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[Duke 2.0]

I don't doubt for a moment that the metric system was connected to communism.

The metric system as we know it was introduced by revolutionary France. The same spirit gave rise to the Commmune of Paris, and formed a source of inspiration for Marx and the origin of the word communism.

America was formed by a revolution. Communism was formed by a revolution. Thus, America is a communistic country.

The American revolution was instigated by wealthy bourgeois wanting a larger share of the pie. The French one had other axes to grind, and the bad living conditions of the Parisian lower classes fueled it. What they had in common was the idea that a bad ruler can and should be deposed by his subjects.

Thus both commies.
 Dammit, you know as well as I do how bad the argument I'm attacking is.

[ToonyMan]

TOONYMAN!

[doctorspoof]

That last part, yes, is what I am talking about.  Officially we use SI, but really, we use English.

IMPERIAL! IMPERIAL DAMNIT!

[LegoLord]

Cos the raws are only notepad files... As far as i know they can't convert stuff. And i don't think the game will pick up letters (F for Fahrenheit, C for celsius, or whatever) in a numerical field.

I missed this first time I read that.  No, that is not how the raws work.  The raws are indeed notepad files, BUT, and this is very important, the tags are converted into a game-readable form upon loading DF.  The game-readable form is stored in data/objects as opposed to raw/objects.  So the raws can essentially be twisted and beaten to work the way Toady wants them to.  The converter would read [20C] as . . . whatever 20 degrees Celsius is represented as in DF raws as of now.  To simplify things, it could be [HEATDAM_POINT:20:C] with the unit separated from the twenty with a colon.  Scale tags could be C (Celsius) F (Farenhiet), K (Kelvin), S (Skantine [sp?]), and D (Default).

Why would you (all) not be happy with this, when it would allow anyone to effortlessly insert temperature values into the raws?  No looking up the conversion factor (which on the wiki doesn't work for celsius, from my experience) and needing to do the math, because the game would do it for you.

Side note:  The imperial system is the English system.  AKA imperial because they forced it on their colonies (who didn't, though?).

[Mikademus]

Why would you (all) not be happy with this, when it would allow anyone to effortlessly insert temperature values into the raws? 

You have missed the purpose of internet debate: it is not about finding a solution, it is about arguing and eventually invoking Hitler.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Hitler.

I'm in favor of the Kelvin x 10 idea that somebody else mentioned, so I'd like to vote for that.

I grew up with Farenheit, so it's what I know, but I'm willing to learn something different, if it makes the game more broadly functional.

That and, as much as I enjoy the old measuring systems, I agree that it's about damn time the U.S. got with the program on units of measurement (and did away with daylight savings time).

[Musluk]

I support Toonyman on this

Well... I'm from a SI centralized country. I outright dislike Fahrenheit. My mind can use ten's exponents, but not a scale between a positive integer and a negative integer for everyday calculations. That being said, conversion isn't that much of a problem, really, with a calculator in reach (Hint - there is one in windows and mac, I assume Linux too). But I think it should be unique to the dwarves, not just Dwarven Fahrenheits. Exponential base 'stretched' on dwarven units is a good idea, but in effect it's even more complicated for a modder (even with a standard windows calculator).

Concluding, if we're to have an arbitrary point, it should be either related to dwarves themselves, or beer. There is a constant in every dwarf's life, it's alcohol intake. If it's too much work, then I'd ask for the 39C 67F or 10067D style - everyone, including Toady, would get what they want - to understand how hot or cold the thing is in a glance.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I support the idea of a "dwarfcentric" measuring system.

It's one of the aspects of inventing/codifying my own ideas about dwarfs that appealed to me.

For instance, my dwarfs have 6 fingers on each hand (2 of the fingers are thumbs), so they use a base 12 numerical system.

At what temperature will alchohol evaporate from beer? At what temperature does beer freeze solid?

[Mikademus]

For instance, my dwarfs have 6 fingers on each hand (2 of the fingers are thumbs), so they use a base 12 numerical system.

Tom Leher: "Base-eight is just like base-10, only you're missing one finger on each hand".

[Duke 2.0]

 I personally have nothing against SI, and it would be better for the world to have it as the system. However, I must continue to fight this attitude of the US being backwards for it's measuring system and being considered idiots for not doing what the cool kids are doing. We can live together. There is no real trouble to us using a different system if our scientists use the SI system.

 Unless our using a different system deeply offends you, please stop that. If you want us to change so much think of a rather pain-free way of doing it. Don't go about bashing us for not conforming.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Kind of offends me, though, and I was born here.

It's not like Farenheit was invented here or anything, let alone a superior system. It was invented in 1724, by a German guy, who lived most of his life in the Dutch Republic.

Celsius, the metric system, etc. are just better systems, and it's the fault of our educational system-and I'm sure more than a few arrogant politicians that weren't that educated either-that we've got it.

It's not "American", it's just lazy, and perpetuated by stubborn isolationism.
The fact that it probably *does* make us look worse than we ought to, to other countries, is just another reason to get rid of it.

[Fieari]

The following rant has nothing to do with DF.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Again, I reiterate, that a system of temperature based around the human experience is more useful for everyday tasks than one based around water.  Celcius is not BETTER than fahrenheit, it's just DIFFERENT than fahrenheit.  You can loosely suggest that the freezing point of water is relevant to weather (memorizing 32 seems like such a simple thing though)... but you can hardly argue that the boiling point of water is in any way relevant.

Even cooking doesn't really need the boiling point of water.  You want water to boil?  You're not using temperatures at all, as you can't make water any hotter than that without utilizing pressure cookers.  Want to bake things?  I've never seen a recipe where you're baking anything at exactly 100C, and if recipies are going to use different values for different recipies, and if you have to look those values up, what difference does it make if you set it to 150C or 375F?

For DF, we don't have a display.  Modders can cope, although I can understand why it'd be nicer and easier to be able to specify.  But the thing is, I really don't want Toady to devote ANY resources to this for a while.  The game has been delayed enough as is!  I'd rather things be ten times as hard on modders (assuming that the same functionality is there) and Toady's work load drop by an insignificant fraction.

[Mikademus]

The following rant has nothing to do with DF.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Again, I reiterate, that a system of temperature based around the human experience is more useful for everyday tasks than one based around water.  Celcius is not BETTER than fahrenheit, it's just DIFFERENT than fahrenheit.  You can loosely suggest that the freezing point of water is relevant to weather (memorizing 32 seems like such a simple thing though)... but you can hardly argue that the boiling point of water is in any way relevant.

Even cooking doesn't really need the boiling point of water.  You want water to boil?  You're not using temperatures at all, as you can't make water any hotter than that without utilizing pressure cookers.  Want to bake things?  I've never seen a recipe where you're baking anything at exactly 100C, and if recipies are going to use different values for different recipies, and if you have to look those values up, what difference does it make if you set it to 150C or 375F?

I don't know if anyone here has seen the "eight stages of goatse", but that's sort of been my reaction (only prolonged over time) from seeing people desperately trying to defend Fahrenheit - going from utter disgust to deeply enjoying the sheer insanity of it:










(Original page here)

[Random832]

The following rant has nothing to do with DF.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Again, I reiterate, that a system of temperature based around the human experience is more useful for everyday tasks than one based around water.  Celcius is not BETTER than fahrenheit, it's just DIFFERENT than fahrenheit.  You can loosely suggest that the freezing point of water is relevant to weather (memorizing 32 seems like such a simple thing though)... but you can hardly argue that the boiling point of water is in any way relevant.

Even cooking doesn't really need the boiling point of water.  You want water to boil?  You're not using temperatures at all, as you can't make water any hotter than that without utilizing pressure cookers.  Want to bake things?  I've never seen a recipe where you're baking anything at exactly 100C, and if recipies are going to use different values for different recipies, and if you have to look those values up, what difference does it make if you set it to 150C or 375F?

I don't know if anyone here has seen the "eight stages of goatse", but that's sort of been my reaction (only prolonged over time) from seeing people desperately trying to defend Fahrenheit - going from utter disgust to deeply enjoying the sheer insanity of it:

I'm sure others feel the same way about people suggesting it's "disgusting" to point out that there's no inherent advantage to one arbitrary system over another arbitrary system.

[alfie275]

I think that all scientists should us SI, I mean look at the mars lander that crashed, that cost more than $100,000,000, I also think that copuntries should get the words for numbers sorted out, for example in the US a billion is 1000 million but in UK it is a million million.