I Paid Less than $2.50 a gallon for gasoline!

[Sparko]

Yeah, metric's not difficult to learn or use - it's just different, and people tend not to like different.

The biggest problem is that we have "estimates" of how big a foot, yard, mile, etc is (even though we are often wrong) and we don't have mental images of the metric equivalent. So if someone says "that's 50 miles away" we kinda know how far that is. But if they say "that's 50km away" we draw a blank or start trying to convert it into miles.

It's kind of like learning a new language. You have to give up "translating" it and just learn to think in the new language or system.

[Cow Poke]

Yeah, metric's not difficult to learn or use - it's just different, and people tend not to like different.

I'm a boy. Girls are different. I like girls.


(but, in this society, that makes me sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, phobophobic, biased, and all kinds of bad things )

[Cow Poke]

The biggest problem is that we have "estimates" of how big a foot, yard, mile, etc is (even though we are often wrong) and we don't have mental images of the metric equivalent. So if someone says "that's 50 miles away" we kinda know how far that is. But if they say "that's 50km away" we draw a blank or start trying to convert it into miles.

It's kind of like learning a new language. You have to give up "translating" it and just learn to think in the new language or system.

Years ago, I dabbled a lot in radio, and lengths of antenna were referenced in meters, not feet and inches, so....

I seem to remember some significant failures with our space program when we started working with the internationals, and some used metric and others used 'standard' or English.

[One Bad Pig]

I'm a boy. Girls are different. I like girls.

You're not a boy. Boys tend to think girls have cooties.

[One Bad Pig]

The biggest problem is that we have "estimates" of how big a foot, yard, mile, etc is (even though we are often wrong) and we don't have mental images of the metric equivalent. So if someone says "that's 50 miles away" we kinda know how far that is. But if they say "that's 50km away" we draw a blank or start trying to convert it into miles.

It's kind of like learning a new language. You have to give up "translating" it and just learn to think in the new language or system.

Yeah, but it wouldn't take all THAT long to learn new estimates. Once you drive 50 km a few times, it's second nature. It's all the stuff we build in the US system that's the real difficulty.

[Cow Poke]

You're not a boy. Boys tend to think girls have cooties.

I did, quite honestly, laugh out loud - scared SpongeBob, my grandson.

[Teallaura]

1.63 per liter
6.26 per gallon

Show off.

[Teallaura]

Anyone remember this one??

Vaguely - in Eighth Grade I don't think I cared about measures other than cups and teaspoons.

[Teallaura]

Yeah, metric's not difficult to learn or use - it's just different, and people tend not to like different.

I think it had a lot to do with the 'let's change everything at once' plan - metric recipes were a disaster. Nothing related to the tools on hand - and no one was going to buy a new stove just to be able to cook out of the stupid recipe book.

[One Bad Pig]

I think it had a lot to do with the 'let's change everything at once' plan - metric recipes were a disaster. Nothing related to the tools on hand - and no one was going to buy a new stove just to be able to cook out of the stupid recipe book.

Yeah, something just don't change because it would be too inconvenient. Isn't the standard railroad gage still based on the width of a Roman mule?

[Teallaura]

Yeah, something just don't change because it would be too inconvenient. Isn't the standard railroad gage still based on the width of a Roman mule?

I don't think so - gage changed in the early days of RR. There are a few track laid at the old gage but I think the standard was based on something else.

But I'm not sure.

[Cow Poke]

Yeah, something just don't change because it would be too inconvenient. Isn't the standard railroad gage still based on the width of a Roman mule?

Until shortly after the War of Northern Aggression, there were three railroad gauges in the US. Because the North won the war, and rebuilt the railways of the South, the "standard" became what the North was using - which was adopted from the British who, for a short period of time, led us in railway technology.

[One Bad Pig]

Until shortly after the War of Northern Aggression, there were three railroad gauges in the US. Because the North won the war, and rebuilt the railways of the South, the "standard" became what the North was using - which was adopted from the British who, for a short period of time, led us in railway technology.

...where the best places to lay rail would've been the nice, straight Roman roads.

[Cow Poke]

...where the best places to lay rail would've been the nice, straight Roman roads.

Roman-Road-printable-251x300.jpg

[One Bad Pig]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23534[/ATTACH]

That's Romans, not Roman.