auto-unit-translator in chat

[bobvanvliet]

Hi, was racing yesterday and we were talking about how fast we took a specific corner... problem was half the people were talking metric, the others imperial. :smileypul

I think it wouldn't be too difficult to put in an auto-translator that would for instance turn "100mph" in an incoming chat message into "160kph" automatically, depending on your setting. The same would go for psi and bar.

This way everybody could talk and read in their own units without any confusion. :thumb:

[Bob Smith]

pretty handy that

good idea

[Lible]

It would be really very handy :trampolin

But if you dont have it: http://lfs-news.bluepixel.dk/ at left menu.

[Hankstar]

Yeah, it's the 21st century - what's with these non-metric wierdos anyway? Ban! Ban!

:D

[Woz]

Yeah, it's the 21st century - what's with these non-metric wierdos anyway? Ban! Ban!

:D

metric bad, imperial good :)

[X-Ter]

metric bad, imperial good :)
How is that in any way good? :)

Metric values are so easy and so precise. Metric speed, metric length, metric weight, metric volume (fluids and stuff, not how loud you play your music), metric temp... Easy as pie. Imperial meassures are confusing at best and really don't have any purpose at all these days :)

Oh and in case anyone takes this post to serious, please notice the smileys. It's all been written with a friendly smile :)

[BWX232]

PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND
was provided by Roger Scruton in The Times ("Stupidity Beyond Measure", 9/12/99): "Do weights and measures matter? Those who introduced the metric system - the French Revolutionaries - answered with an emphatic 'yes'. Weights and measures mediate our day-to-day transactions; hence they are imprinted with our sense of membership. They are symbols of the social order and distillations of our daily habits. The old measures were redolent, the Revolutionaries believed, of a hierarchical backward-looking society. They were muddled, improvised, and full of compromises. What was needed was a system expressive of the new social order, based on Reason, progress, discipline and the future. Since the decimal system is the basis of arithmetic, and since mathematics is the symbol of Reason and its cold imperatives, the decimal system must be imposed by force, in order to shake people free of their old attachments.

"The conflict of currencies therefore expressed a conflict both political and philosophical. The distinction between the imperial and the metric systems corresponds to the distinction between the reasonable and the rational, between solutions achieved through custom and compromise and those imposed by a plan. Muddled though the imperial measures may appear to those obsessed by mathematics, they are the produce of life. In ordinary transactions, measurement proceeds by dividing and multiplying, not by adding. It makes sense to divide a gallon into a half, a quart and a pint, or to have 16 ounces to the pound.

"The antiquity of these measures - like that of our old coinage, arbitrarily jettisoned in a previous fit of rationalism - is testimony to their common sense. But the most important fact about them is that they are ours. They are commemorated in our national literature and in our proverbs; they have shaped our eating and drinking habits; they are the lingua franca of all our books of recipes, all our manuals of gardening and husbandry and handicraft, and the subject matter of a thousand schoolbooks.

"The idea that we should be committing a crime by using them, and just because some foreign bureaucrat has said so, is such an offence to the sense of law and justice that we are surely under a moral obligation to go on using them nevertheless. If ever there were a case for civil disobedience, this is it.

"There is another and deeper reason to resist these mad imperatives. The French Revolutionaries believed that by changing weights and measures, calendars and festivals, street-names and landmarks, they could undermine the old and local attachments of the people, so as to conscript them behind their international purpose. The eventual result was Napoleon, who spread the metric system by force across the Continent. In a small way the same is being done to us. The effect of destroying our weights and measures will be not only to undermine the old local loyalties between shopkeeper and customer. It will be to destroy the small businesses that cannot afford the change. And we should ask who would really want such a result.

"The answer, it seems to me, is clear. The supermarkets are international players, who have a vested interest in the metric system, since it is applied in most of the countries from which they import their products. If the measures on which old and local businesses depend are criminalised, the supermarkets will score yet another advantage in their war on behalf of the global government that will do most for their profits. Is that what we want? Surely, it would have been nice of our dictators to ask us, before commanding us to change."

THE ADVANTAGES OF EACH SYSTEM
Metric is good for very small weights and measures. It has been legal in Britain for over a hundred years - since 1897. Every business that wanted to go metric has been free to do so. If metric was more profitable, all traders would have converted long ago. Now the EU, and the Government, is compelling everybody to go metric, whether they like it or not. This is an attack on freedom of choice and freedom of speech.

Imperial is best for larger measures. This is because imperial measurements are easily visualised. For example, an inch (half a thumb) a foot, a yard (length of an average pace). Imperial units are comfortable units. A pound can be held in the hand. A kilo is too heavy. A pint can be held in the hand. It's impractical to hold a litre!

Metric is often impractical for larger measures. Metric units are not so easily visualised. Recently, I tried to buy an ironing board from a catalogue. The measurement was 925mm. Can anyone imagine 925 tiny millimetres laid end to end? It's easier to imagine it as a little over 3 feet. As Scruton implies, dividing down by halves makes sense. It's easy to divide a cake into 12 equal slices but try dividing it into 10.

Metric has robbed people of their sense of value. Few people realise that petrol is over £3 a gallon because the change to litres means that many people can no longer relate quantity to price. Similarly with food: A tin of beans used to be 1lb. That's 453g. Since cans started being measured in grams, products have been deliberately made smaller. That's called "product shrinkage". A can of beans is now 415g, although many people still think it's 1lb. Many people think the carton of milk represents a pint. It's not. It's 68 millilitres - 12% - less than a pint. Vivian Linacre calls this The Great Gram Scam.

Both systems are useful but metric should not be imposed. People are being forbidden from using imperial only, and compelled to use metric. This is totalitarian legislation representing a deliberate intent to obliterate a distinct culture.
http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/articles/metric.html

[Bob Smith]

Interesting. There are certainly merits to each system. Imperial is horrible to do calculations with, if I want something in an imperial unit I always do the calculation in metric and convert at the end.

[Hankstar]

Interesting argument, but doesn't really apply everywhere. Anyone around my age, or a bit older, in Australia knows nothing but metric. Since we've grown up with base-10 everything, we know what a metre looks like and what a kilo feels like. We know a standard glass of beer is 285 millilitres (around half a pint). We also love seeing the little red needle climb towards 200 km/h :D I do have an understanding of imperial measurements though, since my parents were one of the last generations in my country to be taught the old imperial system. I still tell people I'm 5 feet 9 and not 174cm or whatever I am :) I also decribe things as being a few feet or inches wide or long or whatever, and I drink pints. Lots of pints.
But with decimal money and metric measures, calculations are quick and painless. What makes more logical sense - four farthings in a penny, twelve pence in a shilling, twenty shillings in a pound, twenty-one shillings in a guinea or: One hundred cents in a dollar? 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 22 yards in one chain, god knows how many chains in a mile or: 10 millimetres in a centimetre, 100 cm in a metre, 1000m in a kilometre?

But I do use the imperial measurements when driving in GPL - but only because it's historically accurate :) Australia wasn't using metric in 1967 (although they had converted from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents the year before).

And who said it's impractical to hold a litre in one hand? Ever been to a Schutzenfest beer tent? :D

[detail]

Imperial units are comfortable units. A pound can be held in the hand. A kilo is too heavy. A pint can be held in the hand. It's impractical to hold a litre!
OMG, what a creative guy, how long did it take him to invent such crazy advantage?!
Metric has robbed people of their sense of value. Few people realise that petrol is over £3 a gallon because the change to litres means that many people can no longer relate quantity to price. Similarly with food: A tin of beans used to be 1lb. That's 453g. Since cans started being measured in grams, products have been deliberately made smaller. That's called "product shrinkage". A can of beans is now 415g, although many people still think it's 1lb. Many people think the carton of milk represents a pint. It's not. It's 68 millilitres - 12% - less than a pint. Vivian Linacre calls this The Great Gram Scam.
If i get to an imperial country, i'll get "3 feet" instead of 1 meter, but 3 feet is 10% less! It's just deceiving! BTW, in Russia everybody drinks half-litre of vodka. If a man can drink 1 bottle, and you give him a pint instead, he can throw up or even die! The same with 0.5L of beer. Hence, Englishmen were overdozing alcoholics nation for ages.

Well, these arguments are just mixing problems, shifting them off from a sick mind to a health one. It is only a commercial deceiving, not a problem of measurement system. The same problem exists here: people think that a pack of butter is 200 grams (as it always used to be in the SU), but now to reduce price by 1 rouble some producers decrease the amount to 185 grams. Not a problem of a measurement system.

[Misko]

So how long is a mile? I never knew that. I mean how it is defined, how many yards?

[detail]

So how long is a mile? I never knew that. I mean how it is defined, how many yards?
I'm also interested how can it be measured with human body.

[TagForce]

So how long is a mile? I never knew that. I mean how it is defined, how many yards?

1 mile =
1760 yards =
5,280 feet =
63,360 Inches.

;)

Personally I use metric in road racing games, and imperial in Oval racing games (ie NASCAR), just because it's easier that way.

[Takumi_Project.d]

1 mile =
1760 yards =
5,280 feet =
63,360 Inches.

;)

what a smashing set of measurements that is! i have only known metric all my life... but if you compare...

1 kilometer =
1000 meters =
100,000 centimeters =
10,000,000 millimeters.

IMO one makes sense with rhythm and the other is random. one of those debates that will never go away - too many people are set in their ways with their own systems :D

[Misko]

1 mile = 1760 yards = 5,280 feet = 63,360 Inches.
And who and why and when came up with such a ridiculous number? ;) Ok sorry, I will search myself, no need to answer. But I would bet 90% of people using imperial measures don't know that. :)

[tristancliffe]

12 is a more powerful numebr than 10!

Compare
Imperial
Whole = 12
Half = 6
Third = 4
Quater = 3
Sixth = 2
Twelve = 1

Metric
Whole = 10
Half = 5
Third = 3.33333333333333333333333
Quater = 2.5
Sixth = 1.6666666666666666666666666666666
Twelve = 0.833333333333333333333333333333333

Which of those is nicer numbers to work with in the field, as it were?

At the end of the day they both have their merits. Anyone who refuses to see the merits of either is a fool, and should be ignored. I personally do not find either system confusing. It's much easier to look at a gap and say that's an eighth of an inch rather than, oohhh, about 3 or 4 millimeters. Also, the metric system is no more precise, but you just have to use different units. thou is more accurate than millimeters, and millions of an inch are more accurate that microns (thousandths of a millimeter).

But as it's what you get used to (and I'm lucky enough to be used to both) then this discussion is a bit silly. We are only interested in mph to km/h, and as such it's NOT A HARD CONVERSION. I don't think LFS should have a built in converter. Use it to practice your maths. Not only will it make you cleverer, but it's excercise for the brain, is useful in MANY situations, and will, to some extend, make you more employable. The lazy syndrome that is sweeping the human race is NOT a good thing.

[tristancliffe]

And who and why and when came up with such a ridiculous number? ;) Ok sorry, I will search myself, no need to answer. But I would bet 90% of people using imperial measures don't know that. :)

The mile. It originated in the Roman mille passuum, a thousand paces, or more precisely, a thousand strides. Each pace consisted of five Roman feet, giving us a mile of 5,000 feet. Since the Roman foot (the pes) was smaller than today's foot, the Roman mile was about nine-tenths the length of our mile. It is also made up of 8 furlongs. A furlong (the length a work animal could pull a plough before having a rest) is 40 rods, each of 16 feet. This gives rise to the current figure of 5,280 feet to a mile.

Yet again the metric system shows it's basis on everyday life. The metric system, however useful will forever remain simply arbitrary...

[Blackout]

12 is a more powerful numebr than 10!

Compare
Imperial
Whole = 12
Half = 6
Third = 4
Quater = 3
Sixth = 2
Twelve = 1

Metric
Whole = 10
Half = 5
Third = 3.33333333333333333333333
Quater = 2.5
Sixth = 1.6666666666666666666666666666666
Twelve = 0.833333333333333333333333333333333

No tristan, than comparison in not fair, metric units arent just used like inces, like 1/12 ". And why on earth I should know whats 1/12 of 10 cm? If something is 0.833... cm it is that and not 1/12 from 10, just seems like thinking of imperial person.

[BWX232]

And who and why and when came up with such a ridiculous number? ;) Ok sorry, I will search myself, no need to answer. But I would bet 90% of people using imperial measures don't know that. :)

Yeah and 12 months, 365 days in a year, 7 days in a week, 24 hrs in a day.. What kind of nutty numbers are those?? :razz:

Oh, forget 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour! that is crazy, we should use "metric time".. something based on 10 would be easier..... :really:

Not..

[Hankstar]

Tristan, I think any system of measurement is arbitrary, not just metric. Surely Roman feet or strides weren't all exactly the same length. Clearly one animal may be able to pull for longer than another. Someone (or some people) decided on a particular length for each measurement. That they were based on people's lives makes them no less arbitrary - epecially as people in other parts of the world (i.e. not Rome) had different animals, may have been bigger or smaller or not even bothered measuring things. It just happened that the Romans took over most of the known world and therefore their methods spread the furthest. Although I think the Arabs had the last laugh with their base 10 being the preferred method for money, maths etc.

It's really just the graduations that make metric convenient and easier to work with, not the measurements themselves (although there's probably a good explanation somewhere as to why a centimetre is .. well, a centimetre long).
Besides, it's faster to say "9 millimetres" than "11 sixteenths of an inch". Base 10 just makes sense - we all have 10 fingers, we just go from there :)

Whaddya know, the wiki knows all :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI

Quote: "one metre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre) was originally defined to be equal to 1/10 000 000th of the distance from the pole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_pole) to the equator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equator) along the meridian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_%28geography%29) through Paris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris)."
Completely arbitrary, but no more than some tired cow :D And you'd think the distance from the pole to the equator would be constant, regardless of which meridian you travel down..

[Bruce314]

Metric time has also been created during French Revolution :
Today is "7 Fructidor de l'an 213 de la Révolution". Each month has 30 days, and there are special "out of month" day to go to 365. For example, the 19th of Sept is "Jour du Travail" (Workers day)

Should have a look at wikipedia.org to find more on the subject
By the way, emacs' calendar knows about French Revolution Calender ;-)

Another pb with imperial units is their non-standardness : an US gallon is not the same size a UK gallon, a nautic mile is not the same length as a terrester one... Too confusing for people who have always used the simple metric system!

By the way, definition of the meter was from the size of the Earth (can't remember the exact definition). It was later more precisely defined from speed of light.

[Hankstar]

This has turned into quite a discussion! Props to the OP :D

[Bruce314]

Well, we do both edit too quick ;-)

[BWX232]

Besides, it's faster to say "9 millimetres" than "11 sixteenths of an inch". Base 10 just makes sense - we all have 10 fingers, we just go from there :)


LOL- yes that is a good point. Of course I like the saying, God gave us our brain for counting, not our fingers. :tilt:

[Bruce314]

I usually count to 1024 on my fingers... Who said I was a geek? Definitively, I'm NOT :-p

[tristancliffe]

The meter was a division of the distance between the north pole and the equator I think, and the centimeter is just a division of that.

Yes one horse might pull longer than another, and one persons stride is longer than another. But it's an average, and this average was taken as a datum stride, or a yard.

Metric is much more arbitrary than metric, and I KNOW BOTH HAVE PROS AND CONS. I can work happily all day with either/or. I'm just trying to put in an argument for Imperial, as 99% of people are only brought up with metric, and can't think in imperial.

My point with the units dividing is that in real life you often DO want to know fractions of the dimension.

And no-one says "Eleven Sixteenths of an Inch". You'd just say "Eleven Sixteenths", which takes the same time to say as 17.5 millimeters (to one decimal place).

What annoys me most is not that people prefer one system or the other. Thats obvious, because people use what they are brought up with. What REALLY irritates is when people don't consider the merits of the other system with serious thought. From what I can gather most people look at metric and just tear it to threads without knowing anything about it. That's not fair. I could take the mickey out of all of you without knowing anything about you, but that wouldn't be fair as I don't know you.

All I am asking is give the discussion of both systems a chance. Metric is more widely used world-wide now, but that doesn't make it better!!! Belgium state we are not allowed bananas with more than 5mm bend per 5cm (or something), but that doesn't make them better. Look beyond the usage, and look at the facts behind it.

People say they don't know where imperial came from, and it's silly lengths so it must be rubbish. But then they post saying they don't know what a meter is either. So surely, that makes both just as silly as each other? Neither is more valid than the other, neither is 'better' than the other. One is sometimes more suitable for certain situations. Both have a right to exist. Using both makes my life easier, and if more people learnt how and when to use the imperial system as well, then they might reap the same benefits from it that I do.

[tristancliffe]

And you'd think the distance from the pole to the equator would be constant, regardless of which meridian you travel down..

The earth is not perfectly spherical, so there are differences in length down different meridians.

[Blackout]

Funny, the inch hasnt got any real standard like metre, (equal to the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum during the time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second) that meridian defenition of metre was based to calculations and estimations many hundred years ago, by the french, and they did make a standard metre which was somekind of piece of railroad rail. To create 1 inch you actually need metric: "The international inch is defined in terms of the metric system of units to be exactly 25.4 mm"...someone offcourse could say that you need 1 inch to make 25,4 mm...

But what is inch? How did it born? Something to do with human bodyparts?

[BWX232]

But what is inch? How did it born? Something to do with human bodyparts?

Probably the human foot wouldn't you think?... when someone says something is "inching" along.. What does that mean?



The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly equal to 299,792,458 meters per second -approximately 186,282.4 miles per second.. 11,802,852,864.000001 inches per second... One no more accurate than the other in expressing the speed of light.

[Bob Smith]

But what is inch? How did it born? Something to do with human bodyparts?
Quiet you. :p

OK, one thing that irritates me is the 30 day month thing. If you say the month is 4 weeks (much simpler), then you simply have 13 months in a year, since 28 * 13 = 364. Then only one month needs be a day longer, and everything is simpler. I think it was originally like that but millennia ago somebody decided 12 months was "much better", and we've all been using this messed up system since.

Ah, this whole thread makes me feel geeky. :)

[BWX232]

It's the leap year man.

Year 2008 is the next leap year, with 29 days in February. February 2008 has five Fridays - it starts and ends on a Friday. Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with same day of week for each date repeat every 28 years which means that the last time February had 5 Fridays was in 1980 and next time will be in 2036.


A leap year is a year with one extra day inserted into February, the leap year is 366 days with 29 days in February as opposed to the normal 28 days. (There are a few past exceptions to this)
Which years are leap years?
In the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar used by most modern countries, the following rules decides which years are leap years:

Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year.
But every year divisible by 100 is NOT a leap year
Unless the year is also divisible by 400, then it is still a leap year.
This means that year 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years, while year 2000 and 2400 are leap years.

This actually means year 2000 is kind of special, as it is the first time the third rule is used in many parts of the world.

In the old Julian Calendar, there was only one rule: Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year. This calendar was used before the Gregorian calendar was adopted.

Why are leap years needed?
Leap years are needed so that the calendar is in alignment with the earth's motion around the sun.
Details


The mean time between two successive vernal equinoxes is called a tropical year, and it is about 365.2422 days long. This means that it takes 365.2422 days for the earth to make one revolution around the sun (the time is takes to orbit the sun).

Using a calendar with 365 days would result in an error of 0.2422 days or almost 6 hours per year. After 100 years, this calendar would be more than 24 days ahead of the seasons (tropical year), which is not a desirable situation. It is desirable to align the calendar with the seasons, and make the difference as small as possible.

By adding leap years approximately every 4th year, this difference between the calendar and the seasons can be reduced significantly, and the calendar will follow the seasons much more closely than without leap years.

(One day is here used in the sense of "mean solar day", which is the mean time between two transits of the sun across the meridian of the observer.)

Is there a perfect calendar?
None of the calendars used today are perfect, they go wrong by seconds, minutes, hours or days every year. To make a calendar even better, new leap year rules have to be introduced, complicating the calculation of the calendar even more. The currently used Gregorian calendar may need some modification a few thousand years ahead. A tropical year is approximately 365.242199 days, but it varies from year to year, because of influence by the other planets.


The Gregorian calendar has a 400 year long cycle and the calendars have the same week days -- February 29, 2008 is a Friday and February 29, 2408 is a Friday.
The Gregorian calendar has 97 leap years during those 400 years.
The longest time between two leap years is 8 years. Last time was between 1896 and 1904. The next time will be between 2096 and 2104.

http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leapyear.html

[tristancliffe]

But what is inch? How did it born? Something to do with human bodyparts?

The inch is the AVERAGE length between the tip of a thumb and the first knuckle on that thumb. It just so happens that ON AVERAGE this length is 1/12th of an average foot. And it just so happens that both the average stride (of someone many many many years ago) and the length between your nose and the tips of your fingers on an outstreched hand.

Crazy really, but it confirms that the origins of the system are based on either the human body or human lifestyles. Not silly things like the distance between random points on an imperfect sphere :P

[ColeusRattus]

Crazy really, but it confirms that the origins of the system are based on either the human body or human lifestyles. Not silly things like the distance between random points on an imperfect sphere :P

Now we get to a philosophical level :D

I think, that the "distance between random points" is more "lifelike" than those originating out of the body or lifestiles.
That's because those measurements are based on "average" lengths and so on. Now, if we regard that "average" closely, we will find that there can not possibly be anything which would be more artificial: nothing is "average" by nature. You get the "average" by adding up every length and then divide them through the number of lengths.

So, lets take an "inch" which is the last bit of you thumb. If we would add the length of the thumbs of all people in this forum and then divide the result through the number of thumbs, we would propably get an inch as a rsult. But still the chance that there is one single person here, who's tip of the thumb is exactly the length of an inch, is approximately zero. Thats why the length of an "average" thumb is something very artificial.
Also, it is not the true "average length of a thumb". If it was, with every chilld born and every deceased person, the average would have to be recalculated. Thats why the length of an "inch" is just as random as any other number.

A meter though, is definded by the very distance between the north pole and the equator if you would go in a straight line with a route through paris.
No matter how many thumbs one has, or how many meridians there are, or how large strides you make, a meter is still the same length.

[Blackout]

The inch is the AVERAGE length between the tip of a thumb and the first knuckle on that thumb.

I was thinking something like that, wasnt sure...

edit: Northpole and Paris arent random points :razz:

[ColeusRattus]

edit: Northpole and Paris arent random points :razz:

Well, Paris IS in fact a random point. But both the equator and the pole are not.
The pole is (depeonds on which kind of pole) a point of the turning axis of our planet, and the equator is exactly at half the distance between both poles.

On a perfect sphere, it wouldn't even matter wheer you'd go from pole to equator, because it would be the same distance. Our world thoug is not perfect, thats why we need a third (random) coordinate to fix the distance.

[Hankstar]

The earth is not perfectly spherical, so there are differences in length down different meridians.

They didn't know that in the 18th century :) People were still getting their heads around the Earth not being the centre of the universe..

I really don't think metric measurements are any more or less arbitrary than imperial ones. The distance between knuckles, the length of a stride or the distance from the equator to the North Pole .. it really makes little difference, as you're doing the same thing for the same reason: choosing a common reference point in order to establish a system of quantifying the universe that everyone can use.

I certainly don't wish to assault the imperial scale, as I said before I use it frequently: talking to old people, describing heights/lengths, playing GPL, propping up bars .. :)

[X-Ter]

Yeah and 12 months, 365 days in a year, 7 days in a week, 24 hrs in a day.. What kind of nutty numbers are those?? :razz:

Oh, forget 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour! that is crazy, we should use "metric time".. something based on 10 would be easier..... :really:

Not..
Metric time does exist and is pretty cool if you ask me. It's brought to you by Swatch (http://www.swatch.com). I've been using it over at SCORE the last year cause it's an easy way to overcome the difficulty of timezones. Metric time or "Internet Time" works and is the same all over the world, no matter what :)

[tristancliffe]

They didn't know that in the 18th century :) People were still getting their heads around the Earth not being the centre of the universe.


That may apply to the 'common man', but sailors knew, dispite what what the stories claim, that the Earth was round for hundreds of years before that.

The point of the imperial system makes it easy for everyday estimation, and with th aid of measuring equipment, just as accurate and easy to work with (once you're used to it) as metric. Say someone hands you a book (and pretend you'd never heard of either system). Rather than using a length based on the pole-equator distance, you'd use part of your body to 'measure' it. That's the beauty of imperial. If you want to measure a room, but don't have a tape measure, then pace it. Not small paces, or artificially large ones, but natural paces (compensate if you are really tall or short). Chances are your pace is within 10% of a yard, and hence the room measurements will be close enough to order your carpet/bed/curtains etc.

[BWX232]

http://www.swissarmy.com/Watches/Product.htm?category=originalsai&product=24220&

http://www.swissarmy.com/images/ProductCatalog/sa_24220_sol_a02.jpg

Hehe- I will stick to my watch..

[Turbo Dad]

In this age of global communities, more useful than a unit translator ,would be a language translator. There are often several different languages spoken here on a server, and if these could be displayed in your relevant language (correctly) communication would be much easier.
and I apologize in advance for being ignorant , as I only speak English, and I find most other nationalities have a grasp of a least 2 different languages