Episode 404...

[Henning Hoefer]

...is nowhere to be found. Of course! :-)

Episode 405 however is entertaining as always and I want to use this opportunity to say "Thanks" to the Posse for helping me to keep my sanity for another year. You guys rock!

Kind regards,

Henning.

[Rakesh]

would also be great to know how Dick is able to spend soo little on heating - over here in the UK fuel prices are crippling and on an upward trajectory! 

I spend almost £130 a month on combined electricity plus gas.

Rakesh

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[Casper Bang]

I spend almost £130 a month on combined electricity plus gas.

Remember, in north America energy prices are roughly 3-6 times lower than those of northern Europe. Also take comfort in the fact that we don't require air conditioning, as it typically cost 2 times as much energy cooling down compared to heating up.

[Rakesh]

even then he said he spends tens of dollars on heating when its 30 below....how?

On 22 January 2013 09:27, Casper Bang <caspe...@gmail.com> wrote:

I spend almost £130 a month on combined electricity plus gas.

Remember, in north America energy prices are roughly 3-6 times lower than those of northern Europe. Also take comfort in the fact that we don't require air conditioning, as it typically cost 2 times as much energy cooling down compared to heating up.

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[Thomas Matthijs]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:33 AM, Rakesh <rakesh.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

even then he said he spends tens of dollars on heating when its 30 below....how?

Tons of clean scala builds

[Casper Bang]

On Tuesday, January 22, 2013 11:33:50 AM UTC+1, rakesh mailgroups wrote:

even then he said he spends tens of dollars on heating when its 30 below....how?

In the US they're still stuck with the legacy imperial system, so when you hear them say "down to 30" that would be plus degrees Fahrenheit, not -30 metric SI unit of Celsius (30F = -1c).

[Rakesh]

God damn Dick!! You've gone native!

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[Ricky Clarkson]

30 below would mean 30 degrees lower than 0 (either -30F or -30C).  You could not use 30 below to mean 30F.  Down to 30 would likely mean 30F though unless you're somewhere where it's summer or equatorial.

The American system is actually called the American system, and differs from the imperial system.  A US pint is 473ml and a UK pint is 568ml.  Other measurements vary too but that's the one that hits home.

Fahrenheit is named after Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit and is not actually imperial or American.  He lived all his life in continental (i.e., not the UK) Europe.

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[Ricky Clarkson]

Dick has possibly not exactly gone native, but recalled his younger years.  While nowadays in the UK the weather forecasts are in Celsius only, in the 1980s and early 1990s they were in Fahrenheit or both, and the older generation continue to think in Fahrenheit.

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:25:12 +0100, Rakesh <rakesh.m...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> God damn Dick!! You've gone native!

JNI?


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[Robert Casto]

Probably going to take forever to get everyone to use Kelvin's.

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[Casper Bang]

On Tuesday, January 22, 2013 3:31:48 PM UTC+1, Ricky Clarkson wrote:

Dick has possibly not exactly gone native, but recalled his younger years.  

It was Chet though who said "...down to 30 degrees outside...", nobody said "30 below". That's a pretty large energy margin right there.

 

While nowadays in the UK the weather forecasts are in Celsius only, in the 1980s and early 1990s they were in Fahrenheit or both, and the older generation continue to think in Fahrenheit.

Yeah I realize some countries are slow to adopt the SI units. In Canada it's a weird mix, you buy gas by the liter but coke by ½ gallon; measure air  temperature in Celsius but water temperature in Fahrenheit etc.

[Ricky Clarkson]

And in France, you measure people in metres, and monitors in inches, if I'm not mistaken.

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[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:50:34 +0100, Ricky Clarkson
<ricky.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

> And in France, you measure people in metres, and monitors in inches, if
> I'm
> not mistaken.

I think monitors are measured in inches in the whole Europe, or at least
great part of. Also many screw threads are measures in inches.

[Kevin Wright]

There's hope.. At least one place in the US is most definitely metric.

Not once have I seen an episode of E.R. where the doctor cries:

"one third of a fluid ounce of epinephrine, stat!"

[Cédric Beust ♔]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Kevin Wright <kev.lee...@gmail.com> wrote:

There's hope.. At least one place in the US is most definitely metric.

Not once have I seen an episode of E.R. where the doctor cries:

"one third of a fluid ounce of epinephrine, stat!"

Probably because the imperial/American system fails at both small and large scales. It fails in a lot of other places too, obviously :-)

-- 

Cédric

[Simon Ochsenreither]

I adopted the term “hillbilly units” as an umbrella term for all these different kinds of measurement units which are normally used by a combination of the US and another random third-world country, and it has made it considerably easier in those situations where one wants to refer to all those measurements not directly derived from the SI units, but where one doesn't actually care about which non-standard system it is exactly.

[Robert Casto]

Hopefully you understand that the word "hillbilly" can be offensive to people?

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 2:27 PM, Simon Ochsenreither <simon.och...@gmail.com> wrote:

I adopted the term “hillbilly units” as an umbrella term for all these different kinds of measurement units which are normally used by a combination of the US and another random third-world country, and it has made it considerably easier in those situations where one wants to refer to all those measurements not directly derived from the SI units, but where one doesn't actually care about which non-standard system it is exactly.

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[Jess Holle]

The politically correct term might be "legacy" units, though antiquated, medieval, pre-industrial, and byzantine all seem more accurate.

I live in the US and am thus stuck with such units -- whatever one calls them.� When in engineering school I found that a decent HP calculator made crazy units pretty much immaterial, though.� Unfortunately it's my understanding that HP pretty much lost the high-end calculator market since I moved on into software -- or have I heard wrong?� [My HP 48SX still works pretty nicely over 20 years later :-)]

On 1/22/2013 1:33 PM, Robert Casto wrote:

Hopefully you understand that the word "hillbilly" can be offensive to people?

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 2:27 PM, Simon Ochsenreither <simon.och...@gmail.com> wrote:

I adopted the term �hillbilly units� as an umbrella term for all these different kinds of measurement units which are normally used by a combination of the US and another random third-world country, and it has made it considerably easier in those situations where one wants to refer to all those measurements not directly derived from the SI units, but where one doesn't actually care about which non-standard system it is exactly.

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[Simon Ochsenreither]

Hopefully you understand that the word "hillbilly" can be offensive to people?

Yes, that's intentional.

[Robert Casto]

Good luck getting anyone to see things your way then.

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Simon Ochsenreither <simon.och...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hopefully you understand that the word "hillbilly" can be offensive to people?

Yes, that's intentional.

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[Ricky Clarkson]

IncompatibleHumourException.  Simon isn't actually trying to offend hillbillies, rednecks, trailer trash or that man stood outside your house drinking Bud out of a can, but instead trying to categorise these units in such a way that he can dismiss them in one fell swoop without having to think too much about the origin of each.  I'd say "non-SI units" but then I'm not looking for a soundbite.

When my colleagues say "es un plan chino" (it's a Chinese plan) they mean the plan is ill thought out and aren't really thinking about how bad or good Chinese people may be at planning.  Over time it'd probably be better if they stopped using the term, but it's hardly going to actually offend anybody unless they use it constantly whenever a Chinese person makes plans.

Similarly, virtually every joke that starts with an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman ends up insulting at least one of those great nations, or the Irish, but nobody really gets offended.

[Josh Berry]

I am highly amused to see that this includes computer science at large, as well.  A quick googling shows we evidently should all switch to kibibytes/etc.

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 2:27 PM, Simon Ochsenreither <simon.och...@gmail.com> wrote:

I adopted the term “hillbilly units” as an umbrella term for all these different kinds of measurement units which are normally used by a combination of the US and another random third-world country, and it has made it considerably easier in those situations where one wants to refer to all those measurements not directly derived from the SI units, but where one doesn't actually care about which non-standard system it is exactly.

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[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:12:32 +0100, Robert Casto <casto....@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Good luck getting anyone to see things your way then.

Boys, I've understood just now the title of the old sitcom "The Beverly
Hillbillies" - it was broadcast here when I was a boy and there were no
such terms on my english vocabulary (and no internet, of course, and no
american friends to ask to).

[jon.ki...@gmail.com]

Isn't it marvelous that they were able to make so much humor from a family that uses the wrong system of measurements?

Sent from my mobile.
(Typos courtesy of swype)

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[Simon Ochsenreither]

Good luck getting anyone to see things your way then.

Anyone == 6,621¹ billion people?
Looks good to me. :-)

¹ World - (US + Burma + Liberia)

[Cédric Beust ♔]

Insulting a minority is still insulting.

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[jon.ki...@gmail.com]

Waitaminnit.
Hillbillies are defined basically by a geographical location, which is completely contained in the united states. Simon's 'insult' is to accuse them of using the system of measurement predominant in the united states.

What's the insult?

Sent from my mobile.
(Typos courtesy of swype)

----- Reply message -----
From: "Cédric Beust ♔" <ced...@beust.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 22, 2013 5:02 pm
Subject: [The Java Posse] Episode 404...

To: "java...@googlegroups.com" <java...@googlegroups.com>

[Phil Haigh]

On Tuesday, 22 January 2013 22:16:10 UTC, Jon Kiparsky wrote:

What's the insult?

Here we go:

"

Hopefully you understand that the word "hillbilly" can be offensive to people?

Yes, that's intentional. "

By his own admission, the use of a term that he has acknowledged can be offensive, without withdrawing or clarifying, to label everybody from a country that uses more than one system of units of measurement. Which I suspect is pretty much the whole world. Way to go.

[Joseph Ottinger]

Well, as one who lives not too far from the people referred to as "hillbillies," I find the term to be more descriptive of the person using it than the people to which it refers. That's not to say the originator is a hillbilly - because clearly he's not, or else he wouldn't have used the term in the first place. But it says a lot about someone when that person uses derogatory terms, especially knowingly. You can't just hand-wave that stuff away, even by pointing out that the group in question is small or underrepresented in present company.

Way to go.

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[Casper Bang]

Name calling aside, it *is* a little funky how the US prefers to go their own way rather than converting to the standardized metric system. Yes it's going to confuse old and conservative people for a time, just as it has in the past other places, but just get it over with once and for all. Unfortunately I did not hear this item in Obama's inauguration speech (but it was nice and unprecedented to hear about green energy).

We probably all remember the famous software bug* that caused the international Mars Climate Orbiter probe to crash into Mars, due to NASA issuing thrust instructions in lbs rather than newtons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

*Technically this was not a bug nor a lack of specification, but a human error based on culture, however it would not have happened if everyone agreed on the primary quantities/units.

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:56:39 +0100, Casper Bang <caspe...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Name calling aside, it *is* a little funky how the US prefers to go their
> own way rather than converting to the standardized metric system. Yes
> it's
> going to confuse old and conservative people for a time, just as it has
> in
> the past other places, but just get it over with once and for all.
> Unfortunately I did not hear this item in Obama's inauguration speech
> (but
> it was nice and unprecedented to hear about green energy).

Well, let's forget politicians declarations, please. They are just plain
void, in every country. For the record, just after the re-election Obama
said a very different thing, that is the creation of jobs, when in
contrast with green energy, comes first (actually, I believe it's the only
thing that I agree about with Obama). Given that USA plans a lot about
shale gas & oil you guess...

>
> We probably all remember the famous software bug* that caused the
> international Mars Climate Orbiter probe to crash into Mars, due to NASA
> issuing thrust instructions in lbs rather than newtons:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
>
> *Technically this was not a bug nor a lack of specification, but a human
> error based on culture, however it would not have happened if everyone
> agreed on the primary quantities/units.

Correct, but I wonder also about testing... :-) Is it possible that the
problem couldn't be detected by them?

[Casper Bang]

On Wednesday, January 23, 2013 1:08:46 PM UTC+1, fabrizio.giudici wrote:

Well, let's forget politicians declarations, please. They are just plain  
void, in every country. For the record, just after the re-election Obama  
said a very different thing, that is the creation of jobs, when in  
contrast with green energy, comes first (actually, I believe it's the only  
thing that I agree about with Obama). Given that USA plans a lot about  
shale gas & oil you guess...

I still cling to the naive hope that there were some truth to the matter. Imagine if the US used as much resources on fusion research as their military?! I just read that air condition alone, for the US military stationed around the world, dwarfs NASA's budget for a year: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-military-cost-nasa_n_881828.html

 

Correct, but I wonder also about testing... :-) Is it possible that the  
problem couldn't be detected by them?

I imagine there already is such a test, however the other guy writing it over in QA *also* forgot to read that the specification said Newton and instead assumed lbs. :)

[Jess Holle]

While the US is often prone to stubbornly "go its own way", I don't actually see that as a big part of the equation here.

I think this is mostly about most folk in the US being unable to stomach the thought of changing to some "weird" new units that they're unfamiliar with.  They live their lives thinking solely in terms of pounds, gallons, ounces, miles, feet, and inches.  Kilograms, liters, kilometers, and meters are positively Martian to most people in the US.  I'm not sure how well those who don't take a good sampling of science courses really get introduced to SI units, much less their compelling nature.  Even among those who are, many don't see them in use enough to think in terms of them.  [It helps when you're into things like cross-country skiing where measurements are primarily in SI units -- even in the US.]

Then there's the investment required to switch unit systems across a country the size of the US.  Is the investment worth it?  Certainly.  But US politics are heavily skewed against national investments.  One political party is all about starving the government of tax revenue and spending and investing in nothing (except for corporate welfare in various guises).  The other is primarily about preserving and fostering government entitlements that account for most of the country's discretionary spending.  Everyone wants more government than they're willing to pay for and no one puts enough priority on investments -- but rather just kicks the can down the road for the future.  This is true for things ranging from the metric system to public infrastructure (sewer systems, bridges,...) to education and research.

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[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:37:53 +0100, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:

> While the US is often prone to stubbornly "go its own way", I don't
> actually see that as a big part of the equation here.

I don't comment on the "own way", since the important thing is whether a
given way makes sense or not. So far USA went their own way for some
things that made sense. Units don't in my opinion.

>
> I think this is mostly about most folk in the US being unable to stomach
> the thought of changing to some "weird" new units that they're
> unfamiliar with. They live their lives thinking solely in terms of
> pounds, gallons, ounces, miles, feet, and inches. Kilograms, liters,
> kilometers, and meters are positively Martian to most people in the US.
> I'm not sure how well those who don't take a good sampling of science
> courses really get introduced to SI units, much less their compelling
> nature. Even among those who are, many don't see them in use enough to

> /think /in terms of them. [It helps when you're into things like

> cross-country skiing where measurements are primarily in SI units --
> even in the US.]

Correct, but didn't the UK face with the same problem and survived? They
also faced with a reform in their currency, as well as many Europeans
faced with a complete change in the currency (whether a good idea or not
is another matter).

> Everyone wants more government than they're
> willing to pay for and no one puts enough priority on investments -- but
> rather just kicks the can down the road for the future. This is true
> for things ranging from the metric system to public infrastructure
> (sewer systems, bridges,...) to education and research.

USA have their own problems, but the whole Western world unfortunately is
suffering from a huge loss of quality in politics. Still, other countries
such as the cited UK managed to made the unit change in the past.

[Ricky Clarkson]

"Still, other countries such as the cited UK managed to made the unit change in the past."

Brits still measure distances in miles, height in feet and inches and weight in stone and lbs.  The height and weight thing might be changing with the current generation of schoolchildren, I'm not sure, but miles look to be there to stay.  If you want to standardise things, shall we start with the spoken language and leave the units until continental Europe uses English instead of their local dialect? :)

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[Casper Bang]

Brits still measure distances in miles, height in feet and inches and weight in stone and lbs.  The height and weight thing might be changing with the current generation of schoolchildren, I'm not sure, but miles look to be there to stay.  If you want to standardise things, shall we start with the spoken language and leave the units until continental Europe uses English instead of their local dialect? :)

Well, the empire is no more; so the UK too will have to conform. English is already standardized as *the* international language and indeed, things are flowing nicely between Italians, French and Danes on this very list. I disagree that the language is more important to standardize though, that's a red herring in the light of math and science. Imagine if nobody agreed on the units of time...?!

[Jess Holle]

On 1/23/2013 6:44 AM, Fabrizio Giudici wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:37:53 +0100, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:
>> While the US is often prone to stubbornly "go its own way", I don't
>> actually see that as a big part of the equation here.
> I don't comment on the "own way", since the important thing is whether
> a given way makes sense or not. So far USA went their own way for some
> things that made sense. Units don't in my opinion.
>> I think this is mostly about most folk in the US being unable to stomach
>> the thought of changing to some "weird" new units that they're
>> unfamiliar with. They live their lives thinking solely in terms of
>> pounds, gallons, ounces, miles, feet, and inches. Kilograms, liters,
>> kilometers, and meters are positively Martian to most people in the US.
>> I'm not sure how well those who don't take a good sampling of science
>> courses really get introduced to SI units, much less their compelling
>> nature. Even among those who are, many don't see them in use enough to
>> /think /in terms of them. [It helps when you're into things like
>> cross-country skiing where measurements are primarily in SI units --
>> even in the US.]
> Correct, but didn't the UK face with the same problem and survived?
> They also faced with a reform in their currency, as well as many
> Europeans faced with a complete change in the currency (whether a good
> idea or not is another matter).

Besides lack of familiarity there's also a vicious anti-government
undercurrent. There'd be a huge public outcry against the US federal
government if the government took away the units Americans are familiar
with and forced European ones down their throats -- and that's exactly
how many Americans would see it and portray it.

Of course, I still think the US government should switch over to SI
units as quickly as possible -- but no politician wants to pay the
political price. Also, those in the federal government are old
(relatively speaking) and tend to have non-scientific/technical
backgrounds -- and thus are perhaps even less comfortable with SI units
than their constituents.

--
Jess Holle

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:08:12 +0100, Ricky Clarkson
<ricky.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

> "Still, other countries such as the cited UK managed to made the unit
> change in the past."
>
> Brits still measure distances in miles, height in feet and inches and
> weight in stone and lbs. The height and weight thing might be changing
> with the current generation of schoolchildren, I'm not sure, but miles
> look
> to be there to stay.

I know that the transition is still in progress and I do expect it would
take a generation. I don't hear Britons screaming in terror, but perhaps
I'm a bit too far form them... :-) Well, when I visited UK in the past, I
didn't hear people screaming anyway.

> If you want to standardise things, shall we start
> with the spoken language and leave the units until continental Europe
> uses
> English instead of their local dialect? :)

Bad example... One might take this argument as: everybody uses his own
unit system at home, but talks a common lingua franca (the metric system)
with others. This seems to be roughly what we're doing. I also think that
there could be also different linguae francae in function of the context
and in some contexts there is probably a very good integration. For
instance, I think even UK scientists measure things in nanometers rather
than nanoinches, at least when they publish a paper.

[Josh Berry]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:37 AM, Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com> wrote:

While the US is often prone to stubbornly "go its own way", I don't actually see that as a big part of the equation here.

I think this is mostly about most folk in the US being unable to stomach the thought of changing to some "weird" new units that they're unfamiliar with.

I think you greatly overestimate the impact these decisions have on "most people."  For the vast majority of people, containers matter more than absolute amounts.  Few folks drink 8oz of anything.  They drink 1 ____ of something.  This could be a can/bottle/whatever.  Now, mileage is one that I would imagine would take some getting used to.  But, most people would probably still care more about the time from one place to another than they would the absolute distance.

Now, this still fails to dodge the irony of computer science types arguing about how the world needs to switch to metric.  Again, how many bytes are in a kilobyte?

 

Then there's the investment required to switch unit systems across a country the size of the US.  Is the investment worth it?  Certainly. 

How can you claim the investment is definitely worth it?  You realize for as long as we have bridges/buildings/machinery/whatever that uses the old style, we still have to produce the parts for them.   What, exactly, is the gain from forcing a switch?  A warm fuzzy that we are using something that is easier for you to logic about?

I'm reminded of my father talking about how measurements were done with him growing up.  Everything was in cups.  And you could base it off whatever cup you happened to have with you.  :)

All of that is to say, I would welcome a switch, but it is more expensive than you're letting on.  Amusingly, in Alabama, they used to have kilometer markers on the road in addition to the mile markers.  They found that this caused confusion, because people did not report which unit marker they were at, just the marker.  So... back to mile markers for the foreseeable future.

[Jess Holle]

On 1/23/2013 7:18 AM, Casper Bang wrote:

Brits still measure distances in miles, height in feet and inches and weight in stone and lbs.  The height and weight thing might be changing with the current generation of schoolchildren, I'm not sure, but miles look to be there to stay.  If you want to standardise things, shall we start with the spoken language and leave the units until continental Europe uses English instead of their local dialect? :)

Well, the empire is no more; so the UK too will have to conform. English is already standardized as *the* international language and indeed, things are flowing nicely between Italians, French and Danes on this very list. I disagree that the language is more important to standardize though, that's a red herring in the light of math and science. Imagine if nobody agreed on the units of time...?!

Time is such a critical unit of measurement that it has eluded decimalization.

We still use minutes and hours -- base 60 rather than base 10.  Similarly, while radians are used in scientific circles, common language references to angles are in degrees.

The roots of these unit systems are positively ancient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal), tracing back to the Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC!  Talk about your ancient, antiquated "hill-billy" unit systems.

--
Jess Holle

[Casper Bang]

Time is such a critical unit of measurement that it has eluded decimalization.

We still use minutes and hours -- base 60 rather than base 10.  Similarly, while radians are used in scientific circles, common language references to angles are in degrees.

Funny enough, go below a second, and we enter the base 10 again. I remember back in high school, how Swatch tried to revolutionize standardization of time, by dividing a day into 1000 units. Obviously it did not catch on, probably ahead of its time (pun intended): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time 

 

The roots of these unit systems are positively ancient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal), tracing back to the Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC!  Talk about your ancient, antiquated "hill-billy" unit systems.

Indeed this must be very interesting from a historical perspective (the number 60 in Danish is a reference to an old base 20 system; it is pronounced "tres" which comes from "3 snese" where a "snes" is a stick with 20 items on, typically dried herring). We have gone through many unit transitions, I'm not sure why the mere size of the US would cause a struggle, I suspect it has to do with other issues already discussed.

[Fabrizio Giudici]

> Besides lack of familiarity there's also a vicious anti-government
> undercurrent.

Ok, I was missing this point - I understand it. But this only holds for
end users - not for industrial applications. I understand that there are
costs involved in changing a system, but given that many engineering
products are made by parts produced on both sides of the Atlantic I see
costs already today due to the co-existence of two systems since somebody
has to do some conversion. For instance, I presume that aerospace
manufacturers today have got this problem.

> Time is such a critical unit of measurement that it has eluded
> decimalization.

Note that the point in this discussion is not about the merits of
*metrics*, rather the merits of a common, shared system. So, it's not a
problem for me the fact that we'd use a decimal system for most measures,
base 60 for time and angles, and powers of two for disk and memory
capacity, and even inches for monitors, as far as we all use the same.

> Amusingly, in Alabama, they used to have kilometer markers on the road
> in addition to the mile markers. They found that this caused confusion,
> because people did not report which unit marker they were at, just the
> marker. So... back to mile markers for the foreseeable future.

Was writing "24M" and "20K" so that people could report the trailing
letter really too hard? :-) Jokes apart, I do agree that exposing a double
system to end users creates more problems than it solves.

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:54:35 +0100, Casper Bang <caspe...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Indeed this must be very interesting from a historical perspective (the
> number 60 in Danish is a reference to an old base 20 system;

Duh! I presumed the only strange thing was the french "soixante-dix" and
"quatre-vingts" ;-)

[Josh Berry]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Fabrizio Giudici <Fabrizio...@tidalwave.it> wrote:

Note that the point in this discussion is not about the merits of *metrics*, rather the merits of a common, shared system. So, it's not a problem for me the fact that we'd use a decimal system for most measures, base 60 for time and angles, and powers of two for disk and memory capacity, and even inches for monitors, as far as we all use the same.

Well, consider that money is a lot more complicated than this and is ultimately a shared concept, I don't see this getting changed any time soon.  (Consider, at least the mile to meter conversion is constant.)  Not to mention that I believe there are alternative calendars in the world.

Also, I seem to recall there was a big todo about kilobytes measures on hard drive packages once upon a time.  I'm assuming that just went away?

[Casper Bang]

Also, I seem to recall there was a big todo about kilobytes measures on hard drive packages once upon a time.  I'm assuming that just went away?

Isn't that just the result of having a marketing department and nobody to regulate? Last time I checked, automobile manufacturers also suffer from this "performance inflation" when pushing their products.

[Cédric Beust ♔]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 6:04 AM, Fabrizio Giudici <Fabrizio...@tidalwave.it> wrote:

Duh! I presumed the only strange thing was the french "soixante-dix" and "quatre-vingts" ;-)

I've always had the highest respect for the Belgians for introducing some well-needed rationality in that area.

-- 

Cédric