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It the metric system that's arbitrary. Based on ten's ? Lousy factor retinue.
The Imperial System has an an entire system of weights based on base 2 - awaiting the computer era.
16oz = 2^4 ozs
Qt = 2^5
Cup = 2^3
Gallon = 2^7
Look at all the factors a yard has!
It's time you get rid of system that's designed only for people who must count on their fingers (of French origin if I'm correct). Now THAT is arbitrary.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "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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Um ... and what power of two lb are there in a stone?
What about the acre? Hectare? Chain?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: What about the acre? Hectare? Chain?
You've clearly proven my point about the mess you have! A hectare is metric.[^]
Those sound very "english" - Furlong time, now, they've made a mess of things (like two flavors of gallon). They also abandoned their system - but didn't finish the job. You can discuss it over a Pint.
Cricket pitch - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[^]
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "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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OriginalGriff wrote: What about the acre? Hectare? Chain?
That's the trouble. A lot of our measurement units came from different invaders, and ended up all being added to the language.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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BS. When you add and subtract, do you do it in binary or hexadecimal logic or imperial? How about binary perCENTages? It's actually a problem to add 2 inches to a foot and then express it in a percentage or in decimal feet. I actually convert it to centimeters to do stuff like that.
But you don't think about these things do you.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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So Fired up - I expect to hear la marseillaise any moment now.
You have it all ass-backwards. Since most everything numeric is done directly and indirectly by computer, it is that system which we must accommodate. For the simpleton's, there once was something called BCD[^], q.v.
But using the metric values - you cannot help but have errors. Accumulating errors.
Get with the program - it's the age of the computer. Many people on this site actually have been known to use them - just ask around.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "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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Regular everyday business people do not calculate as computers in binary bits. Nobody does. EVerybody conducts business in the decimal system. Next time when you order carpet try to write down the measurements in bits. See how it goes.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Urban Cricket wrote: Next time when you order carpet try to write down the measurements in bits
No need - it's all done in YARDS.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "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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But the numbers will be decimal.
You don't get it I give up.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Urban Cricket wrote: I give up.
That's exact what he was trying... 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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You would expect a software developer to possess an IQ higher than his age ...
When you tell someone to write the weight of their sandwich in binary and he responds:
No I will write it in ounces!
Every follow up conversation becomes meaningless.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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754-2008 - IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic - IEEE Standard
Quote: Abstract:
This standard specifies interchange and arithmetic formats and methods for binary and decimal floating-point arithmetic in computer programming environments.
It appears that you are mistaken; many people do use the decimal system, even on computers. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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W∴ Balboos wrote: You have it all ass-backwards. Since most everything numeric is done directly and indirectly by computer, it is that system which we must accommodate.
Didn't y'all blow up a space shuttle or some other spacecraft in recent memory cause the imperial system the Yank muppets used was wrong?
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Urban Cricket wrote: It's very arbitrary.
Um, can we bear in mind that all measurement systems are arbitrary? Even the Kelvin? Even numbers themselves, to a large degree?
I actually did a great talk on this, once (back before the days of Ted, so the only records of it are my own notes, which may or may not be in a format recognisable by IBM PCs), where I got the audience to create entirely new systems of measurement for speed, acceleration, mass, torque, etc, all revolving around the calculation requirements for bicycle rides.
It was a lot of fun, and I'm pretty sure that no-one who attended was ever again fooled by most of the "Gosh!" numbers*, because the arbitrariness of measuring systems was clearly shown to be, well, arbitrary -- and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if at least one of them has since created a new measurement thingummy or constant, to suit the precise needs of the calculations that they've had to perform.
* A prime example of a Gosh! number is minus forty, in temperature. Is it Fahrenheit or Centigrade? Gosh!**
** The truth is that, as with most Gosh! numbers, it's not something to say Gosh! about. If you have two measurement systems to enumerate the same thing, they're bound to intersect somewhere. The fact that 40 is a "round number", according to our arbitrary numbering system, is pretty much irrelevant.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Again how many yards is one yard plus two feet plus two inches? IN metric it's trivial you know.
For better or for worse we do conduct business in a decimal system. The imperial system is ill suited for these types of calculations.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Urban Cricket wrote: Again how many yards is one yard plus two feet plus two inches?
1y2'2"
Next question.Urban Cricket wrote: The imperial system is ill suited for these types of calculations.
Oh, nonsense.
Back before the pound was decimilised, you could see people, every day, performing complex mental arithmetic calculations involving pounds, shillings, and pence, at lightning speed -- and the same went for distances, volumes, etc.
So everyone's day-to-day experience of how-much-can-I-spend-on-this mental arithmetic is now your "trivial" decimal stuff, and no-one can do it with the complex calculations that everyone used to do day after day -- i.e. your decimilisation trivialisation has made everyone a bit more stupid.
And computers don't care which arbitrary units you use -- once the routines for them are added to libraries, the calculations can be performed as often as you'd like.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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More stupid, really, there are people, who devote their entire lives to memorise entire Shakespeare plays. They think it is smart. Smart people decide to devote their mental resources to something more useful.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Like I say, if you want to join the top ranks of mensa, spend a couple of weeks doing stupid little puzzles, because mensa has set the ability to do stupid little puzzles as the benchmark for intelligence, so a couple of weeks practice turns an idiot into a genius.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Alright, I won't comment on the turning idiots into geniuses part. All I would like to say is that in the end the british changed their currency to a decimal system.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Urban Cricket wrote: Again how many yards is one yard plus two feet plus two inches?
As I already answered, 1y2'2"
You're assuming that, because you use our arbitrarily 10-based numbering system to express metres using the decimal point, all other arbitrary numbering systems have to do the same.
You simply don't express inches as decimal percentages of feet, because they are not arbitrarily decimal -- they are arbitrarily duodecimal, so you express them as duodecimal percentages, where the division is by twelfths, not tenths.
If you insist on using a decimal point as the divisor for ternary and duodecimal numbers, then you would write 1y2'2" as 1.2.2, with the first "decimal" point actually being a ternary point, and the second being a duodecimal point.
Me, I prefer to use the accepted divisors for yards, feet, and inches, because it avoids any confusion -- i.e. for the same reason that I write metres down with an 'm' for metres, rather than 'l' for litres.
Your insistence that ternary and duodecimal numbers be expressed as decimals is the problem, not the ternary or duodecimal systems.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I insist that doing calculations in that arcane system is a pain. There is a much more convenient alternative. That's all.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Urban Cricket wrote: The US is still clinching to the old for some inexplicable reason.
I am offended!!
We are not clinching anything. We, however, are clinging rather tightly to a great many things.
It had to be done.
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America - Switching to the metric system... inch by inch!
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Just before the metric system was adopted, just about every town in France had its own measure: it's own cloth yard (often two: one for buying, and one for selling!), its own bread weight, it's own fruit weight. It was frequently difficult to work out how much you were actually buying or selling because some would cheat and use short weights, and what do you check them against?
So a travelling merchant needed to work out conversion values for each town (or even customer) he visited!
The metric system was invented to get round this, and introduce a standard system what could be checked, and which would be the same regardless of where you were.
There is a fascinating book on this: The Measure of All Things[^] about the two astronomers who set out to measure the meter. While the French Revolution happened around them.
And don't forget: Josh Bazell: In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to "How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?" is "Go Elephant yourself" because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: because some would cheat and use short weights, and what do you check them against?
Literally, a problem as old as the bible.
But - at the time - didn't the UK &etc. have an imperial system? The problem you describe is that of France, not of any particular system of weights and measures. All that you really wanted was a fixed standard. Any standard, in terms of trade, would do.
As for Bazell - The mole and the mass of hydrogen (molecules) (or anything else) were defined using metric measurements - saying that they are better is self-referential. Also, they tossed the calorie (not to be confused with the Calorie !) in favor of the Joule - which is roughly 4.18 per degree increase in water temp at STP. And temperatures are mis-measured in the metric system: either use Kelvin or Roentgen - but not something base on water's properties. Clearly, Bazell's credential suck: he's supposedly a physician. He writes crime novels. Surely you can do better!
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "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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