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15-01-2011, 05:23 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Western Australia
Posts: 8,280
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Why is it So
Can anyone tell me why the good old US of A has a decimal currency system yet has an imperial measuring system and still hasn't converted while the rest of the world (mostly) are all metric
It really gets annoying when you have to source different size bolts for those items we get from the US
 
Last edited by TrevorW; 15-01-2011 at 05:49 PM.
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15-01-2011, 05:34 PM
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Just cant get enough
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Australind, WA, Australia
Posts: 188
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Because they are the center of the universe Trevor. Everyone knows that.
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15-01-2011, 05:42 PM
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The 'DRAGON MAN'
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: In the Dark at Snake Valley, Victoria
Posts: 14,412
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. . . . and not everyone else is totally Metric.
Take England as an example.
England is supposed to be a metricised country yet they still use 'miles' not kilometres, and 'Pints' not litres. 
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15-01-2011, 05:49 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Adelaide
Posts: 388
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorW
Can anyone tell me why the good old US of A has a decimal currency system yet has an imperial measuring system and still hasn't converted while the rest of the world are all metric
It really gets annoying when you have to source different size bolts for those items we get from tghe US
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So NASA have an excuse not to land on Mars!
/sarc off
Mick.
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15-01-2011, 05:56 PM
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sword collector
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mount Evelyn
Posts: 2,925
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorW
Can anyone tell me why the good old US of A has a decimal currency system yet has an imperial measuring system and still hasn't converted while the rest of the world (mostly) are all metric
It really gets annoying when you have to source different size bolts for those items we get from the US
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Hmm why do a lot of aussies still talk miles and inches and stone and and etc 
And not only older aussies do it.
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15-01-2011, 06:08 PM
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The 'DRAGON MAN'
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: In the Dark at Snake Valley, Victoria
Posts: 14,412
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mill
Hmm why do a lot of aussies still talk miles and inches and stone and and etc
And not only older aussies do it. |
Guilty
We are now in 2011 and I still don't understand metric!
The Imperial System is all I ever learnt at school. The imperial system works fine for me. I've never had a job where I've needed anything metric except millimetres when I taught carpentry to youth.
I'm an imperialist through and through 
I use imperial so much that even my kids talk in miles
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15-01-2011, 08:47 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 84
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When I went through school everything was metric. We did very little work in imperial. Most of the oil industry still uses imperial for a lot of things and it was like learning another language when I started work!
I still have to convert everything to metric to make sense of it... My manager used to make us run all of our volumetrics in acre/ft which means absolutely nothing to me!
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15-01-2011, 09:10 PM
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Supernova Searcher
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Cambroon Queensland Australia
Posts: 9,326
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Don't most Astronomers talk in feet and inches and millimeters, re 20" scope
30-mm Eyepiece 
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15-01-2011, 09:14 PM
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Bust Duster
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 4,846
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LOL what a coincidence. I had this conversation with some Amerikuns just recently. Here was one guy's reason why US is still using miles. Because it's "humanised" - a mile is supposedly what a person can walk in a third of an hour.
My response was, of course, that I can walk a kilometre in a third of an hour. There. Humanised. I fixed it. 
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15-01-2011, 09:16 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Warrnambool
Posts: 12,801
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In the end dose it really matter, as long as we end up with the right answer, i do everything in metric, but my dear Alice hasn't a clue, and she was taught metric in school 10 years after I started on 14th Feb 1963.
Gees I'm getting old.
Leon
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15-01-2011, 09:32 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Western Australia
Posts: 8,280
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It would be nice especially engineering wise if the world used the same measurement system nothing like uniformity
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15-01-2011, 11:15 PM
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Support your local RFS
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Wamboin NSW
Posts: 12,405
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I started out with imperial at school then we changed to metric.
I'm constantly swapping between the two to this day which annoys and confuses my wife.
Come to think of it, sometimes I confuse myself as well. 
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16-01-2011, 01:21 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Glenhaven
Posts: 4,161
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"Slacker Astronomy" is often a good source of imperial/metric shenanigans. One of the presenters is Canadian and talks in metric. The other is American and talks in imperial. They are both well respected in the astro community.
The American is always being stirred about being behind the times.
I have a set of imperial Allen keys - purely purchased to use on my G11. Everything else is metric.
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16-01-2011, 01:34 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 1,581
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I was taught imperial at home and metric at school. I mix'n'match as required. My house was build to imperial measurements, so my ceilings are 11ft high and my shed is 18ft long, but the posts holding the verandah up are 50mmx50mm.
I can't buy a new bookshelf 3ft wide any more to fit into the space so I have to settle for one 900mm wide.
Given their history you would have thought the Americans would have dumped the Imperial system on principal.
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16-01-2011, 02:22 AM
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The 'DRAGON MAN'
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: In the Dark at Snake Valley, Victoria
Posts: 14,412
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The only thing that seems never to be destined to Metric conversion is time!
It should be easy to break it all down to tens like they do with metric. 
100 metric seconds to a metric minute, 100 metric minutes to a metric hour, 100 metric hours to a metric day
Bob: What is the time Bill?
Bill: Gee Bob, it's 72 passed 41
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16-01-2011, 03:55 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Hobart
Posts: 151
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ballaratdragons
. . . . and not everyone else is totally Metric.
Take England as an example.
England is supposed to be a metricised country yet they still use 'miles' not kilometres, and 'Pints' not litres. |
The UK only recently changed to metric. It's gonna take them to fully get the hang of it, just as we did. I was the 1st generation to be brought with the metric system, being born the year after we converted. Metric was the only thing I was taught in school. Yet when I would go parents an older people would using metric, an still do some what.
The UK will need time too.
On the pint thing, I think I will to the pub for a pint is always gonna sound better than, I going to the pub for a 600ml.lol
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16-01-2011, 04:00 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Hobart
Posts: 151
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I did ask a yank once and was told it had been put to a referendum once, and got knocked back.
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16-01-2011, 06:43 AM
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Look up, look good!
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 2,762
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Why do they dates like this - 10th January 2011.......011011? Cos they can!
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16-01-2011, 06:56 AM
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Bust Duster
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 4,846
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Wastell
Why do they dates like this - 10th January 2011.......011011? Cos they can!
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There's 10 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
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16-01-2011, 08:09 AM
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Star-Fishing
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Tuckurimba
Posts: 885
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M110
On the pint thing, I think I will to the pub for a pint is always gonna sound better than, I going to the pub for a 600ml.lol
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Ah Andrew ... but not NEAR as enticing as "I think I will go down the pub fer a litre"
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