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When I use degrees, I measure them in: | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 95 comments | Search Discussion
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @10:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @10:10AM (#16256)
    I hate to sound brutal, but the best way to pull the yanks out of the dark ages is to just not pamper to their deficiencies.

    They agreed to adopt SI units 140 years ago, they were one of the first countries in the world to do so. But failed. They recognised their failure early on, reinforcing their adoption with further laws, but still kept failing to actually do what they promised. Still crashing climate probes into alien planets in 1999 because of their stupidity.

    Fuck 'em.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @05:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @05:48PM (#16886)

    I hate to sound brutal, but the best way to pull the yanks out of the dark ages is to just not pamper to their deficiencies.

    I hate to sound stubborn, but the best way to pull the World out of the dark ages is to stand firm in our convictions. Each decade of Fahrenheit has an intuitive feel that Celcius can't match. Furthermore, much of either system is no less arbitrary than the other. If your system were based on Planck units, then maybe you'd have a stronger argument. If we ever do go back to the dark ages, it's also much easier to use the old system. Much of it is organized around even powers of two (16 ounces = lb., etc.). That makes it really easy to divide things in two with a simple lo-tech balance, recursively if necessary to get the proper number of ounces. The lb. was hexidecimal before anybody knew how important that base would become in modern society. Dark ages? I think not. Hi tech and retro at the same time.