Question for designers...

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 22:02:46 GMT, "Wayne Lundberg"


Because "A pint's a pound the world around" makes a better rhyme.  ;-)

So does "five foot two, eyes are blue"

Though the song is actually "Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue." Almost as
titillating as some of the lyrics... "Turned up nose and turned down
hose..."

Anyway, when designing the DIMENSIONS of the robot I almost always do it
in inches, because once you get used to it they're easy to add and
subtract from. I never bother with watts or volts (both of which are
metrical) until I'm ready for the escaping smoke part.

-- Gordon

It might rhyme, but it is not true "A pint of water weighs a pound and
a quarter".

I don't think Rich was talking about water.

Cheers!

I'm sure he was thinking metric... a litre of water weighs a kilogram

I think it's interesting to see the question was made in terms of our
"old English system" as the US system has it's differences to what I
know as the "Imperial Measure". I'm sure someone explained it so me,
giving the English explanation with some nautical reference.

I'm in that generation caught between two measure, I use the SI units on
the whole but will talk using a variety of measures - buying fuel it
comes by the tank or 20 quids worth ;)

best regards,
colin

--

www.minisumo.org.uk

(Remove the "No Spam" to reply by email!)

No, the rhyme is as stated, and in the US a pint of water at 20C
weighs 1.04 pounds (he's right for Imperial gallons).


And an Imperial gallon weighs 10 pounds, by definition.


Well, we more-or-less inherited the units from the English (with the
Imperial vs. US gallon being one of the biggest differences).  I like
to call the system in use in the US the SAE system, since nobody but
the US really uses it anymore.


One thing that caught me by surprise when visiting England was how
prevalent "miles" still are on road signs.

The rhyme is false unless 'world'  = USA. That was what I meant.




Historically, yes, but that definition is legally obsolete. Old units
are now legally defined in the UK by conversion from a metric unit.
See:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1995/Uksi_19951804_en_2.htm



You would even see it slowly disappear from supermarket labels if
manufacturers had choice. Unfortunately metric only labels are
forbidden by US law.

I read somewhere, sometime ago, probably when involved with the Joel
Barker's thesis on paradigm shifts... that many Australians actually
committed suicide when the nation was forced from the
pound/shilling/sixpence monetary system to the decimal equivalent of the
dollar.

We must remember history and the glories of change when Torquemada offered
the Jews and gypsies the chance to become true believers or be burned
alive... many chose to be burned rather than change belief systems.

Change can be the most difficult of all human challenges.

As we are seeing in the robot world.

My first industrial robot was a Hero from Heathkit to train my engineering
staff in Mexico in automation technology and the future it offered us. We
had a plant contest to name the robot so all personnel would be involved.
The morning after the naming and demonstration of the robot we came to work
and found it had been smashed. We call this "Sand in the gearbox syndrome"
to this day.

This discussion on the metric system vs. US has been a true eye-opener.
Thank you all!

So, obviously, the rhyme is incorrect, because the "world around" includes
the UK, and here, a pint is 20 fl oz, or
a pound and a quarter.

<snip>


It is (or was until recently) illegal in the UK to have road signs
expressing distances in metres.
I guess to stop people confusing the abbreviation "m"!

Deep.

The metric system is for mostly Scientists and Serious Researchers.  How
ever when things come down to actual construction feet and inches are still
recognized as the standard.  I know this because when I went to college for
computer dafting and computer aided manufacturing we had to learn to draw
blueprints in both systems (not too mention work out rules of scale).  This
lead to alot of problem determining weither drawings were done in metric or
imperial measurement.  Then getting the equipment to turn out a peice of
material with the right realworld dimensions.

The next biggest reason is that America is the world leader in being the
"mother of invention".  So most patent rights filed at the US Patent Office
are set out in imperial not metric.

I'm from Canada.  We use the metric system.  But when it comes to buying
constuction material at any supply store or bulk wharehouse everything is in
Imperial.  Funny ain't it.

I don't think metric or imperial matters as much as an individual's
familiarity with them. If you grow up thinking in one system or or the
other the perceived quirkiness of it by others is moot.

Bob

Wasn't there a failure in a mars orbiter due to
a NASA subcontractor using Imperial instead of
metric units?

Australia changed to metrics a long time ago but
you can still by spanners etc in both units and
many rulers come with both kinds of units.

--
jc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#The_metric_mixup

Imperial/Metric was only the fall guy in this case.

- Daniel

The US really needs to make more of an effort to convert.  It's something
that won't happen unless it's forced on people because we all will just
continue to think in terms of the system we already know unless forced to
learn the new system.  If we are not forced to deal with metric systems we
will never learn to see things in terms of their metric dimensions.
Everything we buy in the US is measured in Imperial units so that's what
everyone still thinks in the for the most part.  Food is often marked in
both, but it's kinda stupid to see something labeled 1G/3.78L and expect us
to to learn to think in liters.

--
Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com                                        http://NewsReader.Com/

In Australia we converted to the metric system a long
time ago but it takes a generational change, not force.
The olds will struggle converting pints to liters, yards
to meters but the young will simply use liters and meters.

I would not like to be forced to change from the QWERTY
board layout to a more efficient layout but see no reason,
with a programmable keyboards, you could not accommodate
both.

--
jc

It only worked because for each part of the changeover, there
were statutory dates by which all items, e.g. for sale, must be
first identified in dual units, and then by which the pricing
must be in metric only. When metric is all that's available at,
e.g., the green-grocer's, everyone has to learn the new system.


Jimmy Carter tried to introduce metric by "accommodating both",
and it was a near-total failure.

A compulsory conversion would never be accepted
in the US, where anything foreign (and especially
anything French) is seen as part of a vast communist
conspiracy.  First they put floride in our water to weaken
our will to resist, then they convert all our maps to
kilometers so the UN's black helicopters can use them
to navigate around the US and seize our assault rifles.

Have you ever noticed that pinkos tend to drink wine
(sold in liters), while real red-blooded American stick
to beer (sold in pints/ounces).

Good one! Love it!