On 28/03/2022 20:27 Ben Blaney penned these words:
> On Monday, March 28, 2022 at 4:48:06 AM UTC-4, Boots wrote:
>
>> I don't but most people are simple minded. I have the drawings for my gaff all
>> in metric but the advertisement was all in SQ feet as is the local property site
>> URL:https://www.propertyguru.com.my/apartment-for-rent/in-georgetown-pg027
>> albeit as far as I am aware this is the only imperial hangover, the country
>> switched to metric in the 70s after the UK.
>
> Just looked at the monthly weather chart for George Town. Perfect. Jealous.
>

It has been a bit stormy recently but generally 1/2 a day max and then the sun
comes out again.

--
Ian

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of
the last priest"

On 28/03/2022 18:45 Turby penned these words:
>>
> I took this in 1984. It's somewhere around Penang. I hope it's not a
> hangout of yours.
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/turbster/50065833321/in/album-72157714931945451/
>
> --

I do know where that is and luckily I have not been a guest. It does not appear
changed in anyway from your 40 year old picture.

--
Ian

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of
the last priest"

On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:56:22 -0700 (PDT), ogden <eldaifo@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Absolutely no idea how tall I am in metrics though. And if I did I'd have
>to convert to feet and inches for the same reason.

>Not that it's changed much in the last thirty years.

Well, you say that....

You do know you get shorter as you get older, don't you? I had a full
medical in my 40s and was shocked to be told that I was a good inch
[1] shorter than the height I'd been quoting since I was 18

[1] hah, yes,
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

I don't know, but I been told
You never slow down, you never grow old

Champ wrote:
> ogden <eld...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Absolutely no idea how tall I am in metrics though. And if I did I'd have
> >to convert to feet and inches for the same reason.
>
> >Not that it's changed much in the last thirty years.
> Well, you say that....
>
> You do know you get shorter as you get older, don't you? I had a full
> medical in my 40s and was shocked to be told that I was a good inch
> [1] shorter than the height I'd been quoting since I was 18

Hence the word 'much'.

On 29/03/2022 13:04, Champ wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:56:22 -0700 (PDT), ogden <eldaifo@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Absolutely no idea how tall I am in metrics though. And if I did I'd have
>> to convert to feet and inches for the same reason.
>
>> Not that it's changed much in the last thirty years.
>
> Well, you say that....
>
> You do know you get shorter as you get older, don't you? I had a full
> medical in my 40s and was shocked to be told that I was a good inch
> [1] shorter than the height I'd been quoting since I was 18
>
> [1] hah, yes,

Surely you could have fixed that with a longer nail and a special shoe?

--
/Simon

On 29/03/2022 13:04, Champ wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:56:22 -0700 (PDT), ogden <eldaifo@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Absolutely no idea how tall I am in metrics though. And if I did I'd have
>> to convert to feet and inches for the same reason.
>
>> Not that it's changed much in the last thirty years.
>
> Well, you say that....
>
> You do know you get shorter as you get older, don't you? I had a full
> medical in my 40s and was shocked to be told that I was a good inch
> [1] shorter than the height I'd been quoting since I was 18

I've nly shrunk 1/2 inch since 18.
>
> [1] hah, yes,
Metric converison error?

--
Bruce Porter
"The internet is a huge and diverse community but mainly friendly"
http://ytc1.blogspot.co.uk/
There *is* an alternative! http://www.openoffice.org/

On 28/03/2022 21:53, Pipl wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 13:46:11 +0800, Boots
> <news@millhouse-communications.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 27/03/2022 22:58 YTC#1 penned these words:
>>> yet I still weigh myself in stones and pounds, and measure my height in
>>> feet& inches
>>
>> I have no idea what I am now in ancient measurements. I do know in metric
>> weight 73 - 75 depending
>> height 178
>> waist 82
>
> I had to convert the waist, but I've crept up to nearly 86Kg and 91cm,
> but at least I'm 185cm tall. And big-boned, of course.

Just to make all you skinnies feel good, I'm 175cm and 110kg, and about
106cm equatorially.

Mike Fleming wrote:

> > I had to convert the waist, but I've crept up to nearly 86Kg and
> > 91cm, but at least I'm 185cm tall. And big-boned, of course.
>
> Just to make all you skinnies feel good, I'm 175cm and 110kg, and
> about 106cm equatorially.

I can do it in both systems 5'9" and 175cm and 12st 3lb 77.5 kg -
however I can't do my waist size or inside leg in cm (34" and 29")
without doing a conversion.

I'd also have to do some maths to work out my weight in lbs only.

--
Simon

sweller wrote:
> I can do it in both systems 5'9" and 175cm and 12st 3lb 77.5 kg -
> however I can't do my waist size or inside leg in cm (34" and 29")
> without doing a conversion.

A fellow orangutan -
Short legs, long body (and long arms too in my case).
Makes buying one-piece leathers a right pain.

On 27/03/2022 15:49, Ace wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Mar 2022 08:44:19 +0000, "Cab" <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> There are actually people in the UK that think a benefit of leaving the
>> EU, is bringing back imperial measurements.
>
> I don't mind at all if they do, as long as they use the continental
> norm of 500ml=1 pint, 500g=1 lb. It's still not unheard-of for French
> or German folks to use them. Un demi-livre de beurre rolls off the
> tongue much more easily than deux-cents cinqante grams. I think people
> tend to forget that those units, and inches, were the standard, albeit
> in ill-defined one, units across most of Europe before
> post-revolutionary France started pushing for standardisation to the
> already existing standard units.
>
>> Just think of it. Both the US and UK, brothers in arms, using inches to
>> the last!
>
> Well inches is stilll the unverally accepted standard for some things
> across Europe. And in fact it's a derived SI unit in its own right,
> having been defined as 25.4mm for 100 or more years.
>
> Nuts and bolts are a different matter altogether, and the
> simplification even since I was working on bicycles as a kid is huge.

Having grown up to use three systems concurrently I don't have a problem
(eg) measuring a bit of wood and making it 3ft 2" and 5mm long...

But I do have some issues with metric nuts & bolts in many cases in that
the threads often just aren't up to the job and strip too readily.
Sometimes, you just can't beat a nice chunky Whitworth :-)

That being said standardisation of units is basically a good thing.
Metrication is basically a good thing - its just that sometimes the
compromises between the two aren't so good!

As has been said in this thread, despite (any) ongoing universal
metrication there will *always* be some odd threads out there - even if
they solely exist in steam engines and old bikes.

So, I suppose I have a foot in both camps. What I do not subscribe to
though is the notion that metrication is easier for the general populace
to understand. As long as people need to look up conversions on their
phone in Tesco for questions such as "What is 320 grammes in
Kilogrammes?", then there is no hope for this ideology and we might as
well continue to use arbitrary measurements.

Chris

--
The Deuchars BBB#40 COFF#14
Yamaha XV750SE & Suzuki GS550t
http://www.Deuchars.org.uk

On Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at 11:57:28 AM UTC+1, Sqirrel99 wrote:

> A fellow orangutan -
> Short legs, long body (and long arms too in my case).
> Makes buying one-piece leathers a right pain.

So it is you two the Italians used for the ergonomics in their cars!

Never found an Alfa or a Fiat I could get comfortable in...Long legs, short body!

Boxerboy

On Wednesday, 30 March 2022 at 15:12:33 UTC+1, ChrisND @UKRM wrote:

> So, I suppose I have a foot in both camps. What I do not subscribe to
> though is the notion that metrication is easier for the general populace
> to understand. As long as people need to look up conversions on their
> phone in Tesco for questions such as "What is 320 grammes in
> Kilogrammes?", then there is no hope for this ideology and we might as
> well continue to use arbitrary measurements.

You'll never have a system that's suitable for a lot of people, whatever it is,
it's a reflection on people's numeracy/education not on the ease of units.

But metric *is* easier for the majority of numerate people.

Does it mean we should switch from miles and pints? Frankly I don't give a fuck
but how many people know how many yards there are in a mile, or come to that
how many inches in a yard?; I suspect across the population a significantly
smaller number than know how many metres in a kilometre or cm in a m.

On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:41:29 +0100, Mike Fleming <mike@tauzero.co.uk>
wrote:

>On 28/03/2022 21:53, Pipl wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 13:46:11 +0800, Boots
>> <news@millhouse-communications.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> On 27/03/2022 22:58 YTC#1 penned these words:
>>>> yet I still weigh myself in stones and pounds, and measure my height in
>>>> feet& inches
>>>
>>> I have no idea what I am now in ancient measurements. I do know in metric
>>> weight 73 - 75 depending
>>> height 178
>>> waist 82
>>
>> I had to convert the waist, but I've crept up to nearly 86Kg and 91cm,
>> but at least I'm 185cm tall. And big-boned, of course.
>
>Just to make all you skinnies feel good, I'm 175cm and 110kg, and about
>106cm equatorially.

Appreciated.

--

-Pip

On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 11:57:26 +0100, Sqirrel99
<secret.sqirrel99@gmail.com> wrote:

>sweller wrote:
>> I can do it in both systems 5'9" and 175cm and 12st 3lb 77.5 kg -
>> however I can't do my waist size or inside leg in cm (34" and 29")
>> without doing a conversion.
>
>A fellow orangutan -
>Short legs, long body (and long arms too in my case).
>Makes buying one-piece leathers a right pain.

"...And this is Bob, who designs our range of one-piece oversuits..."

--

-Pip

On 30/03/2022 18:53, Stephen Packer wrote:
> On Wednesday, 30 March 2022 at 15:12:33 UTC+1, ChrisND @UKRM wrote:
>
>
>> So, I suppose I have a foot in both camps. What I do not subscribe to
>> though is the notion that metrication is easier for the general populace
>> to understand. As long as people need to look up conversions on their
>> phone in Tesco for questions such as "What is 320 grammes in
>> Kilogrammes?", then there is no hope for this ideology and we might as
>> well continue to use arbitrary measurements.
>
> You'll never have a system that's suitable for a lot of people, whatever it is,
> it's a reflection on people's numeracy/education not on the ease of units.
>
> But metric *is* easier for the majority of numerate people.
>
> Does it mean we should switch from miles and pints? Frankly I don't give a fuck
> but how many people know how many yards there are in a mile, or come to that
> how many inches in a yard?; I suspect across the population a significantly
> smaller number than know how many metres in a kilometre or cm in a m.

As a historian of the medieval and latterly the Victorian period I have
to keep a fairly competent understanding of Imperial and earlier systems
- much easier than constantly having to convert to metric.

Something most metrication evangelists miss is that the older systems
have clear internal principles. One such is an aversion to large
numbers; this is why there appear to be too many units, e.g. inch-feet-
yard-furlong-miles-leagues or ounce-pound-stone-hundredweight-ton. Most
of the time people used only a couple of the units in a single instance,
otherwise the problem of false precision would arise.

On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 19:45:15 +0100, sig <sig@sig.com> wrote:

>As a historian of the medieval and latterly the Victorian period I have
>to keep a fairly competent understanding of Imperial and earlier systems
>- much easier than constantly having to convert to metric.

Sure, I say a "couple of inches of rainwater" not "about five
centimetres". And yes, if you *know* the system then I'm sure it makes
sense.

But the link between the units is chaotic. Feet to a yard? Easy. Feet
to a mile... 5280??? Well, yards then. 1760? No better. How about
chains? 66 feet per chain... nope. Yards then... 22 yards per chain?
Maybe chains per mile... aaah, 80. Sort of a round number. But there
is no clear logical progression: it all has to be memorised.

>Something most metrication evangelists miss is that the older systems
>have clear internal principles. One such is an aversion to large
>numbers; this is why there appear to be too many units, e.g. inch-feet-
>yard-furlong-miles-leagues or ounce-pound-stone-hundredweight-ton.

Tonne, kilogram, gram...

>Most
>of the time people used only a couple of the units in a single instance,
>otherwise the problem of false precision would arise.

Not strictly limited to metric units though: "The villages were 554400
feet apart" (10 1/2 miles).

--

-Pip

stephen...@gmail.com wrote:
> ChrisND @UKRM wrote:
> > So, I suppose I have a foot in both camps. What I do not subscribe to
> > though is the notion that metrication is easier for the general populace
> > to understand. As long as people need to look up conversions on their
> > phone in Tesco for questions such as "What is 320 grammes in
> > Kilogrammes?", then there is no hope for this ideology and we might as
> > well continue to use arbitrary measurements.
> You'll never have a system that's suitable for a lot of people, whatever it is,
> it's a reflection on people's numeracy/education not on the ease of units..
>
> But metric *is* easier for the majority of numerate people.

That depends what you're using it for.

> Does it mean we should switch from miles and pints? Frankly I don't give a fuck
> but how many people know how many yards there are in a mile, or come to that
> how many inches in a yard?

I have no idea, but I have a reasonable idea how big each unit is, and I'd be picking an appropriate unit for the measurement.

I might measure my height in feet and inches, but who cares what fraction of a mile that is. I might have measured my commute in miles, back in the before times, but I'd have had no idea how many yards it was, or had any need for intermediate units like chains and furlongs when I could decimalise the distance in miles.

For day to day use, imperial measurements make quite a bit of sense, so long as you only need to use them one at a time. They were, after all, derived from practical uses rather than applied to them. Metric units are scalable and accurate. But 30" is a much nicer measurement for the width of a door than 760mm. 4' is a niftier measurement for the width of a window than 1200mm. 17" is a better round number for the size of a wheel than 430mm. I'm from the last generation that was taught both at school in the UK - my maths textbook at primary school still referred to New Pence, ffs - and I still use a mixture of both in daily life, whichever is the best fit. It works just fine.

On 30/03/2022 22:12 ChrisND @UKRM penned these words:
> On 27/03/2022 15:49, Ace wrote:
>> On Sun, 27 Mar 2022 08:44:19 +0000, "Cab" <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> There are actually people in the UK that think a benefit of leaving the
>>> EU, is bringing back imperial measurements.

JFC

> But I do have some issues with metric nuts & bolts in many cases in that
> the threads often just aren't up to the job and strip too readily.
> Sometimes, you just can't beat a nice chunky Whitworth :-)

That reminds me when working for Vokes my mate Colin had some obscure piece of
Brit crap and was the principal operator of a high speed thread programmable
cutting machine Kreidon<sp> ergo he was able to cut any blasted thread he needed.

> As has been said in this thread, despite (any) ongoing universal
> metrication there will *always* be some odd threads out there - even if
> they solely exist in steam engines and old bikes.
>
> So, I suppose I have a foot in both camps. What I do not subscribe to
> though is the notion that metrication is easier for the general populace
> to understand. As long as people need to look up conversions on their
> phone in Tesco for questions such as "What is 320 grammes in
> Kilogrammes?", then there is no hope for this ideology and we might as
> well continue to use arbitrary measurements.

Come the exam for my Trimix course was given the US version of the paper. Fuck
that nonsense calculating gas is PSI, depth in feet etc

--
Ian

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of
the last priest"

ogden <eldaifo@gmail.com> wrote in
news:26b637b1-7181-4c41-9a66-6cf00778b544n@googlegroups.com:

> For day to day use, imperial measurements make quite a bit of sense,
> so long as you only need to use them one at a time. They were, after
> all, derived from practical uses rather than applied to them. Metric
> units are scalable and accurate. But 30" is a much nicer measurement
> for the width of a door than 760mm. 4' is a niftier measurement for
> the width of a window than 1200mm. 17" is a better round number for
> the size of a wheel than 430mm. I'm from the last generation that was
> taught both at school in the UK - my maths textbook at primary school
> still referred to New Pence, ffs - and I still use a mixture of both
> in daily life, whichever is the best fit. It works just fine.

pretty much where I am, being in school at the other end, when the
transition began.

Really rather apprehensive in Feb 1971 going to the local shop to ask for
2.5p of mint imperials[1] instead of 6d. Still paid with a tanner, though.

We had the novelty of the metre rules arriving when I was in primary school
but had no weights in grammes until I was in high school.

When my mechanical bathroom scales packed up due to rust, I bought a
digital thing and I now measure my bulk in kg, but height in feet & inches,
etc etc.

I leave my satnav in miles when abroad and it shows me the kph speed limits
in proper units.

[1] when they were weighed out into a paper bag

Sqirrel99 <secret.sqirrel99@gmail.com> wrote in news:t21d2m$hok$1@dont-
email.me:

> sweller wrote:
>> I can do it in both systems 5'9" and 175cm and 12st 3lb 77.5 kg -
>> however I can't do my waist size or inside leg in cm (34" and 29")
>> without doing a conversion.
>
> A fellow orangutan -
> Short legs, long body (and long arms too in my case).
> Makes buying one-piece leathers a right pain.
>

I imagine there aren't many riders left in this place who would be in the
market for 1 piece leathers

wessie wrote:
> Sqirrel99 <secret.sqirrel99@gmail.com> wrote in news:t21d2m$hok$1@dont-
>> A fellow orangutan -
>> Short legs, long body (and long arms too in my case).
>> Makes buying one-piece leathers a right pain.
>
> I imagine there aren't many riders left in this place who would be in the
> market for 1 piece leathers

I don't do it /often/ but it is where it is most difficult.
The sizing difficulty also applies to one-piece work overalls, but
these are easier to modify.

It gets worse though -
My thighs are the particularly short part (I'm 5'9", my son is 5'11" -
standing next to him my knees are higher than his) so even with
two-piece gear, the knee armour tends to sit /below/ my knee.

On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 14:57:23 -0700 (PDT), ogden <eldaifo@gmail.com>
wrote:

>For day to day use, imperial measurements make quite a bit of sense,
>so long as you only need to use them one at a time. They were, after
>all, derived from practical uses rather than applied to them.

Indeed, and this is why some of them are still widely, if informally,
used within metricated countries.

>Metric units are scalable and accurate. But 30" is a much nicer
>measurement for the width of a door than 760mm.

Well yes, but ia any practical senze one would always use cm, not mm,
so apart from the roundness of your example it doesn't really make
much difference. Then again, if I'm specifying a bit of work surface
to be cut it's far simpler to use mm - 2555mm, plucked from the air,
would I quote that as 8.38 feet, 8ft 4.6inches or 8ft 4 and
five-eighths? Is the loss of precisions important? Well yes, if I'd
used an imperial tape nmeasure down to its smallest natural gradation
it might have ended up nearly a millimetre larger.

>4' is a niftier measurement for the width of a window than 1200mm.

How often is a window exactly 4 feet wide? Anyway, nothing wrong with
120cm. Part of the beauty of the metric units is the ability to choose
the best scale without complex conversions.

>17" is a better round number for the size of a wheel than 430mm.

Than 43cm? Not sure, but in practice inches are still the global
standard units for wheel and tyre sizing. No reason to change it, as
nobody ever uses these sizes for anything else.

>I'm from the last generation that was taught both at school in the UK
>- my maths textbook at primary school still referred to New Pence,
>ffs - and I still use a mixture of both in daily life, whichever is
>the best fit. It works just fine.

I agree, in principle.

With the notable exception of Fahrenheit, which is an abomination
which should be consigned to the deepest pits of hell.
--
Ace
http://www.chaletbeauroc.com/

On 30/03/2022 18:53, Stephen Packer wrote:
> On Wednesday, 30 March 2022 at 15:12:33 UTC+1, ChrisND @UKRM wrote:
>
>
>> So, I suppose I have a foot in both camps. What I do not subscribe to
>> though is the notion that metrication is easier for the general populace
>> to understand. As long as people need to look up conversions on their
>> phone in Tesco for questions such as "What is 320 grammes in
>> Kilogrammes?", then there is no hope for this ideology and we might as
>> well continue to use arbitrary measurements.
>
> You'll never have a system that's suitable for a lot of people, whatever it is,
> it's a reflection on people's numeracy/education not on the ease of units.

Absolutely. That was largely my point - that no system will suit
everyone or every circumstance. That's not to say there shouldn't have
been worthy efforts :-)

> But metric *is* easier for the majority of numerate people.

Indeed - its the innumerate or the barely numerate who don't get it?

> Does it mean we should switch from miles and pints? Frankly I don't give a fuck
> but how many people know how many yards there are in a mile, or come to that
> how many inches in a yard?; I suspect across the population a significantly
> smaller number than know how many metres in a kilometre or cm in a m.

I really wouldn't want to place a bet on that in the UK - even after 50
years of metrication!

Notwithstanding all this (and there have been some good points made
elsewhere in this sub-thread) I am a great fan of the SI system as a
whole. It was well thought out but, as is so often the case, it has been
progressively undermined by the use of derived units (and renaming of
others).

For example, the measurement of length. The SI units are Kilometre,
Metre and Millimetre (with the metre being the principal unit). Looking
at an artefact or a plan, there is no need to put the units on because
confusing those three is nigh on impossible. However, introduce (eg) the
centimetre, as a derived unit, and all that simplicity goes horribly
wrong because it introduces a potential element of ambiguity in the
numbers. This is a, regrettable, lingering hangover of the 'old' CGS
system into the MKS - and even I have lost track (and lost the will to
live) over which of those should be in capital letters and which not! :-)

Chris

--
The Deuchars BBB#40 COFF#14
Yamaha XV750SE & Suzuki GS550t
http://www.Deuchars.org.uk

On Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 3:41:07 AM UTC-4, Ace wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 14:57:23 -0700 (PDT), ogden <eld...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >4' is a niftier measurement for the width of a window than 1200mm.
> How often is a window exactly 4 feet wide? Anyway, nothing wrong with
> 120cm. Part of the beauty of the metric units is the ability to choose
> the best scale without complex conversions.

That's the killer argument.

/thread.

On 30/03/2022 22:57, ogden wrote:
>
> For day to day use, imperial measurements make quite a bit of sense, so long as you only need to use them one at a time. They were, after all, derived from practical uses rather than applied to them. Metric units are scalable and accurate. But 30" is a much nicer measurement for the width of a door than 760mm.

OTOH, 750mm would be a nicer measurement for the width of a door than 29
and a half and a bit inches.

> 4' is a niftier measurement for the width of a window than 1200mm. 17" is a better round number for the size of a wheel than 430mm. I'm from the last generation that was taught both at school in the UK - my maths textbook at primary school still referred to New Pence, ffs - and I still use a mixture of both in daily life, whichever is the best fit. It works just fine.

I keep to metric with some exceptions - distance (miles), speed (mph),
fuel consumption (mpg), tyre pressure (psi), instrument scale lengths
(generally inches but can also understand mm), and screen and wheel
sizes (inches). Of course, tyre sizes are a mix of metric, imperial, and
a ratio. Generally speaking, dimensions and weights in metric, though I
can work in feet and inches (not stones and pounds and ounces though,
they're fucking ridiculous).