The EU surrenders…….

Well after around 20 years or so that I’ve known the idea of meassuring units, I have had no proplems with the practicality of the metric system nor I’ve ever heard anyone else here complaining it. After introducing myself to the engineering scenes and to the wonderfull world of AutoCad, I praise the Gods that we have 10-centric meassure systems were you can convert units by simply changing the dot…

Guess its just about how difficoult you wish to make your life :rolleyes: 😉

Therein lies the rub if you are not careful about where you put the dot or remember whether it’s supposed to be mm or cm. 12.7 mm = 0.5″ whereas 127mm or 12.7 cm = 5″ not a good idea to get it wrong as the parts don’t fit. Not that it bothers me anyway as I grew up with imperial measurements and spent (on and off) 14 years in Germany working with metric so I am at home with either but some people aren’t that lucky.

Constitutionally speaking, you are quite right.

Realistically speaking, a vote on this type of issue is highly unlikely as a government that permitted and then lost such a vote (whichever way it went) would be effectively committing political suicide.

Politicians don’t like risk……. 😎

That was what I was referring to when I mentioned the practicalities.

Does not matter, if the UK parliament repealed the act it would be out.

Constitutionally speaking, you are quite right.

Realistically speaking, a vote on this type of issue is highly unlikely as a government that permitted and then lost such a vote (whichever way it went) would be effectively committing political suicide.

Politicians don’t like risk……. 😎

But UK hasent Ratified the Maastricth pact, has it?

But in those countries, where pariamental decission cannot be reversed, the fact remain, that there isent legimate form for leaving the union

Does not matter, if the UK parliament repealed the act it would be out.

But UK hasent Ratified the Maastricth pact, has it?

But in those countries, where pariamental decission cannot be reversed, the fact remain, that there isent legimate form for leaving the union

…Funny enough, at least in paper, each country had a legistrative right to quit from Soviet Union, but there’s no such code in EU…

In the UK at least that is not the case, the UK is an EU member by an act of parliament, the repealing of that act of parliament would result in the UK exiting the EU. Of course the practicalities of that are somewhat obstructive though.

Well I must to my own obscure admitt that finally we can agree over something with Sealord. The reason why most of the EU governments like ours refuses to give us the change to vote is plain and simple: they know it would be rejected in most of the countries. The reason why it would be rejected is again equally simple: People have lost their thurst over EU. The whole organisation is (if it ever was) so far away from the normal people in both concept and in its overall effect on everyones normal life.
This meassurement-depate is just one example of how EU is mostly seen among us “EU-citizens”, a source of pain-in-the-ass directives which are often against common sense and so ridicilous that you really start wonder if this all is just some large and weird candit-camera show. Thorw atop that a treaty which basicly disolves the last remains of independence’s scene, no wonder people are getting more and more disapointed with the whole thing…

…Funny enough, at least in paper, each country had a legistrative right to quit from Soviet Union, but there’s no such code in EU…

I must admit the refusal to hold a referendum over the new EU treaty is disgusting. The logic that there was not one for the Maastricht treaty, therefore this one does not need one is insane, thats like saying ‘I stabbed you once, so its perfectly ok I stab you again’. As for all the Parliamentary cr*p, last time I checked Parliament was meant to be subservient to the people.

hmm – we got the right to still use imperial and as a result Brown gave the eu the UK.

LOL!!

Isn’t metric a hoot?!?!

I got ‘metricified’ in the ’78 – ’80 period – but it wasn’t the sole measurement system for us to use. By that token, my youngest sister’s education (she’s 5 years younger) was strictly metric. Strangely enough, I had friends in college who had no idea what an inch was. That of course created havoc with copyfitting… points, pics, ciceros, agates etc are all based on imperil measure. And to confuse matters I had to go and memorize the decimal equivalents to all the standard fractions of an inch.

The fun begins when you take a stroll around town… the gas (petrol) station sells by the Litre, but you can go to the butcher and purchase your meat by the Ounce, Pound, Gram, Kilo or slice. We walk into the pub and order ‘pints’ (real 20 oz – unless you order Guiness – then you get the half-Litre pour) but now some dollar-hungry wise-acre has come up with the idea of selling 16 oz pints (sacrilege!). But then the old-timer can still wander in and order a Quart (bottle) of his favourite bevie – but thats not how much he gets. Oh, and Metric does NOT change the size of a dozen.

The paper sizes I specify for print jobs are all standardized to the Imperial system, as are the building supplies for my renovation projects – 2x4s and 2x6s (inches) with sheets of 4×8 drywall (feet). Speeds and distances are all in Kms, but ‘our’ football field is still marked in Yards – and the cars’ speedometers carry both.

The Liquor store sells our booze in bottles marked in mLs, but they’re still 26 and 40 oz bottles to most of us (but we call them ‘pounders’) and no one seems to know what the exact metric measure is – we just buy it based on the size of the bottle.

This is a metric nation??… oh well, it doesn’t bother me much – just don’t ask my parents what they think of it all (or the war, or other languages, or anything thats not meat and potato)….

Cheers (20 oz)… JJ

Perhaps if i was a dwarf, my thumb is little short of 5cm so that would make it two inches…

But only if you have big feet – i’ve got size 47 in my feet (that would be 12 for British, and 14 American, and i have difficulty finding properly sized shoes even here in Large People Country), translating to 31,5 centimetres, which equals to just a tiny bit over 1 foot.

Is a little over a metre in my case, yet a yard is only some 90 centimetres…
Either i am a terrible mutant of some sort, or this “approximating with your body as reference” is a non-starter unless you’re grotesquely misformed.

Nope, the metric system is not based on that. It is standardised as such, but not based on. The metric system is based on the meter (duh), with one meter being one step. Walk a thousand steps and you’ve walked a kilometer, and put one hundred centimeter-sized sugarcubes in a row and you’ve got yourself a meter. Intuitively enough, and better yet: you can immediately relate the size of one object to another. How many yards are there in a mile? What sort of mile are we talking about, anyway?

Better yet with the metric system, is that you can make an immediate guesstimate of an object’s weight and/or volume. You know one cubic meter of water weighs one thousand kilos (a ton, to use one of those intuitive words although i doubt you image the right size of barrel if you imagine a ‘ton’), and work from that on.

Only proper reason (but never admitted by those traditionalist Britons, Liberians, Burmese or Americans) i can think of, is that a pint is slightly more than half a litre. Unless you figure out that water is at it’s highest density at four degrees, and so a lukewarm pint of ale actually contains less beer than half a litre of lager at a more drinkable temperature 😀

How tall are you in “hands”? 😀

Also I note you are from France so you would be aware that the Emperor Napoleon hated the metric system and banned it in 1812.

For some people, “approximate” is a lifestyle! 😀

Ah Arthur this is the word you missed in my post “approximate” I have double checked and it’s definitely there.
And I’m am terribly sorry that some people find the imperial system beyond their mental capability but this is why I believe we should understand both systems to make life easier for our Continental friends 🙂

Now I have to go and measure something, luckily it only has to be a rough guess, now wait a minute, one minute of arc of a great circle of the Earth divided by one thousand……………..! 🙂 🙂 🙂

And of course a pint of room temperature ale is far more flavoursome than any deep frozen lager. 😉

Also I note you are from France so you would be aware that the Emperor Napoleon hated the metric system and banned it in 1812.

For having had to use both systems quite a bit in the past years, I’d still say that the metric system is easier when it comes to measure conversions (dividing by 10 – so, shifting the decimal) is way easier than using 1/8 inches, for instance. The imperial system has no correlation whatsoever between different units. Apart of that, it isn’t so barbaric to use either.
Still, if you want precision, you’ll be better served with the metric system.

Arthur from France ? You have the flag stripes the wrong way 😀

Ah Arthur this is the word you missed in my post “approximate” I have double checked and it’s definitely there.
And I’m am terribly sorry that some people find the imperial system beyond their mental capability but this is why I believe we should understand both systems to make life easier for our Continental friends 🙂

Now I have to go and measure something, luckily it only has to be a rough guess, now wait a minute, one minute of arc of a great circle of the Earth divided by one thousand……………..! 🙂 🙂 🙂

And of course a pint of room temperature ale is far more flavoursome than any deep frozen lager. 😉

Also I note you are from France so you would be aware that the Emperor Napoleon hated the metric system and banned it in 1812.

1 Inch=the length of your thumb…

Perhaps if i was a dwarf, my thumb is little short of 5cm so that would make it two inches…

1 Foot=the length of your foot…

But only if you have big feet – i’ve got size 47 in my feet (that would be 12 for British, and 14 American, and i have difficulty finding properly sized shoes even here in Large People Country), translating to 31,5 centimetres, which equals to just a tiny bit over 1 foot.

…1 Yard=The distance from the tip of your nose to the tips of your fingers on an outstretched arm…

Is a little over a metre in my case, yet a yard is only some 90 centimetres…
Either i am a terrible mutant of some sort, or this “approximating with your body as reference” is a non-starter unless you’re grotesquely misformed.

…and so on, the metric system is based on the length of one minute of arc of a great circle of the Earth, very intuitive? I think not.

Nope, the metric system is not based on that. It is standardised as such, but not based on. The metric system is based on the meter (duh), with one meter being one step. Walk a thousand steps and you’ve walked a kilometer, and put one hundred centimeter-sized sugarcubes in a row and you’ve got yourself a meter. Intuitively enough, and better yet: you can immediately relate the size of one object to another. How many yards are there in a mile? What sort of mile are we talking about, anyway?

Better yet with the metric system, is that you can make an immediate guesstimate of an object’s weight and/or volume. You know one cubic meter of water weighs one thousand kilos (a ton, to use one of those intuitive words although i doubt you image the right size of barrel if you imagine a ‘ton’), and work from that on.

Only proper reason (but never admitted by those traditionalist Britons, Liberians, Burmese or Americans) i can think of, is that a pint is slightly more than half a litre. Unless you figure out that water is at it’s highest density at four degrees, and so a lukewarm pint of ale actually contains less beer than half a litre of lager at a more drinkable temperature 😀

Well after around 20 years or so that I’ve known the idea of meassuring units, I have had no proplems with the practicality of the metric system nor I’ve ever heard anyone else here complaining it. After introducing myself to the engineering scenes and to the wonderfull world of AutoCad, I praise the Gods that we have 10-centric meassure systems were you can convert units by simply changing the dot…

Guess its just about how difficoult you wish to make your life :rolleyes: 😉

Guess what Arthur, we are capable of coping with both systems.
Imperial lengths are far more user friendly,if you need to measure something it’s quite easy to approximate, 1 Inch=the length of your thumb, 1 Foot=the length of your foot, 1 Yard=The distance from the tip of your nose to the tips of your fingers on an outstretched arm, and so on, the metric system is based on the length of one minute of arc of a great circle of the Earth, very intuitive? I think not.

Happy to leave civilisation again? Perhaps you can start an Imperial Union together witht those other bastions of hundredweight-to-the-furlong and sticks-to-the-stone: the US, Liberia and Myanmar.

Too bad you don’t want to know how easy it is to get a volume calculation if you know some objects dimensions. Tell me, how much pints does a vessel hold which is two inch*one furlong*four feet?