| Welcome to SP! - Sign-In | Register | ||
 |  | |
| MbPost.com -- It's SP for Mountain Biking! | ||
|
| |||||||||||||||
|
| desainme | The new edition | |
Voted 10/10 | of the Roaches' book will likely be High Colorado High Four Thousanders. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 2:51 am | ||
 | ||
| swm88er | Re: The new edition | |
Hasn't voted | I hope not!!! I would have a hard time buying it!:) | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 3:02 am | ||
| Lolli | Please, | |
Voted 9/10 | don't drive on the left side of the road anywhere in Europe, except in 4 countries, with Great Britain as the most famous for it. In the remaining 46 countries it would be rather catastrophic... I don't agree with you about the meter, since I FEEL how long a meter is, or a kilometer or a... but I understand you perfectly. It's mutual feeling about the opposite system, depending on what one has grown up with. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 3:21 am | ||
| ||
| swm88er | Re: Please, | |
Hasn't voted | Haha...I'll try not to!!! What we like is what we are used to, I guess. Thanks for stopping by! | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 3:40 am | ||
| Bob Sihler | Somewhat funny, but... | |
Voted 9/10 | It's a little one-sided, though I prefer feet myself, but much of the rest of the world does it another way, and their way does make much more sense. But that's not why I voted 5/10. The reason is the numerous spelling and grammatical errors; they make the page hard to read for someone who knows the "rules" and spellings. Spell Check, while not infallible, would have caught most of your errors. Did you run it? Anyway, I'd be happy to upgrade my vote if the errors, the majority and the most glaring of them, anyway (like "since" and "looses"), get fixed. And really, what is the point of the Gerry Roach book photo? I have the book, too, and it's great, but it really doesn't add to this article except to show a picture of a book you mention, unless you intend it as a free advertisement for Roach. When I saw it pop up on the New Images page, I thought it might serve as part of a link for a mountain page. And the lake photos? Am I missing something? How do they complement the text? They just seem placed there for no other reason than to put them there. I'm trying to be fair but honest in these comments, and I hope you can take them constructively. I voted favorably on your relevant images. And as I said, there is some humorous quality to the article. But this is now a featured article, and it's a little sloppy. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 8:02 am | ||
| ||
| swm88er | Re: Somewhat funny, but... | |
Hasn't voted | Thanks for letting me know why you voted how you did!!! I understand. To be honest I don’t know how it happened, but I copied and pasted the unedited version of the article instead of the edited version!!! Opps…sorry!! I think I fixed most of the problems now. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 7:31 pm | ||
| ||
| Bob Sihler | Re: Somewhat funny, but... | |
Voted 9/10 | I'm glad you've made those changes, and I've changed my vote. As Tim Sharp said, don't let all of this discourage you from other contributions. I got myself into a smaller, less bitter controversy recently over a trip report about the Bitterroots, but things turned out well, and Tim gets a lot of the credit for that. And I think one of your lake photos is very nice, but I just don't see how it's related to your article. If it's there for a good reason, please add that to the caption. Again, I'll happily change my vote, which wasn't about the quality of the photo at all. Bob | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 8:49 pm | ||
| ||
| swm88er | Re: Somewhat funny, but... | |
Hasn't voted | I deleted the picture of the lake since it had no purpose in the article. I left the other picture because I thought it was a nice picture to end the article. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 9:03 pm | ||
| ||
| Bob Sihler | Re: Somewhat funny, but... | |
Voted 9/10 | I changed my votes. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 9:09 pm | ||
| Marcus Hofmann | I tend to disagree | |
Voted 6/10 | Your only valid point is that you are used to and have a feeling for feet, miles and the like, which you don't have for meters. Well, get a feeling for it then. We had to deal with the same problem in Europe five years ago when a new currency, the Euro, was introduced. I tried to get used to it as fast as possible, and it really only took a couple of weeks. I've also spent quite some time in the US, and it never took me longer than a few days to get used to the miles, feet, gallons, farenheit, pounds, ounces and so on. It really only is a matter of how open-minded (or not) and willing to get on with it you are. You raise the point that it is a matter of perspective what's easy and what's not, and you bring up the binary and hex systems in favour of your reasoning. But this can be turned against you easily, because you - and especially you as an engineering student - have a perfect feeling for the decimal system, so you should actually like the idea of being given a distance measurement system that you can comfortably deal with in decimal. But the real reason why I voted 1/10 is that your article does in no way elaborate on the advantages (or maybe disadvantages, if any?) of metric length measurement when relating to other entities - especially concerning mountaineering, which is what a Summit Post article should be about. I'll explain what I mean: A meter is ten decimeters, one hundered centimeters and one thousend millimeters. That's great in itself, but one liter of water? Hey, that's one cubic decimeter. And how heavy is that? Hey, one kilogram! That's cool - and easy. But it goes on, especially when it comes to mountaineering: Water freezes at zero Centigrade, so below zero means It'll be snowing; above zero means I'll get wet. If I descend one hundred meters, temperature will rise by approximately half a degree. So if I'm going to climb 2000 meters, it'll be ten degrees colder up there, and I know if I need to pack my duvet jacket or not, if it will be wet or icy. If windspeed is 50 kilometers per hour at zero Centigrade, the windchill will take the temperature down by approx. 10 degrees Centigrade, half that at half the windspeed. Those values change by a factor of 1.5 for 5 degrees Centigrade temperature difference. One ropelength is 50 meters. My rope is ten millimeters thick, so I'll want ten centimeters sticking out the end of my knot to make it safe, and so on. It makes for easy calculations, and the units interoperate nicely (even if sometimes only approximated because of not perfectly linear temperature gradients). I value your opinion. If someone asked me, I'd want my German Marks back, too. But one cannot logically argue against the interconnecting metric units for length, speed, weight, volume and, to some extent, temperature. The system as a whole is superior, and an isolated view on length measurement units does not do the aspects that are involved justice. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 10:59 am | ||
| ||
| Sebastian Hamm | Re: I tend to disagree | |
Voted 7/10 | 100% !!! Marcus for President !!! @swm88er: The book "The 29000er of the world" would be very thin. 8000er sounds better. I understand your feelings about the differences but I can´t see there any problems. Write an article "How I stop worrying and love the metric system" Sebastian | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 12:53 pm | ||
| ||
| surgent | Re: I tend to disagree | |
Voted 10/10 | The metric system fails in one HUGE regard: our propensity to subdivide in halves, fourths, eighths, etc., or into units that are easily divisible by integers, into integers (hence the 12 inches). In the metric system, you end up with decimal results regardless, and while conversion is easy (just move the decimal point), the results are awkward.
| |
| Posted Nov 20, 2006 4:35 pm | ||
| Ejnar Fjerdingstad | I know what a meter is! | |
Voted 1/10 | The feeling you have for feet is caused by your growing up with that unit. When I spent three years in the US I had a hard time getting used to feet, miles, degrees F, and gallons etc. (try converting miles per gallon to kilometers per liter - this was before pocket calculators). I would consider your instinctive knowledge of feet very imprecise. After all, the size of human foot varies considerably (have a look at your wife's or girlfriend's feet). The distance from the North Pole is pretty constant (even though the French didn't quite get it right with the limited instrumentation of that time). The wavelength of light is completely constant under the specified conditions, and this is why scientists always use the meter and other SI units, that are furthermore logically interconnected and easy to calculate with. So just get used to it, it is the future anyway. Feet will go the way of chemical photography. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 11:09 am | ||
| Corax | Simplicity | |
Hasn't voted | I buy Marcus' reasoning to 100%. Good post. I hope that feet don’t become ‘obsolete’ as Roach thinks they probably will. I do hope it will and I'm pretty sure it'll happen. I like simplicity and uniformness and on top of that; the metric system is very logical. It would be great if we only had one system in this case. If someone "invents" a better system than the metric; fine, I would have no difficulties to use that system then. Same with left hand/right hand side driving or language. Ok, some says we should all drive on the left hand side tomorrow, I wouldn't protest against it; if it was the choice for the whole world. No one would be more happy than me if there was a new order tomorrow; the whole world should speak and read English/Chinese/Esperanto/Language x. One language for the whole planet. I have no attachments to anything strong enough to overide my wish for simplicity and uniformness. That said; I'm totally against no choice on "lower levels". I want multi choice when going for a cup of coffe, buying outdoor gear etc. Without it we would have a very boring world. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 11:51 am | ||
| ||
| Ejnar Fjerdingstad | Re: Simplicity | |
Voted 1/10 | Well, I think there is a great difference between learning a new language, which takes many years, and changing to a new system of measurement with a limited number of measuring units. Moreover, abandoning your native language also means abandoning much of your culture. It would probably be a good idea for the EU to have a common language for their union affairs instead of translating back and forth between 25 languages, but even that seems impossible to agree upon. Having the whole world speak the same language would probably require considerable use of force, I don't think many would want such a "new order" (or "Neuordnung"). If you want to see how attached people are to their languages, and climb some impressive mountains too, just go to the Dolomites. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 1:06 pm | ||
| ||
| Corax | Re: Simplicity | |
Hasn't voted | Well, I think there is a great difference between learning a new language, which takes many years, and changing to a new system of measurement with a limited number of measuring units. Yes, that's a huge difference. Not even comparable. I just wanted to explain how little I'm attached to any of those matters and describe to which extremes I would adapt to in order to make things easier for the most amount of people. Of course, speaking in a long term sense. Moreover, abandoning your native language also means abandoning much of your culture. I can't see how. The language is only the way we communicate, the culture wouldn't change as I see it. It would probably be a good idea for the EU to have a common language for their union affairs instead of translating back and forth between 25 languages, but even that seems impossible to agree upon. Agreeing twice. It would be great to have one language. So much simpler, but national prestige and pride is in the way and it'll never happen. If the EU was to choose one language I would choose the one which is the easiest to learn, even if that would disqualify some of the most widely spoken ones. Another parameter would be the simplicity of the alphabets. Therefore Swedish would be out of question from square one. Å, ä and ö are nothing but hindrances. "We" should get rid of those letters, regardless of the EU question. Having the whole world speak the same language would probably require considerable use of force, I don't think many would want such a "new order" (or "Neuordnung"). I'm in a tiny, tiny minority group about this and It'll probably never happen. The experiment with Esperanto failed badly for example. I know I'm in the land of Utopia when advocating any of this, but It's always interesting to paint a dream scenario. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 3:49 pm | ||
| ||
| Lolli | Re: Simplicity | |
Voted 9/10 | The argument swm88er uses is an emotional one, not the practical one. He doesn't want to change, he likes the feet-system. To me it's perfectly okey. One doesn't have to like another system, even if one recognizes the simplicity and scientific beauty of it. That doesn't equal. I do like the metric system, I too like the simplicity and logic of it - with the advantage of having used it all my life, so the emotional argument leans towards it therefore too. Nor have I any problem with Corax's wish of uniformness, of course it would be so much easier with a common language, especially for someone who travels as extensively as he does all around the world. But I think that's a wish that won't work, since languages are not static, they develop in different directions, even if they were the same language from the beginning. There's a major difference from measurement systems. I fail to see that the "Neuordnung" in changing to the metric system which both Britain and the US has implemented is nor bad neither brutal. It just takes its time, and if every official document and schools use the new scale, people get used to it and find no difficulty with it as time goes by. As Scott P. says "It's the old folk holding us back.". (Generalizing of course). I believe though that some things will survive a change, amongst them the term "fourteeners". We still use "inch" (thumb) for measuring thinkness of wood used in building - not official anywhere, but everybody in the business uses the term. "Two thumbs thick". | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 4:19 pm | ||
| arturf | Measurments... | |
Voted 10/10 | Well, as we all understand, every person feels better, when he is in atmosphere, he is used to. It doesn't mean, that feet system is more understandable, then meter system (or opposite) - the culture, You have grown and lived in, that's the only thing, which matters. You feel better, when You talk about fourteeners, but I am well impressed by fourthousanders - does it change the objective heigth of the mountain? It doesn't matter, how we measure mountains, it matters, that thay ARE... 10 points for honesty and passion in sharing Your opinion! | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 12:56 pm | ||
| Scott | Meters are usually better, but in mountaineering.... | |
Hasn't voted | Most young engineering or science type folk want the USA to change to the metric system. It's the old folk holding us back. In mountaineering there is only one advantage of using feet. Instead of doing the 8000 meter peaks, hard core peak baggers would have to do the 26,000 foot peaks. This would include Gasherbrum IV, considered possibly the most difficult peak in the world in some circles. I believe it has only been climbed four times. | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 3:36 pm | ||
| desainme | How I stopped worrying | |
Voted 10/10 | and learned to love: One meter =3937/1200 USFt | |
| Posted Nov 19, 2006 4:21 pm | ||
|
