Inventors and/or manufacturers I want to Kill

And most of the "Japanese" cars sold in the U.S. are built in the U.S.

I work at one of those Japanese auto plants. Several years ago I hired a guy to fix my roof. When he was finished we were sitting on my front porch drinking some iced tea and visiting while I made out the check for his services. He knew where I worked and was complaining to the effect of 'yes, they build the cars here, but all the money goes back to Japan.' I handed him his check and said "here's a couple of hundred of their dollars that didn't go to Japan."

Another example: The U.S. Big-3 lobbied congress for a 'domestic content' lable law, requiring auto manufacturers to place a lable on the vehicle stating what percentage of the vehicle was 'domestic content.' Of course the lobbyists helped write the rules of what constituted 'domestic content.' A year after it went into effect, they were lobbying to revoke the law because, even under their own rules, Fords, Chevies, and Chryslers were showing LESS domestic content than U.S. built Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans.

Reply to
Ed Stevens
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We had started using the *names* we currently use before the metric system was invented in the 1600s, but the names have represented various actual measures over time.

e.g., at the time Thomas Jefferson advocated a metric system for the U.S., he noted the following "gallon" and "bushel" measures in current use:

  • 224 and 1792 cubic inches, according to the standard wine gallon preserved at Guildhall. * 231 and 1848, according to the statute of 5th Anne. * 264.8 and 2118.4, according to the ancient Rumford quart, of
1228, examined by the committee. * 265.5 and 2124, according to three standard bushels preserved in the Exchequer, to wit: one of Henry VII., without a rim; one dated 1091, supposed for 1591, or 1601, and one dated 1601. * 266.25 and 2130, according to the ancient Rumford gallon of 1228, examined by the committee. * 268.75 and 2150, according to the Winchester bushel, as declared by statute 13, 14, William III., which has been the model for some of the grain States. * 271, less 2 spoonfuls, and 2168, less 16 spoonfuls, according to a standard gallon of Henry VII., and another dated 1601, marked E. E., both in the Exchequer. * 271 and 2168, according to a standard gallon in the Exchequer, dated 1601, marked E., and called the corn gallon. * 272 and 2176, according to the three standard corn gallons last mentioned, as measured in 1688, by an artist for the Commissioners of the Excise, generally used in the seaport towns, and by mercantile people, and thence introduced into some of the grain States. * 277.18 and 2217.44, as established for the measure of coal by the statute of 12 Anne. * 278 and 2224, according to the standard bushel of Henry VII., with a copper rim, in the Exchequer. * 278.4 and 2227.2, according to two standard pints of 1601 and 1602, in the Exchequer. * 280 and 2240, according to the standard quart of 1601, in the Exchequer. * 282 and 2256, according to the standard gallon for beer and ale in the Treasury.

There are, moreover, varieties on these varieties, from the barrel to the ton, inclusive; for, if the barrel be of herrings, it must contain 28 gallons by the statute 13 Eliz. c. 11. If of wine, it must contain 31½ gallons by the statute 2 Henry VI. c. 11, and 1 Rich. III. c. 15. If of beer or ale, it must contain 34 gallons by the statute 1 William and Mary, c. 24, and the higher measures in proportion.

IMHO, the great error was in trying to force conversion of popular measures first. Millions of people were given the impression that they were going to have to learn a whole new system of measures just to eat, drink, and cook. Yet it really makes little difference to me whether my bottle of wine is measured in ml or oz, as long as it's around six or eight gills, depending on whose gill you're using.

Reply to
Joshua Putnam

As long as you're filled to the gills, you should be happy with either system. ;)

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Maybe so, but if you're using metric, that song "Barley Mow" really sucks.

Reply to
Goedjn

Most people wouldn't recognize the units of measurements regardless of what system they were familiar with. Nipperkin indeed!

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R

Reply to
RicodJour

I don't recall the sequence exactly, but ISTR that Australia converted to the Metric system in stages. E.g., gasoline sold by the liter rather than by the gallon from one date; other items sold by the (Kilo)gram rather than by the pound from another date; paper sizes changed to metric on yet another date; etc. Currency conversion -- from pounds. shillings and pence to dollars and cents -- had taken place many years before.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

I notice we're finally getting to the heart of the matter. The problem with the US conversion attempt was that they tried to convert popular measures (presumably that means commonly-used measures) not just first but at all. The metric system is only useful when there's frequent calculations involved and even then it's not always the best measure.

Of course in scientific activities and in metalworking there's a distinct advantage but as you correctly point out what does it matter if your wine is metric or imperial? Although given the internationalization of the product, metric should probably predominate. Why convert the length of a football field? Or furlongs for horse racing? Or the mile as in track? It's a four minute what? Silly! And mph is equally stupid to convert. What calculations do you ever do with mph? Hmmm...the speed limit is 55 mph...what's that in feet per second? Yeah, that happens. Actually it was road distance and mph that was the first thing the metric conversion freaks tried to push on the US and of course people couldn't see the point and resisted. I still can't see the point.

In some areas metric is particularly poorly suited as a measurement and perhaps it should be the Euros adopting the US system rather than the other way around. Take lumber measurement. Most of the time the tolerance is at least a sixteenth of an inch sometimes an eighth. Wood will expand and contract that much in a commonly used eight or ten feet so more accurate measures are not necessary. Well, what's an eighth in metric? About 2.5mm IIRC. Exceedingly difficult to see on a tape. Even if you said 2mm or 3mm it's still hard to see and it's a kludge. Moreover lots of measurement is in halves so the base 10 measure does very poorly: 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25... whereas the base 2 or 16 or 64 (an even number) is very natural: 1" , 1/2", 1/4" 1/8"... Based on the strength of "2 by" lumber the 16" OC is an appropriate spacing. Do it in metric and you either end up with an unnatural value or you have to round up or down too much.

IMO the US is currently just about where it should be. Convert the manufacturing and scientific stuff to metric--we've still got a little way to go in manufacturing but the Chinese'll do the job for us

--but keep the non-calculation items where they are. There's no point in conversion just for conversion's sake.

Reply to
HighFlyer

That makes no sense. The wood doesn't expand or contract in any unit. They're all arbitrary. If you can't see the markings on the rule/tape, , it's not the measuring sytems's fault. Get glasses or don't do work that requires such precise measurements.

All fine and dandy...assuming you're starting with an even number. What's half of 11 3/16"? A third of 1'-10"? Nine times 13/64ths? Those are the more frequent types of caculations and the metric system is far superior in those instances.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Your mass is the same on earth and on the moon, your weight isn't. Weight is the force you get when you multiply mass by excelleration, which is what gravity is.

Speaking of weight, pounds are not consistent!

A pound of feathers is actually HEAVIER than a pound of gold. Gold (precious metals and some pharmacuticals) is measured in TROY pounds and ounces while everything else uses the AVIORDUPOIS pound, which is heavier.

Reply to
Calvin Henry-Cotnam

Yep, that's the heart of the problem all right. People who think that if we were to go metric (which we should have long ago), they would have to convert from metric back to the old measures every time. Why would anyone be doing that? Spacing of studs is now 16". ln metric it would change to an even metric measure and there would be absolutely no need to EVER refer back to inches again. Same for all the other measures. So a football field would have to go from being 100 yards to something even in metric - big deal, the world would end? Buy a liter of milk or a quart of milk? Who cares, you want 'about that much milk" and without looking at the bottle you have no idea how much a quart is anyhow.

It is people who were scared of a boogeyman (having to convert back to inch measure) that sank the conversion.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

Reply to
Goedjn

Another fact I heard once: When you're walking and have just put a foot down, it's supporting 200% of your body weight.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Dynamic loads are not weight.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Daly

Semantics. A dynamic load is a force as is weight.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

Some people will confuse a person's body weight with mass, when it's mass they actually care about.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Then what do you consider weight? Weight is a force, a force that happens to be higher at that moment.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Sure it does! Take two seconds to think about how your body weight suddenly doubled.

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

On thing that was crazy, however, was the conversion of old measurements to new in some circumstances. E.g., although the 35mph speed limit became 60kph (I think that was a Federal -- i.e., nationwide conversion), the state of Queensland (I don't know about others) decreed that its old traffic code would be converted precisely, so that people had to remember for the oral part of the driver's license test that they were not allowed to park within 3.05 meters of a mailbox ("3 meters" was not an acceptable answer).

And we would read nonsense in the paper such as a traffic accident report in which a vehicle was alleged to have been traveling at "approximately [/sic/] 72.42Kph"; or a report that the height of a robbery suspect was "approximately [/sic/] 1.83 meters." It's clear that in both cases people gave estimates in round figures (45mph and 6ft, respectively), but some idiot had to use a calculator and give figures to 2 decimal places -- "delusions of accuracy" I called it.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

Right, I'm not fat, I just have lot of mass.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Mass times gravitational acceleration.

Weight is a force, but that doesn't mean that every force is a weight.

When a dynamic load occurs, it _isn't_ because the weight increases.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Daly

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