America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
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RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
============
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
That being said, very few people are aware that the United States officially adopted the Metric System in 1866. It's just that the 'Metric Act of 1866', while it officially put the US on the Metric System, it did NOT require that anyone actually use the Metric units for industry or commerce. And while it did not require the use of Metric units, the biggest thing that it did accomplish was that it protected companies from being held liable if they did decide to use Metric rather then Imperial or 'traditional' units of measure. Therefore the act merely made it LEGAL to use Metric units, but it did not make them mandatory.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
regards
luis
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/0...
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
They drive like they are in Canada.
--
JHG
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
luis
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Signs for the first 3 miles saying "Drive on the left", in three different languages. And signs giving distances in miles, with kilometers in parentheses underneath.
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
I'm still not sure if it's a joke.
www.sparweb.ca
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=461501
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
I've done a bit of all four permutations (including all in the space of 24 hours once - but at least that time, one of the vehicles was big enough that what side of the road I was driving on was everybody else's problem). Psychologically, it's not actually as difficult as you might expect. The bit I don't like though is how much harder it is to see what's happening up ahead on the other side of the road.
A.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/28...
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
luis
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Cf Daniel 2:41-43
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
They converted rebar so far, that is not hard to do. They converted nuts and bolts on vehicles, that is not hard to do.
Look at plumbing, can't reduce the diameter of a pipe in the direction of flow. How do you replace a section of damaged 8" pipe?
While lumber itself is easy to convert, the use of lumber is not easy. Try selling metric lumber when all remodels will require the old system. If you open up the first metric lumber mill, you better have deep pockets. Cabinets would no longer be 24"x36" as a standard.
Luckily, I am pretty good at converting parts per million and roof slopes to their metric equivalents.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Canada has been trying to wade through those conversions since 1975 - not sure where they are at in the process now.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
You do realise that a three inch pipe is not three inches in diameter? If we were to re-designate what we now call 3" pipe as 80mm pipe, we would be more accurate.
I designed and built back steps for my house mostly out of 2×6s, relying on the lumber tables in my first semester mechanics of materials textbook. This claims that the size is 1‑5/8 by 5‑5/8". You know you are getting old when...
--
JHG
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Perhaps Ron247's use of pipe is not a good example of the issue, the standard cabinet size may be better.
I believe the point being made is that it is nice to use even increments for standard sizes, so new standard sizes would need to be made using even increments of the metric dimensions, which would not align perfectly with the current even increments that are used with imperial dimensions.
The example that comes to mind for me is the standard plywood size - in the US it is 4'x8' which is approximately 1220mmx2440mm in metric - not nice even increments. The metric "equivalent" would be 1200x2400 I believe. Both sizes would have to be made available during the transition period - which would have to last years to ensure that existing items could still be repaired or added to.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
I already need two sets of tools to work on my car, for the small part remaining that I can work on. Had to buy a special socket to replace the oxygen sensor.
I believe the biggest thing would be land sizes and recording of old deeds.
Lets see, in some parts of Texas, the land size was measured by how far someone go while riding a mule while smoking two cigars (or something like that).
Standardize that.
Also I noticed that tires are in inch diameters, and mm width.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
while we can physically make metric lumber, a standard metric wall stud would not be 1.5"x3.5"x92.625". It would be some even number of millimeters that may be somewhat close to those dimensions but not close enough. They also space framing at 60 cm on center, not 24" on center. Therefore, real metric sheet material is not 8' long. The point I am making, it without heavy $$$ subsidies, no one wants to convert their plant operation and an oppressive law that forced the issue would not go over well.
Standardization has to do with nice round numbers when possible not just labeling something two different ways. But give them 25.4 centimeters and they will take a 1.6 kilometers, I always say. Did I convert that right? Let me check with a Denver Bronco fan to see.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
I made an appointment with Miss Jeski, his sixth grade math teacher, and in our session, she informed me that next year the United States would be converting all units of measure from English to Metric. We had a little discussion about how absurd that assumption was and how ill prepared her students would be if her current approach were to be followed.
Later I assumed that she must have seen some distorted reporting [say it ain't so!] in the news media about...
The Metric Conversion Act is an Act of Congress that U.S. President Gerald Ford signed into law on December 23, 1975.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Ac...
...or maybe she jumped to a conclusion?
Skip,
Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
I am Canadian, based in Toronto. A company I used to work for had a new building custom designed. I saw the drawings. The architects worked in metric — metres and millimetres. Everything was converted to feet and inches for the builders.
--
JHG
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
www.sparweb.ca
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
An inch is about the size of the length between two of my finger joints. A millimeter is how much?
A yard is about one large step. A foot is the outside size of a size 10 or 11 shoe.
Never learned that stuff about the metric system, but really learned the English system in shop, where I had to use the measurements.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
We shipped all over the world, and worked in metric or US units as necessary.
Then one of our best fabricators got promoted to a designer.
For way too long, he used 25 mm = 1 inch for his conversions.
We discovered it when some beautiful polished pipes we shipped to the other side of the world didn't fit right.
That was a fairly expensive lesson.
Mike Halloran
Corinth, NY, USA
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Best of both worlds.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
When I started there, they put trailing zeros on dimensions for tolerance value place holders. I got in some heated discussions, but finally won out, when our CAD system no longer allowed values like 80.00 to be displayed for a length and was now just 80. The engineers said that all of their stackup tolerances had been changed. It lead them to starts tolerancing individual dimensions if they wanted a tighter tolerance than we had for no decimal places in the titleblock.
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
Ben Loosli
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Please let an engineer living in Scandinavia comment.
Timber!! Wood material measurements were the last to be accepted converted here. In practice it is easier to handle and understand the metric system once you are used to it. It will also give a more accurate description of tolerences, often given by (say) +/- 1 mm thickness of a plank from different sawmills.
Valves and piping: Once, at an international exhibition in Germany, I asked a Chinese representative of a Chinese valve company, competing with mine, if his factory could supply ANSI and European flanges. This was some years ago, and Offshore North Sea used (at that time) mostly ANSI. The answer: 'We can supply both, but we wish mainly to supply European. We see the largest potential here as they have a smaller market now, and we want to grow and compete. (No comment!)
It is not seen as a large problem in Europe to connect ANSI and European dimensions by suitable connecting pieces and/or conerting flanges.
On driving: I have been driving on the left (wrong) side in Sweden, UK and Australia. The problem is to use a system where you have learned instinctively to turn to nearest ditch to avoid accidents. If you converse from right to left, or opposite, this will then lead to front collisions. Also driving a car with the wheel 'on the wrong side' is aproblem.
And lastly, on different feet: To me this seems to be a 'microscopic problem' compared to the other topics discussed.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Well, since this first became an issue with respect to land surveying, even a 'microscopic problem' could prove a disaster if not properly resolved.
BTW, I thought Sweden moved over from driving on the Left to driving on the Right years ago, like back in the 60's.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
I thought it odd, why not just use a common thread. After a little looking, I found out that at the time Pueblo was developing there water system, no one had set a common thread. So the city developed their own standard. Now the rest of the world has moved on, but they still have their own standard, and everything is in that standard.
Sort of like the US is invested in the english system, and it is so hard to change.
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
That's correct, IIRC it was in 1969 or 1970. There could not yet have existed an expressway system with ramps that would probably not be reversible. Apparently it went off without a significant hitch.
(Could you imagine attempting something like that in today's climate of conspiracy theories and fake news?)
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
I’ll see your silver lining and raise you two black clouds. - Protection Operations
RE: America Has Two Feet. It’s About to Lose One of Them
Note that the change took place on Sunday, September 3, 1967:
http://realscandinavia.com/this-day-in-history-swe...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without