I Hate The Imperial System!!!!!!!!

[BillyElNino]

90% of the world uses the metric system...This would seem conclusive proof of its worth.

 

Although saying that the economic superpowers of Liberia and Myanmar stand shoulder to shoulder with the US and have official Imperial status...

 

Sounds like the beginning of another 'Coalition'...

 

We'll all be Imperial within 6 months!

[Jeff Mottle]

Although saying that the economic superpowers of Liberia and Myanmar stand shoulder to shoulder with the US and have official Imperial status...

 

Sounds like the beginning of another 'Coalition'...

 

We'll all be Imperial within 6 months!

 

 

Haha, that made me laugh outloud.

[AJLynn]

90% of the world uses the metric system...This would seem conclusive proof of its worth.

 

That's a logical fallacy. I forget what it's called but it's one of the "appeal to" ones and it's the same one you're using if you say "Miller Lite is the best selling beer so it's got to be good".

[MasterZap]

"All building materials are in feet and inches

 

 

Not in any civilized part of the world it ain't.

 

 

The best metric/imperial Snafu is probably Nasa, who rammed a probe into mars because they miscalculated miles vs. kilometers or something like that. Groovy.

 

 

 

/Z

[Ray]

. . . but no matter how hard I try I can't figure out Farhenhiet.

 

Here's a handy guide for you:

 

Anything above 95 = hot

 

Anything below 50 = cold

 

[STRAT]

but no matter how hard I try I can't figure out Farhenhiet.

 

thats because you cant even spell it yet

 

 

(but hey, thats probably the official American spelling for it (or maybe it's the imperial way) )

[BrianKitts]

90% of the world uses the metric system...This would seem conclusive proof of its worth.

 

no, that 10% just proves how ignorant and stubborn Americans can be.

(but the rest of the world already knows that)

[Frosty]

Here's a handy guide for you:

 

Anything above 95 = hot

 

Anything below 50 = cold

 

HAHAHAH 50 is not cold! -50 THATS cold. I'm a Northern boy. -40C was normal growing up.

 

thats because you cant even spell it yet

 

 

(but hey, thats probably the official American spelling for it (or maybe it's the imperial way) )

Strat, you're right. I can't spell worth a dang. From now on its degrees F

 

That's a logical fallacy. I forget what it's called but it's one of the "appeal to" ones and it's the same one you're using if you say "Miller Lite is the best selling beer so it's got to be good".

 

Excellent explanation of the fallacy. Having tried a Miller Lite (note spelling Strat) and assumed I was handed Tonic Water as a joke, I can honestly say its the worst beer I've had in the US. There are many wonderful micro-brew beers here - favs are from Wisc, CO, and Washington.

[znotlin]

As far as I know we dont have a metric clock because Napolean didn't like the idea of changing the calendar, but it was proposed at the same time. Apparently Augustus and Julius Caeser are the only emperors brazen enough to move the calendar two months around for themselves.

 

And as far as I know Michelangelo lived before the standardization of either, so I'm not sure how that argument works for anyone. Moreover if we're ascribing ideology, I think Metric is more fascist than communist - it's the very definition of top down. Nasty, nasty stuff.

 

Base 12 is fantastic because you can divide by 2,3,4, and 6 evenly and not just 2 and 5. Say what you want about upbringing and fractions, but 1/3 is a lot less work and more precise than .333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

 

 

Please note, 100% of the people in Jonestown drank the koolaid, and there were a lot of Spaniards who thought the inquisition was brilliant, but that doesn't mean either was a good idea.

 

Now I do like celsius, it seems to make sense to me to have degrees that represent a larger range of temperature. It describes the generalities of weather much better.

 

That said, I have no idea why inches are broken down by 16ths.

[Ernest Burden III]

I have no idea why inches are broken down by 16ths.

 

Thanks for pointing out the bit about metric and Michelangelo. I meant to, but forgot.

 

Inch fractions are a progression by 2 usually, so 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64 and on well past the average width of a saw blade, which is why tradesmen laugh at stupidly complicated inch fractions on drawings.

[Tim Nelson]

so 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64 and on well past the average width of a saw blade, which is why tradesmen laugh at stupidly complicated inch fractions on drawings.

Which tradesmen would those be? Maybe that is the difference between a framer and a carpenter!

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Excellent explanation of the fallacy. Having tried a Miller Lite (note spelling Strat) and assumed I was handed Tonic Water as a joke, I can honestly say its the worst beer I've had in the US. There are many wonderful micro-brew beers here - favs are from Wisc, CO, and Washington.

 

America's beer selection is actually some of the best in the world when you get outside of the mega brews. Before the prohibition America's beer selection was of the highest quality. We had over 2000 independent breweries. Prohibition ended during the depression, it was tough for breweries to survive because of financial trouble, so they started cutting there recipes with rice to save money. That is where the American light beer was born, and Americas reputation for its beer went out the door. The large breweries still use rice in their recipes.

 

In the early 80's there were not a lot of breweries. Somewhere between 20 and 160. I can't remember how low the number was. ....but what is interesting, there are now something like 1600 breweries in the US. The US is actually in a renaissance of beer, and all of the new breweries are resurrecting the old recipes, updating them, and refining them. Being a beer drinker the US can be quite a treat.

[Zdravko Barisic]

no, that 10% just proves how ignorant and stubborn Americans can be.

(but the rest of the world already knows that)

 

 

Fortunatly I can understand the Yankees+British and that feeling "yes, we only have this kind od measurments units"

That's very strange feeling, and this one lower is why...

 

Apparently Augustus and Julius Caeser are the only emperors brazen enough to move the calendar two months around for themselves....(

EXPLANATION:

 

You all know that Christmas is on Dec 25th, thats right?

But not for all Christian world, all the western christians accepted public Gregorian Calendar (in 16th century I guess, I am not so shore).

For Serbs, Russians, Gruzians and some Greeks and ancient apostol churches the Christmas is on Jan 7th, according to origin Julius calendar.

So, we have two new years! On "world" on Dec 31st and one "ours" on Jan 13rd!

Thats great!!

[Mario Pende]

Jesus was born on 15th September.

[jkletzien]

Not sure about any of this stuff, but I do have a question for our friends in and out of the coalition. Whenever we work on a project in Metric it is drawn in Millimeters, or Meters. Both of which are easy enough to understand, but one feels too coarse and one seems too fine for architecture as a subject matter. That may be cultural but, is this really how folks draw architecture, and do they really sweat the millimeters? It just doesn't seem to me that architecture is that finely grained (unless it is a nuclear reactor) once you factor in expansion joints, caulk, etc... And it seems to me you would spend an inordinate amount of time sweating what comes before and what comes after the decimal point, including the number of zeroes.

 

At this point when we're faced with a Metric project we do everything in decimeters as it seems the most adept at an architectural scale and the least number of zeroes you need to type .1 for a centimeter, 10 for a meter, etc...But I've never seen architectural drawings done similarly, any insights?

[Frosty]

when we're faced with a Metric project we do everything in decimeters

 

I've never heard of anyone doing that before. I understand and agree with your logic, however, I think centimeters are the most appropriate unit - roughly 1/3 of an inch. A decimeter still seems to big for a base unit to me.

[gfa2]

...and don't forget that all government projects have to be in metric.

 

yup, canada is uniquely screwed up between imperial and metric......you have to know both !

 

True in the US too. Federal government projects and military projects are supposed to be done in metric, but to make it even worse there is hard metric and soft metric. Hard metric is designed and dimensioned in metric (600mm x 600 mm ceiling tiles instead of 24" x 24" or 900mm door width instead of 36" for example). Soft metric is designed in feet and inches and converted to millimeters with no rounding. The main building measurements are given in both Imperial and the metric equivalent.

 

Most contractors around here really dislike metric construction. Metric building supplies are more expensive because they are not as readily available...that might be changing though.

[AJLynn]

There's my issue with using the metric system for architecture. None of the units relate particularly well to anything human scaled - a milimeter is too small to use at all, a meter is too large to talk about them in whole numbers in interiors, a centimeter is nice but the numbers get too large when you deal with anything larger than a chair and for some reason nobody uses decimeters for anything even though now that I think about it they seem like the most useful unit.

 

Feet and inches don't make a perfect base 10, but base 10 is just a made-up system that doesn't relate to the natural world - just like the metric system. A meter is originally defined as some absurd fraction (one ten-millionth? i think) of half of the circumference of the earth. What human being can visualize that? Inches and feet were derived from body parts then standardized over time - this makes much more sense. Built forms are primarily for human habitation so the designer must envision them in terms of the human scale anyway, so why not use a unit that's meant to relate to that.

 

Even the mile, which sounds bizarre, has a better basis in reality than a kilometer. A kilometer is a ten-thousanth of half the circumference of the earth - which is useless to know unless you're doing something scaled to the actual globe. A mile, like most other distance-related things in the western world, relates to Roman legions marching - it's 1000 paces (a pace being two steps). It makes sense to measure the distance between places this way, since over a lot of Europe the distance between towns is one day's march for a legion. And if you were a soldier you could measure miles, reasonably accurately, by marching at the standard pace, which you were very well trained to do. (They had Archimedes' measuring device but it was hard to make so most people/legions/towns didn't have one.) Everything breaks down by human activity.

[gfa2]

a milimeter is too small to use at all, a meter is too large to talk about them in whole numbers in interiors, a centimeter is nice but the numbers get too large when you deal with anything larger than a chair and for some reason nobody uses decimeters for anything even though now that I think about it they seem like the most useful unit.

 

When we do metric work, anything that has to do with the building must be in millimeters, the site must be in meters.

 

I like 450' for a building measurement rather than 137160mm.

[IC]

There's a great little program (or should that be programme?) called Convert which I have open when I'm workng to US architects' drawings.

 

http://joshmadison.com/software/convert/

 

It's invaluable for loads of things actually.

 

I know feet and inches relate more to human scale than mm(for instance I know I'm 5'11" but I don't care what that is in mm) but it gets too complex for architecture. Fractions just don't stick in the my head for more than 2 seconds.

[gfa2]

There's a great little program (or should that be programme?) called Convert which I have open when I'm workng to US architects' drawings.

 

http://joshmadison.com/software/convert/

 

That program is standard issue in our office.

[vizwhiz]

Canada is all screwed up by itself (Think Strangebrew, Hosers, AY!)

 

or is This OI?

 

Wayne Gretzky bought a hockey TEAM in Arizona (go figure)

 

American beer served in aluminum cans is NOT worth drinking

better To pour it down The Toilet in whatever unit system is most

 

appropriate

 

i worked on Updown Court, The worlds most expensive residential house

designed in Imperial, dimensioned in Metric, (4,612 dimensions on 4 storeys)

 

40,000 square foot spec house, but zoning only allowed 30,000 sq ft

so The builder Took The prints To The printers and had Them shrink it down

 

by 25% (it passed and got built)

 

i use a hybrid combination Imperial_metric system for autocad drafting

i use The mouse left-handed (even Tho i am right handed) and Therefor

 

The right hand is naturally at The numeric keypad,

so i use all numeric aliases (alii?) for The autocad commands

 

and convert ALL dimensions/numeric input into numbers/digits

 

124.75 = 10'-4 3/4"

 

etc bla bla bla, This works for me, combo metric-imperial

Thanks This is a nice Thread, keep on bashing Its fun To read

 

Mr Zap is entirely MENTAL

 

randy

[Guest nazcaLine]

i work in centimeters, so i don't hasve to write the decimmal comma, and when in large distances i just add 2 zeros.

very fun to read.

i didnt know why the imperial system used the 12 base. now i know.

from now on, when designing, i'll make all measures possible multipliers of 12, 12cm, 24 cm, 120cm, etc.

:D

 

Eduardo

[Zdravko Barisic]

In Canada we've been totally screwed up by the US. .......

 

I see...

http://www.dizajnzona.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43630&st=0&p=535761entry535761

 

look what happens when two units system crashed

[Frosty]

Its pretty obvious to all reading this, we in N. America are stuck in a middle earth of measurement an unit hell. There are pros and cons to each as many people have shown and our issues of dealing with these systems are not likely to go away anytime soon.

 

Soooooooo.....Why the heck can't AutoCad run both systems at once? Why can't I freely switch between metric and imperial while working on CDs? FormZ can do it. Vector Works can do it. Yet the flagship largest producer of drawing software cannot.

 

I think simply being able to freely switch systems would end most of this discussion.