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Yes, it can, and did so very successfully for centuries. It would simply need updating with a few additional units to cope perfectly adequately with modern scientific calculations. There are, indeed, many international conventions which still use Imperial such as feet for aircraft heights, knots for boat speeds, and fathoms for water depth. I certainly don't expect the death of horsepower any time soon. And as someone else pointed out backing the metric system has proved to be a complete misstep with the arrival of computers as base 10 is the absolute worst for computer calculations with just two factors (2 and 5) making it all but impossible to express part units accurately in binary code. In the digital age decimal units are the dinosaurs.
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Don't know what type of engineering you are referring to but I work in Structural Engineering in the US and nothing gets converted to SI and back. That said, I would much prefer using the metric system.
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This would be mechanical engineering for things like cars, planes, etc. If you start doing fuel/mass/acceleration/... calculations, you'll be wanting SI units for sure.
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Why do Americans call it the 'Fourth of July' and write 07/04/2015?
So much simpler if we all used the ISO 2015-07-04.
I work with financial data that often can't be directly copied and pasted from web sites and PDF documents into other programs. I thought that was going to be fixed in the Windows 3.1 upgrade.
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As far as date is concerned, I prefer the "July 22, 2015" format. There is no room for ambiguity.
However, when it comes to Imperial v. Metric. I am strictly in the Metric for science, Imperial for every day use camp. For instance, I have an intuition for how far a mile is, or how much a 50lb bag of sand weighs, but I have no clue how far a kilometer is or how much a 50kg bag of sand might weigh. Yes, I know what the conversion factors are, but I have to think about it, then convert to Imperial, just so I can be in the right ballpark.
You could say, "Oh, well to Hell with current adults, we should do it for the children." But that creates a problem, because then you have two generations, who are in close proximity (parent/child relationships), using two different systems, and if the Common Core Math standards have taught us anything, it's that parents get really pissed when they're too stubborn and/or stupid to learn how to do their children's math homework.
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde
Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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it's a narrowing thing.
It is (in principal) better to start with the biggest entity and narrow it down, than to start with an arbitrary portion.
Like with addresses (which are almost universally written in exactly the opposite way)
England > West Midlands > Sutton Coldfield > Four Oaks > Kenilworth Close > 2
2015 > July > 22nd
The only reason for using July 22nd, 1988 would be if generally the dates you are looking at are for the same year, and so the year portion is of less import.
So it depends on the use -case
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Colin Mullikin wrote: For instance, I have an intuition for how far a mile is, or how much a 50lb bag of sand weighs, but I have no clue how far a kilometer is or how much a 50kg bag of sand might weigh.
Only because you've been brought up using the Imperial scale. I was born decades after India went metric and I have no idea how "long" a mile is or how much 5 lb "weighs".
Cheers,
विक्रम
"We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread 
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Neither imperial nor metrics system makes sense. Check the very basic physics for this 
modified 19-Jan-21 21:04pm.
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Please elaborate - I don't get your point. 
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Americans are adopting the metric system... inch by inch! 
Contrary to popular belief, nobody owes you anything.
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Very funny! 
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Now I prefer YYYYMMDD because it's great for easy sorting of things, even as text.
But as for the metric system being better? Nonsense. The US system is far more savvy with the modern way of doing things.
Start with an OUNCE.
2^2 Ounces is a Gil
2^3 Ounces is a Cup
2^4 Ounces is a Pint
2^5 Ounces is a Quart
2^7 Ounces is a Gallon.
Quarts can also, by powers of 2, be expanded to bushels and pecks.
So - obviously - the US system of measurements is perfect for the computer age. Clean, efficient, and fast (one can even use shift operators - try that with metric). No roundoff errors. No approximations.
PERFECTION
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Grew up with the imperial system, in grade 7 or so when metric was introduced, so I've used both.
For dates? I write out the date, as in July 22, 2015 - no ambiguity. This is probably the format that gave rise to mm/dd/yy.
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Looks like the Y2K bug will still haunt us for at least the next 00 years...
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Sure, blame it on the Americans.
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Depending on your SQL version - check your 2 digit year cutoff option:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189577(v=sql.105).aspx[^]
As for internationalization of date formats - we've been using dd-Mmm-yyyy for years, but much of our industry is going to the ISO-8601 standard yyyy-mm-yy. (even our sales/support people use "ISO-8601" in conversation now.)
I know this was supposed to be a rant thread, but I get worked up about date formats.
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Since humans will write programs in the future...
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VMA-2015 Nominations, partial list ((link: http://webinfocentral.com/webtv/VMA2015.aspx[^]): noticeably, big chunk of this so-called 'music videos" looks more like an adult entertainment show (re: that notorious "Anaconda" and other similar rear-view vids) with music as good as construction noise and lyrics kinda too strong even for drunken sailor... the stuff like this should not even be allowed for general public display: it must be x-rated and moved into that category. In this regards, one BIG Q: who is backing all this vulgar, classless, obscene anti-cultural crap?
<lol>Life is 2short 2remove USB safely
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Another BIG Q, why do you care? don't watch the damn thing.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Somehow, music is an important part of the culture, and, frankly, it is quite entertaining as well: should I (and folks like me) just drop the habit of listening to the (good) music? Probably not! It's better to do some "clean-up" of our music industry, which has been under bad influence, sorta of, for quite too long. As an auld saying goeth: "cutlets should be served separately from flies" (metaphorically), so "Anaconda" and likes should go to that x-rated crappy category, leaving more room for really talented music performers. IMHO...
<lol>Life is 2short 2remove USB safely
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You're kidding right? that bad influence BS has been around since a good bit before before Elvis (jazz and blues perhaps?). I don't care for the music either, however no one is forcing you or me to listen (or watch) anything we don't wish to. Taste is purely subjective and the VMAs are simply catering to a certain audience, you and I just don't happen to be part of that target audience. Listen to whatever your heart desires, life is to short to be berating the current music industry, it won't change anything (think PMRC[^]).
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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I agree with you. What passes for music today is mindless crap. But maybe you and especially I are just getting old? 
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Well, we are not getting younger, but this is a separate issue, from the main one outlined in the post: music of today is either made of crap, or heavily contaminated with it. Betcha most of us would agree on that.
<lol>Life is 2short 2remove USB safely
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