Monday, March 15, 2010
The Gym
I maintain that there is more awkward accidental eye contact at the gym than anywhere else. Someone feel free to tell me of a place that trumps...
Monday, March 1, 2010
Watch Your Unit(s)
Warning: Ranting and Sarcasm Ahead
As a kid I wondered why anyone would want to switch to the metric system. What is a meter anyway? A foot is easy to visualize; most of us have two after all. Now that I make my living doing, amongst other things, heat transfer and thermo calculations I have grown to love the metric system. I wonder how many engineers there are who run all their calculations in metric and convert the answer to English units like I do. I don’t have time to figure out whether I need to divide/multiply my answer by 32.2 or what a ft*lbforce is in BTU (This one, incidentally, is a breeze to remember, 778.1693 ft*lbforce/BTU).
Some units on my poo-list are: slugs, lbmass, BTU/hr, and inH2O just to name a few
I wouldn’t be surprised if English units for power can be properly reported as campfires/fortnight. Does my lack of love for English units mean I am not patriotic? NO. It means I am sick of using a unit system that is less user friendly than photo-editing in DOS. Sure, the first time I ordered a meter-long at subway might be a little embarrassing, but we would all be figuring out the new system together (and possibly sharing a sandwich).
As a kid I wondered why anyone would want to switch to the metric system. What is a meter anyway? A foot is easy to visualize; most of us have two after all. Now that I make my living doing, amongst other things, heat transfer and thermo calculations I have grown to love the metric system. I wonder how many engineers there are who run all their calculations in metric and convert the answer to English units like I do. I don’t have time to figure out whether I need to divide/multiply my answer by 32.2 or what a ft*lbforce is in BTU (This one, incidentally, is a breeze to remember, 778.1693 ft*lbforce/BTU).
Some units on my poo-list are: slugs, lbmass, BTU/hr, and inH2O just to name a few
I wouldn’t be surprised if English units for power can be properly reported as campfires/fortnight. Does my lack of love for English units mean I am not patriotic? NO. It means I am sick of using a unit system that is less user friendly than photo-editing in DOS. Sure, the first time I ordered a meter-long at subway might be a little embarrassing, but we would all be figuring out the new system together (and possibly sharing a sandwich).
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