Godamned 0603...

[Jasen Betts]

On 2022-02-19, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com <jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com> wrote:

On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:27:10 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

US decimal points are just as good as metric decimal points. We can
measure inches as accurately as you can measure centimeters.

Does anybody use centimeters? Seems like an orphan unit.

It\'s mainly used for measuring people, so clothing dimensions, describing
how tall someone is. That sort of thing.

--
Jasen.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 6:18:26 AM UTC-5, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 8:39:22 PM UTC-5, Tom Del Rosso
wrote:
olaf wrote:
John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

Surprisingly, some big aerospace companies still use pounds and
slugs and BTUs and things. Creeps me out.

Yes, it must be a strange live there. We have in our measurement
devices a huge list to calculate the units for US customers. When
you read this it is very strange that they claim to reach the
moon. :-D
Newton proved his gravity equation by calculating the motion of the
moon in inches, so we can too.

But I and practically everyone with any technical inclination uses
metric in all cases except when an object is involved which was cut
in English units by someone else.

Yeah, we don\'t want no one telling us what units to measure in or to
wear masks to keep from dying of a pandemic. Both have worked well
for everyone in this country... except for 959,000.
I recall saying 2 years ago that everyone could keep going to work if
they wore masks, and I recall you saying it would not be adequate.

And it has not been adequate. What is your point? You did see the
sarcasm in my statement, no?

So we should have been out of work for 2 years.

The mistake I made was thinking there was ever a prayer of hope that
people would actually do what was needed or that we could \"get \'er
done\" around the world. As it turns out not only are masks not
sufficient, vaccines are not sufficient. With new strains showing up
every few months, we can expect this pandemic to be with us for a
long time. It may turn out that there is selective pressure to be
less virulent, in which case it may end up being no worse than the
flu. At the moment the US is approaching 1 million dead which is
far, far worse than any flu since I was born.

The flu kills people who don\'t have 6 comorbidities. Or cancer like
Powell.


--
Defund the Thought Police

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, February 21, 2022 at 1:11:24 AM UTC-5, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

Rick C wrote:
On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 6:18:26 AM UTC-5, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 8:39:22 PM UTC-5, Tom Del Rosso
wrote:
olaf wrote:
John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

Surprisingly, some big aerospace companies still use pounds and
slugs and BTUs and things. Creeps me out.

Yes, it must be a strange live there. We have in our measurement
devices a huge list to calculate the units for US customers. When
you read this it is very strange that they claim to reach the
moon. :-D
Newton proved his gravity equation by calculating the motion of the
moon in inches, so we can too.

But I and practically everyone with any technical inclination uses
metric in all cases except when an object is involved which was cut
in English units by someone else.

Yeah, we don\'t want no one telling us what units to measure in or to
wear masks to keep from dying of a pandemic. Both have worked well
for everyone in this country... except for 959,000.
I recall saying 2 years ago that everyone could keep going to work if
they wore masks, and I recall you saying it would not be adequate.

And it has not been adequate. What is your point? You did see the
sarcasm in my statement, no?
So we should have been out of work for 2 years.
The mistake I made was thinking there was ever a prayer of hope that
people would actually do what was needed or that we could \"get \'er
done\" around the world. As it turns out not only are masks not
sufficient, vaccines are not sufficient. With new strains showing up
every few months, we can expect this pandemic to be with us for a
long time. It may turn out that there is selective pressure to be
less virulent, in which case it may end up being no worse than the
flu. At the moment the US is approaching 1 million dead which is
far, far worse than any flu since I was born.
The flu kills people who don\'t have 6 comorbidities. Or cancer like
Powell.

Is there a meaning to what you posted? Or is it just some random thought you had and felt the need to share with us like some derelict on a street corner?

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[David Brown]

On 21/02/2022 05:06, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2022-02-19, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com <jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com> wrote:
On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:27:10 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

US decimal points are just as good as metric decimal points. We can
measure inches as accurately as you can measure centimeters.

Does anybody use centimeters? Seems like an orphan unit.

It\'s mainly used for measuring people, so clothing dimensions, describing
how tall someone is. That sort of thing.

When doing high precision work, you might include tolerances or error
margins - 10.20 mm ± 0.02 mm. But for more casual measurements, you
rarely do so. People infer the accuracies from the context, the
wording, the value range, and the units. Thus choice of units gives a
different implication, even if the value is the same. Giving a length
as \"168 cm\" is therefore slightly different from saying \"1680 mm\" (and
from \"five and a half feet\").

In general, people find it easier to imagine sizes if the numbers
involved are not too big. \"1.2 m\" is easier than \"120 cm\" which is
easier than \"1200 mm\".

Centimetres are used all time, for all kinds of things - they are often
a more convenient unit than mm or metres for hand-held or desktop size
things. To me, a pcb board might by 10 cm by 16 cm - even though it
would be given in standard mm in the actual design.


Sometimes unit choices are psychological. Sweets sold in lose weights
are priced per hectogram (100 g), a unit that is seldom seen. But if
the price were per gram, the price per gram would be meaninglessly small
in Euro, pounds, or whatever. If it were given in price per kg,
however, people would feel they are buying far too much when their
sweets are measured in kg.

 

[David Brown]

On 20/02/2022 19:13, Rick C wrote:

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 8:26:38 AM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:
On 19/02/2022 21:01, Robert Latest wrote:
David Brown wrote:
It is not just important that you use a precise scale - some
imperial scales are as precise as metric. (An inch is formally
defined as 25.4 mm.)

Which is sad. They should\'ve made it 2.56mm, then all those
power-of-two fractions would divide beautifully into mm.

Yes. But it had to match up with the length of three barley corns.
(The barleycorn is of course still used in shoe sizes.)

Barleycorns aside, it was more about matching the inch. The
definition of the inch has a long and tortuous history, but in 1866
the US defined it as 39.37 to a meter, just off from 2.54 cm by about
two ppm. Not many uses were impacted by two ppm, so 2.54 cm to the
inch was later adopted largely because it had become commercial
practice.

Yes, that\'s the point. (Three barleycorns was one of the first
standardised definitions of the length of an inch.)

 

[aioe usenet]

On 18/02/2022 21:45, Rick C wrote:

On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 6:01:25 AM UTC-5, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2022-02-18 11:11, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
fredag den 18. februar 2022 kl. 09.32.02 UTC+1 skrev Sylvia Else:
I\'ve got a board made that includes pads for some 0603 smds.

How was I expected to know that 0603 is used for both imperial and
metric sizes? No wonder there\'s no way I can put my imperial 0603
components onto the metric 0603 landing pads.

0603 appears to be the only size where this trap arises, and I fell
right into it.

also 0402 metric which is 01005 imperial

Designed to confuse. Why do people do that?

You mean why do people use the measuring system that everyone else in their country use? I guess this is a more pointed question at the US community. I remember working with a mechanical engineer at a military contractor and was surprised they still did everything using inches. 90% of electronic components are in mm as the primary unit. I guess I expect the mechanical community would have converted by now, but, no.

I seem to recall an imperial 0603 is a metric 1608. The places where I would be selecting a part they make it clear which size they are using. On layout I would notice the difference in size, 2.5 to 1. I\'m a bit surprised this error was made. If the layout was done by someone else, maybe not so much. I like doing layouts. It\'s like puzzle solving.

I don\'t get why mil are still used in PCB layout so much. Layer thickness is still done in mil. Trace/space is still commonly in mil. I typically do my layout in mm. 6 mil is 0.1524 mm, so that gets rounded to 0.15 mm. Unfortunately that can trigger the alarms at PCB house pricing software and put you in a higher price category. I remember seeing feature checking software that would sound the alarm at what I can only assume was round off error missing the target by 0.00001 inches or something. I don\'t think I ever used that PWB supplier. I can\'t imagine what it would take to get that through their system. There were dozens if not hundreds of such error reports.

The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch is not
0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is not 10 inches.

In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did. Yeah, right.

They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit around them.

Werner Dahn

 

[server]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2022 18:16:42 +0700, aioe usenet <hirni47@yahoo.com>
wrote:

On 18/02/2022 21:45, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 6:01:25 AM UTC-5, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2022-02-18 11:11, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
fredag den 18. februar 2022 kl. 09.32.02 UTC+1 skrev Sylvia Else:
I\'ve got a board made that includes pads for some 0603 smds.

How was I expected to know that 0603 is used for both imperial and
metric sizes? No wonder there\'s no way I can put my imperial 0603
components onto the metric 0603 landing pads.

0603 appears to be the only size where this trap arises, and I fell
right into it.

also 0402 metric which is 01005 imperial

Designed to confuse. Why do people do that?

You mean why do people use the measuring system that everyone else in their country use? I guess this is a more pointed question at the US community. I remember working with a mechanical engineer at a military contractor and was surprised they still did everything using inches. 90% of electronic components are in mm as the primary unit. I guess I expect the mechanical community would have converted by now, but, no.

I seem to recall an imperial 0603 is a metric 1608. The places where I would be selecting a part they make it clear which size they are using. On layout I would notice the difference in size, 2.5 to 1. I\'m a bit surprised this error was made. If the layout was done by someone else, maybe not so much. I like doing layouts. It\'s like puzzle solving.

I don\'t get why mil are still used in PCB layout so much. Layer thickness is still done in mil. Trace/space is still commonly in mil. I typically do my layout in mm. 6 mil is 0.1524 mm, so that gets rounded to 0.15 mm. Unfortunately that can trigger the alarms at PCB house pricing software and put you in a higher price category. I remember seeing feature checking software that would sound the alarm at what I can only assume was round off error missing the target by 0.00001 inches or something. I don\'t think I ever used that PWB supplier. I can\'t imagine what it would take to get that through their system. There were dozens if not hundreds of such error reports.


The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch is not
0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is not 10 inches.

In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did. Yeah, right.

They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit around them.

Werner Dahn

We do science and engineering in SI units.

Pounds, ounces, inches, feet, miles, pints, gallons, degrees F are
familiar and convenient everyday units. Nothing wrong with that.

Converting to metric was unpopular, so it wasn\'t forced.



--

I yam what I yam - Popeye

 

[server]

aioe usenet <hirni47@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:suvsdd$1t4i$1@gioia.aioe.org:

The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch
is not 0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is
not 10 inches.

In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did.
Yeah, right.

They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit
around them.

Werner Dahn

The USA has been metric for decades. We just happen to embrace both.
Big deal. Or at least only to those wanting to piss and moan about it.
Kids are taught metric in US schools. Young adults get taught
fractional inch in the contruction trade and a few others.
Both are taught and US auto makers have been metric for half a century.

 

[David Brown]

On 21/02/2022 14:36, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2022 18:16:42 +0700, aioe usenet <hirni47@yahoo.com
wrote:


The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch is not
0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is not 10 inches.

In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did. Yeah, right.

They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit around them.

Werner Dahn

We do science and engineering in SI units.

Pounds, ounces, inches, feet, miles, pints, gallons, degrees F are
familiar and convenient everyday units. Nothing wrong with that.

Converting to metric was unpopular, so it wasn\'t forced.

A change like that is always hard, and therefore unpopular. But it
typically gets harder the longer you wait.

Part of the job of a government is to do things that are unpopular, but
are nonetheless the right move in the long run. It seems to me that
governments are getting worse at that, with the USA in the lead but not
alone - politicians are unwilling to risk their current popularity by
making long-term investments where the benefits will be reaped by later
politicians. The American system of presidents from alternating parties
whose main focus seems to be undoing everything from the previous
presidency, makes it even harder to make major long-term changes.

An exception to this trend is Brexit - there the UK government /was/
willing to go through very significant cost and hardship for long-term
change. Unfortunately the short-term cost and hardship is a sacrifice
leading to longer-term cost and hardship - change is perhaps inevitable,
but progress is not.

The British went through the change to metric (keeping pints for beer
and milk, which is fine). They went through a change in currency in
about 1971, from silly pounds / shillings / pence to a decimal system.
It can be done, and it is worth doing.

Maybe a deal can be made - the USA changes its outdated measurement
system, its daft paper sizes, and its non-standard mains electricity.
In return, the British will accept \"color\", \"analog\" and \"neighbor\" as
acceptable spelling

 

[server]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2022 15:07:55 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 21/02/2022 14:36, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2022 18:16:42 +0700, aioe usenet <hirni47@yahoo.com
wrote:


The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch is not
0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is not 10 inches.

In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did. Yeah, right.

They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit around them.

Werner Dahn

We do science and engineering in SI units.

Pounds, ounces, inches, feet, miles, pints, gallons, degrees F are
familiar and convenient everyday units. Nothing wrong with that.

Converting to metric was unpopular, so it wasn\'t forced.


A change like that is always hard, and therefore unpopular. But it
typically gets harder the longer you wait.

Part of the job of a government is to do things that are unpopular, but
are nonetheless the right move in the long run.

Assuming that a ruling elite can ignore the preferences of the dumb
flyover populace who, for some bizarre reason, are allowed to vote.



It seems to me that

governments are getting worse at that, with the USA in the lead but not
alone - politicians are unwilling to risk their current popularity by
making long-term investments where the benefits will be reaped by later
politicians. The American system of presidents from alternating parties
whose main focus seems to be undoing everything from the previous
presidency, makes it even harder to make major long-term changes.

Democracy sucks. What you need are a few good kings.

An exception to this trend is Brexit - there the UK government /was/
willing to go through very significant cost and hardship for long-term
change. Unfortunately the short-term cost and hardship is a sacrifice
leading to longer-term cost and hardship - change is perhaps inevitable,
but progress is not.

The British went through the change to metric (keeping pints for beer
and milk, which is fine). They went through a change in currency in
about 1971, from silly pounds / shillings / pence to a decimal system.
It can be done, and it is worth doing.

Maybe a deal can be made - the USA changes its outdated measurement
system, its daft paper sizes, and its non-standard mains electricity.
In return, the British will accept \"color\", \"analog\" and \"neighbor\" as
acceptable spelling

No, leave things alone, we find your quirks amusing when we take tours
to see the ancient Brits in their native costumes.

Pity about the food, although I have had some great Italian in
England.



--

I yam what I yam - Popeye

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, February 21, 2022 at 6:18:17 AM UTC-5, aioe usenet wrote:

On 18/02/2022 21:45, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 6:01:25 AM UTC-5, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2022-02-18 11:11, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
fredag den 18. februar 2022 kl. 09.32.02 UTC+1 skrev Sylvia Else:
I\'ve got a board made that includes pads for some 0603 smds.

How was I expected to know that 0603 is used for both imperial and
metric sizes? No wonder there\'s no way I can put my imperial 0603
components onto the metric 0603 landing pads.

0603 appears to be the only size where this trap arises, and I fell
right into it.

also 0402 metric which is 01005 imperial

Designed to confuse. Why do people do that?

You mean why do people use the measuring system that everyone else in their country use? I guess this is a more pointed question at the US community. I remember working with a mechanical engineer at a military contractor and was surprised they still did everything using inches. 90% of electronic components are in mm as the primary unit. I guess I expect the mechanical community would have converted by now, but, no.

I seem to recall an imperial 0603 is a metric 1608. The places where I would be selecting a part they make it clear which size they are using. On layout I would notice the difference in size, 2.5 to 1. I\'m a bit surprised this error was made. If the layout was done by someone else, maybe not so much. I like doing layouts. It\'s like puzzle solving.

I don\'t get why mil are still used in PCB layout so much. Layer thickness is still done in mil. Trace/space is still commonly in mil. I typically do my layout in mm. 6 mil is 0.1524 mm, so that gets rounded to 0.15 mm. Unfortunately that can trigger the alarms at PCB house pricing software and put you in a higher price category. I remember seeing feature checking software that would sound the alarm at what I can only assume was round off error missing the target by 0.00001 inches or something. I don\'t think I ever used that PWB supplier. I can\'t imagine what it would take to get that through their system. There were dozens if not hundreds of such error reports.


The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch is not
0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is not 10 inches..

Don\'t confuse decimal with imperial or metric. The binary fractions are a common use of inches, but it is far from universal. Virtually any use of inches other than personal usage is decimal inches.


> In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did. Yeah, right.

I don\'t think the US ever made any promises. The efforts to metrify were always voluntary. We have become a dual measurement country. But habits are hard to change. We have supermarket products labeled in both Imperial and metric, but most people here are more comfortable with Imperial. We happily buy our liquor in metric. That industry simply converted and is done with \"fifths\" and half pints, etc. Beer is commonly sold by ounces though. I\'m currently drinking a soft drink in a tall skinny can that is 330 ml/11..15 fl oz.


> They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit around them.

I think few people from outside the US can appreciate the level of isolation in the US. Yeah, we can pretty much live fat, dumb and happy with the Imperial system in everyday use. However, anything international has to include metric. Data sheets in the US for international products, just like from other countries, have dual labels for metric and Imperial. So we are doing what we must to fit in. If or when the international convention for data sheets becomes metric only, our data sheets will still include metric values, so we will be compatible.

It is my hope that someday we will convert, but there is literally no pain in staying with our current system. None that the typical voter sees anyway. So politicians are not going to push the issue.

How does this affect anyone outside the US? If the US converted to metric measurements today, 100%, what would change for you?

--

Rick C.

-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Monday, February 21, 2022 at 9:08:07 AM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:

The British went through the change to metric (keeping pints for beer
and milk, which is fine). They went through a change in currency in
about 1971, from silly pounds / shillings / pence to a decimal system.
It can be done, and it is worth doing.

I\'ve always though the British monetary units were cute. How about a Bob, Guv? I still can\'t remember how much a crown is, but it sounds interesting. The guinea is the one that really gets me though, £1/1/-. Who invented that!? Apparently it arose from the fact it was gold and intended to be 20 shillings, but the shilling was in silver and the relative value varied. At some point the guinea was standardized to be worth 21 shillings (the relative value at the time) and the oddness was born!

Maybe a deal can be made - the USA changes its outdated measurement
system, its daft paper sizes, and its non-standard mains electricity.
In return, the British will accept \"color\", \"analog\" and \"neighbor\" as
acceptable spelling

English is the common language that divides us.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[server]

jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in
news:9ra71hput0akpqeiqk83056ce91ql7eanj@4ax.com:

Assuming that a ruling elite can ignore the preferences of the dumb
flyover populace who, for some bizarre reason, are allowed to vote.

Where the fuck were you back when the Vietnam thing was happening?

18 years of age and US citizen. THOSE ARE THE ONLY TWO FACTORS.

I think socially inept dumbfucks like you should not be permitted to
vote.

\"ruling elite\"??? \"dumb flyover populace\"??? What the fuck is that
even, you stupid twerp?

You are the clueless thinks he\'s above the rest utter idiot on this
bus.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2022 08:22:42 -0800 (PST), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Monday, February 21, 2022 at 6:18:17 AM UTC-5, aioe usenet wrote:
On 18/02/2022 21:45, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 6:01:25 AM UTC-5, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2022-02-18 11:11, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
fredag den 18. februar 2022 kl. 09.32.02 UTC+1 skrev Sylvia Else:
I\'ve got a board made that includes pads for some 0603 smds.

How was I expected to know that 0603 is used for both imperial and
metric sizes? No wonder there\'s no way I can put my imperial 0603
components onto the metric 0603 landing pads.

0603 appears to be the only size where this trap arises, and I fell
right into it.

also 0402 metric which is 01005 imperial

Designed to confuse. Why do people do that?

You mean why do people use the measuring system that everyone else in their country use? I guess this is a more pointed question at the US community. I remember working with a mechanical engineer at a military contractor and was surprised they still did everything using inches. 90% of electronic components are in mm as the primary unit. I guess I expect the mechanical community would have converted by now, but, no.

I seem to recall an imperial 0603 is a metric 1608. The places where I would be selecting a part they make it clear which size they are using. On layout I would notice the difference in size, 2.5 to 1. I\'m a bit surprised this error was made. If the layout was done by someone else, maybe not so much. I like doing layouts. It\'s like puzzle solving.

I don\'t get why mil are still used in PCB layout so much. Layer thickness is still done in mil. Trace/space is still commonly in mil. I typically do my layout in mm. 6 mil is 0.1524 mm, so that gets rounded to 0.15 mm. Unfortunately that can trigger the alarms at PCB house pricing software and put you in a higher price category. I remember seeing feature checking software that would sound the alarm at what I can only assume was round off error missing the target by 0.00001 inches or something. I don\'t think I ever used that PWB supplier. I can\'t imagine what it would take to get that through their system. There were dozens if not hundreds of such error reports.


The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch is not
0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is not 10 inches.

Don\'t confuse decimal with imperial or metric. The binary fractions are a common use of inches, but it is far from universal. Virtually any use of inches other than personal usage is decimal inches.


In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did. Yeah, right.

I don\'t think the US ever made any promises. The efforts to metrify were always voluntary. We have become a dual measurement country. But habits are hard to change. We have supermarket products labeled in both Imperial and metric, but most people here are more comfortable with Imperial. We happily buy our liquor in metric. That industry simply converted and is done with \"fifths\" and half pints, etc. Beer is commonly sold by ounces though. I\'m currently drinking a soft drink in a tall skinny can that is 330 ml/11.15 fl oz.


They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit around them.

I think few people from outside the US can appreciate the level of isolation in the US. Yeah, we can pretty much live fat, dumb and happy with the Imperial system in everyday use. However, anything international has to include metric. Data sheets in the US for international products, just like from other countries, have dual labels for metric and Imperial. So we are doing what we must to fit in. If or when the international convention for data sheets becomes metric only, our data sheets will still include metric values, so we will be compatible.

It is my hope that someday we will convert, but there is literally no pain in staying with our current system. None that the typical voter sees anyway. So politicians are not going to push the issue.

How does this affect anyone outside the US? If the US converted to metric measurements today, 100%, what would change for you?

The original reason that Industry in the US resisted conversion to
Metric was that with the technology of that day, Industry would have
had to replace all their machine tools and tooling, and redo all their
drawings and documentation. All for no practical advantage.

Now days, with everything becoming computer-controlled, switching is
far easier, and conversion is happening gradually, in the natural
course of progress.

Some industries are already totally metric, or nearly so. One that
comes to mind is optics. Pharma also.

Joe Gwinn

 

[David Brown]

On 21/02/2022 17:35, Rick C wrote:

On Monday, February 21, 2022 at 9:08:07 AM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:

The British went through the change to metric (keeping pints for
beer and milk, which is fine). They went through a change in
currency in about 1971, from silly pounds / shillings / pence to a
decimal system. It can be done, and it is worth doing.

I\'ve always though the British monetary units were cute. How about a
Bob, Guv? I still can\'t remember how much a crown is, but it sounds
interesting.

A \"bob\" is a shilling - one twentieth of a pound, and thus 5 \"new pence\"
(or 12 d in old money). A florin was two shillings. A crown was 5
shillings, and of course a half-crown was therefore 2½ shillings. A
shilling was two sixpences, each of which was two thrupences or three
tuppences. (My spelling might not be 100% accurate here - my newsreader
dictionary is not old enough!). A penny was two ha\'pennies, or four
farthings.

Common names for coins can still be used - \"bob\" was common long after
shillings were obsolete, and lasted until 5 pence was basically
worthless. I guess you have the same thing with dimes and nickels.

The guinea is the one that really gets me though,
£1/1/-. Who invented that!? Apparently it arose from the fact it
was gold and intended to be 20 shillings, but the shilling was in
silver and the relative value varied. At some point the guinea was
standardized to be worth 21 shillings (the relative value at the
time) and the oddness was born!

Guineas were heavily used for auctions. (I can\'t say for sure if
auctions were the origin, or if it was due to the prices of gold and
silver as you say.) Basically, they buyer paid the price in guineas,
the seller got the price in pounds, and the auctioneer kept the 5% cut.
Horse auctions are still done in guineas, last I heard.

Maybe a deal can be made - the USA changes its outdated measurement
system, its daft paper sizes, and its non-standard mains
electricity. In return, the British will accept \"color\", \"analog\"
and \"neighbor\" as acceptable spelling

English is the common language that divides us.

There are plenty of differences in spelling in which the American
version just makes more sense - \"color\", for example. You didn\'t go
through the \"make it look more like French by adding random vowels\"
period that we had.

On the other hand, you have some cases where the word is the same, but
you\'ve got the meaning completely wrong. And you can\'t pronounce
\"route\" correctly - for some reason, that one always bugs me.

But you are still closer to the Queen\'s English than in many parts of
the UK

 

[Dan Purgert]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

David Brown wrote:

...
On the other hand, you have some cases where the word is the same, but
you\'ve got the meaning completely wrong. And you can\'t pronounce
\"route\" correctly - for some reason, that one always bugs me.

Look, just because we don\'t go kicking our rooters every time the
internet goes out ...


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=8v08
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--
|_|O|_|
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1 E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860

 

[server]

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:7efd2d30-ebcd-4ea2-87bf-c90a325a01bbn@googlegroups.com:

On Monday, February 21, 2022 at 6:18:17 AM UTC-5, aioe usenet
wrote:
On 18/02/2022 21:45, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, February 18, 2022 at 6:01:25 AM UTC-5, Jeroen
Belleman wrote
:
On 2022-02-18 11:11, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
fredag den 18. februar 2022 kl. 09.32.02 UTC+1 skrev Sylvia
Else:
I\'ve got a board made that includes pads for some 0603 smds.

How was I expected to know that 0603 is used for both
imperial and

metric sizes? No wonder there\'s no way I can put my imperial
0603 components onto the metric 0603 landing pads.

0603 appears to be the only size where this trap arises, and
I fell

right into it.

also 0402 metric which is 01005 imperial

Designed to confuse. Why do people do that?

You mean why do people use the measuring system that everyone
else in t
heir country use? I guess this is a more pointed question at the
US community. I remember working with a mechanical engineer at a
military contractor and was surprised they still did everything
using inches. 90% of electronic components are in mm as the
primary unit. I guess I expect the mechanical community would have
converted by now, but, no.

I seem to recall an imperial 0603 is a metric 1608. The places
where I
would be selecting a part they make it clear which size they are
using. On layout I would notice the difference in size, 2.5 to 1.
I\'m a bit surprised this error was made. If the layout was done by
someone else, maybe not so much. I like doing layouts. It\'s like
puzzle solving.

I don\'t get why mil are still used in PCB layout so much. Layer
thickne
ss is still done in mil. Trace/space is still commonly in mil. I
typically do my layout in mm. 6 mil is 0.1524 mm, so that gets
rounded to 0.15 mm. Unfortunately that can trigger the alarms at
PCB house pricing software and put you in a higher price category.
I remember seeing feature checking software that would sound the
alarm at what I can only assume was round off error missing the
target by 0.00001 inches or something. I don\'t think I ever used
that PWB supplier. I can\'t imagine what it would take to get that
through their system. There were dozens if not hundreds of such
error reports.


The USA is at war with the decimal system. An fraction of an inch
is not

0.x but x/[2 or 4 or 8 or a multiple thereof] and a foot is not
10 inches
.

Don\'t confuse decimal with imperial or metric. The binary
fractions are a common use of inches, but it is far from
universal. Virtually any use of inches other than personal usage
is decimal inches.


In the 1980s they promised to go metric, like the British did.
Yeah, righ
t.

I don\'t think the US ever made any promises. The efforts to
metrify were always voluntary. We have become a dual measurement
country. But habits are hard to change. We have supermarket
products labeled in both Imperial and metric, but most people here
are more comfortable with Imperial. We happily buy our liquor in
metric. That industry simply converted and is done with \"fifths\"
and half pints, etc. Beer is commonly sold by ounces though. I\'m
currently drinking a soft drink in a tall skinny can that is 330
ml/11.15 fl oz.


They don\'t want to fit in the world. They want the world to fit
around th
em.

I think few people from outside the US can appreciate the level of
isolation in the US. Yeah, we can pretty much live fat, dumb and
happy with the Imperial system in everyday use. However, anything
international has to include metric. Data sheets in the US for
international products, just like from other countries, have dual
labels for metric and Imperial. So we are doing what we must to
fit in. If or when the international convention for data sheets
becomes metric only, our data sheets will still include metric
values, so we will be compatible.

It is my hope that someday we will convert, but there is literally
no pain in staying with our current system. None that the typical
voter sees anyway. So politicians are not going to push the
issue.

How does this affect anyone outside the US? If the US converted
to metric measurements today, 100%, what would change for you?

It is about usage. Just like baseball and basketball, pool, etc.
To get good at any of them, one must experience the operations over
and over again to become familiar with them. Commonly referred to as
practice.

To do metric in a dual realm demographic, the INDIVIDUAL must
decide to make a conscious effort in that direction. Then personally
do so each time one is confronted with weights and measures in their
daily life. So at first one nit-picks every little thing and does
the conversions. Once the conversions take root in the person\'s
mindset, less nit-picking and more automatic self metrification take
place in the brain. IOW It become easier... hard wired even...
enjoyable.

I used to have a good idea what a one inch span was between my
fingers. Really good. Now, I concentrate on my brain learning one
millimeter, then 5 and 10, and then ten of those and then the meter
itself.
Practice is all it takes. A conscious effort.

And when one becomes really good at one of those games, we call it
expert or pro. I call it The Harlem Globe Trotter Effect.
Meadowlark Lemon could stand at half court with his back to the rim,
talking to Howard Cosell and flip a shot over his shoulder and in for
a swish.

Easy for me... when I do carpentry or framing I use inch. Because
were I to get in a conversation with a friend, or neighbor, or
realtor, I would want to be able to tell them about the size of those
elements I built the way they are still \'traditionally\' referred to
as. As I myself do that conversion in my head, and could tell
someone in metric what the span was at a certain location.

When I do small part design, and machining or PCB layout, I use
metric and speak metric about it. Base ten is easy. Describing
something in millimeters and knowing what ten of those make (a
centimeter), one can describe small machined parts or circuit board
elements. With the early SMD realm here, however, we used the
standard form factors listed usually 2106, 0805, 0602, 0402.
I can solder down to 0402.

It all comes down to personal experience in the US. If one is
exposed to the metric system, one learns it and then has two in his
or her brain. It could be argued that in the metric only places in
the world, they are missing out. Many here can\'t be bothered.
And the rest of the globe looks at my nation and thinks that we are
all as dumb as the can\'t be bothered crowd.

 

[Clive Arthur]

On 21/02/2022 17:00, David Brown wrote:

<snip>

A
shilling was two sixpences, each of which was two thrupences or three
tuppences.

Very valuable nowadays, those tuppences.

--
Cheers
Clive

 

[server]

Clive Arthur <clive@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote in
news:sv0i44$efj$1@dont-email.me:

On 21/02/2022 17:00, David Brown wrote:

snip

A
shilling was two sixpences, each of which was two thrupences or
three tuppences.

Very valuable nowadays, those tuppences.

And those pressurized firkins too.

Just ask Ringo... err Yougman Grand. ;-)

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Rick C wrote:

Is there a meaning to what you posted? Or is it just some random
thought you had and felt the need to share with us like some derelict
on a street corner?

The meaning could be that you just continually ignore factors like the
sharp increase in teen suicide and other consequenses of your lockdowns,
or your incapacity to understand the very concept of freedom, as well as
the stats on \"covid\" deaths that include almost no one with less than 2
comorbidities.

A derelict on a street corner would be more likely to abruptly change
the subject of conversation, like you did in this thread.


--
Defund the Thought Police