Martin
Don't tell anyone one but he's actually one of those kinda, sorta, maybe, could be Merican's.
OK, on the rare occasion that I do anything with boundary, I would of course use DD MM SS. But, that is not what I do. Most of my work is engineering surveys.
Metric is the way to go. We are one of the last countries in the world to not switch over. That is because we are right and they are all wrong...
The metric system is a tool of the devil
But I know I am fighting a lost cause. I use metric, but I realize few others do or ever will.
> Metric is the way to go. We are one of the last countries in the world to not switch over. That is because we are right and they are all wrong...
Yes, i was going to "correct" [msg=246169]Stephen Ward's comment about countries, gons (grads) and the metric system[/msg], to say that only a very few countries actually use gons yet everyone uses SI units -- except the USA and two other brutal dictatorships, Liberia and Myanmar. But i didn't. 'Cept you just made me do it 😉
I wish all these other countries would join us, don't you?
Well, the day I tell farmer Jones ....
that he has 40 hectares of land instead of 100 acres, I'm a dead man.
Yes, I know all the benefits of metric, but old habits die hard. Especially for old guys like me.
Metric is very easy to work in, and hand-calculate, etc. Sure glad surveyors use the decimal-foot anyway (at least). I hate adding or multiply in feet, inches, and fractional inches.
We have all gotten good at converting numbers and most all surveyors know exactly how to convert from metric to us-survey feet, or international feet; or cm. to inches. Not to mention chains, rods, perches, etc. I think most of us could handle it, but it would be just one more pain-in-the-butt other conversion to transfer even with a modern metes-and-bounds description.
But the highway departments saw some of the other fundamental problems with converting. When you are dealing with purchasing or surveying for the general public, they don't want to see some distance in "metric". They want to know the length of those lines in feet. If you mandated using metric, you need to double-annotate every line, so that regular folks can understand your plat. A lot more shifting lines, or referencing tables or other major pains.
You kind of need to be at least slightly "bilingual" here, but I can't imagine doing my surveying in anything other than metres and millimetres. We still put down 6 inches of stone, lay 10x5 kerbs and put 8x4 plywood sheets on 4x2 timber though. The measurements of the above items are more exact in inches than they are in metric. Well apart from the stone maybe, depends who does it....
Small measurements below an inch I can't deal with, we don't use decimal feet or inches so it's all fractions which can do your head in.
As far as angles go its always dms in surveying. Mechanical engineers use decimal degrees i think.
Works good over there but the first time some contractor bids 10000 meters of curb at 10000 feet, we gonna get shot, drawn, and quartered.
Well, the day I tell farmer Jones ....
We (the country) need to start teaching and emphasizing the metric system in elementary and high school. Then, about 60 years from now, no one will know what feet and inches ever were! All the old foot users will have died off (no offense Dave).
Seriously, other countries have made the switch. That doesn't mean we can't maintain a dual system for a while. No reason why engineering projects can't all be metric. Just takes some education. Many state DOT spent a boatload of money (forced to by the feds) in the early 90's converting to metric, then went back to feet because of the confusion. If there had been education in the schools about the metric system, maybe it wouldn't have been such a fiasco.
Even my federal client, the USCE, likes to use feet with (gasp) UTM. They do, however, use meters for some things, like deformations (which used to be in inches).
Well, the day I tell farmer Jones ....
John, they tried that back in the Jimmy Carter days.
It didn't take hold then and I doubt it has much chance now since people don't know where they are going or how far without their gadgets to tell them so. God help them to actually, GASP, READ A FREAKIN MAP!!!
😀
all true, guys on site still talk in imperial and all survey and setting out done in metric. I couldn't imagine doing it in imperial.
last year I had to check verticality on a wind turbine and the german manufacturer wanted the results in GON. After a few minutes I remembered the instrument could switch to GON so I was saved a red face!
Paul,
looks aa only the Germans are building these wind turbines in Europe! We've worked on some projects here in Beligum and always with the Germans.
Chr.
