I was the party chief for the first metric FDOT right-of-way survey back in 1994. It was a memorable experience. I heard the state eventually abandonded the metric system because it caused too much confusion for pipe vendors. I personally like the metric system. Ever try working with carpenters and converting back and forth between fractions of an inch and tenths and hundredths of a foot? The metric system is so much easier!
Whats with Americans and the resistance to change. Canada didn't have to hard of a time making the change. There was some grumbling, but everyone figured it out, and I would wager you would find very few who would want to go back. I love the U.S., but my blood pressure goes up every time I hear someone talking about 3/8 of an inch or arguing about what type of foot to use.?ÿ
And even better for surveyors was the switch to azimuth, no pesky reversed bearings to confuse attorneys.?ÿ
NYSDOT went metric once-upon-a-time.
Just loved those 15.088M & 20.117M wide R.O.W.'s
Have you ever tried to work with the trades when all the trade supplies are in imperial units, and they have been for those journeyman's entire career and now we're going to use the same goods and give them new names, that aren't even correct? Yeah that's a pretty good load of crap to try to sell.
?ÿHow fun was slope staking with rag tapes and rods, but now every catch is a calculator project because you're going to the cent?- 8's a 2 on an even foot when you're catching a 1 1/2:1- but not anymore...? Remember- this was before, models, .tins and surfaces, and right at the onset of data collector use period. What's the proctor on this gravel? 1922kg/m^3 "Say what?!??!"
There is efficiency error trapping in familiarity. If the familiarity is gone, mistakes get missed.
?ÿThe spring before we started our fisrt metric proect, the Bureau chief said they were expecting a 15-25% increase in change orders just from mathematical errors.
When the highway funding got tied to metrication, the equipment salesmen had a hayday, and the taxpayers took a bath.
?ÿif metrication had made sense and was market driven, it would have stuck- but it wasn't so it didn't. As it was, the DOT's said "we have to go metric!!! and the suppliers said, "sure we can tool up and do that" come see us in 3 years." DOT's said we can't not build anything for that long so we'll soft convert...everyone outside looking in said "That looks ridiculous!!!" A flo- orange version of the emperor's new clothes..., ?ÿso the struggle bus languished, slowed, and quietly keeled over. Good riddance.
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I'm all for "going metric," in fact I had hoped that we were going to do that in 1986 when NAD83 came out.
I will REALLY get on board when my pint of Guinness becomes .5 Litre (a small increase in volume), but stays the same price!
Loyal
There is efficiency error trapping in familiarity. If the familiarity is gone, mistakes get missed.
Good point!
I'm currently doing a minor woodworking project and chose to design it in millimeters.
It's a musical instrument stand (for my wife's hammered dulcimer) with a folding scissors design. I used my least squares "surveying" program to do all the tricky angle and distance computations to meet her constraints for height, slope, hinge alignment, etc. Wouldnt want to do the computations by hand. When the lumber width turned out to be slightly different than expected it was easy to have it recalculate.
I wouldn't want to design it in fractions, and don't have tools to easily to measure lumber in hundredths of a foot.?ÿ So metric is the way to go.
The good thing about the metric system is that I'm only 23 years old and weigh 122!
A trust you are cutting better than a hundreth of a foot, or its going to be a very wobbly stand! (it will certainly be "least" square!)
Don't you believe it. 47 years after "metrication" I go down the woodyard for a sheet of plywood and come back with one which measures 2.44m x 1.22m (ie. 8 x 4).
Yes, some new material come in metric (just some) and some timber comes in real metric lengths, but a lot doesn't. After all, if you are replacing plasterboard on a wall with the timber studding set to imperial it doesn't help to find the "new" sheet fails to cover the hole by an inch (whoops, sorry, 2.5 cm) all round.
And had you noticed that German and Swiss (and Japanese and Chinese and.....) survey equipment manufacturers still hold the gear to tripods with 5/8 screws, and will probably always do so.
Eventually you get used to "simple" conversions where criticality doesn't matter. I've even heard a youngster explaining a metre as being "8cm. longer than a yard".
The attachment to fractional units may diminish along with basic math skills, if the calcs are done on a phone it is easier to use decimals.?ÿ
I like the size of a millimeter, small enough to be tight but not ludicrous small like a foot thousandth.
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Yes, back in the day when the feds said go metric or lose government funding, we struggled on the survey side, but the real struggle was
the contractors being handed a set of plans in metric. Not a pretty picture, I started my own company right in the middle of that cluster and have never looked back.
Randy
I come from Puerto Rico and everything there related to surveying/civil engineering is done with the metric system. I moved to Texas a few years ago and had to relearn and get used to Imperial units, which isn't bad at all, it's just a different system.
If we go back to metric I wouldn't have a problem.
I eyeball between the marks, whether it's 1/16", 0.01 ft, or 1 mm marks.
But it's a principle of woodworking that dimensions are rarely critical: 1/16" or even 1/8" ~ 0.01 ft is usually an acceptable tolerance for a dimension, so long as everything with that dimension is precisely matched. Plans have "Dimension A" and "Dimension B" with suggested values that can be allowed to vary, but you need to cut all A's the same by fixturing, or clamping the pieces together for cutting rather than by relying on measurements.
Rankin, you might remember some numbers from those days, 1609.35 and the two divisions of that #; 804.67 and 402.34 popped into my head after tieing into one of the DOT ROW plan metric sets for a recent project. ?ÿ
I guess they will not ever go away, those Record of Surveys are filed in the courthouse.?ÿ
It's kinda like 20,906,000 a number I typed into the calculator over and over during the old NAD27 days.?ÿ
All of my surveying is in feet with a few GPS generated meters and then all of my CNC and 3D printing is in millimeters. I have no use for inches, but, I still think in them. When I am making a part in 3D it is difficult to imagine the size unless you stop and actually pause to think about it. At times like that I will find an edge, query the dimension and then mentally convert to inches for a reference. Oh 100mm, OK that's about 4". We are creatures of our base learning after all, I guess.
Yes, from down here in NZ it is rather amusing to think of the more complex maths non-metric requires but I am a metric native. NZ has been metric since the late 1970's and very few signs of imperial measurement here other than timber on building sites being referred to in inches (despite it being only a nominal size). I'm in my 30's and the only reason I know anything about inches is because I enjoy mountainbiking and suspension travel was always measured in inches in the 90's/00's with MTB being from US origins
Being pedantic here ...
What sort of metric conversion are you doing on years??
Your weight (on earth) must be more than 122 Newtons, which is the SI unit of force, as that is the weight of a very small child. If you mean you weigh as much as 122 kg of mass, that is believable if you are a big fellow.
The year I started surveying was metric conversion for money?ÿ then followed measurements in 1971.
The world didn't end and these days the 2 coexist well. Still have to deal with imperial fabrications in a metric world .
We still deal with links?ÿ feet and metres in old surveys. Acres roods and perches, m?ý, ha (square metres hectares). It's second nature.?ÿ
Biggest problem I face is buying by length. We surveyors are metres or mm's. Ask a shopkeeper for 1.2 metres of something and?ÿ "how longs that". If I'd said 120 cms they'd have understood immediately.
Change is mind controlled. Generation later and its behind you.
Imperial is only a measurement system and people adapt.?ÿ
Excellent - a practical approach always trumps (note: small t) theory.
