Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why the heck does America still use outdated measurement and date units?
- Thread starter garirry
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I see "18:00", and immediately understand that it's "6:00" . . .
. . . is this not the same, for you?
Exactly. I don’t do the math. Either 12 or 24 hour clock are just read the same. I have no preference tbh.
One of the nice things about not living in the USA.I work near this nice building (and others)
It used to be in middle of the river and was built the keep pirates away but nowadays it only attracts people
My father used to say that the nicest thing about Lisbon was the A1 (the main highway heading out)
Where my job is located is in an old commercial park near the freeway. The back area has a cell tower. Anywhere you look you can get a nice view of pallets, industrial equipment and fences. There was a homeless guy camping in the area once.
Fortunately, I work from home, but not near anything like your photo. Just another non-descript American HOA community where the houses are all the same. Not that I don't appreciate my own house (I do and the community is nice), but this isn't anything that's in my backyard.
You're living large @eyoungren . . . I have a Wally-World and a You'all-Haul storage/rental place just down the street as my local 'Places Of Interest'
Well…we have a HOA mandated paint scheme, but pink isn't part of it, LOL!
Maybe if I lived in Florida, haha!
Well…we have a HOA mandated paint scheme, but pink isn't part of it, LOL!
Maybe if I lived in Florida, haha!
We don't have HOAs. Our paint schemes are mandated by the local council (aka City Hall).
You can go with any colour you like, so long as the council likes it.
Neon colours (pink, yellow, green, etc) are usually frowned upon, as are Zebra stripes
Our house is basically Boring Beige and Heritage (i.e. 1910's) Green.
Ah yes, I've heard of the power of UK local councils. Sounds a lot like an American HOA, but with actual legal authority.
On the other hand, American HOAs tend to be extralegal and are often beyond the laws of local and state governments. To the point (I've heard) where some HOAs can get away with setting local speed limits on city streets.
Fortunately, mine hasn't done anything like that. Yet.
A few comments after skimming through this thread.
U.S. Letter size paper will probably last as long as A4 size paper due to the large amounts of infrastructure designed to handle it. What's funny is that Letter size paper is exactly 215.9mm wide and 279.4mm tall, while the definition of A4 paper size are irrational numbers.
The inch was re-defined to 25.4mm in the 1920's to make it "easy" for a machine tool to handle metric and imperial measurements - use a gear with 100 teeth for metric, 127 teeth for imperial. The USGS has a different opinion of what constitutes an inch.
Surveying in the U.S. is done in feet and 1/100 of a foot, 12' 6" would be 12.50'. It would have been really nice if the foot was ~1.6% shorted and defined by the distance light travels 1 nano-second in a vacuum.
Proper time stamps can be in Terrestrial Dynamic Time, UTC or GPS time for UNIX time. The Julian date format is an acceptable alternative date format.
The one proper measure of temperature is eV, as opposed to some unit based on a poorly defined liquid/solid phase transition of water and where the vapor pressure of water is somewhere near standard atmospheric pressure.
U.S. Letter size paper will probably last as long as A4 size paper due to the large amounts of infrastructure designed to handle it. What's funny is that Letter size paper is exactly 215.9mm wide and 279.4mm tall, while the definition of A4 paper size are irrational numbers.
The inch was re-defined to 25.4mm in the 1920's to make it "easy" for a machine tool to handle metric and imperial measurements - use a gear with 100 teeth for metric, 127 teeth for imperial. The USGS has a different opinion of what constitutes an inch.
Surveying in the U.S. is done in feet and 1/100 of a foot, 12' 6" would be 12.50'. It would have been really nice if the foot was ~1.6% shorted and defined by the distance light travels 1 nano-second in a vacuum.
Proper time stamps can be in Terrestrial Dynamic Time, UTC or GPS time for UNIX time. The Julian date format is an acceptable alternative date format.
The one proper measure of temperature is eV, as opposed to some unit based on a poorly defined liquid/solid phase transition of water and where the vapor pressure of water is somewhere near standard atmospheric pressure.
Nothing irrational about it. A0 is exactly 1m2. The other official paper sizes are derived from that by halves. A super efficient system where you can easily print and go up or down a size.
Could apply the above post to the US with the use of imperial measurement
Yes, let’s change an entire nations systems because YOU have a hard time understanding it. Nothing will change for you! But keep whining as it appears you like attention as much as you hate imperial!
Irrational as in cannot be expressed as a ratio of two numbers. The U.S. paper size system alternates between two ratios, so the lower dimension of the larger size is equal to the upper dimension of the smaller size, e.g. 11 by 17 and 8.5 by 11. Going up or down a size isn't as straightforward as you might think as 24 point type is slightly different than 12 point type doubled in size. With paper being gradually replaced by electronic records, the debate on paper size is becoming moot.
Having a decimal time system could make life a bit easier, but the unit of the "second" is so entrenched in S.I. units that a decimal time system will never be implemented. The next best thing is keeping time in seconds as done by the UNIX timestamp - a case could be made for the UNIX time stamp to be based on GPS time (no leap seconds).
Huh? 🤔 The units are exactly 2x bigger or 1/2 the size. So an even easier ratio 🤷♂️ And used everywhere in the world except for the USA yet again.
Who in America is having problems with our weights and measures?
The ratio of one size to the next size up are nice but to accomplish that the aspect ratio of any given size is the square root of 2:
ISO 216 - Wikipedia
The square root of 2 is an (mathematically) irrational number. In practice the specifications for a given size are rounded making the ratio (mathematically) rational.
Rationally, however, 8.5x11" paper makes perfect sense if you've already committed to inches, etc.
Chwe deg eiliad neu trigain eiliad.
Ha! Tynnwch fy nghoes arall!