Ok, posts split off. Continue the argy-bargy here.
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To celebrate splitting of this thread: FPS is a unit of screen refresh rate, and as far as I know it can indeed be sluggish.
Even towards old age, the level of db))) And in general, everything falls)) not only fps))
using metric and imperial in parallel is all fine and good until one side assumes the other one used imperial, they actually used metric and as a result a million dollar spacecraft crashes 
Look up decimal time.
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Yes, because we have to. But that is a problem. It would make things a lot easier when everything would be on a metric grid. You could place all traces at a grid of 200µm, use, for example, a track width of 200µm and a gap of 200µm. You can be sure you can fit exactly N tracks between 2 pads, of 2 different components or the same component, and fill the space as efficient as mathematically possible given the clearance and track width.
Look face it, both systems for dimensions in electronics will be in use for as long as the machinery and products are around, and metric will slowly gain prominence.
Yes. I am worried that we hold longer to non-metric stuff when people choose to do so. That is why i ask others to choose metric whenever possible. So that we can use only a single unit system as soon as possible (this will take decades).
Well, they don’t that is the point. You may know the earlier linked video here: A Guide to Imperial Measurements with Matt Parker | Earth Lab - YouTube ?
An inch has never been defined as three barley corns.
An inch has never been defined as three barley corns.
One of the earliest such definitions is that of 1324, where the legal definition of the inch was set out in a statute of Edward II of England, defining it as “three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end, lengthwise”
When I was a child in 1st grade I learned to show a date as month, day, year and that is the way that most web forms want it today.
I grew up using dd.mm.aaaa But i switched to ISO8601, AAAA-MM-DD, because it makes a lot more sense (It sorts correctly, it is more consisted with all the other values we write big-endian and it is clear which is the month and which is the year).
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Disagree on the first, it would really help a lot. Well it isn’t necessary as Computers and Cars are not necessary, but the world is completely different if you have them.
I think we (people in Switzerland) speaking English will be a lot sooner than using metric everywhere, which is sad. It isn’t that uncommon to speak English here (i do it more than speaking German)
Let me tell you about my friend, a keen cyclist. He’s convinced that if everybody switched to cycling then society would hugely reduce its carbon footprint. I’ve explained to him that as a citizen of a first-world country, he incurs a significant carbon footprint to keep him alive and comfortable. All those trucks or trains carrying his food. All those factories making things for a comfortable life. The schools and hospitals and other public services. The power that goes into space heating/cooling, hot showers, washer, etc.
Another friend of mine has been pestering me to listen more to his favourite singer. He’s good, but I like variety. Oh, and years ago he tried to interest me in Esperanto.
I don’t know about you, but this is far far down in my list of concerns. I only make stuff for my own enjoyment. I don’t affect any decisions on the shop floor. Probably the world will be metric next century, if civilisation lasts that long. After all the world converged on many other standards.
Oh well I guess we each are entitled to one harmless fanaticism.
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I think you mean perfboard.
“Veroboard” is also used, but it’s a name from a manufacturer. “matrixboard” “protoboard”… maybe a few other names too.
Inches are a quite annoying PITA, and they are an ongoing waste of effort, time and money.
Just this one was USD317 wasted down the drain:
I also do some mechanical engineering every now and then (and always use metric here in the Netherlands) but via youtube the “inches” are being used more often then I’d like, and I feel pity for those americans using them. In america a “thou” is bigger then a “tenth”. drills are sold in “fractional inches”, “decimal inches”, some weird numbering system and also metric drills, and there are big tables to convert between them, which wastes a few seconds each time any of the millions or so or engineers uses them, or has to think about it for conversion. Stores have much more inventory because of this.
And in electronics it’s also annoying. It’s nice that 2.54mm IC’s easily fit on perfboard, ant that’s not a biggie. It becomes more problematic when the same brand and type of connectors can be bought with a pitch of 5mm and with a pitch of 5.08mm. Those do mate with each other with two or maybe three pins, but with 10 pins they just don’t match. Same for some IC packages. Some SMT IC’s have a pitch of 0.6mm, others may have 0.65 or 0.635mm, and you need different footprints for them all. It’s an ongoing waste of effort to have to check such things for each and every project.
How many people have ordered 0201 resistors, and then got 0201 metric (Which are ridiculously tiny)
And all those small things do add up. I would not be supprised if the total cost of this silly ongoing ussue costs billions of USD each year, but the cost is mostly hidden.
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OT still
When the French decided to measure the meridian there were problems with units everywhere.
Every s demall village had its own pound for weigh, its own yard ( or whatever name in each country) for lenght and so on.
After measuring the meridian they also discovered that the surface of the Earth was not a perfect sphere, so not all the meridians are equal.
In my region we have the “cart” for measuring area. The surface left after filling a cart with the grass cut from that surface. We have 102 counties and 102 different carts. Fortunately nowadays we use metres.
This definition of the meter is indeed ludicrous compared to the precision of the original definition of the yard.
From Wikipedia:
William of Malmesbury’s Deeds of the Kings of England records that during the reign of Henry I (1100 - 1135), “the measure of his arm was applied to correct the false ell of the traders and enjoined on all throughout England.”[16]
The Celsius scale defines 0 and 100 as the freezing and boiling of water. It is not related to meters, seconds and Ampere. The metric system would work fine with any temperature scale.
Now what is so special about freezing and boiling water?
The Fahrenheit scale is much more convenient: 0 degrees is very, very cold, 100 degrees is very, very hot and 70 is nice. Perfect.
The imperial units are completely daft, but Fahrenheit is better than Celsius.
Hence my proposal: The only remaining holdouts on imperial are the US, Liberia and Myanmar. It is in their interest to adopt metric, but you cannot sell this to the American public. God forbid to adopt an overseas system, worse, a French system. The US is the shining city on the hill. To make it politically palatable to go metric, the metric system takes on Fahrenheit. The transition can then be sold as a compromise. And we metric people are not worse off. Ha! (-:
That’s a good start, and I would add this. “Inch” is a better word than “millimeter”, in that it comes more readily to the tongue. Similarly, “mile” is better than “kilometer” and “pound” better than “kilogram”. Also, the sameness of the prefixes, and similar sound of “meter” and “liter” can cause confusion. Where does the accent go? Does it end in -er or -re? And so on. I would petition the ISO and USMA to invent single-syllable, easily pronounced, unambiguous synonyms for the most popularly used metric units. “Klick” is already used in certain vernaculars for “kilometer”, so there’s a precedent. It might be the last obstacle to surmount.
Single syllables for commonly used words? I think regular users will use contractions?
Well, it’s been 200 years, and they haven’t come up with any yet that I know of, except “klick.”
It seems at least from this foreign country horizon, that the single syllable thing is an american phenomenon. In many other parts of the world, including here, we are not quite that afraid of longer words (like two or three syllables, or - horror - four). Even names can be more than just Pat or Pitt or Bob or Chuck…
Some use mil for millimetre, that would be fun when done in electronic and working with others. Maybe we should use that?
In UK they say they drive on the right side of the road
They may thinks so themselves but they definately do drive on the wrong side of the road. But after Brexit they have become pretty much irrelevant anyway.
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