>> ^Sigh:

The only reason metric was adopted in Europe was so everyone could count on their fingers and toes.
To the actual topic, what's the difference with how computers are in almost every aspect of life. Calculations done by hand are a thing of the past. The only thing people are interested in is the answer.

That's actually a good point. Perhaps the real question we should ask ourselves is whether base-10 numbers still make sense.

I vote we all change to adopt using octal or hexadecimal, to ease our communication with our computational masters servants.

>> ^gwiz665:

For the youngest country in the world, you sure are pretty bound in traditions. You'd think as the new kid on the block, you would want to stay hip and fresh.

I agree, though based on what I've read of history, the ascendancy of this backward-looking traditionalism appears to be a recent phenomenon. Most people used to believe in progress, and seemed to favor the new over the old, and there seemed to be a fairly long-lasting tradition of being opposed to traditionalist arguments.

I'm tempted to say that somewhere between 1964 and 1980 is when the country really started behaving as if the only way forward was to try to reclaim some mythical lost golden age of the past.

>> ^gwiz665:

Ironically, the US is looking more and more like old-school China, isolating itself from the world, looking down its nose at everyone else, stubbornly only using its own measurement systems, avoiding globalization at all costs - this will be your ultimate economic undoing if the trend continues.


Not just our economic undoing, but our political, social, and cultural undoing as well. There's no turning the clock back. For better or worse, the entire world is now more interconnected than it's ever been before, and getting even more connected at an ever increasing rate.

To the degree that "American exceptionalism" was ever real, it was derived from our ability to adapt and change to meet new challenges, not because we were founded in perfection and have effectively resisted change over the last couple hundred years.

>> ^Throbbin:

@NetRunner - it's almost like Americans are proud of being ignorant. Remember this?

Sure do. And yes, it is almost like Americans are proud of being ignorant.

It's not really pride in ignorance, so much as a segment of the population that believes "common sense" and "hard work" make you as smart or smarter than anyone who's well-educated and does white collar work (book smarts). They feel that all that learnin' just gets in the way of seeing the simple and obvious truth (i.e. what they "know" is true in their gut).

So they feel perfectly justified in saying things like "inflating your tires can't possibly help with our energy crisis" or "global warming isn't real because it snowed in winter", and feel like there's no possible retort to that, because your responses will involve some sort of book-learning term like "data" or "scientific method" or "falsifiable hypothesis".

It should surprise no one that this particular meme is especially strong within the right-wing world of politics, and the rural areas of America...

All I gotta say is, we're a big, diverse country, and we aren't all like that.

>> ^doremifa:
We can all agree on -140 degrees. Just sayin'.


You're 100 degrees off.

-40C = -40F

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

I love this quote from the source you linked

"With the extensive adoption of the SI system, it is now only a relic except in the USA, where it remains the prevailing customary scale."

Heh, relics.

In no way does F seem more intuitive than C. It only exists now to cause confusion between the two. It's a turd in the punch bowl.

We've got 3 distinct discussions going on here: temperature, imperial/metric and clocks.

In the time one, I have to add that when we "speak" about the time, we usually say "at 8" when we mean "20:00", we don't say 20-hundred hours. We just type it out when writing it. AM/PM takes far more time to figure out than just saying 20, if in doubt - to me anyway (not used to AM/PM). We should just make "Metric time" and fuck people over royally

Imperial vs. metric units: I cannot see anything positive for the imperial. No valid points at all. Please present them, anyone, because I simply don't get it other than sheer stubbornness.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^gwiz665:
shakes fist
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?
It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!

1. The alternative to Ounces, Pounds and Miles are equally arbitrary measurements. Just easier to deal with since they're in factors of 10. I'd personally be happy if we switched, but it would be a huge pain for everyone and cause lots of confusion at first.
2. You've seen clocks; that's where it comes from. AM/PM has never been much of a problem for me since you can always tell which one it currently is by looking outside. And if you're telling someone a time it's slightly faster to say eight-PM than sixteen-hundred-hours.
3. 0 Degrees F is the stabilization point of brine. Fahrenheit had a lot of reasons for setting it exactly where he did (partly he was building on pre-existing scales), but the one that makes the most sense in the modern day is that "The outcome was a scale that had, essentially by design, the points 0° and 100° corresponding closely to the lower and upper limits of human comfort, an approach which made the scale inherently preferable in many everyday contexts" It's easy for anyone to remember that 32 is the freezing point. Beyond that it seems a more intuitive and precise for everyday uses.

No.

Balls.

Thank you university mathematics >> ^MaxWilder:

"Ball" does not mean "sphere". Balls can be spherical or ovoid, solid or hollow, or even have holes in them (bowling ball, wiffle ball). You can have a ball of wax that is any shape you want.
In sports, balls are spherical when you want a consistent movement, or some other shape when you want unpredictable movement.

This is not Cleese trolling. If it was, he would wink at the end or something. Sorry guys, he's good, but he's not that deep. He is a silly-walker, not a meta-comedian.

>> ^joel_eb:

haha! you guys are all bums. john cleese is a comedian. you're just supposed to laugh, upvote, and watch the next one.


You are definitely supposed to upvote

haha! you guys are all bums. john cleese is a comedian. you're just supposed to laugh, upvote, and watch the next one.

"Beyond that it seems a more intuitive and precise for everyday uses."


Exactly. It "seems" more intuitive because it's really not. Neither is metric more intuitive, it just makes more sense generally and is easier to compute with when dealing with unusually big/small (i.e. unintuitive) numbers and measurements. Once you switch to metric from imperial, the everyday "intuitive" measurements are still intuitive, they're simply expressed in different units. Anyway, imprecise measurements are imprecise, whatever the system you use.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^gwiz665:
shakes fist
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?
It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!

1. The alternative to Ounces, Pounds and Miles are equally arbitrary measurements. Just easier to deal with since they're in factors of 10. I'd personally be happy if we switched, but it would be a huge pain for everyone and cause lots of confusion at first.
2. You've seen clocks; that's where it comes from. AM/PM has never been much of a problem for me since you can always tell which one it currently is by looking outside. And if you're telling someone a time it's slightly faster to say eight-PM than sixteen-hundred-hours.
3. 0 Degrees F is the stabilization point of brine. Fahrenheit had a lot of reasons for setting it exactly where he did (partly he was building on pre-existing scales), but the one that makes the most sense in the modern day is that "The outcome was a scale that had, essentially by design, the points 0° and 100° corresponding closely to the lower and upper limits of human comfort, an approach which made the scale inherently preferable in many everyday contexts" It's easy for anyone to remember that 32 is the freezing point. Beyond that it seems a more intuitive and precise for everyday uses.

>> ^gwiz665:

shakes fist
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?
It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!


1. The alternative to Ounces, Pounds and Miles are equally arbitrary measurements. Just easier to deal with since they're in factors of 10. I'd personally be happy if we switched, but it would be a huge pain for everyone and cause lots of confusion at first.

2. You've seen clocks; that's where it comes from. AM/PM has never been much of a problem for me since you can always tell which one it currently is by looking outside. And if you're telling someone a time it's slightly faster to say eight-PM than sixteen-hundred-hours.

3. 0 Degrees F is the stabilization point of brine. Fahrenheit had a lot of reasons for setting it exactly where he did (partly he was building on pre-existing scales), but the one that makes the most sense in the modern day is that "The outcome was a scale that had, essentially by design, the points 0° and 100° corresponding closely to the lower and upper limits of human comfort, an approach which made the scale inherently preferable in many everyday contexts" It's easy for anyone to remember that 32 is the freezing point. Beyond that it seems a more intuitive and precise for everyday uses.

I do have to agree with the metric/imperial arguement here...

How many inches in a foot? 12
How many feet in a yard? 3
How many feet/yards in a mile? 5280/1760

How many millimeters in a centimeter? 10
How many centimeters in a meter? 100
How many meters in a kilometer? 1000

One makes perfect sense in a base-10 world, while the other seems to be an arbitrary collection of numbers based on comparison lengths of various body parts.


As for the video itself? Well played, Cleese.

>> ^gwiz665:

shakes fist
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?
It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!


The value of a social safety net is also casually accepted everywhere except certain third world countries and the US.

We're different, and we're arrogant, and we're attached to old and outdated notions, even though we're arguably the youngest 1st world nation.

I agree, none of those measurements make sense, but they're familiar, and we're pig-headed enough as a society that we'll probably never give up on them entirely.

At best, we'll probably keep the words, and just make them equivalent to metrics (e.g. 1 mile = 1km, 1 gallon = 1 liter, etc.).

*shakes fist*
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?

It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!


>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^gwiz665:
Americans should change it, like they should change to the metric system and a 24h clock.
No thanks.
When it's 30 degrees outside, it's cold, not hot.
It's never 13 o'clock. Never.
A woman with 36-24-36 measurements is hot, not a circus midget.
Someone who weighs 100 something is petite, not huge.
Never mind automotive stuff, mph to kph, converting horsepower to kilowatts, torque from foot-pounds to newton-meters, miles per gallon to kilometers per liter (or worse, the crazy liters per 100km thing some countries use).
Metrics are fine for engineering, but I just don't see it being adopted colloquially anytime soon.