To metric or not to metric, that is the question?

spasypaddy

I am very much in the miles camp, until road signs are changed i shan't be using KM even if it makes me seem fitter, faster, better than if i use miles.

do you agree?

rf6

Wholeheartedly.

Agent57

Miles! I love miles!

Kilometres seem alien and foreign to me. Of course, that's because I'm old (ish). It's bad enough that my kids measure their heights in metres and cm, and their mass in Kg. What's wrong with good old feet and inches, or stones and pounds?

We don't even have proper billions any more.

At least I can still buy a pint at the pub.

Jamey

To be honest, I mix and match.

Miles for distance
Feet / inches for heights of people
Millimetres / Centimetres for measuring things
Celsius / Centigrade for temperature
Stones / Pounds for weight of people
Grammes / kilos for weights of ingredients etc
Millilitres for fluid measurement

You get the general idea. I just use what I know best.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Miles for distance (because an imperial century rocks and a metric century is for lightweights).

Km/h for bike speeds. Because the numbers are bigger, obv.

TheStone

Everything metric (except waist for some reason!).

1cm cubed of water = 1ml = 1g - takes 1 joule of energy to heat 1C.
... or something like that.

On the bike, once you start doing mountains (which have* to be in metres), then you must
measure your distance in km.

* there's probably an age cutoff where feet are acceptable, but I would guess 50ish+?

davis

Metric for everything, everywhere. I'd give up my beloved pints, a little 10 mile loop, my average speed in mph (it's too slow however it's represented) for everything being consistent between units, consistent between countries, multipliable in your head and just more logical. Boats and planes should use km/kph too.

But then, I think Torx screwheads are the One True Way, and I'm not so sure anyone should drive on the left....

whyamihere

Metric, all the time, for everything.

I can just about understand what a mile, inch, stone, pint or foot are. Anything else is essentially foreign to me because I've never used them.

lost_in_thought

Jamey wrote:

To be honest, I mix and match.

Miles for distance
Feet / inches for heights of people
Millimetres / Centimetres for measuring things
Celsius / Centigrade for temperature
Stones / Pounds for weight of people
Grammes / kilos for weights of ingredients etc
Millilitres for fluid measurement

You get the general idea. I just use what I know best.

+1!

Almost exactly in fact, apart from that I'll also do weight of ingredients in ounces and lb. and I also do speed in miles per hour.

And I can do fluids in pints and fractions thereof, but floz confuse me.

TheStone

A half litre is a pint without the last warm mouthful.
I'd be all for the switch if we didn't get ripped off.

Kieran_Burns

but Imperial measurements are miles better....





I'll get me coat.

spasypaddy

much closer poll than id expected

bluefoam

You Englishers are so funny, with your quirky imperialist measurements & your sterling dollars. Get with the times, its all about inflexible currency & decimal points these days.

Jamey

lost_in_thought wrote:

Jamey wrote:

To be honest, I mix and match.

Miles for distance
Feet / inches for heights of people
Millimetres / Centimetres for measuring things
Celsius / Centigrade for temperature
Stones / Pounds for weight of people
Grammes / kilos for weights of ingredients etc
Millilitres for fluid measurement

You get the general idea. I just use what I know best.

+1!

Almost exactly in fact, apart from that I'll also do weight of ingredients in ounces and lb. and I also do speed in miles per hour.

And I can do fluids in pints and fractions thereof, but floz confuse me.

Oh yes, forgot miles per hour for speed, same here.

toontra

I use miles because road signs are in miles and that's how I'm used to judging distances. It's bloody inconvenient though because most events I do require navigating using waypoints in kilometres, so I spend hours translating them.

The system is a mess in this country - neither fish nor foul.

davis

spasypaddy wrote:

I am very much in the miles camp, until road signs are changed i shan't be using KM even if it makes me seem fitter, faster, better than if i use miles.

Actually I think UK roads are measured metric, they just display imperial distances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_in_the_United_Kingdom

This'll make it easier when the big metric switchover comes, (which'll be in a deciweek, at 10.5)

iPad

Jamey wrote:

To be honest, I mix and match.

Miles for distance
Feet / inches for heights of people
Millimetres / Centimetres for measuring things
Celsius / Centigrade for temperature
Stones / Pounds for weight of people
Grammes / kilos for weights of ingredients etc
Millilitres for fluid measurement

You get the general idea. I just use what I know best.

Me too, the only difference I have is weight of people I measure in kilos (that way I can visualise my excessive weight in terms of 2 litre bottle of coke - 2kg = 2l = 1 bottle of coke).

Oh, and drinks in litres - except beer, which has to be measured in pints (or on a heavy session gallons)

Wallace1492

But can you imagine.....

The Who - I can See for Kilometers
Join the Kilometre High Club
Watch The Green Kilometer
Visit Kilometer End in London
Basic Instinct starring Sharon Kilogramme
Two litres of lager and a packet of crisps

rf6

Jamey wrote:

To be honest, I mix and match.

Miles for distance
Feet / inches for heights of people
Millimetres / Centimetres for measuring things
Celsius / Centigrade for temperature
Stones / Pounds for weight of people
Grammes / kilos for weights of ingredients etc
Millilitres for fluid measurement

You get the general idea. I just use what I know best.

I do this too, thinking about it. Apart from beer and cider in pints. Oh, and gear inches. Are there gear millimetres????

rolf_f

Jamey wrote:

To be honest, I mix and match.

Miles for distance
Feet / inches for heights of people
Millimetres / Centimetres for measuring things
Celsius / Centigrade for temperature
Stones / Pounds for weight of people
Grammes / kilos for weights of ingredients etc
Millilitres for fluid measurement

You get the general idea. I just use what I know best.

Spoken like a true Brit! I can't vote on this because it would have to be the 'both of these' option. Miles and Pints are compulsory but I'm a scientist so SI units are also needed!

markshaw77

Wallace1492 wrote:

But can you imagine.....

The Who - I can See for Kilometers
Join the Kilometre High Club
Watch The Green Kilometer
Visit Kilometer End in London
Basic Instinct starring Sharon Kilogramme
Two litres of lager and a packet of crisps

trtimothy

true but with kilometers you're always riding faster and longer (or so it seems) and you get to compare quite how bad you are to the pros on TV easier!!!

Agent57

trtimothy wrote:

true but with kilometers you're always riding faster and longer (or so it seems) and you get to compare quite how bad you are to the pros on TV easier!!!

OK, you've convinced me. I'm going to try and learn metric and become bi-unital!

Beeblebrox

I'd swap pints for half litres only if we get the oversized glass to account for a head on the beer AND if buying beer by the litre becomes easy and/or acceptable in pubs. I long for the return of the quart

But thanks to a '00s education and being an engineering student I'm fully metrified. Distance, height, mass and weight... but am comfortable with imperial.


Edit - if you think about it, with the pint glasses we have today with no actual pint mark are probably a half litre anyway. If the head takes about half a cm then you've pretty much lost the extra 86ml in the pint.

jimmypippa

Beeblebrox wrote:

I'd swap pints for half litres only if we get the oversized glass to account for a head on the beer AND if buying beer by the litre becomes easy and/or acceptable in pubs. I long for the return of the quart

But thanks to a '00s education and being an engineering student I'm fully metrified. Distance, height, mass and weight... but am comfortable with imperial.


Edit - if you think about it, with the pint glasses we have today with no actual pint mark are probably a half litre anyway. If the head takes about half a cm then you've pretty much lost the extra 86ml in the pint.

I'm an engineer/physicist in the semiconductor industry so a lot of stuff is made by Americans.

2-thou wire, or 50-micron...

8-inch wafers, or 200-mm (I actually don't know which the diameter is but they are referred to as either).

I use miles for distance unless I am using an OS map, so walking distances tend to be measured in km.


and ether grammes or oz for cooking

An utter mess.

dav1

I am a big KM fan but use miles because thats what our roads are singed with.

I frequently convert my distances into KM though.

crankycrank

Living in the US I've been preaching the advantages of the metric system to anyone who will listen. Everyone, it's so much easier to use isn't it? When I was younger I bought one of your beautiful Rickman motorbikes. Although after discovering that I had to buy a combination of metric and the old British Standard spanners (very expensive here and hard to find) to do any repairs. With my measly income I lost some of the infatuation. Here we still use mostly American standard fasteners but of course most machinery is now metric so the dual tool set is still a necessity. Hmmm, that 7/16" spanner is too small where's my 8/16" er, I mean 1/2". Think of how much time would be saved in teaching our children how many meters in a kilometer as opposed to feet in a mile etc, etc. This takes valuble time away from texting and listening to iPods. Everybody sing along with me now: Metric is beautiful, Metric is love, let's all join spanners and drink a liter together and ride the kilometers into the sunset. Why do some frame builders use cm for measurement but touring frames are measured in inches?????

warthog562

I must say I learned the decimal system at school in oz but then when I started in engineering all the people who taught me used both because some things come from america or the uk. then I started on planes, ours were built in the us so the manuals used a mix of the two. I now work on german built trains in england so again a mix depending on the person who wrote the manual.

to be honest for miles or km I don't care as I just match the speedo to the sign, but I think it would be easier if the whole world used one and most of the world seems to use metric in my experiance, and the maths seems eaier and I am lazy.

also on the pints thing, we swapped in oz and now have the schooner which is 568 ml I which is one pint. so no change to the beer. the real problem is you guys get ripped on spirits as aussie shot is 30ml and the uk shot is 25ml.javascript:emoticon(':wink:')

lost_in_thought

warthog562 wrote:

also on the pints thing, we swapped in oz and now have the schooner which is 568 ml I which is one pint. so no change to the beer. the real problem is you guys get ripped on spirits as aussie shot is 30ml and the uk shot is 25ml

Eh? A schooner is a pint? Not in NSW/ACT it isn't, it's still a ladies' measure.

davis

lost_in_thought wrote:

warthog562 wrote:

also on the pints thing, we swapped in oz and now have the schooner which is 568 ml I which is one pint. so no change to the beer. the real problem is you guys get ripped on spirits as aussie shot is 30ml and the uk shot is 25ml

Eh? A schooner is a pint? Not in NSW/ACT it isn't, it's still a ladies' measure.

A pint is a ladies' measure. Unless it's yummy yummy Scotch

lost_in_thought

davis wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

warthog562 wrote:

also on the pints thing, we swapped in oz and now have the schooner which is 568 ml I which is one pint. so no change to the beer. the real problem is you guys get ripped on spirits as aussie shot is 30ml and the uk shot is 25ml

Eh? A schooner is a pint? Not in NSW/ACT it isn't, it's still a ladies' measure.

A pint is a ladies' measure. Unless it's yummy yummy Scotch

I once drank a pint of JD on a bet. It was home time very shortly thereafter.

A schooner of JD (although some 140ml smaller) would no doubt have had the same effect.