<SNIPPED>
Vance wrote
The only good thing about the SI metric system is the use of decimal
portions.
This leads me to believe that if the metric freaks want to force
that
system on us,
That I propose in retaliation that we decimal time. The time of
seconds,
minutes,
hours,days,weeks,months, and years is hopelessly out of date. We
should
use
mega, kilo,centi,milli,micro,pico - Galileos ( one astonomical day
with
the same
idiocy that changed cps to Hertz, and pressures to Pascals).
Vance
While we're at it, we'll have to decimalize angular measure. Degrees,
minutes, and seconds are right out. Radians are in. It is so much
easier
to remember that there are approximately 6.28318 of those
oh-so-scientific
radians to a circle than that purely arbitrary 360 degrees. Or maybe
gradians. At least they are easy to decimalize: 100 gradians to a right
angle. Just think of how much easier it will be when we re-tool /
re-program all of the world's machines!
And of course all of the astronomers, cartographers, and navigators will
be
thrilled with the new earth and sky coordinate system once we
recalculate
all of the astronomical ephemerii (OK, so I'm not sure of the plural of
ephemeris).
And people were afraid of Y2K! That was child's play!
Vent mode=on
joke mode=on
Ok, at the risk of being flamed, I have to say something. I can't believe
that a group as progressive as this (who are willing to develop their own
experimental aircraft engine for crying out loud!!) would cling to a
measurement system based on the length of a kings foot. The persistent use
of a unit weight force (yes I'm aware that you can use slugs but that only
helps my argument), silly oz, Gc, strange unit volumes etc, etc, etc. We
might as well use hogsheads furlongs and bushels! Not to mention that there
is the whole imperial units problem, which don't jive with US ANSI stuff.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. I HATE THE ENGLISH SYSTEM
OF MEASURE. It was, is and always will be a disaster. I much prefer to use
the SI system, especially when I have to do a lot of calculations, but
because of the stubborn US refusal to change anything we now have a
kluged-up part US, part Metric system. I now have to have two sets of tools,
and somehow have some British standard stuff that got into my tool box. What
a disaster. If we would just pick one system I would be happy. At least the
volume and weight measures with SI jive based on the weight of water, and
the whole weight, force, and gravity thing is much cleaner. The system is
consistent. When you make a mistake, you are off by an order of magnitude,
not 32.2. Much easier to find your mistakes. Although lately I have seen
some misguided souls are using Kg force NO, NO, NO!! I have even seen some
electronics types are using kg/in^2, and Watts/in^2 what the hell is that?
Oh well electronics guys also confuse flux and density.
Temperature, well the English system has better resolution (roughly twice).
But hey, just stick a decimal point on Centigrade and Voila!
While we're at it, let's make the calendar the Julian calendar with 365
days. Get rid of the months. I hate trying to remember how many days are in
each month. If you are on day 200 there is no question what the date is.
All time should be Zulu, 24 hour clock, no daylight savings, quit screwing
up my circadian rhythm twice a year. Why do we all have to get up at the
same time? If you are in a different location on the globe, get up at a
different time! At least we all would know what time it is everywhere. It's
hard to change time to decimal because it is based on the earth circling the
sun and makes sense from that standpoint. Likewise time, degrees and minutes
make sense from this standpoint, they are related because of polar geometry.
But the bogus pagan calendar has to go. Clocks reading in radians? radian
protractors? Sure would make calculation easier, but I'm afraid you'd have a
hard time selling that to the general public.
I'm afraid this only matters to us geeky engineer/scientist types, it
certainly has nothing to do with the Jerry Springer crowd. I don't think
Dubya will be taking this subject to the UN anytime soon.
not so sincerely,
Monty
Watts/in^2 is heat flux... which is the same as HP/in^2 sort of :-)
Paul Lamar
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