result of drying (which shrinks the wood), and planing to smooth the wood. However, the difference between "nominal" and "finished" lumber size can vary. So various standards have specified the difference between nominal size, and finished size, of lumber.

Early standards called for green rough lumber to be of full nominal dimension when dry, but the requirements have changed over time. For example, in 1910, a typical finished 1-inch- (25 mm)board was 13/16". In 1928, that was reduced by 4%, and yet again by 4% in 1956. In 1961, at a meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Committee on Grade Simplification and Standardization agreed to what is now the current U.S. standard: in part, the dressed size of a 1 inch (nominal) board was fixed at 3⁄4 inch; while the dressed size of 2 inch (nominal) lumber was reduced from 1 5⁄8 inch to the now standard 1 1⁄2 inch. ( above is from the internet )

[C5 Golfer]

Kieran.. another wierd one is tires sizes on Automobiles... we have metric on the width and aspect ratio type but then we have inch in the rim size...

[BobD]

There differences in being able to wean someone from a ventilator with a 8 mm ETT v. a 6 mm ETT are remarkable. Plus, your cardiac artery stent is also measured in mm. If your pupil expands at night to 9mm but the microtome of the LASIK machine cuts to 8 mm, you will see halos around lights at night. The need to have accuracy to the mm is extremely important with what I do...

Got a 6 mm kidney stone, go home with a prescription for pain pills. Have a 10 mm stone-you'll need to see a specialist and get a ureteral stent (also measured in mm)

When I moved to the states in 94, I had to take a lot of electrical classes involving calculations. I could not believe how much more time a similar problem took in standard measurements, than in metric, and that everyday, Americans wasted so much time because their measurements involve fractions.

Where else in the world would you hear people refer to a measurement as strong or weak because it doesn't fall on an easy fraction.

Fortunately for me, I belong that generation of Brits that learned to measure in imperial, but entered the workforce just as British industry converted to metric in the seventies. As UK tape measures always had metric and imperial, it was common to hear someone measure a rectangular object as say 9 1/2 inches by 132mm.

[BobD]

one of the big problems I see with the metric system is a basic building supplies... we are so used to a 2x4 2x6 ect and a 4 x 8 foot sheet and 16 in spacing for building homes and construction... How is it going to do that - "Hmm I need a 50.8 x 101.6 x 203.2 fir lumber.."

Those of you in a metric country-- that build stuff out lumber -- what is your equiv size of common sizes for our 2x4 2x6 type ? just curious how close we are or how far apart we are in home framing and building

There in lies the problem for the US. When the UK industries converted in the seventies, the dimensions of all stock materials changed. For me, 3/4in (conduit became 20mm . You needed a converter to go from one to the other. So for several years, there was a cost to the conversion. Just renaming a material with it's metric measurement is not going to work. No one is going to refer to a 3/4in pipe size as 19.05mm pipe.

I believe the opportunity for the US convert to metric with minimal cost was lost in the seventies, because of the lobbying power of US commerce. The commercial short term interest then, means that US industry has suffered a long setback that will be hard to overcome.

[Gcarve]

There differences in being able to wean someone from a ventilator with a 8 mm ETT v. a 6 mm ETT are remarkable.

Yes, a 2mm smaller ETT does make weaning a more formidable task, often significantly lengthening the AC-SIMV-CPAP-Extubation timeframe.

[lowrider]

Fractions and remainders who wants to deal with those ? Base 10 all the way. Now who was the tool that decided the UPM width was going to be 12.9 mm and not 13. Vaccinations in ounces, calculating medication in ounces no ones perfect but it's hard to imagine the carnage that would result in.

[kieran]

As UK tape measures always had metric and imperial, it was common to hear someone measure a rectangular object as say 9 1/2 inches by 132mm.

this in a sense is laziness. you go with whichever measurement standard takes you closest to an exact quantity.

i worked in a multi-language office for a while. spanish, french, german and italian, as well as english. it was interesting to note that they all adopted english swear words and phrases, as they are quicker to get out.

[Corey]

Random tidbit: That American made and designed GM car that sits on your street (or maybe your driveway) was designed and manufactured entirely in Metric.

The buses I work with use a mix of metric and imperial-sized tubing. Sometimes a 1" tube is too weak and a 1.5" tube is too heavy, so we use a 35mm tube. All design work is done in inches and pounds though.

Ever see an 'Engineer's tape'? It's a measuring tape that's in inches but uses 1/10ths increments (there's a second smaller increment too, maybe 1/20"?) instead of the standard 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16" marks. Very handy when you have a drawing specifying that a part needs to be located 1.45" from a reference point.

[BlueB]

Those of you in a metric country-- that build stuff out lumber -- what is your equiv size of common sizes for our 2x4 2x6 type ? just curious how close we are or how far apart we are in home framing and building

5x10cm and 5x15cm are pretty common sizes...

Majority of European countries, where Metric started, do not frame the houses. They build the real ones :D

[C5 Golfer]

One good thing about the Engineers and the "inch" system.. it gave us two important measurement and quality control methods... that would be "Dead Nuts" and "it is off by just a RCH"

[ncermak]

My board is a 182cm with 12m sidecut. I sets GS gates at 20-25m, and Sl gates at 12-18m. what else is there to be measured really?

[C5 Golfer]

My board is a 182cm with 12m sidecut. I sets GS gates at 20-25m, and Sl gates at 12-18m. what else is there to be measured really?

The depth of the snow in inches and the amount of anual snow fall in feet, plus how many pints of beer at night.

[ncermak]

The depth of the snow in inches and the amount of anual snow fall in feet, plus how many pints of beer at night.

I live in Massachusetts. depth of snow in centimeters...not inches...not feet. I measure my bourbon by the liter...1.75!

[skatha]

For all who remember the illfated Martian Observer-the one that crashed into Mars instead of going into low orbit-the reason was that the engineers calculated the orbital trajectory by using both metric and standard measurements...d'oh!

[Michelle]

Wow you were right in the first post.

This is a pointless argument.

[Gcarve]

The depth of the snow in inches and the amount of anual snow fall in feet, plus how many pints of beer at night.

In a perfect world, the snow would need to be measured in feet, the amount of annual snowfall in the hundreds of feet, and the beer measured by the number of pitchers. :D

[kieran]

In a perfect world, the snow would need to be measured in feet, the amount of annual snowfall in the hundreds of feet, and the beer measured by the number of pitchers. :D

snow depth: enough

annual snowfall: more than enough

beer consumed: i can't remember

[Gcarve]

snow depth: enough

annual snowfall: more than enough

beer consumed: i can't remember

Or, for the sake of argument..........................

snow depth: way more than enough

annual snowfall: way too much

beer consumed: ok, your answer was good!