[geeks] RE: [SunRescue] OT: CA: It's Our Turn

[geeks at sunhelp.org]

reedc at cc.wwu.edu writes:

>At the risk of starting a metric/Imperial holy war, I respectfully
>disagree. :)  I think the Imperial system of measurement is about as
>braindead as they come.  Example: 1 mi = 5280 ft; why not 5000 or 1000?  I
>know there are historical reasons for how the imperial system is set up,
>but that's not my point.  We use a decimal number system (i.e based on
>10), the metric system is also decimal based (i.e. 1 m = 1000 mm = .001
>km).  That makes it trivial to convert between quantities of the same
>measure (divide by 10, multiply by 100, etc.).  The metric system also has
>a far greater range (like exameter or nanometer) than the imperial
>system.  Overall it seems like a much more natural measurement system
>(which it was designed to be).  Granted, as you say it's difficult to
>separate quantities by halves or fourths and get a nice simple "integer
>unit", but if the processing power is there to convert between metric and

The correct solution to that is to switch from base ten to a nice power
of two, like base eight, *then* go "metric".

In base eight:

1/2	0.4
1/4	0.2
1/8	0.1
1/16	0.04
1/32	0.02

etc.

Of course if cavemen had used their thumbs for parity bits as god
intended, we wouldn't be in this mess.

-- david fischer -- dave at cca.org -- www.cca.org -- Cthulhu told me to. --