Look you boyo, I'll swap you three sheep for a bag of coal. Well things have moved on a lot since then, although being from Wales I have plenty of both coal and sheep to trade!
Things have advanced on a lot as far a trading units and standardisation, but how much?
To be brief.
Imperial systems are derived from standards introduced through British empire and then taken by the Commonwealth countries. USA adopted the system but tailored it accordingly (something to do with troy pound, the bushel, apothecaries pound etc).
Metric systems (SI Units) was developed in France during the Napoleonic reign of France in the 1790's. The scientific community has adopted the metric system almost from its inception, and has rapidly gained global acceptance. The USA missed being a nationalized metric system by one vote in the Continental Congress in the early 1800's.
The advantages of the Metric system are:
It was based on a decimal system (ie: powers of ten). Therefore, it simplifies calculations by using a set of prefixes.
It is used by most other nations of the world, and therefore, it has commercial and trade advantage.
I am fortunate enough to understand both units having grown up in the 70's when Britain went metric and also abolished pounds shillings and pence (currency before Stirling). Even now older colleagues and relatives will waffle on about feet, acres, shillings and ounces. The youth look on bemused. Add to this that here, all mileage distance and speed is still calculated nationally in miles - (British imperial) including car specs, road signs, weather reports of wind speed and odly enough personal weight measurement (stones and pounds) . My rational brain wonders at the chaos.
In Practice we operate both metric and imperial systems. All drawings are represented metrically with the millimetre (1/1000 meter), the dominant measurement for length. All Solicitors, agents and a large proportion of Clients operate solely in imperial (this could be an age thing). Construction timbers are still called of casually in imperial measurement but converted directly to strange millimetre measurements that don't quite have the same ”˜ring' as a piece of nice 2 by 4 timber (that's inches).
The importance of standardisation cannot be underestimated as recently NASA lost a probe due to a US imperial / Si Units conversion on propulsion. $125 million dollars wasted (lets hope the trip to Mars is more successful!).
What is the problem here? Is it government procrastination, electorate resistance to change, the love of complex conversions between regions?
Do you have the same conversion annoyances I have when i read American construction literature?
I can suffer the letters - Americans frequently spell 'metre' as 'meter', and 'litre' as 'liter'; The unit 'gram' is also sometimes spelled 'gramme' but what about the numbers?
hmmm....you can't imagine the guilt laid on myself and fellow elementary school students growing up...the jist was that we were the only ones who had ever used our system in 1000 years and they made us learn metrics...i've since written it off as an illogical system (how am i supposed to know how big something is when i can't compare it to a part of my body) and was perplexed by going from a system where 100 is hot and 0 is cold to 40 is hot and -10 is cold. even more amusing was when i found out indian and nepalese architect/contractor friends of mine design in metrics, but build in real measurement (feet, miles, etc.)
"I am fortunate enough to understand both units having grown up in the 70’s when Britain went metric and also abolished pounds shillings and pence (currency before Stirling). Even now older colleagues and relatives will waffle on about feet, acres, shillings and ounces. The youth look on bemused. Add to this that here, all mileage distance and speed is still calculated nationally in miles - (British imperial) including car specs, road signs, weather reports of wind speed and odly enough personal weight measurement (stones and pounds) . My rational brain wonders at the chaos."
i thought we were the only ones who used both systems, as we use metrics for volume (a 2 liter of coke anyone?) and weight (a kilo of cocaine anyone? or a gram of sugar?)
as far as "Construction timbers are still called of casually in imperial measurement but converted directly to strange millimetre measurements that don’t quite have the same ‘ring’ as a piece of nice 2 by 4 timber (that’s inches)." is concerned, our wood is measured in nominal dimensions, such that a wood 2x4 is 1.5x3.5. it is the same for all metal studs. i believe when a member gets up to a certain size (is it 10"?) it becomes .25" under its nominal dimension, rather than 1/2." this all goes back to the fact that studs, technically, are measured before they are treated i believe.
i just learned to convert between it all and now i deal with it. so what i say is...DEAL WITH IT! please assume a homer simpson-esque jest in the last sentiment.
A generation of men is like a generation of leaves; the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, while others the burgeoning wood brings forth - and the season of spring comes on. So of men one generation springs forth and another ceases. <----real homeresque statement
because that is what I have to do so i can figure out how long to make one thing in metric the same length in imperial. isn't that why everybody does it?
Oh Lisa! You and your stories! Bart is a vampire! Beer kills brain-cells! Now lets go back to that...building...thingy... where our beds and TV...is.
and
If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, its that girls should stick to girl's sports, such as hot oil wrestling foxy boxy and such and such...
Ehh! I know why people convert things. My question is why troy pound, the bushel, the apothecaries pound as opposed to the bar of platinum 4 mm thick, 25.3 mm wide and a meter long, with plane parallel ends (measured at 0 degrees celcius), held in the French Archives.
Le bossman
“i've since written it off as an illogical system (how am i supposed to know how big something is when i can't compare it to a part of my body)â€
One ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator is not so illogical, is it? Although I have read recently that it is now been defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in exactly 1⁄299,792,458th of a second…
metric rocks!
we should adopt it!
maybe if only to tweak the contractors...
le bossman, nominal wood sizes exist because wood shrinks. it's cut at the size it's called when it's green and then it typically shrinks down to the 1/2" or 1/4" smaller size we love and hold dear.
LaTorpilleRoase
bloody hell, i've misjudged you Americans if you measure your parts in meters. Centimetres would be acceptable as a metric response, however it is an anomaly that British human measurements continue to be discussed in inches.
Wood does not shrink that much. Check your wood manuals, shrinkage is minute across grain in most species.
Back before any of us were part of this world, wood was cut into actual 2x4" pieces. Over time, the industry got more and more shrewd, each mill reducing the size of a 2x4 imperceptibly to augment their margins.
At some point the industry started regulating sizes, but by then a 2x4 was 1.5x3.5".
It would be really scary if wood shrank that much - I'd never trust it.
freq_arch
thanks for challenging that definition. i had half a story.
It turns out we actually do start with a real 2x4, but between shrinkage and planing for a finished piece of lumber, it gets reduced down to the 1.5x3.5. we still pay for the original 2x4 volume of wood, shavings on the shop floor and all.
the shrinking story never sat all that well with me, anyway.
i can argue for both methods and their advantages. power of ten, yada yada. I have designed with both.
But I like imperial because nothing is as satisfying as the inch or the foot. Imperial is a human system. Metric is a math based system and therefore more abstract.
The centimeter doesn't do it for me. They are so BORING.
The millimeter is useless for so me.
The meter is OK- but most things that I deal with are fractions of a meter, or lots of centimeters - therefore too abstract. Where are the decimeters? Are they not really used? You never hear about them. TIF you use them, suddenly you have too many units. Must be sure to label properly. If I say 6 3, you might know I mean 6 foot 3 inches. Not so with metric.
Kilometers are alright - once you get into bigger measurements, I don't care.
The foot and the inch are so smart! How many things that I measure fit nicely into feet and inches? Most everything.
To argue against the power of ten - I am more likely to screw up a calculation by a missed decimal point than any other mistake. I am more apt to find errors in imperial, because I can feel the units - "That sounds about right."
In summary, the metric system is the mathematician's measurement. The imperial is the humanist's measurment. And I am a humanist.
Hi.
For me it don't matter if the measures are millimeter or inch, meter or Parcek, mesaures for me gentlemen, are no problem inch or millimeter I work one to one.
When I draw I draw in drawing units , it do not matter !!! What I draw one to one, cut with a mashin that cut one to one. It don't either know the difference between a millimeter and an inch , I even never need take one single measure designing the thing, or extracting the pieces that will make the thing . With this I can design a Viking Longboat one-to-one so where are the trouble ??
If you realy want to be tortured with the imperial system, then what could possible be wrong with the frensh aproach ,, even sweden got right side drive ,, you englishmen still measure the plumbing in foot and then transcribe this to work in math. translate it into a Mars trip ,and expected it to work.
Stop doing it wrong do it right.
my problem is that there are virtually no imperial measurements that mean anything to me. I have no idea how long a mile is; can't concieve of measuring things in 1/8ths 1/16ths and 1/64/ths; wouldn't know what my weight in pounds is; and couldn't tell you if a gallon was more or less than a litre.
strawbeary, when you say that imperial is somehow more human, I have to disagree. you know what you use. I feel metric units like you feel imperial.
Metric rules... When they played at The Pit, I totally stroked Emily Hanes' hair as she was cooing sexily into the mike. She gave me a big high-five afterwards too!
But anyway, I'm with Strawbeary. While yes, you know what you use, the thing about Imperial is that it was based, originally, on tangible, human dimensions, not how far light travels in so many millionths of a second. It's 1 inch from finger tip to the first knuckle on my index finger. When spread out, my fingers span 6 inches. My hand is 8 inches from tip to base. My foot, is exactly one foot long. My stride is 4 feet. That's what Imperial was based on to begin with and where the 'humanist' stance holds true.
we went through the conversion in canada when i was a wee lad too, but it never really caught on in common use, in spite of the new traffic signs in km and everything. so most offices are ready enough to work either or...just the way it is.
but now i live in japan and they haven't a clue about imperial. seems they had their own body based system (shaku anyone?)...and just like the west the columns and other prefab bits like plywood remain (slightly) fixed in that system. luckily japanese people are more flexible than north americans and i can do drawings in metric with nary a gnashing of teeth amongst the builders, even the old guys are quite happy to deal with it...;-)
If you are missing the "human"-factor regarding a piece of platinum in some french museum.
And if you are a frenchman yourself, well than you may simply introduce a new metric-based-human-scale-system...
it's been three years since i worked on a metric project and i've resigned myself to the fact that america's most backwards and least progressive industry--the construction industry--would never accept a changeover to metric unless it somehow involved some kind of tax abatement or other giveaway from the government. in the end, i'll never intuitively know how big a meter is but i'll never even remember how many acres are in a square mile
hey BOTS (or anyone else who knows),
what does the term "boyo" mean?
it's been plaguing me since i saw the headline "OFFICAL: BOYO IS A RACIST INSULT" on Cardiff Terrifies Me. (a friend currently living in cardiff directed me there.)
sorry my post has nothing to do with metric/imperial...i have no strong sentiments on this subject.
(chiefly Welsh & Irish)
1. colloq
Especially as a cheery or affectionate form of address: boy or young man.
Etymology: 19c.
Also in a bit on context...
"Forget what you know of Dylan the pisshead, the letch, the boyo, and focus on Dylan the writer. He's the man for the joy in language, the rapture and terror in the world."
Considered as welsh working class slang.
_______________________________________________________________
The Queen of England had some impressive statistics.
# Gross Tonnage - 83,673 tons
# Dimensions - 300.94 x 36.14m (987.4 x 118.6ft)
# Number of funnels - 2
# Number of masts - 2
# Service speed - 29 knots
stephanie - it's at most, tabloid sensationalism, the Echo is only accurate on the back pages.
“They (England) have also stated that we are favourites, which we find quite bizarre because our (Wales) record at Twickenham is not great and because of a number of other factors, including injuries, that have happened to us.".
lets do it again, here, on the new Archinect - Metric vs Imperial
Look you boyo, I'll swap you three sheep for a bag of coal. Well things have moved on a lot since then, although being from Wales I have plenty of both coal and sheep to trade!
Things have advanced on a lot as far a trading units and standardisation, but how much?
To be brief.
Imperial systems are derived from standards introduced through British empire and then taken by the Commonwealth countries. USA adopted the system but tailored it accordingly (something to do with troy pound, the bushel, apothecaries pound etc).
Metric systems (SI Units) was developed in France during the Napoleonic reign of France in the 1790's. The scientific community has adopted the metric system almost from its inception, and has rapidly gained global acceptance. The USA missed being a nationalized metric system by one vote in the Continental Congress in the early 1800's.
The advantages of the Metric system are:
It was based on a decimal system (ie: powers of ten). Therefore, it simplifies calculations by using a set of prefixes.
It is used by most other nations of the world, and therefore, it has commercial and trade advantage.
I am fortunate enough to understand both units having grown up in the 70's when Britain went metric and also abolished pounds shillings and pence (currency before Stirling). Even now older colleagues and relatives will waffle on about feet, acres, shillings and ounces. The youth look on bemused. Add to this that here, all mileage distance and speed is still calculated nationally in miles - (British imperial) including car specs, road signs, weather reports of wind speed and odly enough personal weight measurement (stones and pounds) . My rational brain wonders at the chaos.
In Practice we operate both metric and imperial systems. All drawings are represented metrically with the millimetre (1/1000 meter), the dominant measurement for length. All Solicitors, agents and a large proportion of Clients operate solely in imperial (this could be an age thing). Construction timbers are still called of casually in imperial measurement but converted directly to strange millimetre measurements that don't quite have the same ”˜ring' as a piece of nice 2 by 4 timber (that's inches).
The importance of standardisation cannot be underestimated as recently NASA lost a probe due to a US imperial / Si Units conversion on propulsion. $125 million dollars wasted (lets hope the trip to Mars is more successful!).
What is the problem here? Is it government procrastination, electorate resistance to change, the love of complex conversions between regions?
Do you have the same conversion annoyances I have when i read American construction literature?
I can suffer the letters - Americans frequently spell 'metre' as 'meter', and 'litre' as 'liter'; The unit 'gram' is also sometimes spelled 'gramme' but what about the numbers?
Feel the metric power and lets all divide stuff by powers of 10
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/
PS. Don't get me stated on that nautical stuff.
hmmm....you can't imagine the guilt laid on myself and fellow elementary school students growing up...the jist was that we were the only ones who had ever used our system in 1000 years and they made us learn metrics...i've since written it off as an illogical system (how am i supposed to know how big something is when i can't compare it to a part of my body) and was perplexed by going from a system where 100 is hot and 0 is cold to 40 is hot and -10 is cold. even more amusing was when i found out indian and nepalese architect/contractor friends of mine design in metrics, but build in real measurement (feet, miles, etc.)
"I am fortunate enough to understand both units having grown up in the 70’s when Britain went metric and also abolished pounds shillings and pence (currency before Stirling). Even now older colleagues and relatives will waffle on about feet, acres, shillings and ounces. The youth look on bemused. Add to this that here, all mileage distance and speed is still calculated nationally in miles - (British imperial) including car specs, road signs, weather reports of wind speed and odly enough personal weight measurement (stones and pounds) . My rational brain wonders at the chaos."
i thought we were the only ones who used both systems, as we use metrics for volume (a 2 liter of coke anyone?) and weight (a kilo of cocaine anyone? or a gram of sugar?)
as far as "Construction timbers are still called of casually in imperial measurement but converted directly to strange millimetre measurements that don’t quite have the same ‘ring’ as a piece of nice 2 by 4 timber (that’s inches)." is concerned, our wood is measured in nominal dimensions, such that a wood 2x4 is 1.5x3.5. it is the same for all metal studs. i believe when a member gets up to a certain size (is it 10"?) it becomes .25" under its nominal dimension, rather than 1/2." this all goes back to the fact that studs, technically, are measured before they are treated i believe.
bye bye
i would use metric but i am boycotting the French will surrender
I would use the metric system but i am boycotting the French...they will surrender!! <---- this is what i meant to write
well, its not like it matters anyway, since keith richards is pickling himself
i just learned to convert between it all and now i deal with it. so what i say is...DEAL WITH IT! please assume a homer simpson-esque jest in the last sentiment.
captain EO - why?
and don't feed me the 'why not'.
Go on, go metric, you know you want to... really.
Everyone is doing it around these parts.
mmmm...pickles <----homeresque statement
A generation of men is like a generation of leaves; the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, while others the burgeoning wood brings forth - and the season of spring comes on. So of men one generation springs forth and another ceases. <----real homeresque statement
tuesdays in the eighties i was in bed by eight and home by eleven. oh ya! <--obscure family guy esque statement
I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are. <------Homer Simpson
Ok Brain, I don't like you and you don't like me, but let's just pull together and get through this so I can keep killing you with beer.
-Homer Simpson
or something like that...the man is a genius.
BOTS-
because that is what I have to do so i can figure out how long to make one thing in metric the same length in imperial. isn't that why everybody does it?
-cap'n
Oh Lisa! You and your stories! Bart is a vampire! Beer kills brain-cells! Now lets go back to that...building...thingy... where our beds and TV...is.
and
If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, its that girls should stick to girl's sports, such as hot oil wrestling foxy boxy and such and such...
such insite on the truths of life
captain EO-
Ehh! I know why people convert things. My question is why troy pound, the bushel, the apothecaries pound as opposed to the bar of platinum 4 mm thick, 25.3 mm wide and a meter long, with plane parallel ends (measured at 0 degrees celcius), held in the French Archives.
The system is coming.
http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/misc/usmetric/metric.htm
Le bossman
“i've since written it off as an illogical system (how am i supposed to know how big something is when i can't compare it to a part of my body)â€
One ten millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator is not so illogical, is it? Although I have read recently that it is now been defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in exactly 1⁄299,792,458th of a second…
I mean, get real. In the United States would anyone really turn a woman on by saying their sausage is X meters long?
Inches forever.
metric rocks!
we should adopt it!
maybe if only to tweak the contractors...
le bossman, nominal wood sizes exist because wood shrinks. it's cut at the size it's called when it's green and then it typically shrinks down to the 1/2" or 1/4" smaller size we love and hold dear.
LaTorpilleRoase
bloody hell, i've misjudged you Americans if you measure your parts in meters. Centimetres would be acceptable as a metric response, however it is an anomaly that British human measurements continue to be discussed in inches.
Wood does not shrink that much. Check your wood manuals, shrinkage is minute across grain in most species.
Back before any of us were part of this world, wood was cut into actual 2x4" pieces. Over time, the industry got more and more shrewd, each mill reducing the size of a 2x4 imperceptibly to augment their margins.
At some point the industry started regulating sizes, but by then a 2x4 was 1.5x3.5".
It would be really scary if wood shrank that much - I'd never trust it.
freq_arch
thanks for challenging that definition. i had half a story.
It turns out we actually do start with a real 2x4, but between shrinkage and planing for a finished piece of lumber, it gets reduced down to the 1.5x3.5. we still pay for the original 2x4 volume of wood, shavings on the shop floor and all.
the shrinking story never sat all that well with me, anyway.
I hate the imperial system ... it does not have consistensy !! ...
metric system is far better and organized !!
i can argue for both methods and their advantages. power of ten, yada yada. I have designed with both.
But I like imperial because nothing is as satisfying as the inch or the foot. Imperial is a human system. Metric is a math based system and therefore more abstract.
The centimeter doesn't do it for me. They are so BORING.
The millimeter is useless for so me.
The meter is OK- but most things that I deal with are fractions of a meter, or lots of centimeters - therefore too abstract. Where are the decimeters? Are they not really used? You never hear about them. TIF you use them, suddenly you have too many units. Must be sure to label properly. If I say 6 3, you might know I mean 6 foot 3 inches. Not so with metric.
Kilometers are alright - once you get into bigger measurements, I don't care.
The foot and the inch are so smart! How many things that I measure fit nicely into feet and inches? Most everything.
To argue against the power of ten - I am more likely to screw up a calculation by a missed decimal point than any other mistake. I am more apt to find errors in imperial, because I can feel the units - "That sounds about right."
In summary, the metric system is the mathematician's measurement. The imperial is the humanist's measurment. And I am a humanist.
Hi.
For me it don't matter if the measures are millimeter or inch, meter or Parcek, mesaures for me gentlemen, are no problem inch or millimeter I work one to one.
When I draw I draw in drawing units , it do not matter !!! What I draw one to one, cut with a mashin that cut one to one. It don't either know the difference between a millimeter and an inch , I even never need take one single measure designing the thing, or extracting the pieces that will make the thing . With this I can design a Viking Longboat one-to-one so where are the trouble ??
If you realy want to be tortured with the imperial system, then what could possible be wrong with the frensh aproach ,, even sweden got right side drive ,, you englishmen still measure the plumbing in foot and then transcribe this to work in math. translate it into a Mars trip ,and expected it to work.
Stop doing it wrong do it right.
my problem is that there are virtually no imperial measurements that mean anything to me. I have no idea how long a mile is; can't concieve of measuring things in 1/8ths 1/16ths and 1/64/ths; wouldn't know what my weight in pounds is; and couldn't tell you if a gallon was more or less than a litre.
strawbeary, when you say that imperial is somehow more human, I have to disagree. you know what you use. I feel metric units like you feel imperial.
Metric rules... When they played at The Pit, I totally stroked Emily Hanes' hair as she was cooing sexily into the mike. She gave me a big high-five afterwards too!
But anyway, I'm with Strawbeary. While yes, you know what you use, the thing about Imperial is that it was based, originally, on tangible, human dimensions, not how far light travels in so many millionths of a second. It's 1 inch from finger tip to the first knuckle on my index finger. When spread out, my fingers span 6 inches. My hand is 8 inches from tip to base. My foot, is exactly one foot long. My stride is 4 feet. That's what Imperial was based on to begin with and where the 'humanist' stance holds true.
cubits it is then. even GOD approves.
we went through the conversion in canada when i was a wee lad too, but it never really caught on in common use, in spite of the new traffic signs in km and everything. so most offices are ready enough to work either or...just the way it is.
but now i live in japan and they haven't a clue about imperial. seems they had their own body based system (shaku anyone?)...and just like the west the columns and other prefab bits like plywood remain (slightly) fixed in that system. luckily japanese people are more flexible than north americans and i can do drawings in metric with nary a gnashing of teeth amongst the builders, even the old guys are quite happy to deal with it...;-)
If you are missing the "human"-factor regarding a piece of platinum in some french museum.
And if you are a frenchman yourself, well than you may simply introduce a new metric-based-human-scale-system...
it's been three years since i worked on a metric project and i've resigned myself to the fact that america's most backwards and least progressive industry--the construction industry--would never accept a changeover to metric unless it somehow involved some kind of tax abatement or other giveaway from the government. in the end, i'll never intuitively know how big a meter is but i'll never even remember how many acres are in a square mile
hey BOTS (or anyone else who knows),
what does the term "boyo" mean?
it's been plaguing me since i saw the headline "OFFICAL: BOYO IS A RACIST INSULT" on Cardiff Terrifies Me. (a friend currently living in cardiff directed me there.)
sorry my post has nothing to do with metric/imperial...i have no strong sentiments on this subject.
The forgotten imperial unit is the “cockâ€, it is half the length of the “footâ€.
Maybe yours is!
boyo
noun
(chiefly Welsh & Irish)
1. colloq
Especially as a cheery or affectionate form of address: boy or young man.
Etymology: 19c.
Also in a bit on context...
"Forget what you know of Dylan the pisshead, the letch, the boyo, and focus on Dylan the writer. He's the man for the joy in language, the rapture and terror in the world."
Considered as welsh working class slang.
_______________________________________________________________
The Queen of England had some impressive statistics.
# Gross Tonnage - 83,673 tons
# Dimensions - 300.94 x 36.14m (987.4 x 118.6ft)
# Number of funnels - 2
# Number of masts - 2
# Service speed - 29 knots
I know what happened.
stephanie - it's at most, tabloid sensationalism, the Echo is only accurate on the back pages.
“They (England) have also stated that we are favourites, which we find quite bizarre because our (Wales) record at Twickenham is not great and because of a number of other factors, including injuries, that have happened to us.".
Why not just go to a base 8 number system while you are at it? 10 is for monkeys!
BOTS - you STILL RULE . . . but you are a bit close to France, what with the tunnel and all. That must be tough for you.
The rest of the globe will go to feet and inches before we Yankees will lift our kitchen cabinets more than 3" above the ground.
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