BreakPoint
Just ask CA
@JÞB wrote:
@BenThe largest cost factor in replacing Speed limit signs is the potential for liability.
Imagine if you will your average motorist doing 50 in what used to be a 30 when they are just plain mathematically challanged. insurance rates will skyrocket.
There are some interesting signs in Southern Arizona. But, it's only a distance so probably won't cause any accidents 🙂
@Ben wrote:
@crossrulzDidn't the US miss Mars on one occasion due to a difference in units?
Yes. (Details).
(Of course since all real climate science on earth seems to be labeled as fake news these days, it's probably irrelevant if we have a Mars Climate Orbiter 🐵
Another unit conversion mess up (with arguably better outcome!) was the Gimli glider.
pretty sure their would be no argument from the passengers, crew and spectators!
they are pretty sure that the Mars probe "augured in", in fact subsequent Mars orbiters have actually had their data analyzed to try and find the crater it probably made.
@LV_Pro wrote:
pretty sure their would be no argument from the passengers, crew and spectators!
Of course it also serves as an example how a recent switch to metric (Canada here) can cause potentially serious issues (And yes, the average Canadian is probably smarter than the average US citizen). If the US would completely switch to SI units overnight people will most likely die. Probably more serious than the Y2K thing. 😮
I can only image how my office would feel when controlled to 72 degrees Celsius 😄
@JÞB wrote:
What can cause a large shift toward the good? I could Google it but, then I actually know a research opthamologist so, O.S. moved from -1.75 to -0.75 with no astigmatism change and O.D. -1.0 to -0.5.
Curiously, I noticed the same thing. Over the last 10 years, my p.r.e.scription (mutilated to bypass the forum filters for banned words) has changed for the better (for distance). Maybe it's normal, but then we would need to label ourselves "normal", which might be a bit of a stretch. 😄
I could ask a clinician here but we don't really interact much....
I may have conflated the mentioned Mars Orbiter with the Mars Polar Lander, which has had searches performed for it. It appears to have failed as a result of a Hall Effect switch that indicates the landing gear touching actually actuating too early, resulting in the descent engine being turned off too soon. Oops! Software is hard. Space craft are complicated! Think about that when we watch two boosters land essentially simultaneously! On top of that, they had gone quite a ways down range before separation, had to fly back to Canaveral. Wow again.
Did notice that the Tesla Roadster hasn't been listed (yet? Wikipedia) as one of the failed Mars missions! 😉
I will say that when I was asking directions in Canada a few years ago, with all the speed limit and distance signs in km, a lot of people still said "a couple miles down the road". I agree that it could be a disaster here "south of the border", they put up some distance signs on the NY State Thruway a few years back in Kilometers, that were actually inaccurate. Only up for a while. Conversely, a year ago in Belize, where the speed limits and distance are in miles, my Mexican market rental car was only in Km (as opposed to most US market cars where the speedometer shows mph on the outer ring and kph on an inner one). Kerry would, looking at the map, say "next turn is 8 miles" and I would have to look at the odometer, note the current kilometer reading, do the math, and watch for the odometer to near that number. The US military has been pretty much metric for the last 50+ years, saves on issues when doing joint maneuvers with other countries. Slang for a distance is "x clicks down the road" meaning x kilometers.
My kids, at least when they were still kids, were pretty comfortable in both metric and US, I would have them converting speeds and distances back and forth when on our regular trips across Ontario to Michigan. Their mother did draw the line when I was trying to get them to do conversions to nautical miles, and knots! Oddly enough, aircraft speeds are usually still spoken of in knots.
