Things that annoy you beyond reason...? [Vol 3]

[grumbledoak]

Metric is superficially simple, but ten isn't the best base and using a consistent base forces compromise - the metre is okay, but centimetres are too small.

[JonRB]

grumbledoak said:

Metric is superficially simple, but ten isn't the best base and using a consistent base forces compromise - the metre is okay, but centimetres are too small.

Well, there is the decimetre. It's just not used much. But it is a proper SI unit.

[northwest monkey]

fatboy18 said:

Its much easier in a timber yard to ask for 1/2 a dozen 4X2s instead of whatever it is in metric.

If I went into my local timber merchants and asked for a couple of lengths of 100 x 50 I'd be wearing it

It's a proper old school one - to keep the lads warm in winter there's a big woodburning stove in the middle of the workshop for offcuts etc. I love it in there!

[Captain Muppet]

grumbledoak said:

Metric is superficially simple, but ten isn't the best base and using a consistent base forces compromise - the metre is okay, but centimetres are too small.

You know you can have more than one centimetre to make something bigger, right? Two and a half of them is a nice size, I spent the weekend working with 25mm square bar.

Genuine question - what compromises does using a consistent base force on people? I'm a design engineer working mostly in mm, so I may be blind to the problems. Which is the base base?

[grumbledoak]

Captain Muppet said:

Genuine question - what compromises does using a consistent base force on people? I'm a design engineer working mostly in mm, so I may be blind to the problems. Which is the base base?

Scientists and computers don't care if you need eighteen decimal places to represent something, but humans prefer to deal with Real numbers. Consistent base fixes the ratio between a size range and the next size range - pick one to be a 'natural' unit and the next ones down are ten and one hundred times smaller whether or not that yields a 'natural' unit for the things you do on that scale.

There is no single best base. Ten is arbitrary, the fact that we have ten digits on our hands doesn't make it special - any number would work. We equally have eight fingers or two thumbs and binary is easiest for computers. In fact the use of twelve wasn't accidental, it is better for real world applications. But twelve twelves is too big and we are back to where we started, thus twelve by five.

[Rostfritt]

fatboy18 said:

I'm in the property maintenance game, I can honestly tell you I have made more cock ups trying to work out where to put that decimal point when ordering replacement windows that has cost me time and money.

Considering that you could go 10x either way, did you end up with an enormous window or a comically small one?

[fatboy18]

One of each on two different occasions I know it might sound stupid but if someone said to you "its 1.7 Wide" How would you read that? 17cm? 1 meter and 7 mm? 1 meter and 7cm? I meter and 70cm You see its easy to interpret it the wrong way? there are too many variables, If you measure it in Inches there is less chance of getting it wrong IMO.

[MartG]

fatboy18 said:

One of each on two different occasions I know it might sound stupid but if someone said to you "its 1.7 Wide" How would you read that? 17cm? 1 meter and 7 mm? 1 meter and 7cm? I meter and 70cm You see its easy to interpret it the wrong way? there are too many variables, If you measure it in Inches there is less chance of getting it wrong IMO.

1.7 wide would be 1m 70cm as 70cm is 0.7m

1 meter and 7mm would be 1.07 - not an interpretation/variable problem, just an unwillingness to try and understand that 10mm make a cm, 100cm make a m etc.

[fatboy18]

MartG said:

fatboy18 said:

One of each on two different occasions I know it might sound stupid but if someone said to you "its 1.7 Wide" How would you read that? 17cm? 1 meter and 7 mm? 1 meter and 7cm? I meter and 70cm You see its easy to interpret it the wrong way? there are too many variables, If you measure it in Inches there is less chance of getting it wrong IMO.

1.7 wide would be 1m 70cm as 70cm is 0.7m

1 meter and 7mm would be 1.07 - not an interpretation/variable problem, just an unwillingness to try and understand that 10mm make a cm, 100cm make a m etc.

Er its not an unwillingness because I've tried it, made mistakes and it has cost me my own money and time Which is why I use good ole inches

[Einion Yrth]

grumbledoak said:

Scientists and computers don't care if you need eighteen decimal places to represent something, but humans prefer to deal with Real numbers.

1) Scientists are humans.
2) The most commonly used floating point representations in computers are inherently inaccurate, in some magnitude ranges wildly so.
3) Real numbers incorporates floats; did you mean integers?

[IN51GHT]

Forgetting to set the pre-heater on the Zoe this morning, getting into a cold car was like going back to the stone age.

[8Ace]

Timmy Time.

fking little wker.

[Hugo a Gogo]

fatboy18 said:

MartG said:

fatboy18 said:

One of each on two different occasions I know it might sound stupid but if someone said to you "its 1.7 Wide" How would you read that? 17cm? 1 meter and 7 mm? 1 meter and 7cm? I meter and 70cm You see its easy to interpret it the wrong way? there are too many variables, If you measure it in Inches there is less chance of getting it wrong IMO.

1.7 wide would be 1m 70cm as 70cm is 0.7m

1 meter and 7mm would be 1.07 - not an interpretation/variable problem, just an unwillingness to try and understand that 10mm make a cm, 100cm make a m etc.

Er its not an unwillingness because I've tried it, made mistakes and it has cost me my own money and time Which is why I use good ole inches

may I ask how old you are? because I'm 43 and we learned all metric at school, it was that way since about 1970 I believe

and mistakes can obviously happen in feet, inches, stones, furlongs, rods etc etc

[droopsnoot]

MartG said:

fatboy18 said:

One of each on two different occasions I know it might sound stupid but if someone said to you "its 1.7 Wide" How would you read that? 17cm? 1 meter and 7 mm? 1 meter and 7cm? I meter and 70cm You see its easy to interpret it the wrong way? there are too many variables, If you measure it in Inches there is less chance of getting it wrong IMO.

1.7 wide would be 1m 70cm as 70cm is 0.7m

1 meter and 7mm would be 1.07 - not an interpretation/variable problem, just an unwillingness to try and understand that 10mm make a cm, 100cm make a m etc.

1 meter and 7mm would be 1.007 surely? 1 meter and 7cm would be 1.07m.

[JonRB]

droopsnoot said:

1 meter and 7mm would be 1.007 surely? 1 meter and 7cm would be 1.07m.

Or 7.1929 Linguine.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-stand...

[RobinBanks]

Hugo a Gogo said:

may I ask how old you are? because I'm 43 and we learned all metric at school, it was that way since about 1970 I believe

and mistakes can obviously happen in feet, inches, stones, furlongs, rods etc etc

Exactly. Whilst my parents used only imperial, at school we used only metric. As a result I can use either.

I tend to use metric for work stuff and imperial socially (giving my height, for instance).

[Pothole]

br d said:

Pothole said:

omeone pulled me up the other day for calling my bird my bird...My bird told them she likes it. She's now my intended, so people just smile.

Check your privilege you hetero, enablist, CIS scumbag, you can't just go around spitting trigger words at people. Calling a woman "My bird" is rape.

(Seriously, look this stuff up, there a thousands of cretins spouting this stuff now).

I give such cretins all the attention they deserve. for the other 23 hours 59 minutes and 59.9999999999999999999999999999999999999 seconds of the day I don't think about them at all! Perhaps they'd be interested in a previous bird's rape fantasies...

[colonel c]

aholes that believe you should be punished for overtaking them by giving you a rear view mirror full of main beam.

[fatboy18]

Hugo a Gogo said:

fatboy18 said:

MartG said:

fatboy18 said:

One of each on two different occasions I know it might sound stupid but if someone said to you "its 1.7 Wide" How would you read that? 17cm? 1 meter and 7 mm? 1 meter and 7cm? I meter and 70cm You see its easy to interpret it the wrong way? there are too many variables, If you measure it in Inches there is less chance of getting it wrong IMO.

1.7 wide would be 1m 70cm as 70cm is 0.7m

1 meter and 7mm would be 1.07 - not an interpretation/variable problem, just an unwillingness to try and understand that 10mm make a cm, 100cm make a m etc.

Er its not an unwillingness because I've tried it, made mistakes and it has cost me my own money and time Which is why I use good ole inches

may I ask how old you are? because I'm 43 and we learned all metric at school, it was that way since about 1970 I believe

and mistakes can obviously happen in feet, inches, stones, furlongs, rods etc etc

Im not saying mistakes cant be made in feet and inches but I always carry a tape measure and make sure I give a feet and inches cross reference incase I got the metric measurement wrong, better safe than sorry, Age well yes, I've got at least another 12yrs on you

[RobinBanks]

People with loud/piercing voices. When people near you are having a conversation and everyone manages to be very subtle and you can't hear them apart from just one and you hear everything that person says perfectly.