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I'm your host John Chidjie and today I'm joined by special guest Mr. Casey Liss. How are you doing,
Casey? Hello, how are you, sir? I am doing well, but how are you? Oh, I'm fine. I'm totally awesome.
We're actually recording this in the middle of the day, my time, which is great. Yeah, so I was
about to ask because you are in the future as far as I'm concerned. So it is what, Wednesday where
where you are?
Yes, it is. It is Wednesday morning and it is 1015 in the morning. So yes,
indeed.
Time zones, man. How do they work?
Yeah. If only the world was flat. But depending on who you ask, nevermind.
Yeah. Let's not go there.
Yeah. Let's not go. Let's not do that. So one of the things I've been,
people have been asking for me to talk about on the show for,
for quite some time is metric and Imperial.
I sort of dodged the subject and you know, I listen to some shows that you're on and
I thought it might be a nice topic to sort of, yes, have a little chat about metric versus
imperial.
So, what do you think?
Well, we certainly can, but the problem is there is no conversation to have because there's
imperial and then there's other silly units.
Yes, indeed.
But I guess the thing is, oh, it's coming out swinging.
Okay.
Okay, so I guess I just want to sort of start with what specifically I mean.
I guess I'm talking about four things specifically I want to talk about, and that's length measurements,
temperature measurements, weight measurements, and time.
And yes, I threw time in there just for, you know, you'll see why it makes me so angry
later, but anyway.
So the thing with metric is that metric was originally, the concept anyway, was created
by some guy called Gabriel Mouton.
was a vicar of St. Paul's Church in Lyon in France, and that was back in 1670.
The proposal was a decimal system of metric, like base 10.
The idea is one level of unit scale to the next could be achieved by shifting the decimal
point and you don't have to do any complicated maths in your head because who likes doing
math in your head, right?
It gives you a headache and stuff.
But maybe our calculators these days, back then they didn't.
They just had abacuses.
They had abacuses.
Anyway.
Obviously, so the metric, sorry,
let me start with the imperial thing.
So one foot contains 12 inches.
So to get to two feet,
you've got to multiply the 12 by two to get 24 inches.
Whereas in metric, if it was one meter and one meter,
you just say, well, that's 100 centimeters.
I said two zeros and you got centimeters
or 1.1 meters is 110 centimeters.
So just shift the decimal point,
fill in the zeros and that's it.
You don't have to remember your two times table anymore,
which I guess is good, lazy. I don't know.
A bit of both. Yeah. So it's supposed to be quicker anyway.
But the thing was it wasn't actually, um, it was during the French revolution.
That was about 1790. Um,
the national assembly of France requested the Academy of sciences there to create
a new standard that was simple and scientific. Yeah. Anyway.
And um, meter actually is, is actually the French derivation of a Greek word,
which is Metron, meaning a measure,
which really doesn't tell you anything.
- Oh, I didn't know that.
- Yeah, it's kind of weird, eh?
So it's like a measure, a measure of what,
but nevermind, anyway.
And one of the funny little foibles,
French versus the rest of,
well, is it the rest of the world?
I know in the United States, it's spelled M-E-T-E-R,
as in a meter, whereas in France, it's M-E-T-R-E.
And what I'm not clear on is whether or not
that's the same in the UK.
It's definitely the same in Australia. So we would, we would write M E T R E.
But, um, it always gets me because the spellchecker on like pages or word or
whatever you're using always flags it. And you're like, Oh, not set to a North
Americans. Got it. So the red squiggly line idea halfway through.
But, but I mean, to American or due to Americans,
do Australians really understand how to use the English language?
Because I mean, I have, I have several Australian friends and I will never quite
understand how one makes the leap from McDonald's to Macca's.
Like, how did that even happen?
I, uh, I mean, breakfast to brekkie is a stretch, but I can get behind it.
But Macca's is just out of left field.
Well, um, is Mickey D's, is that supposed to be-
That, I can do that.
I can do that.
You can do Mickey D's.
Yeah, I guess I can see that Macca's.
Yeah, you're right.
I just, okay.
You got me.
I just, I honestly don't know.
Um, I think that McDonald's is, yeah.
Isn't McDonald's struggling these days? I hear rumours. I don't know.
Who even knows? They flip flop.
They're doomed as often as Apple is, I'd say, and it doesn't ever seem to be real.
But I don't know. And I poke fun at Australians.
Truth be told, everyone I've known, every American I've ever known who has gone to Australia has pretty much come home to America and said, yeah, I'm going to move there one day.
So I come out with my with my guns blazing just for the entertainment of it.
But but I'd love to get down to Australia one day.
The problem is you have to time travel to get there and it takes like 300 years, but I would love to do it once upon a time.
You've just been spoiled because you can fly within your own country within a few hours pretty much anywhere.
And, you know, it's like that's just- And you're closer to Europe, right?
So, you can jump a plane in a few hours and be in Europe.
And I'm like- It's actually not- Yeah, it's not too much further to London than it is to, say, San Francisco.
It is further to London for sure, but it's not that different.
Yeah exactly where I was on I'm sort of stuck right because wherever we go it's a long way.
Yeah I was like tough man man I mean it's pretty and all and I love it but she's international.
All the animals yeah and all the animals can kill you that's the thing it with Australia right like everything around you is pretty much intent on murdering you probably not the people but everything else or at least that's the stereotypical like it like dumb ignorant American hello.
version of Australia is, oh yes, their scorpions are the size of cars, their spiders are the
size of houses, and pretty much everything, including the koalas and the kangaroos, are
intent on murdering you.
>> ADAM KILGARRIFF: Koalas are awfully cute until they wake up and then they have these
big razor claws and then they tear the strips off of you and then you're like, they're not
cute anymore.
I don't want to, hand it back, hand it back, mummy, don't want it anymore.
And yeah, the other thing is that people think that kangaroos hop down the main street or
even around the corner from where you live. And then you think, oh, that is such a ridiculous
stereotype. And then literally three days ago, I'm driving up like two blocks from my
house and there's a kangaroo in the middle of the road. And I'm like, oh, oh yeah, about
that.
Yeah, about that. Anyway, I'm taking, I'm already taking this, this show terrible places
that have nothing to do with what we're trying to discuss. So, I apologize.
It's tangentially related. Okay. But anyhow, okay. That's fine. It's all good. The thing
that I found really fascinating, actually, and I say fascinating as in ridiculous about
definition of what one metre was be is that they figured, this is their rationale, that one metre
was supposed to be one ten millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator
along a meridian that intersected with Dunkirk in France and Barcelona in Spain. Who the heck
came up with that as an idea for measure? I mean, really? Can you imagine walking that and measuring
it and then getting to the end and thinking, "Oh, was that 1,158,227,226?"
You know, it's like...
>> COREY: Yeah.
That's weird.
>> ADAM: Yeah.
And the obvious thing is they got it wrong.
They measured it wrong.
[Corey laughs]
>> ADAM: Like, of course.
So they actually didn't correctly account for the curvature of the planet because the
world's not a perfect sphere.
And I think at the time they didn't appreciate that.
And they probably miscounted steps or something.
I don't know.
But anyway.
The thing though is that the measurement of what actual distance is one meter has remained one
meter for the past 215 years, which is kind of good I guess, but you know it was supposed to be
simple. But every other key unit needed to be derived from the meter so like
they said every other thing, so grams were based on a cube of 0.01 meters which is one centimeter
or 10 millimeters, just shift your decimal point,
and you fill that with water and then that's a gram.
And technically that was referred to as a cubic decimeter of water.
But the thing was,
the water was measured at the temperature of melting ice initially.
But during the first half or so of the 20th century,
one kilogram of purest water at its highest density was found to be at four
degrees Celsius, not zero. So even that was not quite right initially.
And it's going well, isn't it?
Anyway, so because the volume of liquid determined by the purity of it, they learned later an isotropic composition.
So, you know, you look at like heavy water, like it's got deuterium or tritium in it.
That means it's heavier water.
So, then they said, well, we'll take a water sample at Vienna, because like Vienna is pretty or something.
I don't know. Anyway, and they're going to call that standard mean ocean water, which is pure distilled with an isotropic composition
that was naturally found at that part of the ocean.
Okay.
Yeah, I know.
It's great, isn't it?
The more you dig into this the more insane it sounds.
Anyhow, so 1799 the French made it official and they made it a
compulsory law by 1840.
But in 1875, this is where things get interesting because
in 1875 there was like what they called the Convention of
the metre and it was signed by 17 countries including drum
roll the United States.
And that's what people, I know, right?
People don't think that, but it's true.
So by 1900, there were 35 nations that officially adopted the metric system,
not the United States.
In 1960, the General Conference on Weights and Measures,
I bet that was a laugh a minute, extended the simplified convention to
include things like meter, kilogram, second, ampere for electric current,
Kelvin, for thermodynamic temperature, the mole and the candela for
luminous intensity and brightness of light and all that kind of thing.
And they all refer to all these as the SI units,
system international units in national system.
And that's what we all got taught. Like when we're going through school,
well actually, well, I was, I'm pretty sure you were too. And when you did your,
when you were studying, is that right? SI units?
- Yep. Yep.
- Yeah. So that was like 1960.
But the interesting fact that was buried in all of that was that since 1893,
all of the non-metric units in the United States of America were actually
defined in terms of metric units and people just didn't realize
it. So, an inch was defined based on how many fractions of
a meter it was. So, the base unit was actually...
Really? Yeah, I know.
I did not know that.
It's crazy, isn't it?
See, I told you, ignorant American.
Now, now. But, hey, in fairness, I was researching this and that
was one thing that I didn't know either. So, I only learned that
a few weeks ago, but never mind, it's fine. So, there you go. But
still, imperial distance. So, now it's time for the USA. But,
the thing is that a lot of the terminology came across from the
old country, so the UK. So, it gets a little bit confusing
where it started. And so, there's no question the United
States is still using it, but it didn't necessarily all start
there. So, yards and miles. And there've been different
definitions of the mile from countries all in history going
as far as the Ottoman Empire. Saxons, Hungarians, Portuguese, Russians,
Croatians, German, Dutch, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Old English and the English
Statute Mile. They all have different definitions of how long a mile is, which
is really frustrating. But anyway, they finally agreed internationally and this
is the funny part, in 1959. That was when they finally agreed that 1,609 meters or
354 millimeter and 354 millimeters long would evenly contain 1760 yards which is
5,280 feet. Now I could tell you exactly how many feet it is and I would
have to do you know the mental math to get yards out of it but yeah 5,280 feet
you learn that in grade school pretty quick. Yeah that's it yeah and that's it
right because you got to do that calculation a few times it just becomes
like a times table so once you learn it it's like you know big deal. Yep and the
funny thing is there's also nautical miles which are a totally different
measure which that really rocked my world when I was in grade school or maybe I don't know middle
or perhaps even high school whatever nautical miles entered my worldview and I realized that
a land mile is apparently not the same or I guess statute I believe is the official term for it a
yes a statute miles not the same as nautical mile and they're different enough to be annoying but
not different enough to be considerably different yeah exactly and I started digging into nautical
miles and I'm like, "Oh man, this is doing my head in. I'm going to draw a line there."
The US statute of modest on that one, for example, has been retained for land surveying
since about post-1959. Despite the metricization, oh God, what's the right word? Metricization?
Yeah, you're on your own on that one.
Yeah, I don't know either. Anyway, most of the world in the US and the UK still retain the mile
as their standard unit of measurement for large scales. So that's okay. But even more annoying
though is that in some US states they'll define a statute mile conversion to use for land surveys
and legislate it but some don't legislate it at all. So whether or not the statute mile applies
depends on what state you're in. Anyway, never mind. Given that there's so many definitions by
so many different countries I just want to quickly just talk about the UK mile and it's mainly because
that's where it all started. At least the most predominant usage in the world that remains came
from that. And that was originally in 1593 by good old Queen Elizabeth. And this is where we have to
talk about furlongs, Casey. >>CASEY Oh, goodness. Yeah,
that to me is a uniquely UK thing. I know it's a unit of measure, but that is not something I ever
really hear in the States. That strikes me as a uniquely British thing. >>TREVOR Just honest
question just curious. Do you follow horse racing at all?
No. There used to be a second or third tier horse racing track about an hour east of where I live,
and I did go and casually bet on horses a couple of times just as a fun diversion.
But outside of that, I never, ever, ever pay attention to it. There is the Triple Crown in
the United States, which is the Kentucky Derby and two other ones, Preakness and I forget what
I don't know what the other one is.
Belmont, maybe?
Anyway, it doesn't really matter.
- Possibly.
- But yeah, that, even for people like myself
who pay zero attention to horse racing,
that typically gets at least a little bit of,
you know, traditional media coverage,
particularly if the same horse has won two of the three
and the final one is coming up
because that's the genesis of Triple,
or the meaning of Triple Crown,
if they win all three of these, like,
top-tier horse races.
And so if, you know, Secretariat or whoever is,
The horse that is has won two of the three and then the last one is coming up.
People will typically pay attention to that and if people are from the Kentucky area,
like sometimes you'll see a Kentucky Derby party even in Virginia, the state in which
I live, if somebody like a friend of mine, his family was from Kentucky and so he would
throw a big Kentucky Derby party every year just on account of his heritage.
But yeah, I do recognize Furlong as being somehow loosely associated with that, but
I couldn't tell you the specifics.
Yeah, no, that's okay. In Australia, our equivalent of that, of something like the Kentucky Derby,
would be the Melbourne Cup and they call it the race that stops the nation. And it's like,
I always quite enjoy Melbourne Cup because it's an excuse to get some work done because
everyone else in the office disappears off into the corner. Like, oh, they're not bugging
me anymore. Excellent. Time to get some work done. But anyway, yeah. So the reason I brought
it up is because as you say, yes, Furlong is actually still used in horse racing as
a measurement and it's like, okay, that's kind of weird. But anyhow, the furlong has 40 poles.
40 poles, okay. And a pole is a unit of measure, right? And a pole is 16 and a half feet long.
I mean, obviously. - Yeah, how could it not be?
- I mean, obviously. And of course that becomes divisible into and definable by miles and yards
and all that stuff, right? So, oh, good God. So if you want to do that sort of math, you could say,
Furlongs are 660 feet long, 220 yards or 3 feet because it's 3 feet to a yard. If you assume
25.4 millimeters to an inch, 12 inches to a foot, one furlong is 201.168 meters and hence
five furlongs is about one kilometer. Anyway, there you go. And the foot measurement, just one
last thing about the foot measurement, up to the 13th century was the north German foot as opposed
to the South German foot I guess. I don't know. Anyway, and then there was a slightly shortened
rod length that was 15 of the old feet but it was upgraded to the 16 and a half new feet.
And it's just like, oh my god. Anyway, so in 1985 the Furlong was abolished in the UK,
but oddly it's still used around the world. So for horse racing, it's like, go figure. But anyway.
All right. I think I think it's time to get heavy.
That was a really bad joke. I'm going to wear a mask now.
So, this is so bad.
Casey's like, I did not give you the no, no, no.
That was a much better joke than I gave you zero credit for.
I did. I was I was debating with myself whether or not I really wanted to get into
get into a kilometer, kilometer versus mile argument.
And I was deciding I don't think it's worth it.
And I did not give that joke the credit it deserved.
My apologies.
Oh, don't apologize.
It was a horrible joke and that's fine.
It's okay.
Imperial, so I talked briefly about the derivation of a gram and I found that to be so tenuous,
but this is even more tenuous, okay?
This is imperial mass.
I'm talking about pounds now.
So 16 ounces in a pound and the US actually defined the pound and I say finally they did
because there are a whole bunch of attempts prior to 1894, but it was 1894 when they actually
said that it was going to be 2.20462234 pounds to 1 kilogram. And that's derived directly
from something that I'm going to mess this one up. I think it's pronounced the Avedupois
pound. It doesn't sound English at all, but apparently it was from 1300 England, but it
was called the Woollen pound, which I also don't get why. Anyway, so England went through
a whole bunch of these pound definitions. So there's like the Troy pound, the Tower
pound, merchant pound, and oddly there was one called the metric pound that is in fact not metric,
but never mind, it's okay, this isn't confusing at all, but none of those survived and the avodupois
pound has been around the longest, although Troy pounds is actually still used for precious metals,
so when they're weighing out like gold or platinum or something like that,
sometimes they'll quote that in Troy pounds. So I don't know what else to say about pounds,
except that that's just, oh man.
>> COREY PONDERS Yeah, I mean, pounds are weird, right?
Because I feel like for most reasonable things that you would want to measure the, what I
would call weight of, which I know this comes into like a really nerdy conversation of weight
versus mass, and I'm not intending to go there, but for the average weight, so a pound I feel
like it's a pretty neat unit of measure in and of itself.
An average adult male will weigh between 150 and 200 pounds.
Maybe an American weighs 250.
But anyway, an average adult male will weigh between 150 and 200 pounds.
An average car will be between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds.
I don't know.
An average serving of McDonald's/Macca's is probably 15 pounds.
No, not really
So
All kidding aside
I feel like a pound is a pretty decent unit of measure in and of itself the place where a pound falls down is
Converting it to anything else in the world
Yeah, it where I shouldn't I shouldn't have used that phrasing to anything else within the imperial system
Like you said 16 ounces to a pound. I
Half the time I need to remember that I forget
And then there's a couple other conversions that I'm drawing a blank on that are equally just completely ridiculous
and so this is why most Americans when they talk about the the the
Tubes that you can talk to or your or the robot in your phone that you can speak with
I'm trying not to use the official terms here
So I don't trigger any of them, you know
A lot of the times an American will say you've got to get this because you can just shout out a conversion, you know
"Hey, lady in the cylinder, how many ounces in a pound?"
Or, you know, "How many ounces do I need for four pounds?"
Or whatever the case may be.
And it's partially because weights and volume measures are so bananas in America
that that's such a compelling selling point for these cylinders that talk to you.
Yeah, that's true.
It's like one problem because of the unit conversions
makes this product so much more useful and almost a requirement.
It's a good point.
The thing a bit with weights, when you were saying before
about units of measure, like how much people weigh.
For example, you said 150, 200 pounds average American.
The funny thing is actually, as you said, jokingly, maybe 250 pounds.
The thing is that Australia has as much of an obesity problem,
I just like to add, as North America does statistically.
So, yeah, we like way too much fast food here as well.
It's kind of a problem, but anyhow, never mind.
Another conversation for another day.
Now, do you guys use stone?
Like because is that a British thing to use stone?
Like on 14 stone or whatever the case may be?
We don't predominantly anymore.
When they brought in the metric system here in the late 50s, early 60s,
we went away from stone.
But if you bought a, you know, the old, an old traditional spring
and dial scale that you would stand on. You would see on the inner track that there would
be this thing called stone. And I'd look at that and I'm like, "Oh, okay. Is that how
many stones I put on this thing?" I don't know. But you know, I found out later, yeah,
you're right. It's a UK measurement of weight. But no, we typically haven't used it. Although
you can still, most scales, if you buy the traditional ones, we'll still have it. But
yeah.
So you typically would measure yourself in kilograms?
For us, it'd be like 70 to 100 kilograms or something like that.
It might be considered 100 kilos, depending on how tall you are and all those other caveats.
Sure.
Cars is another one you brought up.
You said 3,000, 4,000 pounds.
For us, we'd say about one and a half to two tons.
A two ton, you'd be looking at a four-wheel drive or a big pickup truck or a ute, whatever
going to call it. Whereas a one and a half tons is pretty much
the upper limit for a compact car or a maybe a midsize car,
midsize family car. I had a car once it was under a ton. It was
a I called it the silver bullet. It was actually a day we met
his and you probably don't know that one because it's a very
limited production run and day we don't exist anymore. So it
doesn't matter. But this thing was tiny. It was very Oh, day
would yes. Oh, you still got there? Yes, we did. We did have
well, we don't need more I don't believe but we certainly have
had Daewoo at some point, and they were not particularly well-regarded
around America.
No, my car was special in Safaris when they ran it through the
NCAP safety rating.
It came out with one star out of five, which was not good.
I called it the Silver Bullet because it struggled to keep up at 110 kilometers an hour,
which is 60 miles an hour or thereabouts.
It struggled badly.
And if there was a headwind, it really struggled.
So it was, it was a silver bullet because it wasn't a bullet.
And that was the joke anyway.
Um, nevermind.
I got rid of that car.
Thank goodness.
And now I've got a Honda jazz and I love my Honda.
So there you go.
Anyway.
Oh yeah.
That's the fit to us.
I believe the Honda fit.
Yes, it is.
And same car, just different.
Yes, that is.
Yes.
That's right.
Yeah.
And it's, it's a great car.
You know, it's, I, it's very reliable.
It's way overdue for a service and it's still running.
So that's my measure of, yes, it's good.
It's a good car.
Has the oil ever been changed?
Um, next question.
I actually, I think it has.
No, it has. It has.
I got it new. So it's like, you know, the first because you know how when you when you're wearing a new engine, you get all the
burrs and all out of the gunk on for the first 5000, whatever it is.
So, yeah, I mean, it's had a new filter and new oil change at least once, maybe after that.
But it hasn't had fresh oil in probably about 14, 15 months.
And it's done about 25,000.
Yeah, the funny thing is, I was about to ask you how many miles are on it.
Well, it's not really good. No, this is the whole problem with that,
with this topic. Isn't it? So it's real time.
This is why it sucks having two systems.
So I'm trying to get a common language here. So we got 72,000 Ks,
which I think it would be around about 40,000 miles, maybe 45,000 miles.
That's right. 45,000. Yeah.
I just roughly did that in my head. So,
cause I couldn't be bothered getting my calculator and it's fine anyway. Right.
Okay. Cool. Car talk. Anyway. So, um,
I want to talk about time now because I just want to leave that mess that is mass behind me and move on to time.
And time is one of the weirdest ones, right?
And it's weird because everyone goes on about metric and no one stops to think about time.
And it annoys me.
And I know I'm getting old and I'm getting more annoyed at stuff, and that's just the thing.
And I'm sorry.
But here's the thing that's bugged me.
2000 BC, the Egyptians, they were the ones that set us on this course.
And they were the ones, the first recorded culture.
Okay. Maybe there was an unrecorded culture before that, that did this, but they were the first recorded
culture and they split the day and night into 12 equal segments.
But the problem was they didn't correct for seasons.
So each day, an hour was slightly longer or shorter, depending upon if you're
heading to or away from the next solstice.
Right. So it's like, why would you do that?
So an hour was never an hour.
This is crazy. But anyway.
Alright, so, um, anyway.
So over the years, there have been lots of different definitions of time.
And the one that eventually won was called MKS, meter kilogram second.
And the other one that was similar was centigram, centimeter gram second,
CGS. And they defined one second as one 86,400th
of a mean solar day. So at least they got that bit right, then an average day.
They figured that out. That's, that's good to know, but anyhow.
So in 19, by 1956, it was redefined as a fraction of a specific year, because that was when they
realized that an average day isn't an average day because an average day has an average year,
and you've got to have a leap year with an extra day to compensate because it's just,
anyway. So that gets even more annoying. I'm not going to go into that because that just got really
irritating. But anyway, the second was redefined in 1967. It was a pivotal moment because they
decided that they would do a measurement of how many transitions between the levels, two levels
of a ground state of cesium at absolute zero, or near absolute zero.
And that's what they use as a basis for atomic clocks. And if anyone really cares,
and they probably don't, but here it is anyway, how many oscillations? There were 9,192,631,770
periods of radiation. And that is how you count one second. That's easy to remember, isn't it?
So of course, you know, that's why the most accurate clocks that we can, we have our atomic clocks.
And anyway, so rather than dwell on that, here's my problem, because I said I had a problem.
86,400 seconds in a day, 24 hours in a day. So that's 3,600 seconds in an hour, 60 minutes in
an hour. So that's 60 seconds in a minute. None of it is divisible by 10. None of it.
Yeah, it's totally bananas.
Yeah.
I think, and the funny thing is, is that as a software developer, one of the most frustrating
things in the entire world is working on anything that relates to time because it just is impossible
to get right.
And just earlier today, I don't, I'll have to see if I can dig it up and I can have you
put in the show notes, John, but a developer evangelist at Apple wrote a post about, or
actually I think made a whole website that was basically every, oh yeah, here it is,
your calendrical fallacy is.
And so it just goes through all these different things that you assume to be true that are
wrong.
So your calendrical fallacy is thinking days are 86,400 seconds long.
False.
Even if you live in a place that doesn't have daylight savings time, which is perhaps a
a uniquely American thing.
You are subject to rogue leap seconds that get inserted into our calendars every
now and then, and it just goes on and on and on days are 24 hours long.
Well, not always an hour will never occur twice a single day.
Well, not always, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
It's just absolutely ridiculous.
And, and it's a perfect example of why, uh, doing anything that relates to time
when you're a developer is just infuriating because there's almost no way to get it.
Right.
You can get close, but you'll never get it right.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
and that's not even considering time zones, which are even more frustrating.
And I mean, that does my head in and I, yeah,
it is really re-frustrating. And the thing that,
the other thing that was interesting is that time is not,
it's not met because, okay, my issue, I guess,
I just want to get back to the whole point of my issue of with time is that
everyone says, yeah, the rest of the world's on metric, metric system.
It's like, well, yeah, but time's not metric.
So as soon as you introduce time into any of your metric, metric
isations, it's no longer metric because you have to then have a weird
ass conversion to go from seconds to minutes, to hours, to days.
So suddenly your beautiful metric system just fell apart every time you relate to time.
So anything you said, meters per second, kilometers per hour, miles, miles per hour, at least that's
imperial, imperial.
Whereas you've got metric imperial.
So it's like I've diluted my metric goodness by adding in a non-metric measure.
It's like, well, great.
That went well. So it's actually technically it's a 1/60th of something is referred to as like a sexagesimal system,
which, you know, depending upon the teenager inside of you could be interpreted as something else.
But the point is that that's weird.
It's not base 10.
And I don't get it. So anyway, these blended measures.
And it all started because the Egyptians decided to split daylight into 12 pieces because they just did.
And I don't know why.
And no one knows why they just did.
Why 12? Why not 10?
It would have been just as meaningless anyway.
So anyway. All right.
So.
So is there an accepted decimal version of time that perhaps like the scientific community uses or is it just we're on our own on this one?
Yeah. See, this is the thing is I dug into this years ago.
And the thing that set me off digging into metric time, because it's technically,
you're right, actually, it's funnily enough, it's actually called decimal time, as you said,
not metric time, because metric, yeah, anyway.
But yeah, so it is decimal time.
It was actually an episode of The Simpsons where I think it was called they saved Lisa's
brain or something like that.
And it was when the Mensa Society took over Springfield and they said, now the trains
running on time, but they're running on metric time.
And you saw a clock with like one to 10 on it.
It's one tenth of an hour after whatever else.
It was just ridiculous. Right. But I say it's ridiculous because I'm used to hours,
minutes, seconds being 60, 60, whatever.
But the truth is that, no, there isn't.
There have been a few suggestions of how it could be done, but nothing has ever taken
off. And I guess the problem is that, well, there's a whole bunch of problems, but
everything's based on the second and thinking about how hard it would be to change the
definition of one second.
It's you can't call it the same thing anymore.
And if you did, just imagine all of the GPS satellites would be wrong.
All of our phones, mobile phone synchronization, all that would wouldn't work anymore.
All of our computers, anything with a real time clock in it, which is practically everything
that's electronic these days.
I mean, even my coffee machine, it's like got a timer, a real time clock in it.
That would be, you know, it's like, yeah, how do you, it's just, it boggles the mind.
So no, I just keep thinking about it.
The opportunity to fix the second has gone forever.
I think it's just too hard now because everything is all based on a second and
real time clocks. But anyway.
I don't know, man. I mean, a lot of other countries have ripped the bandaid off
successfully and gone from Imperial to metric.
Obviously the U S failed pretty hard on that one, but never, you never know.
Maybe we'll try again one year.
Yeah, maybe if we can agree on a decimal year.
So exactly.
But yeah, anyway, so the funny thing I was thinking is how would you draw a clock?
Because, you know, because if you look at a normal clock, it's like one to 12 or one to 24, I guess, if you've got a military time clock, I guess.
Or but with the with the sexagesimal bit, you've got 60.
So 60 increments on the outside, but that wouldn't work anymore.
So to be, you know, zero to 10, zero to 10, zero to 10.
And then you have to have some measure of decaseconds,
hectoseconds, kiloseconds.
Oh, yeah. No kidding, right?
It just it sounds hard. It's a mouthful and it's just.
And you finally end up with something like four kiloseconds is the equivalent
of 66.66 minutes or 1.11 hours.
And 96 kiloseconds is 26.66 hours, which is just over 24 hours.
And at that point you just give up and you say, no, too hard.
Yeah. That just does not sound fun at all. And I think that to, to your point,
a lot of that just has to do with what we're used to, but, uh,
that just, I don't even want to think about it.
That's it. So, and, and the other problem would be,
you'd have to update expressions. So you'd say, Hey,
I'll catch you in a hectosecond. That's about a minute.
And McDonald's or Mac is, is open. Um, 86 kiloseconds,
seven because you can't say 24 seven anymore. Anyway, nevermind that.
I think I'm done with time, like literally.
Okay.
Okay, I'm saving, I think, the best for last.
And that's temperature, because people get very hot
under the collar about this one.
- I do too.
- It's just really bad too.
But anyway, all right.
So.
- Oh God, the second time I totally blanked.
I am letting you down, John.
These are much, much, much better jokes
than I am giving you any credit for.
God, I'm a terrible co-host.
- It's okay.
It's all good.
So, there are two dominant scales for temperature.
I think everyone probably knows.
So we've got Celsius or Centigrade and I'll get to that in a minute.
And the good one.
And the good one?
What was that?
Fahrenheit.
Yeah.
This is the good one.
I see.
Yes.
Okay.
No comment yet.
So, Celsius was named after Anders Celsius to honour him in 1948.
But funnily enough, it was actually called Centigrade before that.
And centigrade actually makes sense because that's what it is.
Centa meaning a hundred and grade as in a grade, gradient.
So a hundred grades.
So centigrade was equal intervals between zero and a hundred.
Celsius, funnily enough, the man himself developed a similar scale in the 1700s, but there was
one minor and really important difference.
It was back to front.
So zero was boiling point and a hundred was freezing point.
What?
I know.
So then they named centigrade after Celsius, but they actually did the scale, the
centigrade way around.
So I don't get it.
But anyway, never mind.
So the magnitude of a degree Kelvin is the same as that for a degree Celsius.
But Kelvin was set, defines absolute zero is negative 273.15
degrees Celsius. Absolute zero meaning there's no molecular movement and all that physics
stuff. Great.
So that's the oddly odd, but apparently supposedly better scale,
from the scientific community. Now, Fahrenheit, on the other hand,
how much do you know about who came up with Fahrenheit? Just curious.
I would assume it's somebody whose surname is Fahrenheit.
And then because I assume that and you're asking, Oh,
I was waiting for you to be like, ha ha, no, that was a trick question.
No, it's not a trick question. No, it actually really was Mr. Fahrenheit. Yes.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit.
And he proposed a scale where zero degrees was the temperature of an equal mixture of ice and salt,
which is readily available ingredients that you could put together,
and 100 degrees Fahrenheit would be the average human body temperature,
presumably when that person wasn't sick.
Presumably.
However, due to difficulties in accurately repeating some of those measurements in the 1900s,
it was refined, redefined, tweaked, however you want to think about it,
where 32 degrees Fahrenheit was the freezing point of water.
And the boiling point of water was set to...
That's...
220.
Yes.
Awesome.
Uh, of course that's at mean sea level, one atmosphere of pressure and all the
other good stuff, right?
So the whole scale is therefore 180 degrees apart for that,
that area of measurement.
Now during the 1960s...
Oh my God.
I never realized that.
God, I am an ignorant American.
I mean, I knew, I knew 32, I knew 212, but I never did that math to realize
180 is the difference.
Yeah.
Today I learned.
You see, the thing is that that's the resolution that makes the difference.
So this is the thing.
So during the, okay, during the 1960s, most of the countries in the world, except of
course, our beloved United States, switched from Fahrenheit to Celsius as part of
their metrification, got it out that time, of their units of measure.
Nice.
Yeah.
But the thing is, I thought about this, right?
Pragmatic's all about like, what's the most, what are the practical applications of
these things?
Not so much the humanness.
And this is where I guess I need your help, because honestly, the
problem with temperature is that when it comes to measuring how
things feel for individuals, for human beings, how they feel, which
is really the better measure, Celsius or Fahrenheit?
So there, yeah, it's tough, right?
So I actually wrote and never published a blog post about this.
I don't know, maybe six months, eight months ago,
something like that.
I had gotten in my brain, well, and I still mean,
and I still think to this day
that Fahrenheit is unequivocally the superior measure
of ambient air temperature when conversing between two humans,
which is I think what you were alluding to.
In every other way, I think that metric is better,
that Celsius, centigrade, however you'd like to phrase it,
or if you really want to be bananas,
Kelvin is the better approach for anything that is not what's it feel like outside.
And the reason I feel this way is because I feel like Fahrenheit just really, really
eloquently splits into 10 degree bands.
So anything less than 30, it's really fricking cold.
30 to 40.
It's pretty cold.
You're definitely going to need a winter coat.
40 to 50, you're gonna need a serious jacket,
but maybe not something that you would absolutely describe
as a coat, you know, not something that quite thick.
Once you hit 50 degrees, you're getting into,
you know, this is okay weather.
60 to 70, really good.
70 to 80, probably perfect,
especially if you just get that nice little,
you know, like summertime breeze going.
North of 80, you're getting into really hot.
So 80 to 90, you're getting into uncomfortable.
And for the record, room temperature is usually
between 70 and 72 in that neck of the woods.
So above 80, you're getting hot.
Above 90, unequivocally hot.
Above 100, you need to move,
because that's like Australia, for example.
I mean, what?
- Or you're in Nevada.
- Yeah, exactly right.
And so because of that, I feel like they're,
and I probably am not doing the best job
kind of verbalizing these different bands,
But the idea is in most places in the United States, most of the time you will
not, and someone will probably write you, John, or write me and tell me how wrong I
am.
But in, in, in most places you won't typically get too much below 30.
Now somewhere like Minnesota, which is at the very top of the United States can be
well below 30 for large swaths of time.
But the average America doesn't get too much below 30.
It doesn't get too much above a 90 to a hundred.
generally speaking.
And so, like I said, in these 10 degree increments,
you have these really nice bands.
And I feel like you can tell the difference
between a couple of degrees.
So if you're in your car and you set
what we would call your air conditioning or AC,
what I would presume you to call air con,
and if you set that to 72, that might be a little too cold,
but 73 may be just right.
And I'm not being flippant or silly,
I'm really being serious.
And I wrote this whole post about how this is clearly the way, clearly the way.
To do anything else is just silly.
A hundred is the maximum comfort level of any regular human being.
And zero is the minimum that you could survive without putting
on like Arctic Explorer wear.
So you have this perfect 100 degree scale.
That's kind of like a percentage of how nice it is.
And again, room temperature is about 70, give or take a little bit.
In writing this blog post, however, I did the conversions from 20 degrees
Fahrenheit to whatever the equivalent is in Celsius from 30 to whatever the
equivalent is from 40 to whatever the equivalent is.
And the truth of the matter is it round, it, it was roughly five degrees
Celsius for each of my 10 degree Fahrenheit bands.
And it was in writing that post that it occurred to me that the
reason I hate, I hate Celsius so much.
Well, there's two reasons.
One, I think it's absolutely ridiculous to need a decimal point.
But two, it's just because I'm not used to it.
And as much as I will defend Fahrenheit to the death, because I do think for
ambient air temperature alone, it is the much more, a much more reasonable scale.
If I had grown up with Celsius, I don't think I'd mind it too much.
I still think it's crazy or it's, it's weird.
I should say is a better word for it.
It's weird to see a decimal point on say a car's air conditioning.
You know, I don't want 20.
I want 20.5.
thank you very much. But other than that, I would assume that you're about to tell me
that my 10 degree bands are roughly your 5 degree bands. Is that fair?
Well yeah, I think you might just be surprised actually. The way I look at this is the liveable
range and you kind of touched on this quite a bit is that I'd say roughly between 15 degrees
Celsius and 35 degrees Celsius. And that's sort of most temperate or subtropical or tropical
regions of the world would sit somewhere in that band most of the year as their daytime temperatures
or the temperature that you would have in an office building or a house. So your dwelling
or whatever else. So that's sort of your, the temperature range. Yes, there will be colder.
Yes, there will be hotter depending upon if you live in, like you said, Nevada or some parts
yeah, Western in Australia,
or whether or not you live on top of an Aspen,
I don't know who lives in Aspen, but anyway,
high up in the Rocky Mountains and such.
But that's in Fahrenheit is between 60 degrees Fahrenheit
and 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
And if you do the math, it's because of that scale,
it's roughly two to one.
So there's 40 increments in Fahrenheit
over that temperature range,
but in Celsius, there's only 20 increments over that range.
And that level of range precision and that resolution in that liveable range
makes it far easier to describe exactly.
So if I say low 20s or sorry, low 30s or high 30s, it means
there's a subtle message that's conveyed in that because of that resolution.
Whereas if I'm talking in Celsius and I say it's low 30s, which is kind of getting
warm to high 30s, it's like that's getting scorching hot and we're still in,
Oh my word, yeah, I'm doing these conversions
as you're talking, so 30 degrees Celsius
in Fahrenheit is 86, which I would describe
as getting into serious discomfort.
- Getting warm. - It's definitely hot.
It's definitely, definitely hot,
but you could be outside without,
you know, as long as you're not running a marathon
or something and be okay. - Sure, yeah, big hat.
- 40 degrees Celsius, however, yeah, big hat, exactly.
40 degrees Celsius is 105, or 104,
strictly speaking, Fahrenheit,
and that's really frigging hot.
Like you do not want to be outside if you don't have to be at 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
Definitely not. No, exactly right.
And the thing is, it's the resolution.
And another thing that you hit on in there was the decimal point, like the half a
degree on the air conditioning system or the aircon.
Yeah, that's true. We do call it aircon.
But anyway, yes.
But the thing is, as it controls a programmer and I've worked
with- Oh, here we go.
Okay. All right, fine.
Seriously, how can you control the internal temperature of your vehicle to within half a degree Celsius or even one degree Fahrenheit?
Really?
This same measurement, how is it even possible to accurately do that consistently?
And the answer is it's not.
It's like that's your target temperature and it's going to vary plus or minus one or two degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius.
So why the hell would you have the option to go at half degree Celsius increments or even one degree Fahrenheit in increments?
Why don't you just go up in even numbers, you know, like 50, 52, 54,
because you're being disingenuous to the person driving the car.
It's like, yes, my car can accurately go to five decimal places in
temperature and control. No, it can't. It can't. It's not possible.
So, you know, I just,
Let me, let me pitch, let me pitch an answer to that question,
even though I think you're absolutely right.
I think some of that is placebo effect. So, oh, I've turned it down.
Thus it will get colder. Thus I must feel better already. Also,
It's giving a hint to the now software in the car
that whatever you're doing right now,
it's either too much or not enough.
So if it's a summer day and I turn the temperature down
from 73 to 72 in my car,
that's a hint to the software running the air con
in the car, you need to do more of whatever it is
you're doing because obviously the human,
you know, the squishy occupant inside
wants more air conditioning to come out of the vents.
And so I agree with you that it's probably
not making an empirical difference in measured air temperature.
And it may be just about the same, but it's giving a hint to the computer.
I want more, please.
Yeah, that is a good point.
And I guess I, yeah, it's a feedback control loop, right?
So, you know, that's the way I see it.
Exactly.
But the way that it may be implemented, maybe it isn't.
Maybe it's just a little bit more subtlety to it.
But in any case, I take your point.
I also think it's ridiculous that you have 0.5 of a degree Celsius
as an option. I think that's crazy. My Jazz or Honda Fit, whatever,
it only goes up in full degree Celsius increments and, you know,
and it works. - Oh, interesting. - It works just fine.
Whereas my other car is a Toyota and it goes up in 0.5 degrees
and every time I do it, I'm like, really? Seriously?
Okay, sure. I'll just bump it up half a degree Celsius.
Anyway. All right.
So I think the point of it is, obviously, to wrap all this
discussion up about metric and imperial is it comes back to the fact that it is what you're used to,
sure. And people say, what's better?
And the truth is, it's not necessarily what's better.
It's about consistency.
And in terms of what's better and worse, honestly, I don't think- I think that metric
doesn't make any more or less sense than imperial does.
all that matters is that we can easily convert
between different units of measure.
And Imperial makes that more difficult.
And that's the only thing that makes metric better
in those respects.
But where it falls down is the choice of that scale
and the resolution of that scale.
And all of the other measurements, I'm with you, Casey.
I think that honestly, temperature is for human livability
is better represented in Fahrenheit.
And that's simply because the resolution is better. But that said,
you know, we've already gone to Celsius selling the world to get everyone,
go back to Fahrenheit. It's going to be a tough sell.
I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah. You know,
and the funny thing is when you had asked me to come on the show, uh,
I think the first thing I said to you,
you had told me what you wanted to talk about.
And I think the first thing I said to you was, well,
I don't know how interesting I'll be because the, the real dirty secret is,
you know, especially having been educated as an engineer,
I think that metric is far and away a much better system for everything under the sun,
as I said before, except ambient air temperature.
And I don't have any particular love for imperial units.
And I think it's really ridiculous that the United States is so self-obsessed or, I don't
know, pushy that we insist on using imperial units when the rest of the planet uses metric.
It's just, it's barbaric of us.
However, I will stand by Fahrenheit to the death.
And I will hopefully have you put in the show notes
a wonderful chart or graph or picture
that has float around the internet probably 85 times,
but it really summarizes the temperature argument.
And I'm clinging to this so strongly
because I have no argument for metric
or against metric in any other way.
It says Fahrenheit, zero degrees to 100 degrees
versus Celsius, zero to 100 versus Kelvin, zero to 100.
And Fahrenheit, zero is labeled as really cold outside.
100 is labeled as really hot outside.
Perfect.
Celsius, zero, fairly cold outside,
100 degrees dead.
Versus Kelvin, zero degrees, dead, 100 degrees, dead.
And so it's a silly chart, graph,
whatever you want to call it.
And it's obviously meant in jest.
But I really do think that there's some amount,
as with all good jokes,
there's some amount of truth behind it.
And that just as you said, John, I think in many ways,
and I didn't think of it until you said something,
but in many ways it does come down to scale.
And I think the Fahrenheit has a really good scale
that's anchored in a couple of really good spots
that makes it really, really great
for ambient air temperature.
You wanna measure the temperature of the oil in your car
in Celsius, have at it.
That probably makes a lot more sense.
But you wanna tell me what to set the air conditioning to?
I'll take Fahrenheit, please.
- Yes.
And the other thing about Imperial is that it's funny
because I thought the whole world is like, yeah, metric, metric all the way.
And then I came across this article a little while back that spurred me on to want to do this episode as well as, you know, people asking me to cover it.
But in 2007, the European Commission abandoned their requirement for metric only labelling on packaged goods.
And that opened the door again for both dual labelling, so metric and imperial labelling on their goods since that time.
So, it's not the end of Imperial exactly.
And it's interesting that Imperial can still have a place.
And honestly, Metric is not...
Because like I said before, my biggest frustration with Metric is they didn't take the
opportunity to reset the second.
Mind you, had they done that, can you imagine a world where the rest of the world
is on decimal seconds and the States is on Imperial seconds?
Oh, no.
Good grief.
No, please.
No.
I mean, I understand where you're coming from and you're probably right
in the grand scheme of things, but, oh, that just sounds terrible.
Now, do you have any knowledge for how the UK works?
Because I have watched an inordinate amount of top gear and in my day, and I
feel like they do measure speeds oftentimes in miles per hour and, and
distances sometimes in miles where my, my limited understanding of how the UK
works is that it's all metric.
Except in a couple of ways.
Do you know what I mean?
I know exactly. Do you have any idea?
Is it in Australia like that since you are another colony?
Like is, is it all, is it all a metric where you guys are?
So distances are always kilometers. Speeds are always kilometers an hour.
Um, the thing with us colonies, right.
As we all sort of go off in our own separate ways in the end. So like America,
so like gives the middle finger to the UK and says, no,
we're going to be around country. Bye-bye. And Canada's like, yeah, well,
we're kind of a bit French and we're kind of a bit, you know,
but we're also kind of not. And then of course,
Australia is like, don't look at us.
But anyway, so yeah, okay.
So, for us, the weirdest thing is, yes, we are full metric, but you will still
hear baby weights called out in pounds and ounces.
So, when a new baby arrives, they will still get pounds and ounces.
And when people's heights are told, like, for example, I'm 5'11", so
What?
It's like, I'm told I'm 5'11", but my driver's license says it in centimeters, but you can tell
people your height in feet and inches, and it's still understood.
That's so peculiar.
I know, it's weird. And in the mining industry and oil and gas industries, we get a lot of the
stuff that we use from America.
So, of course, not surprisingly, it's an imperial.
So, we need to learn, you know, how much downhaul pressure is this?
Oh, that's in foot pounds. And I'm like, is it in wa?
Isn't that Newton meters?
Anyway. Yeah.
But you know, it's like, so because we trade with America a lot,
then we have to learn some of those basics.
So, we can't be completely ignorant of Imperial.
But in terms of official, official, it's metric.
But when it comes to cars, all the speedos on our car,
the dials will read in kilometres and kilometres per hour, I should say.
Now, in the UK, I believe that their vehicles will have the two ranges on them.
and I'll have miles per hour and kilometers per hour,
one on the inner track,
one on the outer track of the gauge.
And I think that, and that's also the case in Canada.
So I lived in Canada for two and a half years
and when I was there, that was my car had.
And the other thing about the Canada that's odd
is that Canada says, yeah, we're filling metric.
And then you go and get a bottle of Diet Coke
or Pepsi Max or whatever,
maybe one with sugar in it, either way, it doesn't matter.
And it's in fluid ounces.
So, I got 12 ounce and, you know, 16 ounce bottle.
I'm like, wow, that's okay.
What's going on here?
And then I picked up this square of butter and it's like 454 grams.
And I'm like, that's not a very round number.
Why? Why?
And it's like, that's a fraction of pounds, right?
So, it's like close, but no
cigar or something like that anyway.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, it's strange.
And maybe it's going to take a few more generations.
And as us oldies get more old, older, then, you know,
all those things will eventually fade and then newborns will be coming out at
2,880 grams.
And I'll be like, "Why do I?" It's OK, I can't hear anymore because I'm too old.
And now I complain. But, you know, it's strange how it works, how it's
come to pass. And it's been a good 60, 70 years since the transition.
And yet the imperial measurements can still be found quite easily.
So it's interesting.
Well, and plus, all of our media gets shipped overseas for better or worse.
And so you presumably you're hearing, you know, even if it's just casual things in
movies or perhaps music or TV shows where they say, you know, "Oh, that guy is
huge at 350 pounds," or whatever the case may be.
Like eventually I would imagine just by "osmosis," which I know is not
really what it is. But anyway, by osmosis, you could just kind of pick it up over
time, I would imagine. And maybe you don't have a good feel for 350 versus 320
versus 300, but you would at least know, I would assume that if you hear that a
human being is 350 pounds, they are not on the smaller side, if nothing else.
You know what I mean?
I do. Yeah, absolutely right.
And so, for example, show titles like, um, my wife sometimes will watch a show
called My 600 Pound Life.
And it's like, okay.
Um, I get the picture though.
It's like very heavy, not good.
Um, uh, and then of course there's other expressions like, uh, the whole nine
yards and it's like, well, what's a yard?
Well, that's zero nine meters.
And, uh, another one I came across with weight was, um, uh, it was a buck 50.
And it's like, what's a buck 50 in terms of, in terms of weight measurement.
And it's like, oh, that's like 150 pounds.
Yeah.
I don't know where that comes from and you don't hear it that often, but you
certainly hear it often enough that you know what it means.
It's coming back to top gear.
Like imagine when I first started watching it, which was my first real
exposure to like traditional British, well, maybe not traditional, that's a
poor choice of words, but like a stereotypical modern British culture.
You know, I imagine how long it took me to understand a quid versus a pound
versus a what's there's a couple other euphemisms in the same way that we have.
Yeah.
Well, like quit a quit is a pound in, in a, in a, in a pound is a pound.
And there's, Oh shoot.
I can't remember.
There's another, there's another like colloquialism in the same way
that we have a buck is a dollar.
A dollar is a dollar.
Guineas?
Of course, now I'm throwing a blank on them.
Shillings?
I don't know.
Yeah, right?
But even just like the various euphemisms for a pound, or in our case, the various euphemisms
for a dollar, you know, for example, a buck.
Like a buck, that doesn't have any even vague relation to the word dollar, yet that's a
dollar.
And so some of those sorts of things, you know, I've learned by, again, figuratively
speaking, osmosis, just by being exposed to their media.
Yeah. And, and I mean, for example, in Australia, we don't have a quarter dollar, right?
We don't have a 25 cent piece.
We have a 20 cent piece.
Yeah, I know you guys got quarters.
So first time I heard it when I was a really.
It's about the only coin that.
Yeah, the coin, the coinage here is barbaric.
Another thing that we get wrong and we have we have single cents, which are pennies.
We have five cents, which are nickels, 10 cents, which are dimes.
Quarter dollar is a quarter.
And that's the stuff you see regularly.
But the fact of the matter is anything less than one American dollar is basically just splitting hairs at that point
And we should just get away with coinage entirely, but where by contrast, you know, Britain has one and two pound coins
Which again I forget the term for him and that actually does make sense
You can actually buy something with a with a you know, a dollar or two or a pound or two
Well, you used to be able to buy something for it. Never mind. When's that Brexit happening?
Oh, no, not going there
But yeah, I mean in Australia just on coin and coins and I know that this is a little not exactly on the topic
But it's it's interesting because in Australia we identified that one and two cent pieces were pointless about
15 they are 20 years ago and we got rid of them. We don't have them anymore
So our lowest coin is a five
so we've got a five cent piece a ten cent piece 20 cents 50 cents and then you go up to one dollar coin and
a two dollar coin and
And it works okay. I still think that coinage for one and two dollars is fine.
And after that, you know, like the UK with the one and two dollar a pound.
And also in Canada, which is kind of hilarious, because in Canada, they're one dollar and two dollar coins.
They call them a loony for one dollar and a toony for two dollars, because it's too loony.
So it's a toony. What the hell is a toony?
I get what a loon is. A loon is the name of the duck on the front of the one dollar coin.
- Oh, I didn't know that.
- I was in an airport, right, in Vancouver
and I needed money to make a phone call
'cause I'd missed my flight.
First time in Canada,
I'd never heard any of these things before.
And I'm sitting there and I say,
do you have any change for this $5 note?
'Cause I only had notes, $5 Canadian note.
And I said, oh, I don't have any here.
I'll just ask this lady over there.
Do you have any loonies over there?
And I'm like, you have any crazy people?
What, what?
And so anyway, finally I got my loonie
and I went and made a phone call.
But yeah, so the loon on the front, yes, one loon,
two loonies is a toonie and it's like, okay,
it's kind of cool, but anyway, but yeah,
after that it's all notes, notes all the way.
And I mean, who needs that when you got Apple Pay,
so whatever, right.
- Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that's another thing that you guys get right
that we don't is, or at least the UK anyway,
is all in on NFC payments and doing payments by the phone.
And that's something you see sort of here.
You actually do see Apple Pay at MACAs as it turns out.
But yeah, we don't really get into that near as much
as I presume the Australian, certainly the UK does.
And it makes me super jealous.
And in fact, I carry cash on me always.
And I am one of the only people I know that still does.
Pretty much everyone here will use credit cards exclusively
and NFC if possible.
And I am a weirdo for carrying any amount of cash.
Well, yeah, I don't carry cash in my wallet anymore.
There's two reasons.
One, I don't have to, 'cause I've got my Apple Pay
and I've got my cards.
And the second reason is if money enters my wallet,
my wife has a money detector
and then she removes it from my wallet.
And it's like, so there you go.
It's two levels of, yeah, anyway.
So, but that's fine.
Anyway, all right, I think we might wrap it up.
If this is anything else you wanted to quickly.
- No, no, no, this was a lot less violent
than I thought it would be, which is a good thing.
I'm glad that we agree about Fahrenheit
because to be honest, I wasn't,
there were no other hills I was planning on dying on.
And it sounds like you acquiesced easily
on the temperature scale.
So I appreciate it.
- Oh, that's okay.
I honestly do believe that for ambient air temperature,
Fahrenheit is a far more granular
and more conversable scale.
But the bottom line is that it's,
from my point of view, I'm stuck with Celsius.
And from your point of view,
you're stuck with Fahrenheit all the way down.
So it's not just for ambient air.
So you win in that respect,
And then you lose in your everywhere else, like cooking temperatures and all that other
stuff, which is just like, anyway.
That's true.
But if you'd like to talk more about this, you can reach me on Twitter @johnchidjie or
you can follow @PragmaticShow to see show announcements and other related stuff.
Pragmatic is part of the Engineered Network and you can check out the network and all
of its shows at engineered.network.
Causality has recently really taken off and it's a solo podcast that I do that looks at
cause and effect of major events and disasters in history.
So if you're a fan of this show, you might like that too.
So be sure to check it out.
causality and analytical episodes are about 10-30 minutes each so they're pretty easy
on the ears. Make sure you have a listen. If you'd like to get in touch with Casey,
what's the best way for them to get in touch with you, mate?
>> Sure. Probably the best way would be on Twitter. I am @CaseyLiss, C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
You can also find some of my writing on caseyliss.com and I'm usually Casey Liss and most other
online services.
>> Awesome. All right, cool. And if you'd like to send any feedback about the show or
the network, please use the feedback form on the website and that's where you also find
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you can, like some of our backers, Ivan, Daniel Dudley and Chris Stone. They and many others
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So a special thank you to our patrons, a big thank you to everyone for listening and thanks
again for coming on, Casey. It's been great.
Yeah, thank you, John. It's always fun to argue about these innate topics and silly things with someone from way across the pond, and actually from the future, as we established earlier. So thank you, as always.
No worries, mate.
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