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I allways wonder that you aussies have "km" and not "miles". Its very unusual for someone from the brit's family to accept the metric system. In the us many people believe you are the devil or someone from his family if you not calculate in miles. since when do australia this and do you have other metric units. It's maybe a good idea to confuse the kiwi's when they make their great invasion in australia. Yes I can distinguish between a british inch and a old prussian inch  | ||
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We (Kiwi's) have had the metric system for many years! (Doh) Most of us can calculate in both!!!  | |||
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Aussie went metric in the late '70's.I'm lucky I can work in both but my younger sister and missus are stuffed. We also have Kilos and Litres. | |||
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What do you call a quater-pounder with cheese ? Cheers, Andr� | |||
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Quote: A hard Night on the toilet | |||
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Hippy Jeffery D they still call it quarter pounder, if it was actually sold by weight it would have to be in kilo's/grams the only thing really quoted in Aust in imperial is grains for reloading, even the gun mags have started m/s instead of fps. We also went from pounds to dollars in the mid 60's | |||
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I really hate that - every time I read a road test on a gun I have to get the conversion tables out to find out how long a 65cm barrel is. What is m/s in English? Bloody reloading manuals will all be useless without a damn calculator. Bloody trendy pseudo-Euro politicians. | |||
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Thank God Australia went to a metric system instead of a system based on how far a Roman legion could march, the weight and width of a load a camel could carry, how many fingers deformed peasants had (ie 12), and the length of the "average" man's foot. | |||
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The only mistake New Zealand made in changing from Imperial units of measurement to the metric system was doing it at least thirty years too late!!! I can well remember � with utter revulsion � the endless hours spent in my early school years learning by rote all the stupid great morass of units in the Imperial system, and how they relate to each other. I�d really have preferred the change to have been made a century earlier, though. When I commenced my career as a surveyor, I learned that in the late 1800s, some genius here had decreed that land measurements � shown on survey plans, and land title diagrams, etc. - should be in links, not feet. 1 link = 7.92inches, or 1/100th of a chain. 1chain = 22yards, or 66feet. Land areas were recorded in perches, roods, and acres, though of course most laymen tended to think more in square feet or square yards for areas the size of residential sections. So you would have to try to explain to them that there are 272.25 sq. ft. or 625 sq. links to a perch, 40 perches to a rood, and 4 roods (or 160 perches, or 10 sq. chains) to an acre. Then try to help them through their total bewilderment and confusion!! After 1972, when we �went metric�, everything became vastly simpler. Anyone could understand that multiplying the width by the depth of their piece of land - in metres - gave them the area in square metres. At the time of the change-over, I was having a lot of contact with people in the building trades, and some of them were strongly against changing - vowing to stick to feet and inches until their dying days. A year or so later, were all singing a different song - reckoned the metric system was so much simpler that they would only go back to working in feet and inches at gunpoint! Question for 'pwm' who started this thread: Can you tell me of ANY country in the developed world � apart from the USA � which does NOT have the metre, the gram and the litre as the basis of their official system of weights and measures? | |||
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Hello; One of the bright things that idiot Pierre Trudeau imposed on us was trying to make metric compulsory. It cost a fortune and never had a hope in hell of succeeding. Even today, in the construction industry, I fight with it every day, because the Imperial system is so deeply ingrained. A standard sheet of plywood is still 4' x8' and changing the definition of a nominal 2x4 to metric dimensions just complicates the math. The 2x4 is still 1 1/2 by 3 1/2. I once built a senior citizen home funded by the feds, which specified metric units, including the roof layout. The architect insisted, so we ended up cutting about 2" off 250 sheets of plywood to accomodate him. I actually once saw metric drywall and it is avaiable on spesial order at additional cost. Our land survey was all done in imperial units, see what kind of math that creates when you start making land descriptions and area measurements in metric units and watch that decimal point. If I tell you, I live so many miles from a certain point, you just have to count the roads, one every two miles north and south and one every mile east and west, much easier than 25.7 km from x. Then of course there is the infamous Gimli glider, where somebody erred in a metric conversion and an airliner only made it halfway from Montreal to Vancouver. If you work on your vehicle, you'd better have two sets of tools because fastener sizes aren't even consistent in the same vehicle. Perhaps, if we re-organized our society from Metric from the beginning, it might work, but then we live next to about 300 million people stuck in an imperial system. the real victims in this fiasco are the people indoctrinated purely in the metric system and don't have a clue about imperial units. Grizz | |||
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Geez , guys , if you have used the metric system only once in your life why why why would you want to return to that arsehole other system? I have ten fingers and the metric system works in multiples of ten so I have my own on-board pocket calculator . Fortunately I was still at high school when we changed , but I have no regrets , stick those fractions of an inch fair up your fundamental orifice , and as for pounds , shillings and f***ing pence , they can follow suit . The only decent thing that France gave the world was the metric system , you non-beleivers dont know what you are missing .... | |||
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Thank God we still shoot in inches! | |||
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Well, Grizz, if your story is true, Canada must have made a right, proper balls-up of changing to the metric system. I suppose with the Americans as your neighbours, and enough people like you preaching �Don�t change � resist at all costs!�, it would have a pretty fair chance of failure. I don�t know why some people think there is something magical about stuff made in nominal inch measurements. A 4x2 (dressed) was never 4in x 2in, ours usually finished up at some nice round numbers like 3 11/16 x 1 �, give or take a sixteenth or so. Nowdays it�s actually 90 x 45 � easy to remember, and twice as wide as it is thick. Much simpler. A standard sheet of ply, wall board or whatever is 2400 x1200. A standard hollow concrete building block is 390 x 190, to allow for 10mm of mortar. Quote: This claim is nonsense. Our survey system (New Zealand) was originally set up in Imperial units, too � and there were a hell of a lot more problems with units and decimal points with that than there have been since it was all �metricated�. I know, because I have spent my whole working life � 45 years - as a land surveyor, much of it involved with construction work. Previously, we had to dick around with miles, chains, yards, feet and decimals thereof, links and decimals thereof, inches and all sorts of fractions thereof! The basic horizontal coordinate system was in links, but heights were always reckoned in feet, so when we got into 3D geometry we had to convert one or the other to get everything in the same units, usually feet. And decimals of feet, because doing complex trig and geometery calculations in feet, inches and fractions was impossibly clumsy. Then at the finish, if the survey work involved setting out for construction, the decimals of feet had to be converted to inches and fractions, to satisfy most people on construction sites. Since the mid 1970s, everything has been dimensioned in either metres or millimetres. Everybody � the surveyors, the engineers, the foremen, the carpenters, the steel workers, the concrete workers, the machine operators, etc. � soon learned to understand what they are, and the problems have been minimal. I don�t know what you Canucks are doing to make things so difficult for yourselves, but that�s your problem. Arithmetic using a plain decimal system is much simpler and less error-prone than it can ever be with the Imperial system, with all its weird multiples and fractions. Just look at linear measure, for example: 7.92 inches = 1 link 12 inches = 1 foot 3 feet = 1 yard 6 feet = 1 fathom 36 inches = 1 yard 22 yards = 1 chain 66 feet = 1 chain 100 links = 1 chain 10 chains = 1 furlong 8 furlongs = 1 mile 1760 yards = 1 mile 5280 feet = 1 mile 63,360 inches = 1 mile Can you seriously claim that this system is simpler and easier to work with than using the metre, and multiples of a thousand, or thousandth thereof? Quote: I�ve heard some feeble excuses in my time, but these are really pathetic. Quote: Well, your vehicle manufacturers had better make up their minds which way they want to go. One things is certain � no vehicle or vehicle component manufacturer outside North America is likely to go back to using inch size fasteners, etc. regardless of how much Americans or Canadians bleat about them being �non-standard�. | |||
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I hate metrics and refuse to communicate in metrics. My objection is about the change of culture it represents. I think we would have been better off with our gun laws if we were still inches etc. Mike | |||
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7.92 inches = 1 link 12 inches = 1 foot 3 feet = 1 yard 6 feet = 1 fathom 36 inches = 1 yard 22 yards = 1 chain 66 feet = 1 chain 100 links = 1 chain 10 chains = 1 furlong 8 furlongs = 1 mile 1760 yards = 1 mile 5280 feet = 1 mile 63,360 inches = 1 mile Can you seriously claim that this system is simpler and easier to work with than using the metre, and multiples of a thousand, or thousandth thereof? Imperial is better because it has more character. Mike | |||
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Quote: Hehe, love it... besides, I can understand what 3/128th's of an inch feels like... Thanks for the survey info, some Queensland real estate agents still quote land sizes in roods (or is that perches)?? In case you're wondering, I grew up with Imperial, can still compute in Pounds Shillings and Pence... Imperial was good for the brain...made you think!! Couldn't just use your toes and fingers, stiff upper lip and all that... made us who we are today... my forefathers fought several wars using a 303 (which wasn't .303 at all)... confused the enemy no end... until the '14th of February 1966' still can't get that bloody 'Dollar Bill' jingle out of my head... Namby pamby bloody decimal stuff simply caters to the lowest common denominator in our society... It's a sop to the incompetence of our teachers. 'Vivre la systeme imperialle' (sp) Ahhh... ooops? | |||
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Quote: Haw, haw haw! I hate the Imperial system, and only communicate in inches, etc. when writing to a few American friends who cannot or will not try to understand metrics. Might as well talk to them in Double Dutch as tell them what something measures in metres or millimetres. For my own part, �culture� and �character� take a back seat to practicability. Quote: So can I � sort of. Back in the sixties, I was given a nice, stainless steel vernier caliper, with millimetres on the bottom and inches on the top. The least-count on the inches side of the vernier is 1/128in! What a pratt of a system � it was sometime around then that I became convinced about the advantages of the metric system!! Quote: Could be a bit of both, if it�s over 40 perches. (just to try to confuse you) BTW 1 perch = 25.292853 sq. metres, in case you are interested. Quote: So did I, and I still can, too � under extreme sufferance! And I could easily rattle off a much longer and more useless list of equivalents in the Imperial system without over-taxing my memory. I am still waiting hopefully (futilely?) for somebody to produce an external ballistics program which will accept metric units, instead of forcing the user to work with ranges in yards and drops, drifts, etc in inches. Someday, maybe �? Quote: Yeah, right � but it�s still better than having to stuff around trying to bring a bloody great string of fractions to the lowest common denominator so that you can do some arithmetic with them. I can see that we could go on for some time on this topic - perhaps Saeed will shift this thread to the CESSPIT forum soon. (ooops, sorry - I mean the Ignorance Crater) | |||
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Quote: Imperial system definitively belongs in the ignorance crater...  | |||
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redrover You won't get any arguments from me on practicality. But I think you would agree that America proves the imperial system works OK and is practical enough to do the job With metrics I never hear anyone say something like: a 15 footer etc and etc But....I like big V8s and also rifles that are not "practical" Mike | |||
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RedRover, you and I must be of similar age... I still have the 'nice, stainless steel vernier calipers' that also show 1/128th as the smallest unit. Thanks for 'helping me out  ' with the land sizes, much appreciated...Ahhh, us old farts could go on... I remember when we gave each other an orange for Christmas, I'd give it to my brother, he'd give it to my sister, and so on... but we were happy to walk 5 miles in the snow, in bare feet, to get to school... btw, before I get lined up against the wall by the teachers union, my earlier post WAS tongue in cheek!! Perhaps I'm a bit weird, but I think in both metric and imperial (and 'thousandths of an inch), and sort of 'move between them' - depends on what I'm doing - drill bits and bolts are imperial (sometimes), wood is metric, anything to do with guns and ballistics are imperial/decimal, cars metric... Maybe I'm just extraordinarily talented... | |||
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Quote: "RCBS Load" software allows you to select the units you prefer to work in (SAE, MKS, of System?), and translates factory load data into metric units also (now if I could translate grains to grams I'd know what I was looking at LOL) | |||
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thank you gentleman for answer this question. I have such a sign on my home'door"kangaroos next 25 KM", my little brother give it to me when he come back from aussie land 2 years ago. It's a glass door and stupid people walking against this because they have not seen the door, so I hang the sign on, see it every day and wonder why you don't have miles. Think its allways a ggod practise to convert gramm in grain, inch in cm, f/sec in m/ sec, ton/sq.inch in bar. Have most of this formula's in the head now and when I forget this first will come old. the krauts have accept the metric system in 1871, my grandfather was born in 1906. when he was an old man he allways measure in inch, its here a Zoll. you see the imperial system will be some years with you. | |||
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redrover till today I had believe that canada, new zealand and great britain stand with the imerial system. I am not sure now if Great britain still have it. Mike375 understand what you mean, the metric system is part of a cultural change. It's easy and very practical but you get with the greens in the same moment. and than comes a time when you ask yourself if god mean it when he prohibit killing people that you have to live the rest of your live with such boneheads on this planet. f..k and burn political correctness | |||
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I was at primary school when we went metric, so I can work in both. imperial for guns and fishing, metric for just about everything else. working in metres and millimetres is so much easier than yards, feet, inches and fractions. 10 base is just so much easier to remember. | |||
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Quote: Oh, sure � most of us in English speaking countries know that, because it is the system nearly all of us were using until thirty years or so back. But I still think it was doing things the hard way, and life is too short for that. Quote: I realised that � hope they do too, if any of them are reading this. Otherwise they are gonna be after you, wanting to give you six of the best, and a few hundred lines as well! Quote: I�d guess that a lot of people of our generation do, to varying degrees. I still record my powder charges and bullet weights in grains, partly because that is what about 99% of all published loading data is in, and also to save myself the cost of new scales! I don�t think it matters much what the units actually are, because in that context they are just reference numbers � they don�t really need to �tie in� with anything else. (Are the �clicks� on a benchrest-type powder measure metric or Imperial units? )If I have to make measurements on cartridge cases, I fish out my old 0 � 1 inch mike, because nearly all published data on case and chamber dimensions is in inches. But apart from that, I doubt that I have measured, designed or made anything in Imperial measurements for the last thirty years. Quote: Thanks for the info, much appreciated � I�ll follow it up. Quote: Multiply the weight in grains by 0.0648. (I�m a walking set of conversion tables � s�pose it proves that I did learn SOMETHING when I was at school!) Quote: No, not officially, anyway. Of course there may be lots of individuals still using it for their own personal purposes. | |||
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I have perused all of the posts in this thread and I am left with a question for all you knowledgable people . how the hell did the yanks come up with the US gallon as opposed to the imperial gallon. | |||
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Smart alec guess, but it went onto the boat as a Imperial gallon, and we used what arrived on our side of the pond as our (US) gallon. (leakage factor) | |||
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Redrover, From your posting: Oh, sure � most of us in English speaking countries know that, because it is the system nearly all of us were using until thirty years or so back. But I still think it was doing things the hard way, and life is too short for that. Not at all. The Americans are still the people who lead the world. The imperial system works and that is all it has to do. In fact these days with just about everyone using a calculator or computer program the practicality of the metric system does not mean much. BUT, I do think as shooters we would have been better off with Australia sticking to the imperial system. The break away to metrics was a move away from America. HOWEVER, I realise I am in a minority and most Australians (and New Zealanders?) generally gravitate to European and the American culture being a culture that is to be looked down on. That is seen with car racing except for a few of us that prefer speedway and drag racing. I guess I could be convinced of the value of the metric system if the younger people could actually use the system. I can move between metric and imperial with the greatest of ease and I don't expect younger people to be able to move between them. However, it would be nice if they could at least add, multiply, subtract and divide within the metric system. Assuming that the younger people today are at the very least as smart as their counterparts from 30 years ago, I must conclude that the metric system is harder. Perhaps the ease of the metric system is what causes the problem. Mike | |||
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I, personal, find the imperial system better to measure cartridges(i do a lot of this) than mm. It's more clear to say a .424 bullet than 10,77mm. Of course with one of this fine digital caliper's you have inch and mm when you press the button. | |||
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In the UK we are in the same half way house as New Zealand. It seems that the kids are taught virtually exclusivly in Metric but in the "real world" we use a mix, both unofficially and officialy. If you think people are confused now wait until various Governments comply with recent UN treaties and introduce the new metric units for Time based on the Mil instead of the Second...Even the USA has agreed to comply by 2012.. Regards, Pete | |||
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Quote: You've already got your calender mixed up, Pete - you weren't supposed to post this until the first of April. | |||
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Hello Muzza; Obviously, the metric system is essier to work with, if you are dealing purely in metric units. The problem arises when you take a society that has evolved in the Imperial system over the last several hundred years and try to redefine all those Imperial things you can't just discard, in metric terms. Suddenly, it ain't so simple. We have been at it for 30 years and still have't succeeded. In fact, unofficialy, we just said the hell with it. Other than the obviously simple things like km./hr. and buying fluids in liters, we use them side by side. In addition to the obiglatory French and English on our cans, you will find volumes in Imperial and Metric. At one time, this would have resulted in a stiff fine. I'm sure that there are some Americans really thrilled with our speed limits. Right after crossing the Canadian border, the speed limits suddenly go from 60 to 100. Naturally, the units aren't posted. Grizz | |||
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Maybe people should move with the times a bit. Neanderthals also died out once. I think people that keep on whining about the "imperial" system are jus showing their age. Young people have less problems adapting with change. | |||
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I think people that keep on whining about the "imperial" system are jus showing their age. Young people have less problems adapting with change. I don't think it is so much a case of young people having less problems adapting to changes but rather for them there is either no change or very little change. I do think most of us who are anti metric are that way because of the cultural issue and not the metrics themselves. That is clearly demonstrated by the same people not jumping up and down by the switch from pounds to dollars. Mike | |||
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The US measurement system was created to screw the public. When we went metric in Canada the truth came out. Our unit of measure had been Imperial but we had unknowingly buying our milk in US quarts. Hence my statement about the public getting ripped off.  derf | |||
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Quote: That statement is very much a matter of personal opinion (and what your definition of �lead� is) but whether it is right or wrong has little to do with who uses what units of weights and measures. Quote: Quite frankly, I think that�s a daft line of reasoning. By the same token, you could argue that black powder �works�, and that is all it has to do, so why do we need nitrocellulose stuff? Side valve petrol engines �work�, so why have overhead valve/overhead cam jobs? Propeller-driven aircraft fly, so why do we need jets? Carry this argument to its logical conclusion and you could claim that man should have remained a cave-dwelling, hunter/gatherer, and never progressed beyond using stone tools. Quote: Oh, come on. People in all walks of life are working with units of measure many times a day, and they sure don�t � or can�t - run to a calculator or computer every time they need to do a bit of basic arithmetic. Tell me (and this IS a serious question) how do you handle arithmetic operations involving feet, inches, and fractions of inches on an ordinary electronic calculator designed to handle base-ten arithmetic? I have never bothered to try figuring it out, because by the time electronic calculators became freely and cheaply available, I was already firmly committed to using metric units. When I DO have to start with some measurements in feet and inches, I immediately convert them to metres or millimetres, and carry on from there. Personally, I think you are seriously astray in trying to read deep cultural and philosophical meanings into systems of weights and measures. Britain, Australia, and New Zealand (and probably some other British Commonwealth countries as well) changed from pounds, shillings and pennies to decimal currencies for the simple reason that the clumsiness, inconvenience and �hidden� costs were just too serious to ignore any longer. It certainly wasn�t done as a �Pro-American� gesture. The later change to the metric system of weights and measures was made for the same, purely pragmatic reasons � it had nothing to do with �Anti-Americanism�. In New Zealand, the subject was thrashed around for years by all sorts of committees within government and industry. Inevitably, there were a few people who were keen to keep the status quo, but the overwhelming majority view was that we simply couldn�t afford NOT to change, regardless of what America did. The rest of the world was either already using the metric system or was in the process of changing to it, and we trade far more with them than with the USA. Quote: You seem to be contradicting yourself here, but I can�t agree with either of your statements. However, what we are debating is all rather inconsequential. Could you REALLY imagine Australia (or Britain, or New Zealand, or any other country for that matter) changing back to the Imperial system of weights and measures. I certainly can�t, and I�ll predict that eventually, the USA will go metric, too, though probably not in my lifetime. I believe that in some of the scientific and hi-tech industries, they already have. Wonder what system NASA works in? It would sure create problems with projects like the international space station if they insisted on using feet and inches for their bits and pieces, while everybody else was using metric. | |||
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quote Wonder what system NASA works in? It would sure create problems with projects like the international space station if they insisted on using feet and inches for their bits and pieces, while everybody else was using metric. I belive they lost a space craft not long ago due to just such a screw up .  | |||
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Hello; Science is rooted firmly in the metric system, I believe it's an international convention, but American society runs on the imperial system. So, again, we have two systems running side by side and the poor bastards in the middle trying to live with both. Confusion is inevitable. Grizz | |||
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