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Kitchener Fence by-law
#16
My drivers licence has my height and mass in metric.

The only reason we are “hewing” today is because we weren’t intolerant enough back after conversion and the evil units weren’t completely banished.

It makes me sick when I see my friend’s little kids saying feet and inches for stuff, and they’re being taught it in school because the teachers didn’t happen to adopt the change. A whole new generation is being brought up wrong.
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#17
(07-01-2018, 09:13 AM)KevinL Wrote: I am aware of your preferences, Iain, but I have to hew to the fact that across North America, housing continues to hold to inches and feet. And even if Canada is metric in many ways (food and gasoline in litres, distances in km), there are still tacit standards like personal height and weight that use imperial. It's not changing soon, and I'm not sure how anyone can easily push for that change.

It’s not just a “preference”. It’s the world standard, and for a good reason. There are actually offices that could push for changes; who it is and what they can realistically do is different in different places.

To use your example of personal height and weight, we should start by requiring that medical professionals must record newborn length and mass in SI. The forms could have “g” and “cm” pre-printed on them, and it could be made clear that they are not authorized to substitute their own choice of measurement units. The same for medical records and measurements of older people. Imported devices should be required to default to SI (e.g., thermostats, ovens, … anything else that uses temperature in its configuration). If we can require everything sold in the country to be labelled in French and English, we can require everything sold in the country to default to using SI. My original example was that the federal government should switch to using the “A” series of paper sizes. This would force companies dealing with the federal government to start using A4 in their contract dealings; I suspect they would just switch to using A4 all the time and fairly quickly letter and legal would become obsolete historical curiosities.

And finally, to go back to something Canard said, the schools should be teaching SI. It needs to be made clear that, among all the other policies applying to their employment, teachers are not authorized to conduct their classes in other than SI. Arithmetic is not permitted to be taught in Roman numerals either (although both Roman numerals and non-SI units could be mentioned in specific classes for the purpose of comparison and historical knowledge). There is actually a simple expedient that can support this too: classrooms supplies (rulers, tape measures, scales, thermometers) should be SI-only.
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#18
(07-01-2018, 09:21 AM)Canard Wrote: My drivers licence has my height and mass in metric.

The only reason we are “hewing” today is because we weren’t intolerant enough back after conversion and the evil units weren’t completely banished.

It makes me sick when I see my friend’s little kids saying feet and inches for stuff, and they’re being taught it in school because the teachers didn’t happen to adopt the change. A whole new generation is being brought up wrong.

Aren't teachers in Ontario mandated to teach both metric and imperial?  Since Canada uses both systems, and has no plans to go exclusively metric, this seems appropriate to me.  I know my nephews and nieces, who went to school when only metric was being taught, are pretty clued out wrt imperial measures.
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#19
(07-01-2018, 09:21 AM)Canard Wrote: My drivers licence has my height and mass in metric.

The only reason we are “hewing” today is because we weren’t intolerant enough back after conversion and the evil units weren’t completely banished.

It makes me sick when I see my friend’s little kids saying feet and inches for stuff, and they’re being taught it in school because the teachers didn’t happen to adopt the change. A whole new generation is being brought up wrong.

It is amazing then that you are such a train buff given that everything rail related in this country is still in imperial. That must be quite the internal battle that rages! :-)

I think part of the problem is that our biggest trading partner refuses to convert to SI (as a result North America unfortunately stands out in this respect compared to the rest of the world).

We have made a concerted effort with our child that every book he reads/we read to hime, show he watches, question he asks, etc., that we respond and convert to SI units; it is amazing how ingrained the imperial system is and how often this comes up multiple times daily.

It must cost the economy millions per year in inefficiency and waste (and the occasional emergency airplane landing, and space probe). Complete American conversion to SI within 10 years should be a requirement of any new NAFTA!
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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#20
I'm pretty sure metric units are universally used in health care already. I suspect wider adoption in certain industries is impeded by metric not being used in the US in those industries. Having metric lumber cut specially for the Canadian market would increase the cost of lumber.
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#21
Not really related, but I'm always amused by the way the cost of flooring has come to be quoted as "$X per sq ft", as opposed to "$X per sq yd".  Not only has it not converted to metric, it has converted to give the false impression of lower prices.

That, and the odd package sizes of many food and drink products in Canada - Imperial measure packaging just quoted in metric rather than changing the package sizing to something tidy.
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#22
(07-01-2018, 10:16 AM)jamincan Wrote: I'm pretty sure metric units are universally used in health care already. I suspect wider adoption in certain industries is impeded by metric not being used in the US in those industries. Having metric lumber cut specially for the Canadian market would increase the cost of lumber.

I’m not actually big on changing our lumber dimensions. For one thing, the actual dimensions of a 2x4, to take the most widespread example, aren’t 2” by 4”, and the current size works fine. For another, changing the actual size of sheets of plywood, drywall, etc., and the normal stud spacing, would be a pain. But in normal construction, the sizes of rooms and all the other dimensions of a building are normally based on what is needed, and the boards are just cut to size. There are a few exceptions — for example, I think 8’ ceilings are quite common, and are achieved with 8’ length lumber — but for the most part there isn’t a direct connection between the sizes of the components and the dimensions of the completed construction. So it’s reasonable to say that instead of specifying a 12’ square room, we might specify a 3650mm square room.

As to health care, I’m not so sure. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen birth weights measured in imperial, although it’s possible I was actually seeing a translation from an initial SI measurement.
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#23
(07-01-2018, 10:20 AM)panamaniac Wrote: Not really related, but I'm always amused by the way the cost of flooring has come to be quoted as "$X per sq ft", as opposed to "$X per sq yd".  Not only has it not converted to metric, it has converted to give the false impression of lower prices.

That, and the odd package sizes of many food and drink products in Canada - Imperial measure packaging just quoted in metric rather than changing the package sizing to something tidy.

I thought there were standard package size requirements for foods but can't find any reference to that on the Internet. I remember that when the GST was introduced, they had to change some regulation to allow 501mL tax-free containers to be sold.
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#24
(07-01-2018, 10:20 AM)panamaniac Wrote: That, and the odd package sizes of many food and drink products in Canada - Imperial measure packaging just quoted in metric rather than changing the package sizing to something tidy.

Cartons and tins are usually made to US sizes or made in the US so it makes sense that most aren't really rounded out to be metric, hence all the 473ml cans of beer and 1.89L juice cartons. Milk cartons seem to be 2L though and bags are 4L but the butter is all 454g. I suspect the butter was just because they didn't want to buy new moulds back in the day?

I suspect things will always be this way unless the USA does a wholesale conversion for some reason.
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#25
(07-01-2018, 09:49 PM)clasher Wrote: I suspect things will always be this way unless the USA does a wholesale conversion for some reason.

At least we buy our beer in "real" pints instead of the wee ones they sell south of the border!
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#26
(07-01-2018, 09:49 PM)clasher Wrote:  but the butter is all 454g. I suspect the butter was just because they didn't want to buy new moulds back in the day? 

454g is one pound. A lot of cooks would object if that standard would change, I expect, though 450 is round enough.
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#27
(07-01-2018, 10:41 PM)KevinL Wrote:
(07-01-2018, 09:49 PM)clasher Wrote:  but the butter is all 454g. I suspect the butter was just because they didn't want to buy new moulds back in the day? 

454g is one pound. A lot of cooks would object if that standard would change, I expect, though 450 is round enough.

Most of my recipes call for 250g or 500g of butter, not 454g. But if you mostly cook using (United States of) American cookbooks, that might not be the case.
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#28
(07-01-2018, 09:56 PM)tomh009 Wrote: At least we buy our beer in "real" pints instead of the wee ones they sell south of the border!

Unfortunately, 473ml is 16 US fluid ounces. 16 proper fluid ounces is 455ml. The extra (Imperial) tablespoon of beer is swallowed along with one's pride.
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#29
An imperial pint is 20 imperial ounces, so 568ml and 20 US ounces is 591ml which is why pop comes in that size.
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#30
(07-02-2018, 07:17 PM)clasher Wrote: An imperial pint is 20 imperial ounces, so 568ml and 20 US ounces is 591ml which is why pop comes in that size.

Exactly. US pints have only 16 (fluid) ounces.
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