OT: Why the US will never go metric....

I am closer to God than an incompetent "personal assessment dumbfuck" like you could ever be. That is what gets your goat too.

The modern 'carat', is the metric carat, and that was adopted by the entire globe (practically), in 1907.

You are confusing the unit of weight with the unit of mass adopted by the gemological societies of the world.

The word is rooted in Arabia, so you got that wrong as well, Johnny.

--
Yes, John, but, "and diamonds come in carats." is present tense, and
what's used to determine the mass of a diamond , these days, is
metric.

From near the beginning of your reference:

"The current definition, sometimes known as the metric carat, was
adopted in 1907 at the Fourth General Conference on Weights and
Measures, and soon afterwards in many countries around the world."

And from Note 1, 

"^The United States adopted the metric carat definition on July 1,
1913, the United Kingdom on 1 April 1914."

Ruh roh, rahs roh!

Well, you seem to be the only one having particular trouble with the system here.

In the USA, when I order a "pint", I expect one 16 oz. pint, not some arbirtary number of some arbitrary units whose only basis in reality is

1/10,000,000 the distance from the equator to the pole.

And if you can't handle it, just order stuff in ml or kg or whatever, but obsessing about how everybody else in the world is wrong doesn't strike me as a particularly effective way of winning friends. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Well, mass isn't weight either, but people use them interchangeably. So there are two different words, depending on whether the load is being twisted, but you certainly can't have torque without any force! =3D:-O

Thanks, Rich

That still seems to be how most people measure body weight (if you ask someone their weight in pounds, they'll mentally multiply by 14). I don't know of anything else which is measured in stone(s)[1].

[1] The "s" is seldom used; for some reason, the adjective form is always used: "How much do you weigh? Twelve stone."

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:56:07 -0700, John Larkin wibbled:

Yep - or at least those of us who are old farts ;->

Don't you?

--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

"Weight" isn't clear. Often it means mass. Mass (kg) and force (newtons) are formal SI things; "weight" isn't.

Torque is measured in newton-meters.

John

So I could weigh 12 stone on Monday, stuff myself with burgers and cheesecake all week, and maybe still weigh 12 stone on Friday. That's great.

John

Maybe I could get a NFB grant to make a film called "The

12 Stone Angel", eh?

Good books about stone angels:

Angel with the Sword, by C J Cherryh

The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt

John

Maybe I should have said 'A bunch of rabid beavers?' ;-)

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

No, because the inch is defined as being 25.4mm. The metric measure is not a derivative of the English.

Imperial units are defined using the metric system. Does that mean that the US uses the metric system?

AlwaysWrong is *always* so wrong. I no longer drink alcohol so I likely couldn't tell the difference anymore. Since you, and everyone else here, know you're wrong before you write anything, why do you bother?

Nope.

Not dimensional (construction) lumber in the US, anyway. They're not throwing away 35%. Not happening. Hardwoods start out life their nominal dimensions (a 1" board is 3/4" finished) but dimensional lumber does not.

That's even scarier!

IOW, you don't know. We know you're always wrong, AlwaysWrong. You don't have to prove it with every post.

Woosh!

What did mommy tell you about being wrong, AlwaysWrong!