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from the How-many-slugs-to-the-stone? dept.
AnonTechie writes:
"I have the following requests to members of this new forum:
1) Please use SI Units wherever possible. Alternative comparative units such as swimming pools, size of Florida, cars, libraries of congress, etc are also welcome ...
2) Please cover tech/science related stories from around the world. Please do not make this a US only website !!
Cheers and best wishes,
AnonTechie"
[ED Note: We as a community welcome submissions from around the world, as befits our international userbase. The Editorial team in particular is looking closely at including voices from outside the U.S. as we continue to grow. As for the units question in particular, stories will certainly arrive with a variety of units depending on the origin of the submission. We encourage, though do not require, submitters to include conversions where appropriate for clarity out of courtesy to your fellow readers. Though we try to use a light touch when making edits to story submissions, Editors may add these from time to time as well, should clarity demand and time permit.
Soylentils, does the current ad-hoc approach meet your needs, or do you favor a more formal approach from your news discussion site?]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2014, @11:34PM
wouldn't worry, i don't think it was any kind of ultimatum at all. nobody is banning feet and inches.
to me it read 'if you've got the option to use imperial or metric, as we are a techie crowd - go metric. we also encourage /random item/ if it makes better sense.'
first half of my life was imperial, and after getting over my resistance to change i found metric to be like someone opening the shades, or lifting a weight off my back. still, though, eyeballing things my brain generally returns inches, driving distances are miles. still haven't come to terms with UK mpg not same as US mpg.
personally i work in mm and meters. for some odd reason I hate cm. to me it feels like adding a 10k unit between kilobyte and megabyte. who would do that!!! i found it to be quite a revelation when the reality that everything is actually in meters and the prefixes are just where you put the decimal point becomes second nature and not just a concept. all of a sudden visualisations and mental conversions become instant and fluid. realtionships that might not be as obvious with fractions stare you in the face.
(Score: 1) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday February 24 2014, @12:03AM
Quick! Nobody tell this guy about decametre! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decametre [wikipedia.org]
Buck Feta? Duck Fice! And Guck Foogle too!
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday February 24 2014, @01:35AM
Even worse, there is Hexameter [wikipedia.org] too. Not quite what you'd expect, though - it evaluates to six feet :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2014, @11:49AM
Indeed, to six metrical feet. How's that for unit confusion? ;-)
(Score: 1) by linsane on Monday February 24 2014, @03:01AM
It was decilitres that always irked me. I think it might be something to do with their overuse by organic chemists. Strange lot, them...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2014, @03:57AM
yeah, the decametre has bad juju. must not contemplate...
funny thing is - i knew instantly without even thinking about it that it was 10 meters, 10,000mm and .01km.
How many inches in a mile? that's a mental mouthful or memorised.