Random thoughts

I thought exactly the same.  Must be a good way to get rid of the people you hate though... just call them liars. 
 
What the fuck is a mile?  Seriously.  I'm sitting here, reading the US system of measurement, and I am saying to myself...what the fuck is a mile?

A mile is....10 furlongs.
A mile is....80 chains.
A mile is....320 rods.
A mile is....1760 yards.
A mile is....5280 feet.
A mile is....8000 links.
A mile is....63360 inches.

Right?  Wrong.
According the the US Government, 1 mile is.....1.609347 kilometres.

That's right.  Miles are measured, officially, in kilometres.  In fact, all US measurements are officially measured in metric.  Why the hell isn't the US moving to metric already?  I'm not saying throw out miles, but not teaching metric from day one in school does a serious disservice to anyone interested in going into science in the USA.  There's an actual barrier that exists there - modern science can't move in US Customary.

I understand what a mile is, and what a pound is, and what a foot is.  I get it, I grew up with it and metric, and one makes a hell of a lot of sense, and the other is completely useless for anything other than convenience.  And when you are used to what a km is, it is just as convenient as a mile.  The rest of the world switched decades ago, and the US should catch up to the modern world.
 
Jimmy Carter had tried to make us convert to the metric system. I remember in 5th and sixth grade being taught to convert Standard Measurement into Metric. I think our teachers had a tough time with it saying it's very important we learn this because in the near future we will be only measuring in metric units. Then they said fuck it and called the teacher's union and refused to teach it because they did'nt know it themselves. I used to work in the hospital as an ED technician and all our measurments were metric. We had to convert a patients weight from pounds to kilograms and all medications are dosed in milligrams and cubic centimeters.  I don't think they use Standard Measurments in  much of the scientific comunity here. I know  metrics are used in alot of other sectors here as well. Anyone here who works on cars has a Standard and Metric set of tools. We just still measure distances in miles.It is about the convenience.
 
I struggle to imagine how a mile could be more convenient than a kilometer in any imaginable case.  If one were used to using both, then kilometers make a hell of a lot more sense.
 
I've had the impression that the US military is using the metric scale. It caused a minor sensation back in 2003, when Paul Bremer announced they caught Saddam "15 kilometres south of Tikrit".


Although I recall that one Mars mission spectacularly failed because the NASA was using Imperial Scale and everybody else used the Metric Scale, causing whatever they sent to Mars back then missing the planet by a few thousand km. I don't know what the details were, though.
 
If you want my humble opinion, I think it is the cost of replacing all the signs on the highways and interstates.  Seriously, I can see all the Fed, State and Local gov'ts just thinking the cost of replacing the "Hamilton 20" signs to be more than they are willing to fork out for.  And, if you don't change them all at the same time, you'll have some in KM and some in MI, which will really fuck up most of the very simple people.
 
I do wish that the UK would use the metric system more than we do at the moment - but we have some independent shopkeepers that have refused to display their fruit and veg in anything but lbs and ounces. I understand their reasons, but we need to move on.
 
Wasted155 said:
If you want my humble opinion, I think it is the cost of replacing all the signs on the highways and interstates.  Seriously, I can see all the Fed, State and Local gov'ts just thinking the cost of replacing the "Hamilton 20" signs to be more than they are willing to fork out for.  And, if you don't change them all at the same time, you'll have some in KM and some in MI, which will really fuck up most of the very simple people.
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Wouldn't it be a lovely make-work project for the new administration?  Putting up road signs and paying people to do that, and you could have all the road signs metal forged in Pittsburgh and have them assembled in Ohio, and ship them around the US in trucks made in Detroit.
 
That would be a great idea!

I know that there is talk of using some stimulus money in conjunction with the flood relief money, to create jobs for repairing the infrastructure in the midwest. 
 
You see, Obama doesn't want to send you a cheque for a few hundred bucks.  He wants to cut your taxes and spend the money on jobs improving infrastructure.
 
LooseCannon said:
Wouldn't it be a lovely make-work project for the new administration?  Putting up road signs and paying people to do that, and you could have all the road signs metal forged in Pittsburgh and have them assembled in Ohio, and ship them around the US in trucks made in Detroit.
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Or just have convicts do it for practically nothing...
 
I had an idea about employing homeless people to pick up litter once. You know, it helps them out and gets the streets clean. I guess that makes too much sense though.
 
D&N said:
I had an idea about employing homeless people to pick up litter once. You know, it helps them out and gets the streets clean. I guess that makes too much sense though.
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That's a noble thought, but the more you look into the problem of homelessness, most of them are mentally ill, and some are, sad to say, just lazy bums who make more money begging than with a "decent" job.

NigelTufnel said:
There was some entrepreneur who put advertisements on homeless people.
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I remember that, he got in trouble didn't he? for "using" people?
 
Onhell said:
That's a noble thought, but the more you look into the problem of homelessness, most of them are mentally ill, and some are, sad to say, just lazy bums who make more money begging than with a "decent" job.
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And some just get caught in a rut. Getting them out of this is sometimes, for them, a step in the right direction.
 
Onhell said:
I remember that, he got in trouble didn't he? for "using" people?
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Yes. He was accused of taking advantage of them, even though he was paying them. I have homeless people working for me, off the books.
 
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