[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful

[Matt Obert]

begin  googlegeuse
I'm enjoying this thread immensely. Just wanted to rack up some
Google juice for "Metric system considered harmful" for a few
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[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful

On Sat, 23 Jun 2001, Brian Hicks wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 23, 2001 at 12:58:42AM -0400, Matt Obert wrote:
> > 
> > Begin  Sean Neakums quote:
> > 
> > > >>>>> "r" == rillian  <rillian at telus.net> writes:
> > > 
> > >     r> Here we go again with the imperialist units.
> > > 
> > > I prefer those to units invented by a bunch of bored Frenchmen who
> > > based their "logical" units of distance on the circumference of the
> > > Earth, a wholly arbitrary quantity.
> > 
> > What's so arbitrary about the circumference of the Earth?
> 
> The circumference of the Earth which intersects the poles and downtown
> Paris!  That's an important distinction, since the Earth isn't a perfect
> sphere.  And did they sink their collosal line of twine to the seafloor or
> did they float it on the water's surface?  Did they go over the mountains
> or drill a hole through?  Or did they just say "Fuck that exact measuring
> shit, we're going to GUESS!"  And then what did they do?  They divided
> that by 40,000,000!  
> 
> > The imperial system is based on the approximate size of the
> > King's feet. Now, that's arbitrary. Everyone on Earth has a
> > different shoe size, but it's not as though we all live on
> > different oblate spheroids with different random circumferences.
> 
> At least with feet, you've got a rough approximation with you at all
> times.
> 
> > Ditto the metric systems for weight and volume, which are based
> > on the specific gravity of water. Again, this is a pretty decent
> > basis for a standard. Of course, I'm open to the argument that
> > the metric system may seem arbitrary to people who live on Mars
> > and drink hydrogen peroxide.
> 
> The metric measurments for volume are based upon metric measurements for
> length.  See above for attacks against that.
> 
> The specific gravity of water?  At what temperature?  At what pressure?
> Water is a hideous choice for basing a measurement system on.  It's got
> this HYDROGEN BONDING crap going on, which means it's density varies
> widely with temperature.  It's such a crappy standard that people don't
> even mention it when they teach you metric.  I've never even heard of that
> until now, and even if I am an idiot American, they've been teaching me
> this crap again and again for years!  All I ever heard is that there are
> nearly identical platnium-irridium slugs sitting under armed guard in
> various national capitols which are the official Kilograms.
> 
> At least they didn't fuck with the second.
>  
> 

-- 
Random  Oedipus
RI Pseudo Nomad
Modus  Operandi
modus at as220.org


[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful
[CrackMonkey] Metric system considered harmful