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Tags ann coulter , punditry , soccer

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Old 27th June 2014, 09:55 AM   #41
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Originally Posted by Aepervius View Post
Hmmm. You realize you can as well divide by two easily in the metric system ?
Just because it is 5' 9'' it is not easier to divide by two than 59 cm... In fact I hold it is harder.

What is half 5' 9'' It is 2.5' + 4.5'' ? I can do easily 59 cm within second : it is 29.5.

Communist.
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Old 27th June 2014, 10:02 AM   #42
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I hate it when headlines don't describe their own articles.

The headline states: "AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER"

But, she's writing about how popular soccer is, instead. And, why this annoys her, personally.



I suspect this Ann Coulter person isn't a very reliable journalist, in general.
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Old 27th June 2014, 10:18 AM   #43
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Originally Posted by Aepervius View Post
Usually currency are not seen as being part of the metric system, it is more like mass, length, at least initially.
I was commenting on this.
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Originally Posted by Travis. The metric system is now a liberal cause? Shouldn't it be the cause of anyone that likes measuring systems that make sense and are divisible by ten?
A hundred cents to the dollar, or centimes to the franc, meets these conditions suggested by Travis.
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Old 27th June 2014, 10:45 AM   #44
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American football, on the other hand, with its scantily clad young girls titillating the audience and encouraging the players to perform, is High Culture.

Last edited by Ryokan; 27th June 2014 at 10:47 AM.
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Old 27th June 2014, 10:53 AM   #45
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Originally Posted by AdMan View Post
Communist.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
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Old 27th June 2014, 11:19 AM   #46
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Originally Posted by Information Analyst View Post
"Did you see that ludicrous performance last night...?"
What was Wenger thinking, sending Walcott on that early?
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Old 27th June 2014, 11:25 AM   #47
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Originally Posted by Aepervius View Post
Hmmm. You realize you can as well divide by two easily in the metric system ?
Just because it is 5' 9'' it is not easier to divide by two than 59 cm... In fact I hold it is harder.

What is half 5' 9'' It is 2.5' + 4.5'' ? I can do easily 59 cm within second : it is 29.5.
It's all a question of what you're used to. If you're used to fractions, they're easier; if you're used to decimals, they are.

The history of the metric system is kind of interesting. There are aspects--such as metric callenders and time--that were abandoned, because essentially no one followed them anyway. And recently I heard that the meter isn't based on the distance from the equator to the North Pole; the meter (mening the platinum bar) is slightly off. Meaning the metric system is just as arbitrary as the Imperial system.

Originally Posted by Ryokan
American football, on the other hand, with its scantily clad young girls titillating the audience and encouraging the players to perform, is High Culture.
It's certainly very chivalric.

If you ask me, AC was taking the easy way out. If you want to discuss moral decay, how about examining why we focus so much on sports in general? How many person-hours are being lots to productive enterprises to watch grown adults play games? Not that there's no reason for games, or that I agree with such a view (games have a purpose, and if someone can make a living playing a game more power to 'em, I say), but if you're going to criticize A sport, why not go whole-hog and criticize ALL sports? I mean, how many riots are caused by sports fans? How much property destruction? How much lost productivity? March Madness costs the USA's economy a few billion anually. Add to that the drunk fans, the drug use on the part of the players, the spousal, child, and animal abuse on the part of players, and the rest, and one can easily make an argument that our obsession with sports is evidence of moral decay.

AC's problem isn't that she's a troll. It's that she thinks too small.
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Old 27th June 2014, 11:30 AM   #48
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Originally Posted by Dinwar View Post
AC's problem isn't that she's a troll. It's that she thinks too small.
No. Her problem is that she's a dim panderer.
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Old 27th June 2014, 12:20 PM   #49
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I've found that I like watching soccer and get more into the game than football, baseball or basketball. Why? Because those other sports revolve around commercials, which totally kill any enjoyment I have in the game and serve to make watching the game boring as hell and overly long. Especially football with all its time-outs and downs, commercials make it damn near unwatchable. A soccer game without all the timeouts and commercials actually goes by pretty quickly where football, baseball and basketball games can take all night.
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Last edited by Tony; 27th June 2014 at 12:24 PM.
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Old 27th June 2014, 12:28 PM   #50
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Originally Posted by Babbylonian View Post
No. Her problem is that she's a dim panderer.
I can accept such people as long as they're entertaining. And it'd be fun to watch the fury if someone actually had the intestinal fortitude to question what is, in terms of time, money, and energy spent on it, one of the few activities more important to most Americans than religion.
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Old 27th June 2014, 12:56 PM   #51
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Originally Posted by Dinwar View Post
It's all a question of what you're used to. If you're used to fractions, they're easier; if you're used to decimals, they are.

The history of the metric system is kind of interesting. There are aspects--such as metric callenders and time--that were abandoned, because essentially no one followed them anyway. And recently I heard that the meter isn't based on the distance from the equator to the North Pole; the meter (mening the platinum bar) is slightly off. Meaning the metric system is just as arbitrary as the Imperial system.
The metre (note correct spelling, you yankee heathen) bar hasn't been the standard for how the metre is defined for over 50 years. In any case there were quite a few of them over the 170 odd years of their use, and manufacturing not being completely perfect it's doubtful they were all of exactly the same length anyway.

This is the current definition of a metre: The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.
http://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/17/1/
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Old 27th June 2014, 01:02 PM   #52
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Originally Posted by Tony View Post
I've found that I like watching soccer and get more into the game than football, baseball or basketball. Why? Because those other sports revolve around commercials, which totally kill any enjoyment I have in the game and serve to make watching the game boring as hell and overly long. Especially football with all its time-outs and downs, commercials make it damn near unwatchable. A soccer game without all the timeouts and commercials actually goes by pretty quickly where football, baseball and basketball games can take all night.

True story: I used to love college basketball, and always especially enjoyed the NCAA finals. Some years ago, I was watching a championship game, and it was one of those close finishes where teams were calling a lot of timeouts in the final minutes. Every single timeout they went to a commercial. There was never an instance where they just stayed in the arena so that you could see the teams in their huddles, and sort of experience the tension and excitement of the final moments of a close game. It totally killed the experience for me, and I haven't watched an NCAA final four game since.

Also, I lost a lot of my interest in college basketball when it became standard procedure for the best players to leave after 1 or 2 years. I loved the game back in the days when players like Ralph Sampson and Patrick Ewing spent 4 years becoming a big part of the identity of their teams.

Last edited by hgc; 27th June 2014 at 01:09 PM.
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Old 27th June 2014, 01:04 PM   #53
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Originally Posted by Dinwar View Post
The history of the metric system is kind of interesting. There are aspects--such as metric callenders and time--that were abandoned, because essentially no one followed them anyway. And recently I heard that the meter isn't based on the distance from the equator to the North Pole; the meter (mening the platinum bar) is slightly off. Meaning the metric system is just as arbitrary as the Imperial system.
How would some fraction of the distance between the equator and the pole, be any more or less arbitrary than the using the total length of the left feet of 16 random yokels who happen to wander past the church?
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Old 27th June 2014, 01:07 PM   #54
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Originally Posted by Travis View Post
Interestingly I sat through a baseball game the other night that was well over three hours long. Twice the length of any soccer game. Does that mean I'm doubly immoral?...
That's nothing compared to how long cricket games can last.

Fox News pundit thinks World Cup is Obama plot to "distract people"

Quote:
I thought Ann Coulter's ridiculous column saying soccer represents the U.S.'s "moral decay" was ridiculous (and a pathetic attempt by the ever-more pathetic Coulter to get the attention she needs like a vampire needs blood), but trust me, this is more ridiculous.
They also think soccer is un-American.

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Old 27th June 2014, 01:13 PM   #55
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Originally Posted by Information Analyst View Post
"Did you see that ludicrous performance last night...?"
"What was he thinking sending Walcott in?"
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Old 27th June 2014, 01:20 PM   #56
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Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post
They also think soccer is un-American.
Soccer is treason.
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Old 27th June 2014, 01:23 PM   #57
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Originally Posted by shuttlt View Post
How would some fraction of the distance between the equator and the pole, be any more or less arbitrary than the using the total length of the left feet of 16 random yokels who happen to wander past the church?
That's my point--if one defines the meter that way, it's an arbitrary measurement. Which more or less disproves one of the more common arguments in favor of the metric system I've heard. Man still, in a way, is the measure of all things in metric, just a bit less directly.

Originally Posted by Damien Evans
This is the current definition of a metre: The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.
I've snipped your corrections, not because I'm ignoring them but because I've nothing to say in response except "Thank you". The quoted text made me wonder: is there any way to define a unit of length in a way that's actually meaningful? I mean, there's nothing special about 299,792,458; it just happens to be close to what we thought a previous definition of a meter was. Is there some universal constant we can use to define length in some non-arbitrary way?
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Old 27th June 2014, 01:29 PM   #58
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Originally Posted by Redtail View Post
"What was he thinking sending Walcott in?"
Thing about Arsenal is, they always try and walk it in.
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Old 27th June 2014, 01:48 PM   #59
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105 years and still true.

Actually I'm reminded of Giles's comment:
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I just think it's rather odd that a nation that prides itself on its virility should feel compelled to strap on forty pounds of protective gear just in order to play rugby.
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Old 27th June 2014, 02:11 PM   #60
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Originally Posted by Aepervius View Post
Hmmm. You realize you can as well divide by two easily in the metric system ?
Just because it is 5' 9'' it is not easier to divide by two than 59 cm... In fact I hold it is harder.

What is half 5' 9'' It is 2.5' + 4.5'' ? I can do easily 59 cm within second : it is 29.5.
Oh! Is that how ya do it? Thanks for taking time out from your busy day to explain it for me. I would have never figured it out on my own.
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Old 27th June 2014, 02:21 PM   #61
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Originally Posted by catsmate1 View Post
Well since cricket has nothing to do with insects or lighters, if the name is changed to "paddle bowling" you've got a deal.
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Old 27th June 2014, 03:41 PM   #62
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Originally Posted by Tony View Post
I've found that I like watching soccer and get more into the game than football, baseball or basketball. Why? Because those other sports revolve around commercials, which totally kill any enjoyment I have in the game and serve to make watching the game boring as hell and overly long. Especially football with all its time-outs and downs, commercials make it damn near unwatchable. A soccer game without all the timeouts and commercials actually goes by pretty quickly where football, baseball and basketball games can take all night.
That's easily fixed, just don't watch sports in real time. Either record it or pause at the beginning and go do something else for an hour so you can fast forward through the commercials. I can't remember the last time I watched a commercial during a sports event. I do record World Cup soccer games as well, but just so I can watch them at a more convenient time.
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Old 27th June 2014, 07:15 PM   #63
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A sign of America's moral decay

Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay

Quote:
If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.

I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.


(1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd. When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks.


In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms."

. . .
I blame Obama.
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Old 27th June 2014, 07:51 PM   #64
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Originally Posted by Marcus View Post
That's easily fixed, just don't watch sports in real time. Either record it or pause at the beginning and go do something else for an hour so you can fast forward through the commercials. I can't remember the last time I watched a commercial during a sports event. I do record World Cup soccer games as well, but just so I can watch them at a more convenient time.

My thoughts as well. Commercials should not be a reason to give up watching a sport you love. Modern technology offers an easy work around.

As for soccer, it's fine (although still not all that popular in the United States). In fact, I never used to think poorly of it until about the 10,000th time some non-American here in Japan used the slightest reference to sports to try to lecture me that we Americans should use the term "football" instead of "soccer". The irony, of course, being that in Japan it is also known as "soccer." But really, why should anyone care? It's sort of reverse ignorance to think that we Americans don't know the rest of the world calls it "football." We know. We just don't care. Enjoy the game for what it is.

I also recently learned that the term "soccer" apparently dates back to the origin of the game. Funny.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index....e-word-soccer/

I also find it amusing that Ann Coulter can get so many people riled up so easily.
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Old 27th June 2014, 07:52 PM   #65
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Originally Posted by Puppycow View Post
"I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. "

Really? Is this the same Ann Coulter? I have never known her to hold off to avoid offence. Exactly the opposite, actually.
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Old 27th June 2014, 07:54 PM   #66
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And the silver medal goes to:

Puppycow

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=279712

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Old 27th June 2014, 08:07 PM   #67
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America's interest in soccer is a sign that it's world cup time.

In a month, no one will care.

Except for people who are trying to bang Mexican chicks. They will still pretend to be interested in soccer.
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Old 27th June 2014, 08:32 PM   #68
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Saw this on Right Wing Watch this morning.... That Coulter, she is one funny woman...
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Old 27th June 2014, 08:38 PM   #69
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Originally Posted by Dinwar View Post
Is there some universal constant we can use to define length in some non-arbitrary way?
What about the "Planck length"?
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The number in question is 1.616 × 10ˉ³⁵ m, and it belongs to a series of numbers known as the Planck base units. It can be calculated using an equation involving 3 fundamental constants: Planck’s constant, 6.6261 × 10ˉ³⁴ kg/s; the speed of light in a vacuum, 2.9979 × 10⁸ m/s; and the gravitational constant, 6.6738 × 10ˉ¹¹ (kgˉ¹·sˉ¹).
But maybe it's too small to be convenient, at 10^-20 of the diameter of a proton. However, it is "the smallest possible length", so not arbitrary. http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/t...ssible-length/
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Old 27th June 2014, 09:14 PM   #70
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Originally Posted by fromdownunder View Post
And the silver medal goes to:

Puppycow

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=279712

Norm
If you'll notice, that thread has a Merged tag. Bronze medal at best.

This topic made me watch the Ann Coulter in Boondocks scene again. I still think it's the only way her personality makes any sense.
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Old 27th June 2014, 09:50 PM   #71
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Originally Posted by ApolloGnomon View Post
Dividing some things by 10 is easier, like substances on a scale, but I prefer having the ability to quickly divide by 2 when I'm slapping lumber around. I tried using a metric tape for a while and found for much of the work I was doing at the time that it's more effort.

I can find the center of a 5' - 9 5/16" board quick. In metric you have to actual math, introducing an additional source of error and operator fatigue that makes itself worse over a long day.

America was headed toward metric adoption but then Reagan (spit!) was elected.
The vast majority of Americans that I have met could not find half of 5' 9 5/16" without a calculator. And I know quite a few who could not do it with a calculator.

In metric, that distance is 1.760 meters. Not only can I easily find one half of that distance , I can also easily find 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, and 1/6.

I won't claim that metric is anywhere near a perfect system of measurements, but for distance, metric units beat imperial units by a mile.
Maybe even more - perhaps even one mile, two chains, three rods, one yard, two feet, and 7 15/32 inches.
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Last edited by Ladewig; 27th June 2014 at 09:53 PM.
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Old 27th June 2014, 10:03 PM   #72
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Originally Posted by Puppycow View Post
I blame Obama for this thread.
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Old 27th June 2014, 10:14 PM   #73
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Originally Posted by Ladewig View Post
I won't claim that metric is anywhere near a perfect system of measurements, but for distance, metric units beat imperial units by a mile.
Surely it beats it by a kilometer?
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Old 27th June 2014, 10:49 PM   #74
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This is why women shouldn't talk about soccer.
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Old 28th June 2014, 03:09 AM   #75
Aepervius
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Originally Posted by Dinwar View Post
It's all a question of what you're used to. If you're used to fractions, they're easier; if you're used to decimals, they are.

The history of the metric system is kind of interesting. There are aspects--such as metric callenders and time--that were abandoned, because essentially no one followed them anyway. And recently I heard that the meter isn't based on the distance from the equator to the North Pole; the meter (mening the platinum bar) is slightly off. Meaning the metric system is just as arbitrary as the Imperial system.
You utterly misunderstand the metric system or USI.

It has never been about having a *specific* definition of the meter (ETA : although it is about using a standardized length I meant by that we are not stuck at one definition we need one which is constantly reproducible thus the new one with light, not one definition which is utterly arbitrary - in fact using a division of length from the equator is already FAR less arbitrary than 16 random yoquel at a church if only for reproducibility).


It has been to have standard defintion of value which not only are decimalized (not the 1 big unit= 12* time a smaller unit=*7 time something else), but also there are easy to define relationship between different measurement.

To give you an example : a cube of 10 cm* 10 cm * 10 cm of water contain 1 Kg of water which is 1 liter.

All of those are arbitrary (you could have the cm shorter or longer depending on what you used - you could use a different weight reference) but the relationship imposed beween unit is not and allows for a lot of simplifications.

All of that form a coherent system.

As for fraction being easier, it is disputable that losing all that coherence just for the sake of having fraction is really a gain. Especially since while using the metric system you very quickly learn the value of all those fractions good enough for everyday furniture building and plumbing.

Last edited by Aepervius; 28th June 2014 at 03:13 AM.
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Old 28th June 2014, 04:35 AM   #76
3point14
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Originally Posted by Dinwar View Post
That's my point--if one defines the meter that way, it's an arbitrary measurement. Which more or less disproves one of the more common arguments in favor of the metric system I've heard. Man still, in a way, is the measure of all things in metric, just a bit less directly.

I've snipped your corrections, not because I'm ignoring them but because I've nothing to say in response except "Thank you". The quoted text made me wonder: is there any way to define a unit of length in a way that's actually meaningful? I mean, there's nothing special about 299,792,458; it just happens to be close to what we thought a previous definition of a meter was. Is there some universal constant we can use to define length in some non-arbitrary way?
This?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length

Edit: Totally beaten to it by Craig B
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Last edited by 3point14; 28th June 2014 at 04:36 AM.
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Old 28th June 2014, 04:45 AM   #77
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Originally Posted by Howie Felterbush View Post
America's interest in soccer is a sign that it's world cup time.

In a month, no one will care.

Except for people who are trying to bang Mexican chicks. They will still pretend to be interested in soccer.
I admit to only being interested in soccer on the National team level. If my city had a team in the ASL, though, I could get into it.

I love it when we beat the Mexican team, if they are playing anyone else I root for Mexico.
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Old 28th June 2014, 05:44 AM   #78
angrysoba
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Originally Posted by Shrike View Post
This is why women shouldn't talk about soccer.
This is surely a prize-winning post given its Coulter-esque put-down.

Nom'd!
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Old 28th June 2014, 07:55 AM   #79
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Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop View Post
What was Wenger thinking, sending Walcott on that early?
The trouble with Arsenal is that they try to walk it in.
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Old 28th June 2014, 08:09 AM   #80
Damien Evans
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Originally Posted by Redtail View Post
Well since cricket has nothing to do with insects or lighters, if the name is changed to "paddle bowling" you've got a deal.
That doesn't even make sense. Why would you try to rename the sport after one very specific and quite rare type of shot?
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