Brexit, for once some facts.

[Zlatan]

The word would be demi as in demi litre .
I have contributed to this discussion a few times before, so wouldn't be this ... But lets get real .. how many of you are interested in "five ton equivalent " as a measure of a heat exchanger. The Joule is precise. But the KW hr is useful and useful wins over precise. . There is no practical differences between a Yard and a Metre, or a Tonne and a Ton.or a demi kilo of pork or a pound or a demi litre and the pint.
Because I am a certain age I have familiarity with the older measures and still mentally do a miles per gallon rather than kms per litre.

Oh yes, using French for half clarifies it perfectly.
Next week in Rotherham I, ll pop into local and ask for a demi... Wonder what I, ll get.??
And, whilst I lived in France folk would often ask for a "demi" of beer... Was about a wine glass of beer in a small glass... No idea of the amount in reality. But it was to have a taste of the beer, lager or Guinness before ordering a glass.. (about a half) or a "grande" about a pint... (who knows how much it was)
Wasn't a pint.. Wasn't a litre either,nothing like it...
And a demi in one bar could be a very small glass of beer, (a wine glass type measure) yet in another could be about our half pint... Very confusing..
Not as clear as..
Half please barmaid.
Or...
A pint please luv.
Fecking French. Good job Guinness travels so well.

 

[flecc]

And if the base unit shifts, we can use "half" for an amount near a pint, and "quarter" for an amount near a half pint.

But why the hell should we when we have a perfectly good system that doesn't need fixing?

Stuff pleasing a minority of obsessive control freaks who want conformity above everything.
.

 

[Zlatan]

No problem with demi. But we already seem content to say "a half" for beer. And if the base unit shifts, we can use "half" for an amount near a pint, and "quarter" for an amount near a half pint.

Why??

 

[jonathan.agnew]

Why??

Well I get where oyster is coming from. Have you recently tried to convert Fahrenheit to C? Apparently 65.5 at Bournemouth pier instead of 18C (which makes much more intuitive sense) because some historic idiot took the point at which an archaic saline solution no one in their right mind has any interest in become entirely fluid as zero.

 

[Danidl]

Well I get where oyster is coming from. Have you recently tried to convert Fahrenheit to C? Apparently 65.5 at Bournemouth pier instead of 18C (which makes much more intuitive sense) because some historic idiot took the point at which an archaic saline solution no one in their right mind has any interest in become entirely fluid as zero.

Fahrenheit was a medical practitioner so he set 100 as the temperature of a healthy human and then made the scale unit as small as was perceived.. A very reasonable thing to do .Just slightly off when a larger population was sampled , but the idea was sound. Our Celsius was equally arbitrary, but at least the reference points of 0 and 100 could be reproduced with minimal equipment.

 

[Zlatan]

Perhaps what UK should have done over past 50 years or so was decimalise its own units instead of relying on the ones Napolean foisted on the French.. (well sort of)
We kept the £ and split it into minor units with the required factor of 10..(ok 100 but that's a product of 10)
And what every one forgets is the unit we measure the most has never been decimalised.Time... So everything is an amalgam of SI and grown, organic units. Yep, SI uses the second as its base but try telling time with it.. Or giving a date... Or actually measuring an angle... (I believe army experimented with 100 degrees in a complete rotation,might still be doing?)
So all you folk thinking the whole civilised world is decimalised... Look at your watch. Look at a Calendar, measure an angle.
We are constantly changing between organic, intuitive units(or more accurately examining the relationship between them) . The whole world over.
Imperial units will never disappear, quite the reverse. They are used more now than 30 years ago. There was a time when banned in schools but for a while now they are taught alongside the engineers units. A countries units are part of its language. We have no right to try an eliminate them especially when in many aspects they are much better.
And 50 years of decimalisation in the UK and what's the most used unit for speed
In cars.. MPH
In boats..Knots (a nautical mph)
Planes...mph.
Windspeed... Beaufort.. (which is without doubt best of lot for Windspeed and can't be decimalised or calculated with because each number is linked to the winds affects, must be 200 years old and still fantastic)
I cant remember having a conversation with anyone involved with any of those mention km/h... (or m/s)... Look at met office, wind guru, windfinder, xcweather or magicseaweed(weather sites for sailors /flyers/kitists/surfers /skiers) and not one will use SI units. (might do with temperature which unusually the decimalised version is more intuitive than imperial as someone else mentioned)

 

[oldgroaner]

This is simply another PR stunt to keep the Brexit dumb voters on line
There are no advantages to using imperial unit of measurement.
I used to work in the invoicing department before there were computers and even adding machines in general use
Working out the prices of large numbers of units of products that were subject to several different rated of discount on the same items depending who was making the purchase was a nightmare.
Even more ironic is that we had to use a metric system (percentages) on prices that were often expressed with fractions applied for sub assemblies
Even now with the aid of computers it makes no sense to change back whatever, people have long ago adapted to using both systems at the same time, no reason whatsoever to change things.
This is just to kid the half wit Brexit voters they "won" something.
And makes us look even more of a laughing stock to every other nation that doesn't live in the past.








t

 

[flecc]

This is simply another PR stunt to keep the Brexit dumb voters on line
There are no advantages to using imperial unit of measurement.

Stunt it may be, but there are advantages to using the old Imperial measures.

The biggest one is that the public like them and it's why they won't quietly go away.

And as Zlatan and I keep pointing out, single numbers are preferable where possible.

And the systems developed to meet human needs so are correct in scale in day to day life.
.

 

[Zlatan]

This is simply another PR stunt to keep the Brexit dumb voters on line
There are no advantages to using imperial unit of measurement.
I used to work in the invoicing department before there were computers and even adding machines in general use
Working out the prices of large numbers of units of products that were subject to several different rated of discount on the same items depending who was making the purchase was a nightmare.
Even more ironic is that we had to use a metric system (percentages) on prices that were often expressed with fractions applied for sub assemblies
Even now with the aid of computers it makes no sense to change back whatever, people have long ago adapted to using both systems at the same time, no reason whatsoever to change things.
This is just to kid the half wit Brexit voters they "won" something.
And makes us look even more of a laughing stock to every other nation that doesn't live in the past.








t

It's nothing to do with changing back, it's accepting the fact that for everyday usage for vast majority of society our antiquated units are better. They are antiquated for a reason. Or perhaps you, d like entire sailing world to stop using knots... Windfoce system (F5 etc) to be outlawed... Road signs throughout land to be chopped down...etc etc..
I don't think you, ve been reading the posts OG. As an engineer of a kind of course I use SI system and know its advantages. But that doesn't mean all of a sudden I want to discuss windstrenght in km/h (or m/s, French use both and ours). Mates would think I, d had a breakdown if I phoned and said "it's 45 km/h tomorrow.." ...They,d say WTF you on about.. Its a force 6...(or 30kts ish) And long may it last.
There is more to life than building bogs OG.

Besides many engineering measurements are stuck with imperial probably forever. And some manage to mix the 2 systems and with little confusion... Look at wheels on your car. The diameter is almost without exception imperial the world over.. Inches.
The width.. Metric. The profile %age..
205/60/15...
Width 205 mm... Profile 80% .(depth of tyre 80% of 205) And bead diameter 15 inches. Not sure but that pretty much the norm worldwide. (for radial tyres)
Similar story with some bearings, oil seals and such. Imperial units are not going away. And it's nothing at all to do with Brexit. You are politicising it for your little grumble and moan at leavers. (which Flecc isn't)
Accepting the limitations and benifits of various systems is common sense. Use the one you wish... Either way.
But don't legislate one way or another. People are capable of mixing and matching, perhaps you aren't? Personally thought you were intelligent enough to do so??

 

[Woosh]

there are advantages to using the old Imperial measures.

I must confess, I never saw any advantage in imperial units.
I never ever needed to know what the exact volume of a pint, weight of a pound or ounce or to understand the difference between ounce and fluid ounce.
Even the name 'imperial' has an obsolescence undertone.
It's so much simpler to equate a pint to half litre, a pound to half kilo, an ounce to 28grs, a mile to 1.6km then the world becomes straight, not wonky like imperial units, feet and inches.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

Fahrenheit was a medical practitioner so he set 100 as the temperature of a healthy human and then made the scale unit as small as was perceived.. A very reasonable thing to do .Just slightly off when a larger population was sampled , but the idea was sound. Our Celsius was equally arbitrary, but at least the reference points of 0 and 100 could be reproduced with minimal equipment.

Daniel (I kid you not) Gabriel Fahrenheit was a phycisist who took zero as the point at which a brine made of water ice and ammonium chloride froze

 

[oyster]

Well I get where oyster is coming from. Have you recently tried to convert Fahrenheit to C? Apparently 65.5 at Bournemouth pier instead of 18C (which makes much more intuitive sense) because some historic idiot took the point at which an archaic saline solution no one in their right mind has any interest in become entirely fluid as zero.

The salt solution was used to reproduce and standardise the lowest air temperature in winter in Gdansk! Such an important thing for us all to know.

We now end up with the ridiculous situation in which the weather forecast, typically on television, with numerous temperatures spoken uses Celsius throughout except for one time they say "that is 80 degrees Fahrenheit".

Although demi, half, quarter, etc., all would work for beer, why not revert to "large/big one" or "small one"?

Accuracy is only required to ensure fair trading, duty payments, etc. We don't need it in speech when buying a drink.

 

[oyster]

Fahrenheit was a medical practitioner so he set 100 as the temperature of a healthy human and then made the scale unit as small as was perceived.. A very reasonable thing to do .Just slightly off when a larger population was sampled , but the idea was sound. Our Celsius was equally arbitrary, but at least the reference points of 0 and 100 could be reproduced with minimal equipment.

Would it be possible to have a non-arbitrary temperature scale?

Blood temperature was 90 and 96 during Fahrenheit's development of the scale.

180 degrees between freezing and boiling in F. Two right angles.

 

[oyster]

It's nothing to do with changing back, it's accepting the fact that for everyday usage for vast majority of society our antiquated units are better. They are antiquated for a reason. Or perhaps you, d like entire sailing world to stop using knots... Windfoce system (F5 etc) to be outlawed... Road signs throughout land to be chopped down...etc etc..
I don't think you, ve been reading the posts OG. As an engineer of a kind of course I use SI system and know its advantages. But that doesn't mean all of a sudden I want to discuss windstrenght in km/h (or m/s, French use both and ours). Mates would think I, d had a breakdown if I phoned and said "it's 45 km/h tomorrow.." ...They,d say WTF you on about.. Its a force 6...(or 30kts ish) And long may it last.
There is more to life than building bogs OG.

Besides many engineering measurements are stuck with imperial probably forever. And some manage to mix the 2 systems and with little confusion... Look at wheels on your car. The diameter is almost without exception imperial the world over.. Inches.
The width.. Metric. The profile %age..
205/60/15...
Width 205 mm... Profile 80% .(depth of tyre 80% of 205) And bead diameter 15 inches. Not sure but that pretty much the norm worldwide. (for radial tyres)
Similar story with some bearings, oil seals and such. Imperial units are not going away. And it's nothing at all to do with Brexit. You are politicising it for your little grumble and moan at leavers. (which Flecc isn't)
Accepting the limitations and benifits of various systems is common sense. Use the one you wish... Either way.
But don't legislate one way or another. People are capable of mixing and matching, perhaps you aren't? Personally thought you were intelligent enough to do so??

Did you know there is a US highway with kilometre signs? The I-19 is exclusively signed in kilometres. You don't actually need to chop old ones down to convert.

But we have ended up with most vehicles being marked up in one measurement with the other vaguely indicated if you look very carefully. Unsatisfactory. (Maybe digital systems will takeover and, obviously, be switchable?)

If no-one took vehicles across different systems, it might be just an issue for manufacturers.

The near-worldwide standard for taps is British Pipe Thread (BSP) - at least at domestic plumbing level like 1/2" and 3/4".

 

[jonathan.agnew]

It's nothing to do with changing back, it's accepting the fact that for everyday usage for vast majority of society our antiquated units are better. They are antiquated for a reason. Or perhaps you, d like entire sailing world to stop using knots... Windfoce system (F5 etc) to be outlawed... Road signs throughout land to be chopped down...etc etc..
I don't think you, ve been reading the posts OG. As an engineer of a kind of course I use SI system and know its advantages. But that doesn't mean all of a sudden I want to discuss windstrenght in km/h (or m/s, French use both and ours). Mates would think I, d had a breakdown if I phoned and said "it's 45 km/h tomorrow.." ...They,d say WTF you on about.. Its a force 6...(or 30kts ish) And long may it last.
There is more to life than building bogs OG.

Besides many engineering measurements are stuck with imperial probably forever. And some manage to mix the 2 systems and with little confusion... Look at wheels on your car. The diameter is almost without exception imperial the world over.. Inches.
The width.. Metric. The profile %age..
205/60/15...
Width 205 mm... Profile 80% .(depth of tyre 80% of 205) And bead diameter 15 inches. Not sure but that pretty much the norm worldwide. (for radial tyres)
Similar story with some bearings, oil seals and such. Imperial units are not going away. And it's nothing at all to do with Brexit. You are politicising it for your little grumble and moan at leavers. (which Flecc isn't)
Accepting the limitations and benifits of various systems is common sense. Use the one you wish... Either way.
But don't legislate one way or another. People are capable of mixing and matching, perhaps you aren't? Personally thought you were intelligent enough to do so??

I'm not sure. casually saying 'we had a bit of an f9 crossing biscay" is a very debonair thing to be able to do (in the Mariners wharf). But 50mph (or even better 80 kph) excluding gusts can give a much better idea of the stress test for say fifteen year old standing rigging.

 

[oyster]

This is simply another PR stunt to keep the Brexit dumb voters on line
There are no advantages to using imperial unit of measurement.
I used to work in the invoicing department before there were computers and even adding machines in general use
Working out the prices of large numbers of units of products that were subject to several different rated of discount on the same items depending who was making the purchase was a nightmare.
Even more ironic is that we had to use a metric system (percentages) on prices that were often expressed with fractions applied for sub assemblies
Even now with the aid of computers it makes no sense to change back whatever, people have long ago adapted to using both systems at the same time, no reason whatsoever to change things.
This is just to kid the half wit Brexit voters they "won" something.
And makes us look even more of a laughing stock to every other nation that doesn't live in the past.








t

Let's face it, even representing fractions can be problematic on computer systems. Of course, it is possible to do so, in terms of visible symbols, very satisfactorily. But the difficulty of typing any random fraction (e.g. of the sorts we need in Imperial/US Customary systems) is ridiculous.

Using Microsoft Word and simply typing fractions:

½ 1/3 ¼ 1/5 1/6 1/7 1/8 1/9 1/10 ¾ 3/8

Going to Word’s Symbol insertion, you can add:

⅛ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞

To get further, you need to use different fonts and/or ways of constructing arbitrary fractions. There is a tool for doing so in Word, but it is tedious. I suspect most fractions that are typed are copied and pasted from elsewhere!



And it is a Word-specific approach not available in browsers, other apps, etc. Can't even copy it from Word and paste here other than via a screenshot.

In practical terms, we need to avoid any need to represent fractions - at least, any other than the three or seven basic ones.

 

[Danidl]

Perhaps what UK should have done over past 50 years or so was decimalise its own units instead of relying on the ones Napolean foisted on the French.. (well sort of)
We kept the £ and split it into minor units with the required factor of 10..(ok 100 but that's a product of 10)
And what every one forgets is the unit we measure the most has never been decimalised.Time... So everything is an amalgam of SI and grown, organic units. Yep, SI uses the second as its base but try telling time with it.. Or giving a date... Or actually measuring an angle... (I believe army experimented with 100 degrees in a complete rotation,might still be doing?)
So all you folk thinking the whole civilised world is decimalised... Look at your watch. Look at a Calendar, measure an angle.
We are constantly changing between organic, intuitive units(or more accurately examining the relationship between them) . The whole world over.
Imperial units will never disappear, quite the reverse. They are used more now than 30 years ago. There was a time when banned in schools but for a while now they are taught alongside the engineers units. A countries units are part of its language. We have no right to try an eliminate them especially when in many aspects they are much better.
And 50 years of decimalisation in the UK and what's the most used unit for speed
In cars.. MPH
In boats..Knots (a nautical mph)
Planes...mph.
Windspeed... Beaufort.. (which is without doubt best of lot for Windspeed and can't be decimalised or calculated with because each number is linked to the winds affects, must be 200 years old and still fantastic)
I cant remember having a conversation with anyone involved with any of those mention km/h... (or m/s)... Look at met office, wind guru, windfinder, xcweather or magicseaweed(weather sites for sailors /flyers/kitists/surfers /skiers) and not one will use SI units. (might do with temperature which unusually the decimalised version is more intuitive than imperial as someone else mentioned)

The only thing natural about the base 60 for time is that the earth goes around the sun in 360 days +_ 1%

 

[Danidl]

Did you know there is a US highway with kilometre signs? The I-19 is exclusively signed in kilometres. You don't actually need to chop old ones down to convert.

But we have ended up with most vehicles being marked up in one measurement with the other vaguely indicated if you look very carefully. Unsatisfactory. (Maybe digital systems will takeover and, obviously, be switchable?)

If no-one took vehicles across different systems, it might be just an issue for manufacturers.

The near-worldwide standard for taps is British Pipe Thread (BSP) - at least at domestic plumbing level like 1/2" and 3/4".

The digital speedometer in standard cars is switchable..

 

[oyster]

I'm not sure. casually saying 'we had a bit of an f9 crossing biscay" is a very debonair thing to be able to do (in the Mariners wharf). But 50mph (or even better 80 kph) excluding gusts can give a much better idea of the stress test for say fifteen year old standing rigging.

Also bizarre the way the Beaufort wind scale just stops at 12.

And that the weather people feel the need to add "Gale Force", "Storm Force", or "Hurricane Force" to some points on the scale.

 

[oyster]

The digital speedometer in standard cars is switchable..

No car I drive has a digital speedometer.