wrightclan
Established Member
promhandicam":1jb5ofmz said:
Makes perfect sense to me.
Brad
i'm giving up metric
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Makes perfect sense to me.
Brad
Shivers
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wrightclan":kou0zp9w said:
they didn't it was along with joining europe ,there were lots of other changes coming in thick & fast ,the monetary system changed ,esperanto was being introduced(common euro language), weights measures all changed,--it wasn't so much the math was difficult--it just got buried amongst all the other big pile of changes --so those whom remember that time will tell you that we were forced to play catchup,instead of being taught from 5 yrs old & onwards it was thrust upon us.
jest of it anyway.
shivers.
wrightclan
Established Member
Jake":801i13bc said:
Who didn't what?
Brad
wrightclan
Established Member
Shivers,
Sorry, you seemed to indicate in your first post that they did drop one in favour of the other.
Jake, I think Shivers answered my question to you.
Brad
Sorry, you seemed to indicate in your first post that they did drop one in favour of the other.
Jake, I think Shivers answered my question to you.
Brad
CYC
Established Member
Shivers":36hgkucg said:
Wise words here, I think.
I didn't face this but am now hitting a wall with imperials since I moved to Ireland.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Come off it CYC if metiric weights and measures are not seen as a superior standard as far as EU directives go, then why do businessmen get hefty fines/nasty threats for non compliance if they prefer to use non metric. The architects of the EU must think metric is best or else why would they put so much determined effort into forcing it onto all euro citizens, or is it true they really ARE all barmy if they persist in imposing what they know to be an inferior system?
Like I explained I worked in various industrial setting's over an almost 20 year period where metric was compulsory, like it or lump it. Material's only available metric, customers demand in metric.....machines calibrated to metric etc etc. At the moment greengrocers, butchers, tesco's etc ARE definately compelled by the weights and measure's police to use metric even if they and their customers prefer otherwise. Eventually someone will inevitably get pinched for putting up a fence with 8 foot boards instead of 2.4 meter's. And OK maybe some tools from America are still imperial sized (good) but maybe thats because our sensible American colleauges have more sucessfully spurned the suposedly inevitable onward march of the "fart-o-meter" :lol: and been happy to retain inches, feet, yards etc
I think your being a tad cussid cos you know as well as I do that metric weights and measure's (along with single currency and other elements of enforced harmonisation :roll: ) are being imposed as a centralising EU standard wether folk like it or not. Thats my MAIN objection to it, theres no real reason to have it other than to forcibly make all alike. Just because "some" people happen to assert that metric is easier to learn, doesnt mean it should automatically be pre eminent. Plenty of "little children" learnt the imperial fraction method with no bother and went on to use it very sucessfully in manufacturing, engineering, design etc, in fact as Promhandicam sudgests folk nowadays seem incapable of mental arithmetic. Ultimate test serving rowdy customers behind a bar when theyre deliberatley trying to get you mixed up-I have been there (almost 30 years ago now) :wink: Now they have the price's in the computer. When I was in the window factory there was a young lad decimal-metric trained couldnt multiply even 2x3 type stuff "cos ar hav nee fooken calcyeelatah" It shocked me that 16/17 year old lads should need compulsory basic math's lesson's as part of a joinery course as they had no concept of volume/distance/area etc etc. I am no expert in fact I decided to take practical steps to improve my own learning in this respect (thanks Shultzy, I'll keep in contact) but when you cant do 2x3 or 4 x 10 something's wrong. And I DO most definately blame metric for causing me a lot of confusion in the 28 years since I left school. If people cant adapt to it (as you have said in your post), it cant be a very user friendly system can it? :wink: If it was that good its benefit's would become obvious with repeated use.
Cheers Jonathan
Like I explained I worked in various industrial setting's over an almost 20 year period where metric was compulsory, like it or lump it. Material's only available metric, customers demand in metric.....machines calibrated to metric etc etc. At the moment greengrocers, butchers, tesco's etc ARE definately compelled by the weights and measure's police to use metric even if they and their customers prefer otherwise. Eventually someone will inevitably get pinched for putting up a fence with 8 foot boards instead of 2.4 meter's. And OK maybe some tools from America are still imperial sized (good) but maybe thats because our sensible American colleauges have more sucessfully spurned the suposedly inevitable onward march of the "fart-o-meter" :lol: and been happy to retain inches, feet, yards etc
I think your being a tad cussid cos you know as well as I do that metric weights and measure's (along with single currency and other elements of enforced harmonisation :roll: ) are being imposed as a centralising EU standard wether folk like it or not. Thats my MAIN objection to it, theres no real reason to have it other than to forcibly make all alike. Just because "some" people happen to assert that metric is easier to learn, doesnt mean it should automatically be pre eminent. Plenty of "little children" learnt the imperial fraction method with no bother and went on to use it very sucessfully in manufacturing, engineering, design etc, in fact as Promhandicam sudgests folk nowadays seem incapable of mental arithmetic. Ultimate test serving rowdy customers behind a bar when theyre deliberatley trying to get you mixed up-I have been there (almost 30 years ago now) :wink: Now they have the price's in the computer. When I was in the window factory there was a young lad decimal-metric trained couldnt multiply even 2x3 type stuff "cos ar hav nee fooken calcyeelatah" It shocked me that 16/17 year old lads should need compulsory basic math's lesson's as part of a joinery course as they had no concept of volume/distance/area etc etc. I am no expert in fact I decided to take practical steps to improve my own learning in this respect (thanks Shultzy, I'll keep in contact) but when you cant do 2x3 or 4 x 10 something's wrong. And I DO most definately blame metric for causing me a lot of confusion in the 28 years since I left school. If people cant adapt to it (as you have said in your post), it cant be a very user friendly system can it? :wink: If it was that good its benefit's would become obvious with repeated use.
Cheers Jonathan
engineer one
Established Member
as anyone who has walked around paris will tell you the french still think boney won something or other. you have his blo*dy great tomb at les invalides, all these blo*dy great "N"'s on bridges and buildings, and of course we killed him with arsenic :lol: (wonder where that name came from :twisted: )
the use of calculators in exams has caused one of the many sets of problems, but in fact it is the lack of proper teaching methods, because there are now too many targets.
you do wonder why we still have 12 hours and 60 seconds/minutes,
and the 24 hour clock, and still people can't tell the time :lol: :lol:
i do however think that with the present education standards decimals for money are a good thing, but everything else well i don't know :roll: :roll:
paul :wink:
the use of calculators in exams has caused one of the many sets of problems, but in fact it is the lack of proper teaching methods, because there are now too many targets.
you do wonder why we still have 12 hours and 60 seconds/minutes,
and the 24 hour clock, and still people can't tell the time :lol: :lol:
i do however think that with the present education standards decimals for money are a good thing, but everything else well i don't know :roll: :roll:
paul :wink:
engineer one":1nex8inb said:
Here's a weird one for you. At work, I have to record my time, how much, doing what, for what client/matter, etc. We use software for this. We've just changed systems, and the new one (unlike the old one) doesn't recognise minutes, it demands that you put your time in in decimal hours.
I'm getting used to it, just about.
engineer one
Established Member
so now you are not actually using minutes and seconds, your'e using 10ths which don't exist.
stupidly of course the software is probably american :twisted:
but then they built the space shuttles which crashed, with modern software, and yet sent the apollo's to the moon with the equivalent of a modern calculator. :lol:
paul :wink:
stupidly of course the software is probably american :twisted:
but then they built the space shuttles which crashed, with modern software, and yet sent the apollo's to the moon with the equivalent of a modern calculator. :lol:
paul :wink:
Only the other evening I was flicking through a copy of a woodworking magazine from the sixties. It was given to me by the father-in-law years ago.
Stumbled on an aticle about decimalisation....interesting, and how ironic that the main thrust of that article, the thoughts and comments then, have been repeated here, some forty years later! :shock:
Esc.
Stumbled on an aticle about decimalisation....interesting, and how ironic that the main thrust of that article, the thoughts and comments then, have been repeated here, some forty years later! :shock:
Esc.
Escudo":3l7y4u7f said:
I suspect it reflects a certain age distribution, and also to some extent a certain disposition which is attracted to woodwork.
engineer one":3l7y4u7f said:
yes, but so was our old software, made by the same company
scrit":3l7y4u7f said:
erm, yes but so was...
martlewis
Established Member
Just to get my shilling's worth... I was brought up entirely on metric but when woodworking imperial just seems right. I never use metric in my workshop
Wanlock Dod
Established Member
Just to chip in my thoughts, for approximate distances I use metric and imperial measurements interchangeably, because errors from approximate conversions don't matter.
If I want to make something a particular size then I will use metric. I like the way you can use the same units for very different things (nm for sizes of molecules and Gm for the distance to the moon or something). I don't understand the fixation with mm when cm will do :shock: . But I think what I really like about the metric system is the relationship with other units, particularly volume but also pressure and things like that. Inches of mercury anyone?
Cheers,
Dod
If I want to make something a particular size then I will use metric. I like the way you can use the same units for very different things (nm for sizes of molecules and Gm for the distance to the moon or something). I don't understand the fixation with mm when cm will do :shock: . But I think what I really like about the metric system is the relationship with other units, particularly volume but also pressure and things like that. Inches of mercury anyone?
Cheers,
Dod
mailee
Established Member
Well here we go again. I am a child of the sixties too! I was schooled in Imperial and used it in the early part of my career. I started to use Metric when I took up Scuba diving as all the calculations were much easier in it. I can for instance tell you that 10mtrs is around 33' but I still use Imperial for my measurements in woodwork, up to a point. If the measurement is below 1/4" I will use Metric as this is easier. I do however find it a pain buying wood in Metric as nothing seems to equate to a regular size! You can't just buy 2mtr lengths of timber it has to be 2.1 or 3.2????? I also find it very strange buying an 8' X 4' sheet of 18mm ply?????????? I can visualise a size if it is given in Imperial but have no idea of it in Metric. What a strange world we live in. :lol:
I was "born" in metric, in the army I worked on French aircraft and everything was metric.
After the army, I started to work in EL-AL and we had the Britania (somebody remembers), that was a big change because of the Imperial but the engineers knew how to complicate it even more by incorporating a few measuring systems (that I don't remember) and we had a few sets of wrenches, one that I remember, was the 2BA and 4BA wrenches (can you guess what is the size).
At that time we were saying "why to make it complicated, if you can make it impossible my dear"...
In WW as in life, I measure in what I see on the ruler or the measuring tape - centimeters.
I write dimensions as 56.4 cm or 112.5 cm
The only mistakes that I have are "1+1=3" but that's why I use calculator.
Here, in main land Europe (like most of the world), if you use the Imperial, you will have very big communication problems and the only thing that you will be able to buy is...water tubes, that are still in "Zall".
niki
After the army, I started to work in EL-AL and we had the Britania (somebody remembers), that was a big change because of the Imperial but the engineers knew how to complicate it even more by incorporating a few measuring systems (that I don't remember) and we had a few sets of wrenches, one that I remember, was the 2BA and 4BA wrenches (can you guess what is the size).
At that time we were saying "why to make it complicated, if you can make it impossible my dear"...
In WW as in life, I measure in what I see on the ruler or the measuring tape - centimeters.
I write dimensions as 56.4 cm or 112.5 cm
The only mistakes that I have are "1+1=3" but that's why I use calculator.
Here, in main land Europe (like most of the world), if you use the Imperial, you will have very big communication problems and the only thing that you will be able to buy is...water tubes, that are still in "Zall".
niki
Fecn
Established Member
I'm a child of the 70s and was schooled entirely in metric, but use a mixture of impreial and metric for everyday life.
Less than an inch, I use millimetres- Drillbits are always in millimetres
Less than a millimetre and I use decimal points (0.78mm etc)
Between 1/2 inch and about 12 feet, I use feet and inches. 'Twelve feet, two inches' is easier to visualise (and normally to say) than "three point seven metres"
Over 12 feet long, and I tend to switch back to metres/millimetres.
I don't find a metre to be that useful a distance.. whereas a foot is rather conveniently about the size of my foot. I think feet and inches work very well for human-sized objects (like most of the things I build/make) and it's very easy to slip into using them when I'm in my little shed.
I'm happy with miles or kilometres for long distances - my car says miles, so I use miles generally. I know how many miles per gallon my car gets, but I buy my petrol in litres for my 80-litre tank.
I measure my temperatures in Celcius, but my wife only uses Celcius for cold weather - Hot weather she measures in Farenheit.
I'm typing this message now on my 120 dots-per-inch 30" screen, and it's going to be posted to a webserver that is almost certainly in a 19" rackmount case. The microprocessors running the server have been designed in nanometres.
Perhaps I should give in and start measuring with hexidecimal furlongs.
Less than an inch, I use millimetres- Drillbits are always in millimetres
Less than a millimetre and I use decimal points (0.78mm etc)
Between 1/2 inch and about 12 feet, I use feet and inches. 'Twelve feet, two inches' is easier to visualise (and normally to say) than "three point seven metres"
Over 12 feet long, and I tend to switch back to metres/millimetres.
I don't find a metre to be that useful a distance.. whereas a foot is rather conveniently about the size of my foot. I think feet and inches work very well for human-sized objects (like most of the things I build/make) and it's very easy to slip into using them when I'm in my little shed.
I'm happy with miles or kilometres for long distances - my car says miles, so I use miles generally. I know how many miles per gallon my car gets, but I buy my petrol in litres for my 80-litre tank.
I measure my temperatures in Celcius, but my wife only uses Celcius for cold weather - Hot weather she measures in Farenheit.
I'm typing this message now on my 120 dots-per-inch 30" screen, and it's going to be posted to a webserver that is almost certainly in a 19" rackmount case. The microprocessors running the server have been designed in nanometres.
Perhaps I should give in and start measuring with hexidecimal furlongs.
