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[GendoIkari]

So, what's the Mac keyboard command for, say, starting up Opera?

I don't think you can open an app with a keyboard command on a Mac without personally creating the shortcut.

If there are keyboard commands on my windows machine to open applications, I don't know any.

(By keyboad commands, I assume we are talking about a single-press combination to make something happen, such as CTRL-C for copy.  There is no CMD-O for Opera.  If there's a CTRL+C+H to open Chrome on Windows, someone please tell me.)

Windows key + number key opens the program pinned to your taskbar in the position indicated by the number. If the program is already open, it becomes active.

Holy crap. I've been using Windows for a living, as well as during the majority of my free time, for as long as I can remember... and I had no clue about this! When did this happen; starting in Windows 7 or 8? Thanks!

[Kirian]

The average human has slightly less than two arms, slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

[pacovf]

The average human has slightly less than two arms, slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

"That's kinda freaky", said Mohammed Lee.

[liopoil]

slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

How can both be true? Aren't there slightly more males than females in the world?

[Witherweaver]

slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

How can both be true? Aren't there slightly more males than females in the world?

Not all men have two testicles.  I'm wondering if he did the calculation, though.

[liopoil]

slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

How can both be true? Aren't there slightly more males than females in the world?

Not all men have two testicles.  I'm wondering if he did the calculation, though.

I highly doubt there are more men with fewer than two testicles than there are more men than woman. The ratio is something like 1.01:1, that's ~35 million extra men.

[ghostofmars]

One advantage of the metric system for everyday life, is that the density of water is ~1kg/L. The same holds for most organic matter.

You can use that when you are cooking. Suppose you need 100mL of milk but don't have a measuring cup ready. Just weigh 100g on a scale. Or vice versa, if you want to know the weight of something, put it with water in a measuring cup and look at the difference in volume when you remove it.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

The ninja'd post gets more respect than the original.  I need to be more patient.

By the way, the "U" in his example was the abbreviation for "Unit".  Not SI, I agree, but see #4436 for more info.

[Asper]

slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

How can both be true? Aren't there slightly more males than females in the world?

I was pretty sure it were more females. Soooooo...

WIKIPEDIA TIME!

...which confirms that a slight majority of the living human population is male.

[Kuildeous]

An astronaut met an alien for the first time. The astronaut splays his fingers* and says, "We have 10 fingers." The alien—being a match physiologically except for missing two pinkies—says, "We have 10 fingers." The astronaut chuckles and says, "No, you have 8 fingers." The alien asks, "What the hell is an 8?"



* Yeah, yeah, thumbs aren't fingers. Go tell your own joke.

[Kirian]

slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

How can both be true? Aren't there slightly more males than females in the world?

Not all men have two testicles.  I'm wondering if he did the calculation, though.

I highly doubt there are more men with fewer than two testicles than there are more men than woman. The ratio is something like 1.01:1, that's ~35 million extra men.

Hysterectomies and oophorectomies are as common as orchidectomies, and the former often remove both while the latter only very rarely removes both.

[Kirian]

The ninja'd post gets more respect than the original.  I need to be more patient.

By the way, the "U" in his example was the abbreviation for "Unit".  Not SI, I agree, but see #4436 for more info.

Hey, I gave you a +1.

[ashersky]

I get the feeling that half of f.ds things I'm a moron; 99% of the other half things I'm an idiot.

The remainder (whatever that may be) just doesn't understand me, but might give me the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think any of the above. By the way, is it pronounced a-SHER-skee or Asher sky?

Asher (like in My Name is Asher Lev) - Sky (as in the big blue area over our heads...I think in metric it's pronounced "celestial dome").

[ashersky]

Fair enough. Why do you like the Imperial System then? What is so wrong with the metric system?

I think the "difficulty" issue of measurement systems is moot -- the ability to learn a system is dependent on the learner, not the system itself.  If someone is better at dividing by 12 than by 10, that's not the system of measurement's fault.  It's the same as learning languages -- I think Japanese is insanely easy as a language to learn, but found Italian very difficult; many people would disagree with me on that.  But neither of us would be wrong, we just learn differently and/or are better at different things.

So I think any argument for either system of measurement that is based on "difficulty" is irrelevant.  It has nothing to do with the relative merits of the system, just the merits of the users.

So, when you remove the users from the equation, and try to appreciate each system in a vacuum, it becomes a subjective discussion about what any one person finds pleasing, right?

I think the Imperial System is much, much more regal, for example.  Metric feels very pedestrian and bland.  If measurement systems were ice cream, Imperial is chocolate and Metric is cardboard.  Imperial presents the more interesting set of vocabulary, with words that fit oddly in the mouth like "quart" and "pint" (which, by the way, is how we measure ice cream).  Only in the imperial can you see for leagues and leagues or lose yourself in the countless fathoms of the deep ocean.  In Imperial you can have a gill of water, a rood of forestland, or drachm of poison.

Really, if King Lear had been poisoned by a daughter, would you rather hear that she had slipped a drachm of poison in his wine, or that...

As the old king clutched his chest, he looked around and saw Goneril grinning maniacally...she had slipped 3.5516328125 ml of poison in his wine...

Like I said before, when you don't actually need to measure stuff, units of measurement don't matter.

Isn't that my point, and the one no one has been able to refute?  We aren't just talking about measuring things.  We are talking about a way of life, of expressing ourselves, our feelings and emotions.  Metric is terrible at all the things that are important to me, and many others.

I keep reading long posts defending this "divide by 10" characteristic as so fantastic, but I keep contending that once you take ease of use out of the discussion, metric loses by a mile.  In my daily life, in my work, in my home, I rarely divide by ten.  I do divide by 15, 16, 4, 3, and others.  I have less experience with base 10 than anything else.

But listen, we are comparing two systems on every level, not just one.  Even if I conceded ease of division, I still win overall.

Someone please record themselves singing "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers in metric, please.  That's 804.672 kilometers, by the way.  Per the defenders of metric trying to state it is superior to imperial, please show me how that goes for you.

[ashersky]

I get the feeling that half of f.ds things I'm a moron; 99% of the other half things I'm an idiot.

You've left out the certainty of trolling.

Fixed that for you.

I can promise you one thing.  I am not "trolling."

I don't really even understand the method.  I don't do memes either.

[liopoil]

slightly less than one testicle, and slightly less than one ovary.

How can both be true? Aren't there slightly more males than females in the world?

I was pretty sure it were more females. Soooooo...

WIKIPEDIA TIME!

...which confirms that a slight majority of the living human population is male.

Hey, I would have guessed it was more females too, but then I checked that very wikipedia page before posting

[Witherweaver]

...

We are talking solely about measuring things.  For literature, songs, art, whatever, I could not have less of a preference for how you choose to phrase things.

The numerical examples of conversion are obviously terrible.  If a mile were defined to be a kilometer, the song would not lose any meaning. 

I keep reading long posts defending this "divide by 10" characteristic as so fantastic, but I keep contending that once you take ease of use out of the discussion, metric loses by a mile.  In my daily life, in my work, in my home, I rarely divide by ten.  I do divide by 15, 16, 4, 3, and others.  I have less experience with base 10 than anything else.

So when you write 15, 16, you mean... 17, 18 in base 10?  Since you're not using base 10..?

See, this is the thing.  When you say things like this I can't actually tell if you're intentionally being absurd, or you are unaware of it.

[ashersky]

I'm not a mathematician or a scientist.  All I meant was I rarely, if ever, divide by 10 in my everyday life.

[Seprix]

How do you guys get Base 10!? I can only get to 2nd Base... 

[Kirian]

How do you guys get Base 10!? I can only get to 2nd Base... 

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3683

[liopoil]

It's not about dividing by anything. It's about when, if you're counting, you increment the next digit. We count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... when does it become a two digit number? After 10 increments. When talking about big a thing is approximately, we talk about how many digits it has. The prefixes give you how many more or how many fewer digits it has. All you need to know is how long a meter is, and you can get a sense for how long any distance is. If I say "23 kilometers" That immediately means "woah, the number of meters has 5 digits!" The same goes for other base units.

[Witherweaver]

The point is that the numbers you are using are *inherently* base 10.

When you say

2394.493,

it literally means

2*1000 + 3*100 + 9*10 + 4*1 + 4/10 + 9/100 + 3/1000. 

Each "decimal place" (note "deci" = "ten") denotes an additional power of 10.  This is why multiplying or dividing by 10 is trivial.

2394.493/10 = (2*1000 + 3*100 + 9*10 + 4*1 + 4/10 + 9/100 + 3/1000)/10 = 2*100 + 3*10 + 9*1 + 4/10 + 4/100 + 9/1000 + 3/10000 = 239.4493.

You can simply move the decimal place.  There is no actual computation, because the notation itself incorporates the arithmetic. 

Our numbers imbue tenness.

You could set up a number system to be of a different base, like 8 instead of 10.  That would be fine.  Then when you say

423 you would mean [4*8^2 + 2*8+ 2 = 274] in base ten.  And then I would totally agree that it doesn't make sense to use dm, cm, mm, instead we should have made up words for 1/8 m, 1/64 m, 1/512 m. 

But our numbers are naturally aligned with ten, so our units should be as well.

[Asper]

I'm not a mathematician or a scientist.  All I meant was I rarely, if ever, divide by 10 in my everyday life.

When we talk about a number system with a base of ten, we don't talk about division by ten. We talk about the fact that it has ten basic numbers: 0,1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. From these we can build something like 379424, 6, or 45.293.

We mostly take the base of ten as a given, but there are many alternatives: 20 for example, can be expressed in a variety of ways: XX. 10100. 14. 20. The first is roman numbers, the second binary, the third hexadecimal, and the last 10-based. It's not trivial how you write the triple of 20, but we all know what to do. Try that in roman, or binary, or hexadecimal.

When i divide a meter by 4, i get 0.25 meters, like the math we all know tells me. If i want to have Centimeters, i just shift the comma/dot accordingly. Voilá, 25.0 centimeters. Millimeters? Just a little shift and we have 250 Millimeters. Kilometer? Shifting time says it's 0.00025 Kilometers.

I can do all of these with ease simply because i know how to divide everyday "ten-base" numbers. The only thing you need to remember is what Kilo, Deci, Milli, Centi, etc stand for, but only once and it's there in the name (for those of us that care a bit about words), anyhow.

Edited because i got my hexadecimals wrong.

[ashersky]

The point is that the numbers you are using are *inherently* base 10.

When you say

2394.493,

it literally means

2*1000 + 3*100 + 9*10 + 4*1 + 4/10 + 9/100 + 3/1000. 

Each "decimal place" (note "deci" = "ten") denotes an additional power of 10.  This is why multiplying or dividing by 10 is trivial.

2394.493/10 = (2*1000 + 3*100 + 9*10 + 4*1 + 4/10 + 9/100 + 3/1000)/10 = 2*100 + 3*10 + 9*1 + 4/10 + 4/100 + 9/1000 + 3/10000 = 239.4493.

You can simply move the decimal place.  There is no actual computation, because the notation itself incorporates the arithmetic. 

Our numbers imbue tenness.

You could set up a number system to be of a different base, like 8 instead of 10.  That would be fine.  Then when you say

423 you would mean [4*8^2 + 2*8+ 2 = 274] in base ten.  And then I would totally agree that it doesn't make sense to use dm, cm, mm, instead we should have made up words for 1/8 m, 1/64 m, 1/512 m. 

But our numbers are naturally aligned with ten, so our units should be as well.

Am I misunderstanding your argument then?  I thought you didn't like Imperial Units because it wasn't based on Base 10, but you are clearly showing that:

12.00 miles uses a base 10 numbering system, just like 19.3121 kilometers.  In both cases, you can just move the decimal point to get 1/10 or 10x the number.  In the shown example, it turns out that the Imperial Unit happens to be even easier to divide (by numbers of than 10) than the Metric Unit.  That's just because of the numbers I chose, though.

So, as you just proved, if both set of measurements use Base 10 numbering systems, you are actually arguing about the words we use to denote specific amounts of those numbers, which again (when ease of use/math is removed) is just an aesthetic argument, which I'm making in favor of Imperial.

1 kilometer = 10 decimeter = 100 centimeters = 1000 millimeters = 10000 µm (whatever that is)
1 mile = 8 furlongs = 1760 yards = 5280 feet = 63360 inches

That's a fair comparison, when it comes to length?  Now take out the numbers, because we've now agreed (as you've taught me) that both systems use the same number system.

kilometer = decimeter = centimeters = millimeters = µm
mile = furlongs = yards = feet = inches


This is the discussion we're having.  I can see why some people might prefer the top line (those who like repeating letters, rhyming patterns, etc.), and I can see why some people might prefer the bottom line.

In the end, though, there is no definitive argument one way of the other than can convince either party.  It's completely subjective.

(Note: it took me a million clicks on wikipedia to find the next step down from millimeter; why is it not all on one page?)


Edit: fixed my math

[ashersky]

I'm not a mathematician or a scientist.  All I meant was I rarely, if ever, divide by 10 in my everyday life.

When we talk about a number system with a base of ten, we don't talk about division by ten. We talk about the fact that it has ten basic numbers: 0,1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. From these we can build something like 379424, 6, or 45.293.

We mostly take the base of ten as a given, but there are many alternatives: 20 for example, can be expressed in a variety of ways: XX. 10100. 14. 20. The first is roman numbers, the second binary, the third hexadecimal, and the last 10-based. It's not trivial how you write the triple of 20, but we all know what to do. Try that in roman, or binary, or hexadecimal. When i divide a meter by 4, i get 0.25 meters, like the math we all know tells me. If i want to have Centimeters, i just shift the comma/dot accordingly. Voilá, 25.0 centimeters. Millimeters? Just a little shift and we have 250 Millimeters. A Kilometer? Shifting time says it's 0.00025 Kilometer.

I can do all of these with ease simply because i know how to divide everyday "ten-base" numbers. The only thing you need to remember is what Kilo, Deci, Milli, Centi, etc stand for, but only once and it's there in the name (for those of us that care a bit about words), anyhow.

Edited because i got my hexadecimals wrong.

This is a good explanation and illustration.  Thanks.  I appreciate it.

I mean, you've already seen why I prefer Imperial to Metric, and it has nothing to do with any of this.  But it really helps me understand why some folks really find metric to be so nice.