Tape Measure Rant

[h3nry]

4 hours ago, C Shaffer said:

MY gait is not quite 36".

Which makes you quite normal, since there should be 1000 (mille) paces in a mile - hence the name - miles are metric really. making 5.28 feet the standard pace (from right footfall to right footfall).

[Rex Edgar]

4 hours ago, Cliff said:

I don't mind one way or another. My only issue is the conversion. I can do math all day long in either with no issues. But I can't tell you what 1/2 inch is in metric. I'm comforted by the fact Lockheed Martin doesn't know either - and that it destroyed a $300 million dollar Mars orbiter because of it. 

It's between 12mm and 13mm, 12 won't fit a half inch bolt head and 13 will strip it after a few torques. The US auto industry is the worst. Some metric and some standard (inch) fasteners on their cars. At least when working on an Asian or European car, you knew what you were dealing with.

 

6 hours ago, C Shaffer said:

MY shoe is 12" long. I can step feet all day. MY gait is not quite 36". Yards prove a stretch and meters fall off quickly. I think Rex thinks I am argumentative because he pictures pencil, paper, and calculators. I am in the business of pushing kids to do mental math first to verify that what they punch in a calculator makes sense. Walking up to a banana split to cut it into five parts is tricky. Last words, I don't want to drag the thread down. I just suspect we are not yet discussing apples to apples. I have no fight against transitioning to metric. 

Looking forward to your build journal on the fine woodworking project that you will complete using odd body parts for measuring.

[rodger.]

16 hours ago, weithman5 said:

Number of countries that use imperial that have put a man on the moon: 1

Number of countries that use metric that put a man on the moon: 0

Or filmed it in a Hollywood studio...?

[Rex Edgar]

16 minutes ago, Pug said:

Or filmed it in a Hollywood studio...?

Wasn't OJ in that movie?

[Tpt life]

Saw this today.

[wtnhighlander]

So, how did you answer?

[Tpt life]

I didn't. They didn't give me an "I don't care" option. 

[Ronn W]

On 7/5/2016 at 3:51 PM, weithman5 said:

Number of countries that use imperial that have put a man on the moon: 1

Number of countries that use metric that put a man on the moon: 0

It is 1,910,840 furlongs to the moon.

[wtnhighlander]

My truck has driven to the moon (equivalent), and is well on the way back.

[Byrdie]

And to think this whole thread started out because someone pointed out that a tape measure manufacturer was too cheap to make more than one outer case for their tape measure - the result being that a metric tape measure had a case that caused you to need to add 3" to the length of your measure.

Look guys, this whole argument is akin to the fact that some men prefer women, some men prefer men, and some will use either happily.  No amount of arguing and factual evidence is going to change the mind of an individual with the opposite way of thinking to your preference.

And lest anyone think I'm misogynistic, you can change the genders in my above example to the opposite and it still applies.

I use the empirical system because it's what I prefer, what I grew up using and what I'm best able to wrap my brain around.  I've tried metric and wasn't comfortable.  Arguing that metric is better isn't going to change my mind.

[Cliff]

14 hours ago, Byrdie said:

 Arguing that metric is better isn't going to change my mind.

Problem is that it's not an argument anymore, it was won decades ago. The US just hasn't accepted it. Metric IS better. It may not feel better if you don't use it often but that doesn't make the other way any more valid, just means people are brain-stuck using a broken system. It's really only a preference issue within a small area of the world, and because of our refusal to switch over it constantly causes problems with the rest of the world. 

[Chestnut]

Right or wrong better or worse the US won't convert. The cost is too much. I realize that you may not understand that but every title to every piece of land would need to be updated. An alta for a residential lot would probably be $5,000 commercial lots range from $15,000 for a half acre lot to hundreds of thousands for large complex lots. This is just one example of the costs and our surveying costs in ND are cheap compared to what NY city would be. Who would pay that?

[wtnhighlander]

Can a circle can be divided into 10 equal angles using only a compass and straight edge?

[Cliff]

2 hours ago, Chestnut said:

Right or wrong better or worse the US won't convert. The cost is too much. I realize that you may not understand that but every title to every piece of land would need to be updated. An alta for a residential lot would probably be $5,000 commercial lots range from $15,000 for a half acre lot to hundreds of thousands for large complex lots. This is just one example of the costs and our surveying costs in ND are cheap compared to what NY city would be. Who would pay that?

Maybe we take 10% from the bloated runaway military and put toward that. Should easily cover it. Or stop enforcing useless drug laws and use the money from that on it. Or .. just do it slowly over the period of years, or don't do it at all and 30 years from now when people are looking at that, they'll have to look at a conversion table to figure out wtf those archaic measurements mean. The payoff in the long run outweighs the cost. I realize that we don't run our country in a financially sound way though, we'd rather pay a slightly cheaper price to redo the roads every 3-5 years instead of using materials and methods that make roads last for decades that have a higher up front cost but lower overall. 

It's not like this country doesn't have money or isn't willing to spend it, it's that it's spending it on entirely the wrong things. We, as Americans should not accept the status quo, we should force things to change for the better. 

[Chestnut]

17 minutes ago, Cliff said:

Maybe we take 10% from the bloated runaway military and put toward that. Should easily cover it. Or stop enforcing useless drug laws and use the money from that on it. Or .. just do it slowly over the period of years, or don't do it at all and 30 years from now when people are looking at that, they'll have to look at a conversion table to figure out wtf those archaic measurements mean. The payoff in the long run outweighs the cost. I realize that we don't run our country in a financially sound way though, we'd rather pay a slightly cheaper price to redo the roads every 3-5 years instead of using materials and methods that make roads last for decades that have a higher up front cost but lower overall. 

It's not like this country doesn't have money or isn't willing to spend it, it's that it's spending it on entirely the wrong things. We, as Americans should not accept the status quo, we should force things to change for the better. 

I guess i never thought about time. Total since 1939 there have been roughly 50,000 RLS that have passed their test. Assuming each one is alive an still practicing, it would take 76 years to replat every section of land not including the internal parcels. that's assuming each RLS could do 1 replat every month including his existing work (which isn't possible it takes me 2-6 months to do a plat along with my other work). If you consider state like the one i live in, we have 510 Surveyors and 75 that are dual registered. so lets round that to 600, it would take well over 100 years to convert the state i live in. Assuming processing 1 parcel every month and that there aren't more than 10 parcels per square mile which there aren't most often it's broken down in to 40s which there are 16 per section. This isn't even including cities.

I hate to bring down the reality hammer but it just won't work .... I love the metric system as much as the next guy.

[Rex Edgar]

9 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

I guess i never thought about time. Total since 1939 there have been roughly 50,000 RLS that have passed their test. Assuming each one is alive an still practicing, it would take 76 years to replat every section of land not including the internal parcels. that's assuming each RLS could do 1 replat every month including his existing work (which isn't possible it takes me 2-6 months to do a plat along with my other work). If you consider state like the one i live in, we have 510 Surveyors and 75 that are dual registered. so lets round that to 600, it would take well over 100 years to convert the state i live in. Assuming processing 1 parcel every month and that there aren't more than 10 parcels per square mile which there aren't most often it's broken down in to 40s which there are 16 per section. This isn't even including cities.

I hate to bring down the reality hammer but it just won't work .... I love the metric system as much as the next guy.

 Think of all the jobs it would create. Oh, but wait, young American kids don't want to work outside in the elements. We'd just have to use immigrants who were good in math! 

Another dumb question, why would the land need to be re surveyed, just convert the units?

[RichardA]

58 minutes ago, Cliff said:

Maybe we take 10% from the bloated runaway military and put toward that. Should easily cover it. Or stop enforcing useless drug laws and use the money from that on it. Or .. just do it slowly over the period of years, or don't do it at all and 30 years from now when people are looking at that, they'll have to look at a conversion table to figure out wtf those archaic measurements mean. The payoff in the long run outweighs the cost. I realize that we don't run our country in a financially sound way though, we'd rather pay a slightly cheaper price to redo the roads every 3-5 years instead of using materials and methods that make roads last for decades that have a higher up front cost but lower overall. 

It's not like this country doesn't have money or isn't willing to spend it, it's that it's spending it on entirely the wrong things. We, as Americans should not accept the status quo, we should force things to change for the better. 

Bloated, runaway military?????? There's riots in the streets, Islamist's trying to kill everyone, ! Are you nuts? Our military is forced to not do anything to protect innocents world wide.  Runaway military????CRAP!

[Rex Edgar]

20 hours ago, Byrdie said:

And to think this whole thread started out because someone pointed out that a tape measure manufacturer was too cheap to make more than one outer case for their tape measure - the result being that a metric tape measure had a case that caused you to need to add 3" to the length of your measure.

Look guys, this whole argument is akin to the fact that some men prefer women, some men prefer men, and some will use either happily.  No amount of arguing and factual evidence is going to change the mind of an individual with the opposite way of thinking to your preference.

And lest anyone think I'm misogynistic, you can change the genders in my above example to the opposite and it still applies.

I use the empirical system because it's what I prefer, what I grew up using and what I'm best able to wrap my brain around.  I've tried metric and wasn't comfortable.  Arguing that metric is better isn't going to change my mind.

Remove the first paragraph and it could be religion or politics that Byrdie is referring to. Boy this thread went off the rails in a big way!

[Chestnut]

45 minutes ago, Rex Edgar said:

 Think of all the jobs it would create. Oh, but wait, young American kids don't want to work outside in the elements. We'd just have to use immigrants who were good in math! 

Another dumb question, why would the land need to be re surveyed, just convert the units?

I mean you could but there would be a ton of conversion errors and then instead of taxing land surveyors which bill at $175 an our your going to be billing lawyers at a heck of a lot more to settle the disputes over errors. Also the people that work in this field are all set in their ways you'd have a lot of people that would quit before they went down the metric rabbit hole.

[h3nry]

4 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

Can a circle can be divided into 10 equal angles using only a compass and straight edge?

Yes.

Divide it into 5:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTm1XIPGr4M

Then bisect each angle to make 10.

14 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

I mean you could but there would be a ton of conversion errors.

conversion errors? both the international foot (25.4mm=1in exactly) and the US survey foot (1ft=1200/3937m exactly) are defined with precise conversions. I don't know if the ellipsoid datum is involved in surveying, but even back in 1927, the North American NAD27 datum was defined in metres and not feet. So why should there be conversion errors?

I currently am in a country where surface land coordinates, and topographic elevations are measured in metres, but sub-surface depths and coordinates are measured in feet because US drilling contractors are often used - that's the kind of system that causes conversion errors!

[Llama]

2 hours ago, Cliff said:

It's not like this country doesn't have money or isn't willing to spend it, it's that it's spending it on entirely the wrong things. We, as Americans should not accept the status quo, we should force things to change for the better. 

When are you running for office? 

[Chestnut]

50 minutes ago, h3nry said:

Yes.

Divide it into 5:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTm1XIPGr4M

Then bisect each angle to make 10.

conversion errors? both the international foot (25.4mm=1in exactly) and the US survey foot (1ft=1200/3937m exactly) are defined with precise conversions. I don't know if the ellipsoid datum is involved in surveying, but even back in 1927, the North American NAD27 datum was defined in metres and not feet. So why should there be conversion errors?

I currently am in a country where surface land coordinates, and topographic elevations are measured in metres, but sub-surface depths and coordinates are measured in feet because US drilling contractors are often used - that's the kind of system that causes conversion errors!

Oh i don't mean that kind of errors i mean human errors. The systems them selves are more accurate than we can construct things. If the world was run by robots it would work out fine.

If we were to convert from out half butt system why would we half butt the conversion? What's more annoying the lawnmower with imperial bolts or the lawnmower with imperial and metric bolts?

[Guest]

Listen people.  Its a free country.  The taliban won't decapitate you for using metric, imperial or making up your own unit of measure based on the size of your wife's ex-boyfriend's hand.   I can't believe you are all having this debate.   Yeah,  I guess imperial is the standard here and what is taught in schools.  So what? Why limit yourself to what is taught in schools?  Its like getting pissed because we speak English instead of French or German.  If you like French more, go get a Rosetta Stone DVD and rock on.  

I guess I am just smarter than the average bear because I use metric and imperial interchangeably and I find them both useful.  

 

[Eric.]

Just a reminder about the only three rules...no politics, no religion, no jerks.

If we can't discuss measuring tapes without devolving into discretionary spending, then I guess we can't discuss measuring tapes.

[Rex Edgar]

Oh wait until the first Tuesday in November, you'll be deluged by all three..........Wondered where you have been hiding, Eric.