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Comment by simonblack | Hacker News Reader

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simonblack·

An obsolete measurement of volume.

Only a few countries are too immersed in their self-centred past to use the world-wide metric system.

That refusal to progress has cost millions (billions?) when different units have been used without conversion.

http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

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Always remember: There are two types of countries in the world.

Those that use the metric system ...

And those that have gone to the Moon.

There are only two types of countries in the world. Those that lost the ability to launch people into space and those that adopted SI units.

I do remember the Liberian moon landings.

I've always loved the American aphorism: "a pint's a pound the world around" .... which is only actually true in the US, but does show an insight into a certain world view

But a (British/Imperial) gallon is 10 pounds. 20 fluid ounces to the pint.

That's kind of my point, only the US uses US gallons, and only US gallons weigh a pound, but they use this saying that's untrue, but few people notice because the US is a very inward looking culture

personally I think we should switch to Planck units.

That would fix the problem of time zones. All times should be in planck units with the zero epoch at the moment big bang.

It would not fix the problem of time zones. It would just change their interpretation, and maybe their name. As long as we live on a spherical planet with just one sun, and keep our sleep cycles roughly synced to daylight, we will need time zones or something equivalent.

While that could be more consistent, the presence of all those zeroes would inevitably lead to too many typographical errors.

That's why we'll record them in base 97. Much more compact, therefore easier to read.

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