29 Jun
2007
29 Jun
'07
1:46 p.m.
On Friday 29 June 2007, Liam Proven wrote:
A slug is the Imperial unit of mass, the equivalent of a (kilo)gram, but
in English units. (Pounds are the English equivalent of Newtons.)
On 27/06/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com>
wrote:
:
No, the problem isn't the number "14", it's the relative size of the
number. 1 stone is a large difference in weight between people,
compared to a pound.
The problem with stone is that the least
significant digit increments only one for every 14 lbs.
Well, that's a problem with all Imperial units; they increment modulo
some random number. I'm just glad they're all integers. I don't see
why it makes stones any less use? I don't
know if NASA still uses slugs to measure mass, but it
certainly did as late as the 1990s.
WTF is a slug in this context? Apart from nationalism and inertia, I don't
understand why anyone
prefers Imperial, myself. I only use it for a few things out of
habit; I'm perfect comfortable thinking of myself as 1m88 and
103.5kg, but when someone says they're 1m56 tall, I have to convert
to work out what that means. :?) It's most annoying.
People don't want to be bothered to convert their recipes into units of
kilograms and liters, among other excuses. The power of resistance to
change should seem especially obvious to anyone that reads this mailing
list. :)
Pat
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