Our Friend, The Meter 1672
dbirchall writes "Upon hearing that SpaceShipOne reached 100km today, I did some hasty math based on the altitude in feet sttated by Scaled Composites in their press release, and was surprised to come up with a number under 100,000 meters. Fortunately, a friend pointed out that my inches-to-meters conversion was flawed. Some quick Googling determined that lots of people still have no idea how many inches are in a meter, even after some folks have had big problems because of conversion errors."
meter (Score:5, Funny)
At least we know. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:On in the US (Score:4, Funny)
Still incorrect... (Score:2, Funny)
Which to me means nothing so much as is silly to point out you're right by simply being more right. The correct thing to do is to point out the above.
As a side note, this means I am doing the right thing. Go me!
Re:On in the US (Score:5, Funny)
Hell no! You'll get my inches, miles, and gallons when you pry them from my cold dead hands!
Loosing the probe was part of the mission design. To bad we lost it afterwards. It really sucks to lose something once you've set it loose.
Re:On in the US (Score:5, Funny)
As he's apparently British, he can't spell "metre" either.
easy solution (Score:4, Funny)
metric is gud (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe another reason is that some people are believing the doctored rulers they have laying around
Ya baby
Get out of here! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Google is your metric friend (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Funny)
Who controls the british crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We dooo! We dooo!
Re:Legacy Measurement System (Score:5, Funny)
The scale measured in Kg and I was able to say, "whoa! that's X pounds!"
Your kid only weighs X pounds? Sorry to hear that. My 10 month old baby boy is weighing in right about XXX pounds right now. And he's starting to walk!
Hmmmm, am I the only one left using Roman numbers? I guess if I'm gonna use this metric thing I'm going to have to upgrade to Arabic numbers, eh? Nah, it would cost too much.
Re:Why should I care? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:(north) American cousins - get on board (Score:5, Funny)
How would it make you better off in Australia? Do you have to keep spare sets of measuring spoons or something around for when we come over to visit?
Rods to the hogshead (Score:4, Funny)
It's "40 rods to the hogshead", actually. A "rod" is 16.5 feet; a "hogshead" is 63 gallons. Consequently, the elder Mr. Simpson's car putatively ran at 0.002 mpg.
Re:On in the US (Score:5, Funny)
Usually speled "tonne" to make it clear.
It always bothered me in Star Trek when Spock would be reading off sensors of some object and say "5 million metric tons". Unless you go to 3 significant figures, it doesn't matter which kind of ton(ne); and in the 24th century I rather hope the imperial ton has gone the way of the cubit.
Last vestige of colonialism? (Score:2, Funny)
for royalty, just like what we gave up
with our Revolution. How else to explain:
(1) fastination with Hollywood celebrities
(2) continued re-election of undeserved
politicians (like the House of Lords)
(3) elevation of GW Bush to near-sainthood?
Re:It matters because (Score:3, Funny)
Because it takes longer than seven days to reach Mars?
It doesn't matter who you are... (Score:3, Funny)
"loose"? (Score:0, Funny)
True story.. (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone with half a brain can realise the the problem with making this change, especially in an environment where you're working with existing materials. The following is a genuine conversation I had while out buying some 4 inch guttering:
Me: Hi, I need some 4 inch guttering.
Plumbing shop: Oh sorry, we don't have any 4 inch guttering.
Me: How can you not have any? This sucks!
Plumbing shop: As luck would have it, we do have some 101.6mm guttering that is exactly the same size.
Me: I'll take it!
Re:On in the US (Score:1, Funny)
Forget Metric, Modern Physics! (Score:4, Funny)
My car tops out at about 0.000000231 c
It can travel about 5000000000000 nanometers per tank of gas
and it's engine produces around 937500000000000000000000 electron volts per second at the crank.
It's the wave of the future!
Re:It matters because (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I hope your boss doesn't read Slashdot...
Re:(north) American cousins - get on board (Score:2, Funny)
Well it would mean maybe one day once all imperial had dissapeared, we would only have ONE set of socket wrenches...
and plus all the crocodiles would sound shorter, as they would only be 2 metres instead of 6 feet!
Re:Legacy Measurement System (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It matters because (Score:5, Funny)
Futurama quote (Score:3, Funny)
Calculon: Metric? I've always known, but for you my darling, I'm willing to convert.
Re:Quick note.. (Score:5, Funny)
Right. I'm going to go to the tyre centre and have them look under the bonnet.
I'll fill my auto with 40 litres of petrol, much less than my neighbour's red-coloured auto which requires 80 litres of petrol. My auto is awful, though, so it's going to the scrapheap. For now, maybe I can bodge something to make my auto look better. At least the two hundred kilogrammes of scrap aluminium are worth something, according to the recycling programme I watched yesterday.
"Of course, this is just me being a nit-picky bastard."
No, it's you not understanding that American English spells things differently from British English.
The accepted American English spellings are "Meter", "Liter", and "Gram".
Re:meter (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It matters because--"right" Dan Birchall (Score:5, Funny)
*No, really, honest.
NASA (Score:5, Funny)
I worked at NASA back in the early 90s. They had a big campaign to push the metric system, including posters which read "Metric is a Perfect 10!". So I got out my ruler and measured the posters, and found them to be exactly 2 feet by 3 feet...
Re:At least we know. (Score:5, Funny)
1. it is least not lease
Yes, an American has corrected your spelling.
Perhaps you should learn how to check your writing AND math.
Re:On in the US (Score:3, Funny)
The USA, on the other hand, is just full of rednecks who want to keep using feet and inches (and getting pennies in their change) 'coz that's how God wants it, dammit!
Re:meter (Score:2, Funny)
Re:On in the US (Score:4, Funny)
I have seen pubs selling 1 pound pints before. But they're usually Foster's, which you'd have to pay me to drink.
Re:On in the US (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It matters because (Score:2, Funny)
Re:On in the US (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't that be - "You'll get my inches, miles and gallons when you pry them from my cold dead feet!"
Re:It matters because (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, 10 times, that's metric!
Re:Just Remember 2.54 (Score:2, Funny)
So 1 inch is 2.54cm. then 1 foot is 25.4 cm ? 1 yard is 254.0 cm ? etc. ?
You can't derive the rest if you don't know the seemingly randomly chosen number of $units in a $biggerunit.
Another: True story - Irish (Score:5, Funny)
My dad: Good morning, I'd like some quarter inch pipe please
Hardware guy: Ah no surrr, we have the metric system now surr, it's all in millimeters.
My dad: Ok fine, I need some 8mm pipe
Hardware guy: Foine, foine! How many feet would you like?
Re:(north) American cousins - get on board (Score:2, Funny)
We are humbled by the mighty Australian Space Agency...
Re:Forget Metric, Modern Physics! (Score:5, Funny)
Firstly the c is redundant. In proper post-Einstein physics, distance and time are the same, so a speed is simply a pure number, so:
My car tops out at about 0.000000231 (or 2.31 x 10^-7)
Now for distance, or time, we need to fix a unit of distance OR time. The most obvious fundamental unit of distance is the Planck length
It can travel about 3 x 10^38 Planck lengths on a tank of gas [ remark -- your car may need maintenance, that's not very far]
Power is energy (aka mass) per unit time, so again, we appeal to Planck and find that your car produces about 4 * 10^-48 Planck masses per Planck time.
Now we've got rid of all the silly arbitrary unit standards and defined everything in terms of the fundamental properties of the universe. Most physical constants are 1 in this model, which is a handy side benefit.
Re:Quick note.. (Score:1, Funny)
Re:It's not just that the poster is a moron (Score:5, Funny)
You should see the calculating skills of the rebel cooks.
Re:It's not just that the poster is a moron (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Quick note.. (Score:2, Funny)
Would you mind awfully just calling it "American"? I'd rather my beautiful native tongue not be sullied by association with that cacophonous pidgin you colonials "speak". There's a good chap.
And we call them cars over here, dear boy. Do try to keep up.
Re:Quick note.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why should I care? (Score:4, Funny)
(Speaking as someone who thinks in inches despite never having set foot on US soil.)
Obligatory Granpa Simpson quote (Score:2, Funny)
Re:On in the US (Score:4, Funny)
It all depends on how cheap the bar is.
Re:Arguments against the metric system (Score:1, Funny)
(We all know what comes next.)
THE LOGICAL MEASURING SYSTEM IS BASED ON 10 (base two, of course)!
Re:meter (Score:2, Funny)
Re:At first i thought this post was stupid (Score:2, Funny)
> * 40 inches, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
and 120 inches according to all the viagra spam I get!
Re:Why should I care? (Score:3, Funny)
I can tell you that a litre of water weighs 1kg.
Yes but how long is it?
Re:At first i thought this post was stupid (Score:3, Funny)
-
Re:meter (Score:2, Funny)
Unrelated to the perimeter which is also a military thing...
Re:On in the US (Score:2, Funny)
Re:At least we know. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Why should I care? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:At least we know. (Score:4, Funny)
American units #1 (Score:0, Funny)
Then there are the idiots that want a metric calendar. No kidding, there really is a metric calendar. Our concept of a second would change and the calendar would be off by a lot quickly. Think leap week instead of a leap year. That is because our universe is not base 10.
That is because American units are right. That is why the US is on top, we use the right measuring system. Even Airbus realized that and switched to American units in their planes. Now they are a world competitor. Even the French can make something of themselves when they use correct American measurements. No confusion on if it is 1"(inch) or 1' (foot), is it 10mm or 10cm? No one would make a mistake on the American measure, metric measurements are messed up all the time.
Everyone should dump the failed Metric system and use the correct American measures! Learn the conversions, it will do your brain good.
Re:On in the US (Score:5, Funny)
We call it a ruler. Do you call it a yard meter?
Pentameter (Score:3, Funny)
Re:On in the US (Score:3, Funny)
We call impliments up to about 16 inches a ruler. A 36 inch impliment is usually called a yardstick.
Anything between those ranges is a broken yardstick
Of course, there are folding rulers too, those can be any expanded length, as long as they and up in that 16 inch range when folded. I've never seen a folding yardstick.
Re:Pentameter (Score:3, Funny)
Re:meter (Score:5, Funny)
And in Chicago, 'meter' is a device that resulted in me having to pay hundreds dollars to park my car.
Comment removed (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Pentameter (Score:3, Funny)
That's the Imperial measurement. The American Pentagram is defined by military specification, so its mass is 666 tonnes.
Re:THIS IS NOT FUNNY 1.0 inch = 2.540000cm (Score:3, Funny)
If, by that, you mean Slashdot, Space Travel, The Internet, and Computers in general, then yes, it is Americanism at work. Hard at work.
Re:THIS IS NOT FUNNY 1.0 inch = 2.540000cm (Score:3, Funny)
Re:meter (Score:1, Funny)