Lightweight backpacking should go metric!

"You, in this country, are subjected to the British insularity in weights and measures; you use the foot, inch and yard. I am obliged to use that system, but must apologize to you for doing so, because it is so inconvenient, and I hope Americans will do everything in their power to introduce the French metrical system. … I look upon our English system as a wickedly, brain-destroying system of bondage under which we suffer. The reason why we continue to use it, is the imaginary difficulty of making a change, and nothing else; but I do not think in America that any such difficulty should stand in the way of adopting so splendidly useful a reform."

Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) speaking in America in 1884

Geez, the simplist of threads turn into Chaff on here. We've have the American Superiorist theory, the obligatory American apologist, American apathy………..what's left? Oh yeah, global warming, consumerism, and guns. Then it will be the typical (recent) BPL thread.

I used to work as a carpenter, and can see some advantages to the "English" system (or, at least reasons why it might have evolved). For example, I can more accurately eyeball and communicate fractions based on dividing in half (1/2, 1/4, 1/8 etc) than dividing by ten, and having twelve inches in a foot (and three feet to yard) makes dividing into thirds almost as easy as halves.

On the other hand, I've been working on an architecture degree for the past few years, and scale conversions would be a lot easier if we used a decimal system.

…

Whatever system one grows up in is how we're wired to perceive measurements. Raised in the States I think in pounds, feet, miles, gallons, acres, degrees Fahrenheit etc. (Especially Fahrenheit.) Even though I have most of the common conversions memorized, my default is the units I grew up using, with perhaps the exception of grams and liters. My metric indoctrination began in seventh grade chemistry, so it's not as though the knowledge was withheld by some standards cabal.

Back to the OP, I'm a little confused by the request because articles here present every measurement in both system. Is the suggestion that the English system be dropped entirely? That dog wouldn't hunt (for the record, my dog weighs 3.6 stones).

Cheers,

Rick

hell no!!! :)

I used to open the microsoft calculator to use for conversions while gear shopping and reading BPL. Got tired of that so I had a "sticky note" over on the side of the screen with a few simple reminders. Having committed the reminders to memory, the sticky note is gone.
This was so much easier than when I HAD to do the same conversions in school!

Would of, should of, could of. I wish they had just completed the change in the 70s because now we would not be talking about this. The next best choice would be just sticking with the english system. Having to work with two different systems that are not easily exchangeable is a train wreck. The metric system makes sense, the english system are numbers somebody pulled out of their a.. The only thing worst than the english system is two systems like we have now.

Sooner or later the US will become metric, we just need to wait until a couple of generations are dead, and one of those generations is mine.

What's so hard about this siequence 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64………..

It's just as easy as 1, 10, 100, 1000.

28% of the world drives on the wrong side of the road. That's a real problem.

The most spoken language is Mandarin. Lets all switch over to Mandarin.

USA! USA!

The Metric system is a evil plot to overtake the industrial world. If we switch to the metric system, the terrorist win!

>Back to the OP, I'm a little confused by the request because articles here present every measurement in both system. Is the suggestion that the English system be dropped entirely?

Hi Rick,

You are wrong on this point. After several years of members complaining on this issue BPL still publishes articles with measurements in the US measuring system only, I personally think for a supposedly international magazine this is very rude and especially rude if it is a technical article with lots of charts and graphs, put simply if a technical article on BPL does not include metric conversions I do not read it.

When writing an article it is very easy to do conversions at the time and I would like to see BPL have a policy that all articles published are in both systems.

Tony

"Lets all switch over to Mandarin."

Daniel, you go first.

–B.G.–

"Lets all switch over to Mandarin."

While I like the sound of Mandarin, I would feel awful about imposing its "tonal" system onto everyone!! Chinese grammar is brain-dead easy — but the tonal pronunciation trips up almost every foreign speaker! For speaking, why not pick a language that's both easy and consistent — like Spanish?

"When writing an article it is very easy to do conversions at the time and I would like to see BPL have a policy that all articles published are in both systems."

Agree.

>…After several years of members complaining on this issue BPL still publishes articles with measurements in the US measuring system only…

At this point in time Tony, we typically leave this up to the author because going through and adding this in would be very costly in terms of time. If you see an author that writes for us regularly that only uses one measurement system, consider requesting them directly to add in the other system in their next article.

Daniel, could you add 2/3" plus 5/8" for me? let see how easy your answer is to use in real world terms.
I don't see how (1 and 7/24"s) is very easy to use.

Now try it in metric- 17mm plus 16mm = 33mm, this can be done in my head- there is no way I could do the one above in my head.

I work in the construction industry and I wish they would make the shift to metric- We would have a lot more accurately build houses.

Funny thing is- the cycling community, even on US specific websites, have no trouble listing weights in grams. Ever once in a while someone will post a bike build in lbs/oz and will be promptly chastised by the community.

The odd thing is- component weights are generally listed in grams, but complete bikes in pounds…but in decimal pounds (no oz)…

http://forums.mtbr.com/forumdisplay.php?f=49

Click on any if you wish- these people are fanatic about every gram that can be shaved and spend considerable time with their dremel tools in hand scraping away every fleck of superfluous material.
http://www.light-bikes.com/BikeGallery/

BM

Tad:

If everyone makes decisions based on logic — ours would be a wonderful world. Cultural factors and personal preferences are at play here — and no amount of logical reasoning will change that.

The only way we will change is if our government dictates it — with a definite deadline. But I don't see that happening…

"Daniel, could you add 2/3" plus 5/8" for me? let see how easy your answer is to use in real world terms.
I don't see how (1 and 7/24"s) is very easy to use.

Now try it in metric- 17mm plus 16mm = 33mm, this can be done in my head- there is no way I could do the one above in my head."

first off- using the fractional English system, you don't use fractions that aren't halves of units… no thirds, no 24ths… nope…

1/64, 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and whole…

if you need something more specific, you switch to decimal inch, which is in no way harder than the metric system. And in the mechanical engineering fields, sometimes .001" is a more useful unit than 0.0254mm.

On engineering drawings, back when I was doing all inch drawings, you only measured in inches. No feet, no yards, nothing like it… just inches, and decimal inches at that. Fractions were only used for really imprecise loose tolerance features.

But now, I'm all metric at my company, even though I still "think" in inches. It's just an easy conversion… Coincidentally, 1.6mm is darn close to 1/16". I'm currently designing very small parts, most of which aren't more than one inch in it's longest dimension, so the smaller mm is more practical.

BM

Conversion is the problem. It keeps the units foreign.

Its the same reason people struggle with learning languages. Too many try to translate back to a native language instead of learning to think and operate in the other language.

Nobody will ever gain an understanding for what a kilogram is, if they keep mentally thinking of it in terms of pounds.

All I can say is Addie threatens me with a pounding to remember if I don't remember to do the conversions in my articles. I want to stay on her good side. Will and Roger likewise do so (Roger performing the reverse somersault to backconvert from metric). [edit: Ray too.] They must comprise a good proportion of the reviews.

Cheers,

Rick

The way to learn is to repeat the old saying:

A pint's a pound the world around.

This refers to the weight of a pint of water being about one pound.

How is that in metric so that it rhymes?

–B.G.–

A liter is a kilogram, in any place that's worth a d*mn. (Wow, BPL profanity filter is strict!)

>At this point in time Tony, we typically leave this up to the author because going through and adding this in would be very costly in terms of time.

Hi Sam,

I do understand that it would be very costly in terms of time for the BPL editing staff to add metric to an article but it would also be very easy to make it compulsory for every article submitted to BPL, that to get published the author has to include the metric conversions. I will also point out that most regular BPL authors already do.

>If you see an author that writes for us regularly that only uses one measurement system, consider requesting them directly to add in the other system in their next article.

More than happy to write to non complying authors.

Sometime ago in a open post to Ryan Jordan I requested that all BPL articles include both metric and US measuring systems, this appeared to be totally ignored.

Tony