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

warthog562

one of those crazy things about oz that I end up having to explain over and over again at work is that the size of the glass never changed just the name can vary from state to state or sometimes pub to pub and you end up with different names for the same thing. LiT the one you are referring to is called a half here but in QLD is called a pot as NSW still use the pint in some places mostly sydney as it is full of english tourists.

davis

lost_in_thought wrote:

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.

Good God. You are, as I understand the definition, a gurl, right?

...still not Scotch though...

lost_in_thought

warthog562 wrote:

one of those crazy things about oz that I end up having to explain over and over again at work is that the size of the glass never changed just the name can vary from state to state or sometimes pub to pub and you end up with different names for the same thing. LiT the one you are referring to is called a half here but in QLD is called a pot as NSW still use the pint in some places mostly sydney as it is full of english tourists.

Well, all the pubs I've been to in Oz, and it's a fair few, were all in NSW/ACT, a schooner was 450ml or thereabouts, and a pint was a pint or 568ml. I found a few pubs in Canberra that sold pints, but it took a while. Fortunately I lived there at the time.

The adelaide 'schooners', otoh, are hilarious. I think they're about 250ml.

cjcp

Pints and miles, folks. This is the UK. Johnny Foreigner can go jump.

spasypaddy

i heard on the grape vine that D-Cam is going to outlaw the metric system!

schweiz

After 7 years on the continent, I'm fully metricated.

Beer in ml
Wine in dl
Body weight in kg
Cooking weights in g
Distance in km
Speed in km/h
Temperature in degrees C
Height in m
chest, weight and neck size in cm (although jeans are still sold in inches :roll: )

apart from at work...aeroplanes are imperial!! I can't even nip into a normal hangar to fix my bike. I have to go to the experimental workshop to get a metric spanner!

What amazes me is that the UK has been metric since 1971, I was only ever taught metric at school (started in 1982) and imperial is still so widely used. And can anyone explain why B&Q sell timber with profiles in inches and lengths in metres? a 2.4m length of 4"x2" :roll:

jimmypippa

schweiz wrote:

After 7 years on the continent, I'm fully metricated.

Beer in ml
Wine in dl
Body weight in kg
Cooking weights in g
Distance in km
Speed in km/h
Temperature in degrees C
Height in m
chest, weight and neck size in cm (although jeans are still sold in inches :roll: )

apart from at work...aeroplanes are imperial!! I can't even nip into a normal hangar to fix my bike. I have to go to the experimental workshop to get a metric spanner!

What amazes me is that the UK has been metric since 1971, I was only ever taught metric at school (started in 1982) and imperial is still so widely used. And can anyone explain why B&Q sell timber with profiles in inches and lengths in metres? a 2.4m length of 4"x2" :roll:

My then 8-year old son got a souvenir fishing boat a couple of years ago.
He (accurately) described it as being "about two-inches long", so imperial still seems to be living on in deepest Derbyshire.

lost_in_thought

See I was born in 1983, and taught (in the '90s) what the school referred to as 'conversion weights and measures', so I can tell you quick as a flash how many metres are in a mile, how many furlongs in a kilometre, how many ml in a gallon etc etc.

Comes in handy.

stuaff

Miles. Nothing wrong using imperial and SI units as you see fit. And a century is 100 miles, not 100k, AFAIC....

spasypaddy

lost_in_thought wrote:

See I was born in 1983, and taught (in the '90s) what the school referred to as 'conversion weights and measures', so I can tell you quick as a flash how many metres are in a mile, how many furlongs in a kilometre, how many ml in a gallon etc etc.

Comes in handy.

yes well i was born in 86, and was taught them as well. however i cant be bothered with metric.

much prefer talking and thinking in imperial

jonginge

mmmm, Royale with cheese...

always_tyred

Did you know that all of the major scientific phenomena can be defined by one out of 100 metric units of meausre?

By contrast, it takes 8 1/3 dozen imperial units.

Eau Rouge

A while back the Irish government decided that any new road sign would be in Kilometers, whether it was new new or replacing an old one. This left the place with a lovely mix of both distance measures.
Then, about 10 years later, all the old signs had been replaced, all signs were now in Km, so the government went about and, over the course of a weekend, changed all the speed limit and their signs from mph to kph. New cars were sold with different speedometers too.

I tend to do a bit of both, often to measure the same thing. Speed and distance are in metric on the bike but in imperial still in the car. I know my weight in stones and kilos, and height in cm and feet.

Will Snow

davis wrote:

Boats and planes should use km/kph too.

If I may, Boats and planes dont use mph or kph because they navigate using lat and long, and the relationship that has to nautical miles. Too tired to go into detail, but believe me thats why lol unless you are in the states, the planes there go statute mph, but then again they measure the pressure in millimeters of mercury. God knows why. Also this is a map of places that still use imperial (as their primary or sole system of measurement):

CiB

Imperial no question. Metric only divides by 2 & 5. Imperial measures divide into 2, 3, 4, 6 and are much more flexible, as well as being easy. Yes they are. You have to ask if imperial is so illogical and impossible to understand, which is the oft-claim downside to it, how did we manage to run half the world and built The Empire on the back of it? Imperial works fine. As per earlier, Johny Frog can stick to his metric nonsense. We'll keep our system thanks.

prawny

lost_in_thought wrote:

See I was born in 1983, and taught (in the '90s) what the school referred to as 'conversion weights and measures', so I can tell you quick as a flash how many metres are in a mile, how many furlongs in a kilometre, how many ml in a gallon etc etc.

Comes in handy.

See now I would have been in the same school year as you but I went to a state school in the midlands and as a result would struggle to tell you how many feet were in my shoes let alone all that lot.

I have no idea how long a furlong might be.

El Gordo

I love the mix and match of units in this country and happily switch between the two if only to confuse my euopean colleagues. It only gets properly confusing when you're using compund units like lb/ft or psi (or even more daft, kips).

I've heard it suggested that the imperial system is why British engineers are so good - if you can't understand the units then you get filtered out.

lost_in_thought

prawny wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

See I was born in 1983, and taught (in the '90s) what the school referred to as 'conversion weights and measures', so I can tell you quick as a flash how many metres are in a mile, how many furlongs in a kilometre, how many ml in a gallon etc etc.

Comes in handy.

See now I would have been in the same school year as you but I went to a state school in the midlands and as a result would struggle to tell you how many feet were in my shoes let alone all that lot.

I have no idea how long a furlong might be.

A little over 200m, 660 feet or 10 chains...

I assure you this information is invaluable on a day-to-day basis.

prawny

lost_in_thought wrote:

prawny wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

See I was born in 1983, and taught (in the '90s) what the school referred to as 'conversion weights and measures', so I can tell you quick as a flash how many metres are in a mile, how many furlongs in a kilometre, how many ml in a gallon etc etc.

Comes in handy.

See now I would have been in the same school year as you but I went to a state school in the midlands and as a result would struggle to tell you how many feet were in my shoes let alone all that lot.

I have no idea how long a furlong might be.

A little over 200m, 660 feet or 10 chains...



I assure you this information is invaluable on a day-to-day basis.

How many links :?

Is a furlong shorter or longer than a piece of string?

f3nd3r

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 use the same as Jamey, I'm not old but gowing up with people that use both.