Metric System

[mchakko]

I guess I am biased as an American, but I still think the English are more useful because they are designed to make some sense and cover a useful ranger rather than to arbitrarily fit in a decimal system. Probably not "designed", but more chosen by trial and error: as in the "foot" is a good scale for human height, but the "hand" is a good scale for the height of horses. Whereas the meter is not really a good scale for the height of either, but we apply it anyway because it can be divided by ten...




Sure centimeters are more precise, but millimeters are even more precise...either one just makes the range some big numbers without much difference between them.

The range between 6'0" to 7'0" seems to me to be parceled out better than 1.82 to 2.13 meters. The difference of a foot means the difference between a small guard and a big center, whereas the difference of a meter means the difference between a small child and an average NBA player. But a little kid, an average adult, and an NBA guard are all 1 meter and some change...I don't find it intuitive for height

[el badman]

I guess I am biased as an American, but I still think the English are more useful because they are designed to make some sense and cover a useful ranger rather than to arbitrarily fit in a decimal system.

Yeah, I think 5.5 billion people or so could call you biased...
Trust me, when you're fom anywhere else but the US or the UK, the English system doesn't make much sense, it seems to complicate everything.
Just a matter of cultures I guess...

[Zoom]

it's where you've grown up and stuff... I can say I feel privileged to understand both ways of measuring

[[Q]]

growing up in the US, you NEVER use cm, meters, kilos, and the Celsius (Centigrade) scale. I'm really happy that we use the metric system for money though (as oppposed to schillings and whatever they used in England).

personally, I think metric is a lot easier to use and it's easier to convert between measurements multiplying in 10s. It's so silly to memorize how many cups in a quart or a gallon or whatever.

[funk99]

growing up in the US, you NEVER use cm, meters, kilos, and the Celsius (Centigrade) scale. I'm really happy that we use the metric system for money though (as oppposed to schillings and whatever they used in England).

personally, I think metric is a lot easier to use and it's easier to convert between measurements multiplying in 10s. It's so silly to memorize how many cups in a quart or a gallon or whatever.

Like the difference between Billions. The US Billion and the UK Billion

[chris-3-]

hey guys I just told him how he could change the systems not that the metric is better or something like that. personally I use the US system as well because most i-net sites newspapers and mags use the system. so as long as the USA don't decide to change to metric system its easier for everyone who deals with the nba to use feet and pounds as well.

the idea of including wingspan in the game is great should be on the 08 list for sure i think!!!

[Heiks]

I've got nothing against miles, feet, inches nor pounds, but one thing that I can't understand is Fahrenheits. That's just plain silly.

Anyways, if I'm not wrong, the French and Spanish versions are in metrics. I could be mistaken though.

You should be able to change the measures through editing the language files in the "loc" folder aswell. The thing is, that you wouldn't be able to change height by centimeters, but by 2 or 3 centimeters(exactly by an inch, but we wouldn't want to use millimeters), so the heights would 1.96, 1.98, 2.01, 2.03 or something like that. Same goes for weight. We could have it in kilos, but change the weight by pounds (about half kilos).

[furbysaur]

The thing is, that you wouldn't be able to change height by centimeters, but by 2 or 3 centimeters(exactly by an inch, but we wouldn't want to use millimeters), so the heights would 1.96, 1.98, 2.01, 2.03 or something like that.

Those are in meters. The height in centimeters would be like 229cm for yao ming, 198cm for kobe bryant, and 165cm for earl boykins. but those numbers are not exact to 1cm because they are rounded from inches.

I'm really happy that we use the metric system for money though

I don't know if there is a metric/english system for money.

[[Q]]

^
in England I'm pretty sure they use/used to use a system where there were like a certain amount of "schillings" (not in increments of 10) in a "pound" and so on

[furbysaur]

^
in England I'm pretty sure they use/used to use a system where there were like a certain amount of "schillings" (not in increments of 10) in a "pound" and so on

oh i see. i know they use metric/SI units even though they're english. but i don't think there is an english/metric system for english currencies and any other currencies.

also in temperature, degrees celcius are in metric but i don't hear any degrees centicelcius. the increments of 10 are applicable only to certain units. in US dollars/cents.. there is a quarter but it is not an increment of 10.

man this subject is getting deeper.

[desdope]

Attention! After writing this I noticed it is a bit of a history lesson. So if you don't wanna hear about backgrounds and history, just skip the post. You have been warned

Actually prior to decimalisation, the pound was divided into twenty shillings, with each shilling equal to twelve pence, making a total of 240 pence to the pound.

Not very easy to comprehend if you didn't grow up with that system. That was prior to 1971 by the way, for history buffs.

As for the measurement being in feet and inches, personally I don't mind too much in NBA Live. Players are being credited for wrong sizes all the time anyway, there is always the discussion whether someone is 6'8" or not rather 6'7" or even 6'6"... so what use would it be to have that broken down into even smaller and more accurate measurement units? Yes, for us Europeans (minus the UK citizens) it would be easier to comprehend how tall someone actually is compared to us, but after watching your share of NBA games you will surely have gotten used to it.

I have spent quite some time in the UK until about 10 years ago and was always interested in the imperial system with their inches, links, feet, yards, poles, chains, furlongs,... In the monarchy Austria-Hungary for example we still had measurements like the "Elle", which refers to the forearm - pretty much the same historical background as the feet still being used today in England and the US. The "Elle" as basic unit for length varied in different countries, so in Prussia for example 1 Elle might have been longer or shorter than the Austrian Elle - not very good for international trading. Most of Europe abandoned that in order to have a common length unit, the meter.

You still have non-metric leftovers in everyday life like "a dozen". 12 units were common to be grouped although I must admit I don't know why (you have the dozen, 12 inches per foot, 12 pence making a shilling,...).

Alright, I got a bit carried away there, but I hope it was of interest to someone

[shadowgrin]

I think me and majority of engineering student-posters here in the forums (if there are any) would have to agree with the metric system being easier to use. It's based on increments of 10 so one only has to juggle a few zeros or decimal places to convert an exact value. Unlike the inconsistent English system where some of it are based on increments of 12 while others are not, so you need to know conversion values just within the English system itself! That's not counting the conversion from English to Metric or vice-versa. It's crazy I tell you.

On the other side, I guess pounds are more accurate than kilos, so well...

Not really. A kilo is already a huge value (based on 1000) so convert it into a smaller unit. Try a gram or a decagram or a hectogram. Metric has it covered.

we as a country were too cocky to learn (or even adapt to) theirs until 15 years ago. And we STILL dont know... God bless the US!

It has more to do with national pride (and a little bit of economics). Why would the US, being the leading superpower that it is, would follow some silly standardized system when it could retain its own sytem?

12 units were common to be grouped although I must admit I don't know why

The 12 increment units has been based since old times (Roman times?).
Calendar = 12 months
Day = 24 hours
Hour = 60 mins. (12 times 5)
1 min. = 60 secs. (12 times 5)
The units of time (secs., mins., hrs.) are probably the only ones that are the same in both Metric and English system (except for light years).

Although, I have been used to and would rather see the measurements used in the NBA to be in English.

[T-Wave]

Heiks wrote:

You should be able to change the measures through editing the language files in the "loc" folder aswell.


That's a good point. Do you know how to edit them? I'd like to try that out. I don't have a big problem with the feet & pounds, coz after all these years of watching the nba, I've gotten used to it, and doing quick conversions in my mind. But I'll definitely prefer using the metric system. I guess I'll just post a request in the request section.