Piss off, Geoffrey.
Pints under attack as Lord Howe demands metric-only UK
Lord Geoffrey Howe of Aberavon has demanded that the UK goes fully metric as soon as possible, describing the current mix of miles and kilometres and pints and litres as a "uniquely confusing shambles". Speaking yesterday in the House of Lords, the former chancellor and deputy prime minister insisted: "British weights and …
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 13:37 GMT Greg J Preece
Piss off yourself. Imperial's a right load of outdated shite people cling on to out of some misguided sense of "tradition". It's the same staring-into-the-past attitude that British people regurgitate every damn day, and it really gets on my tits. Why can't we get rid of all this old-fashioned crap and move on?
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 14:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Year Zero
"Why can't we get rid of all this old-fashioned crap and move on?"
That's what Mao and Pol Pot said and we saw how well it worked out for them.
It is absurd to change systems that work perfectly well (like selling beer in pints) just because they offend some people's OCD sense of consistency. There are much more important things to spend money and legislative time on.
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Thursday 17th May 2012 03:41 GMT veti
Re: Year Zero
Wow, 4 posts to Godwination. (Okay, technically "Mao and Pol Pot" isn't the same as "Hitler", but I argue it's close enough. Maybe the metric equivalent.)
Seriously, could you get any more ridiculous? "Metrication equals genocide" isn't even disguised as a rational argument, or even an emotive one for that matter, it's not an argument at all.
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 14:45 GMT Eponymous Cowherd
Re: Piss off yourself
A Pint is a shade over 568 ml.
If we go metric I imagine we'll follow the rest of Europe and have 500ml and 250 ml servings in place of the Pint and Half.
So we'll only be getting something like 88% of a Pint or Half.
Anyone want to bet on the prices being reduced accordingly?
No?
Didn't think so.
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Tuesday 22nd May 2012 16:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Piss off yourself
Ignorance is bliss. Where I am, we drink 3 decis (300 mls) i.e. more than half a pint, half litres and litres (more than a pint by a respectable margin).
Do you know what? The taste of the beer does not depend upon the size of the container! What's more, most beer here is stronger. Now where did I put those shillings, old pence, groats, farthings?
Grow up and learn to adapt. Even the yanks are trying - very trying sometimes.
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 15:54 GMT JEDIDIAH
People versus Lab Rats
Metric is great for the lab, kind of nonsense outside the lab.
The "modern" mindset likes to believe that any thing new is automatically good and anything old is automatically bad without stopping to consider things. The fact that traditional measurements evolved to suit the needs of people in an organic fashion is not necessarily a bad thing.
Things based on 2 and 3 are great for sub dividing and eye-balling.
More "modern" measures also demand more "modern" measuring implements to be at all usable.
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Tuesday 22nd May 2012 17:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: People versus Lab Rats
tried dividing ten by three? In decimal?
Actually, 12 is a good unit, divisible by 1,2,3,4,6 and itself. However, lacking 12 fingers or toes it is about as friendly in the long run as octal or hexadecimal. How much does a cubic pint of water weight? Now, how about a litre of water? Do you begin to get it? Imagine the savings such consistency makes when applied across a whole country and its schools and industry. It is not a waste of money to go the whole hog. It is wasteful to persist with two systems and, as a result, have children and adults who are barely competent with one and useless with the other, effecting their working and studying ability. What the Americans do is irrelevant.
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Thursday 24th May 2012 13:17 GMT Burkhard Kloss
Re: People versus Lab Rats
> Things based on 2 and 3 are great for sub dividing and eye-balling.
If you have trouble dividing metric measurements (i.e. 10s and 100s) by 2 or 3 (to a practical accuracy), then it doesn't matter whether beer's sold in pints or litres, you've had enough.
Trying to change the measurements is a complete waste of time though, since it attempts to solve a non-existent problem. Clearly we've managed to fix the political system and the economy while I was having a post-prandial nap
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Thursday 17th May 2012 12:20 GMT trog-oz
Australian managed to change all it's road signs to metric in 1970 and it's a bigger country than the UK. We have more signs as well. At a junction there isn't just a sign telling you how far to the next place (like here in the UK) but distances to all the places the road goes to. The little men did it in a long weekend too,.
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Thursday 17th May 2012 05:02 GMT Rampant Spaniel
It isn't tradition for me at least, I Just fail to see enough of a benefit to justify the cost. Especially in the current economic climate. It has been done in some situations where the cost was low, such as the sale of spirits which just required and optic change, and wine I think is sold in metric glass sizes.
To switch Beer from pints, it would mean a large switch of glasses, for what benefit? Just to unify on a single measurement. It isn't like you need a specific amount of beer (other than more), a litre isn't better, personally I would rather see beer sold by the yard! But seriously, if there is a valid reason, like in building a house as mentioned earlier, than sure, if the benefit (such as alignment with Europe for purchasing materials and setting standards) outweighs the cost of retooling I agree, but in those cases it has probably already been done.
This is just another case of an out of touch, overdue for retirement fossil wasting our time and money that would be better directed towards improving the huge ass hole we are currently in. We have wasted billions recently on aircraft carriers, planes, NHS procurement etc ad nauseum (not that we didn't need them, we were just inefficient to the point of idiocy), it's about time we got down to some basics, like making more than we spend, investing in our peoples education and health and not making dumb ass decisions that waste a fortune.
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 15:32 GMT Rampant Spaniel
Re: Agree
The US also has a similar arrangement to ours, if not even more confusing as they have 3 different gallons. Tools come in SAE (imperial in effect, but they didn't like the word imperial) and metric, they use cups instead of weight for most baking, and yet shit still gets done.
I buy my petrol in US Gallons, I don't care what the unit is, I pull the lever until the bikes full. The bike has never rejected fuel because it wasn't sold in litres. On the tools front it means owning more tools which is a bit of a pain. Milk is sold in quarts or gallons, the exact size is rather inconsequential, if I need a set amount I measure it. I don't think I've ever been bothered by it, it's just how it is and you get on with it. It's not exactly killing anyone.
The comments about the size reducing but the price remaining the same are spot on.
I was born in the uk in the 80's, I have no issues using either American or traditional imperial or metric. It's not exactly difficult to do.
Whilst I can see it would make life simpler for the hard of thinking, there are far more important issues to deal with right now and the potential for the gov't to screw this up is immense.
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 16:15 GMT Steve the Cynic
Re: Agree
Re: US units. The worst part of the US use of pints/gallons/miles/etc. is that, despite some of the units not being the same size as apparently equivalent Imperial one, a substantial fraction of Americans call them "English"*. This applies more to length than volume measures, and we have the insanity of the US fluid ounce being bigger than the Imperial one, but the pint and gallon being smaller. (Imperial pint: 20 Imp-floz, US pint: 16 US-floz). Reading /Have Spacesuit, Will Travel/ as a British teenager in Britain introduced me to the baffling assertion that "A pint's a pound the world around."...
* - well, they did in the 1980s when I lived over there.
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Thursday 17th May 2012 01:14 GMT Irony Deficient
“English” units
Steve the Cynic, the reason why a substantial fraction of Americans call US units “English” is because their definitions originally came from English statutes. The main difference between US units and Imperial units is in the measures of volume, viz the bushel (dry) and the gallon (wet), and the subsidiary units based upon these two. Our bushel remains identical to the corn bushel adopted during the reign of William III., and our gallon remains identical to the wine gallon adopted during the reign of Anne.
Our “wine pint” of water comes in at about 7300 grains (473 g or so), so it’s around 4% heavier than a pound avoirdupois. Does anyone have the specific gravity of wine handy?
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Thursday 17th May 2012 04:39 GMT Rampant Spaniel
Re: Agree
Yeah, they got pissed off with calling it english so they invented SAE (Society of American Engineers) for tools at least, but it is in essence imperial.
These days they refer to their 7 pint gallon as a US Gallon, and their other gallon as a US Dry gallon. Interesting they switched from calling it 'english', especially as they used a different size pint, quart and gallon.
I do sometimes have to remember to convert US > Imperial and back when talking with relatives. I just find it amusing that an average person can cope quite easily with 3 different systems and others find it so difficult. The funny thing is, I think I actually prefer imperial to metric in most things. Base 10 is great for maths, but for actually working with I prefer imperial.
With tools and similar things it can be important, you need to have exactly the right size spanner, but when buying milk or mince (ground beef to the salad dodgers) it doesn't really matter. The world will not be a significantly worse or better place if beer came in half litres, although we all know the price would go up and the volume would go down.
I just find it so amusing that the old fart is so out of touch with reality that in the middle of the biggest financial crisis and depression of nearly the last 100 years he wants to waste untold amounts of money changing something that frankly doesn't matter. Does a road sign being in miles actually change anything. Most if not all cars and bikes readout in both, newer vehicles can switch between the two on their lcd displays. I used to believe the house of lords was an important safety guard against a loony house of commons, now it seems more and more that they are nothing more than a hindrance and a waste of space.
There is a very strong argument to be made for a mandatory retirement age in the house of lords. Howe was born in 1926, making him approximately 86. If this is the most important thing he can come up with I think it's time he was shipped off somewhere with a carriage clock and his ridiculously large pension.
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 18:06 GMT hoboroadie
it would make life simpler for the hard of thinking
That is one of the few reasonable arguments for supporting this idea. Considering how the hard of thinking are being pandered to these days, some might suppose this issue will get some credence. The true cause, industrial efficiency, does rather raise my hackles; As a Californian Geezer, I still resent the loss of the fifth and quarter gallons of Whiskey. The metric sizes feel feminized to my hand. YMMV
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Thursday 17th May 2012 00:33 GMT AdamWill
Re: Agree
"The US also has a similar arrangement to ours, if not even more confusing as they have 3 different gallons. Tools come in SAE (imperial in effect, but they didn't like the word imperial) and metric, they use cups instead of weight for most baking, and yet shit still gets done."
With much cursing and moaning. Ask a contractor.
Better yet, ask any Canadian contractor, who has to deal with both sets of crap.
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Thursday 17th May 2012 15:44 GMT Sean Timarco Baggaley
Re: Agree
I agree with Lord Howe's basic assertion: that the UK's current system of using both Imperial and metric is just stupid. It makes far more sense to standardise. You get the benefits of much easier calculations for a start. No need to remember how many barleycorns* to the foot, for one thing. Everywhere else except the UK and the US uses the Metric system. Yes, it was popularised by the French—although first proposed by a >Briton, so you don't get to use the nationalist card.
The Imperial yard and the Metric metre are so similar, many road signs have been positioned at the equivalent distance in metres, not yards, specifically with a view to easy conversion to metric.
Nobody's suggesting replacing every existing road sign right away either: you can just slap vinyl stickers over the existing signs to update the numbers and units. Everything else stays the same. All you need is a printer who can print adhesive vinyl stickers, and those aren't particularly hard to find. They're not even all that expensive: given the quantities you'd be ordering, and the bulk discounts the printing firms would offer—there's plenty of competition too—you could probably do London's signs for about £200K or so. Not free, certainly, but it'll keep some people in gainful employment. That's quite a good thing to do during a period of recession.
Yes, you'd see a lot of signs saying "Charing Cross 1600 mt." instead of "Charing Cross 1 m", but it's still metric and the actual distance hasn't changed. It's a damned sight cheaper than the typical "Can't Do" attitude of folks here who seem to believe every single sign in the country would need to be re-sited right away for some unexplained reason.
There's nothing in UK law that requires every sign to be exactly a multiple of 1680 yards, or 1000 metres, from whatever they're pointing at. They're only there to tell you how far away something is. You can move them about later, during ordinary road maintenance cycles, when you'd have had to spend the money on replacing the signs anyway.
See? Not difficult, is it?
As for the whole "pints vs. litres" bollocks... please! If you can understand litres of petrol, why can't you understand beer sold in litres too? Instead of asking for a pint, you'd ask for a "half". Instead of asking for a half-pint, you'd ask for "a quarter". Not rocket science, is it?
And, yes, unscrupulous pub landlords and supermarkets will doubtless not drop their prices slightly to take account of the changes, but so what? Inflation and taxes will have wiped out any differences in very short order anyway; this is an utter non-argument.
There are very good reasons for switching to the Metric system. There are no good reasons whatsoever for sticking with two inconsistent systems, one of which, like Microsoft Word's file format, isn't even consistent with itself.
If you're against full metrification because of the "we manage today with the existing complexity and inconsistencies", you cannot possibly have any problem with merely having to cope with bigger numbers on some signs, and ever-so-slightly-smaller beer glasses.
The French, Germans and Italians have been using the Metric system for generations. It's not hard. It's incredibly easy. That's the whole bloody point of it!
* (British shoe sizes are still measured in Barleycorns. Presumably, the US Barleycorn is also slightly different from the British one.)
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Thursday 17th May 2012 18:20 GMT AdamWill
Re: Agree
There are, for instance, two sets of measurements for screw sizes - one metric, one imperial. When you're working on projects in NA, particularly Canada, you're quite likely to come across both. So you're going to need two sets of screws and two sets of drill bits. Which is pretty stupid. It's also pretty difficult to eyeball the difference between a 1/8" hole and a 0.4cm hole (or whatever, I didn't bother looking up the real units).
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Monday 21st May 2012 04:53 GMT Stephen Allan Swain
Re: Agree
Conversely, I hate recipes with cups and spoons - I can never get a repeatable result. Plus more washing up. My preferred way of measuring ingredients, where possible, is to add everything to a large mixing bowl using digital scales - just keep pressing the 'zero' or whatever they call it button. Also add water/milk this way (making the assumption that milk is pretty much the same density as water).
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Tuesday 22nd May 2012 17:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Agree
For American recipes you just need sugar anyway, do n't you? No other ingredients are there in sufficient quantity to matter.
I do wonder why so many contributors to a technical site concerning faintly modern technology find things such as the metric system, weighing and measuring quite so difficult. Worrying if they are in work.
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Monday 21st May 2012 13:04 GMT Fred Mbogo
Metric/Imperial Gaffe
http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/tech/9909_30_mars.metric.02_1_climate-orbiter-spacecraft-team-metric-system?_s=PM:TECH
If a NASA mission can fail because of the metrics/imperial qwango imagine how chaotic the rest of existence is.
In my country we use a mix-match of units (being a former American interest) and it sucks balls. We use liters for drinks and gallons for fuel. We use pounds for meat and kilos for veggies. We use kilometers for distance and inches for dick size. Cooking is a goddamned nightmare as our products can include weight, volume and usually, it does not match what you are trying to cook.
Kill it with fire. Its inelegant, unscientific and outdated. Conversions are a nightmare with a system that does not follow a pattern.
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 13:26 GMT Tom 38
Re: Point 57 of a litre please.
Down my shop (Tesco, Sainsbury, Morrisons, Asda, corner stores, M&S), you can buy milk in 4 metric sizes, 568ml, 1.134l, 2.268l and 3.40l.
I've never once seen a 4 litre bottle of milk in a country with the Imperial system. In the US you can get a US gallon of milk, which is 3.78l (and sold at that size).
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Wednesday 16th May 2012 13:28 GMT The Bit Wrangler
Re: Point 57 of a litre please.
"who buys milk in pints?"
We all do - those 1,2 and 4 containers are 1, 2, and 4 (plus 1/2 and 6) PINTS. Check out Tesco/Asda/whoever's websites.
I agree with your first point, though. It doesn't matter how it's measured it's the convenient (and traditional) amount that's the issue. Half a litre isn't very satisfying (despite being only 68ml less than a pint.
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