Pirates of the Caribbean (Metric Edition) (2017)

https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/pirates-caribbean-metric-edition

by nkurz • 3 years ago

121 30 3 years ago

nist.gov

RcouF1uZ4gsC2• 3 years ago

Interesting article.

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Grave” would have been a better title.

adhesive_wombat3• 3 years ago

As opposed to Living Man's Grave?

TeMPOraL2• 3 years ago

We've run out of titles that make sense a good decade ago.

tylervigen• 3 years ago

It’s a well written story but I’m not convinced the metric system would have been adopted by the US even in the absence of pirates.

By the story’s own account, they were going to Jefferson who had already unsuccessfully lobbied for the metric system, and when the instruments finally did make their way to the Secretary of State they were unconvincing.

That said, I am still glad to have read the story and formed the opinion.

lifeisstillgood• 3 years ago

"""Montserrat is a lot nicer when you're not being held for ransom by pirates. """

"""Despite his qualifications, Dombey lacked one important attribute: luck."""

I love the writing style. It's rare to hit that right balance of sarcasm and academia.

Tao3300• 3 years ago

You could maybe call it piracy if Britain was issuing the letters of marque after the fact or something, but it would seem to me this is "legit" privateering as they were at war with France at the time.

I'm probably splitting hairs though. The popular opinion has always been "it's privateering when we do it, it's piracy when they do it". One man's terrorist and all that.

seanhunter3• 3 years ago

Countries which use the metric system: Everyone except the US, Mynanmar and Liberia. And kind of the UK.

As someone who grew up in a metric country and moved to the UK it sure doesn't feel like we use it here, but officially we use it. It's just we don't actually use it most of the time. So teaching in schools and tertiary education is in metric (including word questions about people travelling in a car on the motorway at "the speed limit of 112km/h"[1]), scientific stuff is universally in metric[2] and temperature is in C[3]. People measure distance in imperial, but volumetric measures and weights have come around to being sensible with just a bit of grumbling from extreme stick-in-the-muds like Jacob Rees-Mogg who have made a career out of living like it's still the 19th century.

[1] Which is not a number you will ever see on a speed limit sign nor is the answer that will be given if you ask an actual driver what the motorway speed limit is. They will universally say 70mph.

[2] Because of course

[3] Because also of course. F might be the second-worst unit of measurement after perhaps only degrees Rankine.

cm2012• 3 years ago

F is better for use in human temperature comfort than C.

RandomLensman• 3 years ago

Not really. It's not like there are no decimals.

stephen_g3• 3 years ago

Nope, you’re just used to it. If you’re used to Celsius it’s basically no different…

euroderf2• 3 years ago

C predictions tend to be exact numbers. F predictions are typically "50, low 50s, mid 50s, high 50s" (four per decade).

10 C degrees are 18 F degrees. So in this interval, C has ten points and F has 7.2 points.

So maybe F better suits the accuracy of predictions (i.e. significant digits -type stuff).

kubanczyk• 3 years ago

the second-worst unit of measurement after perhaps only degrees Rankine.

I see you haven't heard about Delisle scale yet? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delisle_scale

seanhunter3• 3 years ago

Oh my word.

Pirates of the Caribbean (Metric Edition) (2017)

Related Stories