@OliverPB "The Tories are fundamentally out of touch"
Would you prefer that they spend fortunes on people on benefits who are able to work or change the system (as they are doing) so that it becomes financially attractive to those on benefits to get a job.
I get the 'moral' case for what IDS and the Tories are doing. Perhaps it's because I have two young children and I've worked my whole life. The way the system was working in 2009 we were heading a) towards bankruptcy abd b) a hellish future for our children.
Someone had to grab the nettle and the Tories have done so. It hasn't been popular, it has hurt and it will carry on hurting for a few years. But, if we stay on the current path and accept the short-term pain, the future for my 5-year-old and 1-year-old will be far brighter than it looked back in 2009 for anyone with young children.
That to me is a moral cause.
I've said before that throughout the noughties my living standards shot up hugely, mainly because I was lucky enough to own a home which nearly trebled in value. It was all built on sand, yet I lived like a king for a few years (all this was under a Labour government) whilst Gordon Brown preached to me about prudence and no more boom and bust. Then of course, it all caved in, and I've since had five years of flatlining living standards. I accept that. I also accept that I have no God given right to living standards continually rising. And I also believe it is morally wrong to expect my living standards to rise by borrowing money from the future; money which should go to my kids.
Of course, we still are borrowing a lot, and the economy is proving phenomenally difficult to turn around, mainly because there are lots and lots of people like you who don't believe in making radical changes to the way the system works and therefore dig in against it. The Tories should stick to their guns, and when tax cuts to working people, letting people spend their own money rather than giving it to the government to spend it for them, proves to work, as it will, and the economy gets growing again, then hopefully people like you will be persuaded.
By the way, I'm as working class as you get. But not wracked by prejudice.
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
I think the imperial units were based on the number 12 because it is easier to divide, or something like that, I remember Indians are good in mathematics since ancient times because they used a metric system based on 12. However it is hopelessly complicated compared with the decimal system because we have 10 fingers not 12, ohh history of maths.
Yes, you can divide* 12 by 2, 3, 4 and 6, whereas you can only divide 10 by 2 and 5.
The Babylonians used base-60 (which we still use in time and angles) because you can then divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
I think base-24 is probably a good system to aim at. This enables simple division by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Basing a currency off that would be a good plan for bringing back a non-decimal currency system, and it would help mean that we could talk about pounds in lower quantities, because one pound would divide into twenty-four shillings and each shilling could divide into 24 pence - so you have a more useful range of human readable numebrs then with the daft one hundred pence to a pound.
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
Rubbish. There are dozens of engineers in my office fully competent in using both. We still use feet, knots in aviation, miles and yards on our highways, and pints and gallons to measure liquids. We weigh each other in stones and pounds, our height in feet and inches.
Who 'f*cks up' on any of that?
It makes no difference whatsoever. In fact, it improves mental arthimetic and numerical reasoning by building conversions into everyday life.
Believe me, f*ck ups due to calculation errors happen all the time. Within the metric system. People miss decimal points, fail to communicate the size of the structure required with the adjacent team, fail to use the latest design standards, or don't understand what's 'buildable' out on site.
If the Hubble space telescope screwed up because of something as simple as base dimensions, the project had much bigger and fundamental management issues than that.
A few Mars spacecraft have been lost that way too, the latest one was the British Beagle 2, in 2003, it cost a ton of money and it was lost due to imperial measurements.
However it could be worse, Cameron could have announced the return to the Babylonian system (based on 60).
Beagle 2 cost hardly any money (£60M) and its failure had sod all to do with imperial measurements, although the official report listed so many potential failures, it is surprising it ever got off the ground.
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
I think the imperial units were based on the number 12 because it is easier to divide, or something like that, I remember Indians are good in mathematics since ancient times because they used a metric system based on 12. However it is hopelessly complicated compared with the decimal system because we have 10 fingers not 12, ohh history of maths.
Yes, you can divide* 12 by 2, 3, 4 and 6, whereas you can only divide 10 by 2 and 5.
The Babylonians used base-60 (which we still use in time and angles) because you can then divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
I think base-24 is probably a good system to aim at. This enables simple division by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Basing a currency off that would be a good plan for bringing back a non-decimal currency system, and it would help mean that we could talk about pounds in lower quantities, because one pound would divide into twenty-four shillings and each shilling could divide into 24 pence - so you have a more useful range of human readable numebrs then with the daft one hundred pence to a pound.
@OliverPB "The Tories are fundamentally out of touch"
Would you prefer that they spend fortunes on people on benefits who are able to work or change the system (as they are doing) so that it becomes financially attractive to those on benefits to get a job.
I get the 'moral' case for what IDS and the Tories are doing. Perhaps it's because I have two young children and I've worked my whole life. The way the system was working in 2009 we were heading a) towards bankruptcy abd b) a hellish future for our children.
Someone had to grab the nettle and the Tories have done so. It hasn't been popular, it has hurt and it will carry on hurting for a few years. But, if we stay on the current path and accept the short-term pain, the future for my 5-year-old and 1-year-old will be far brighter than it looked back in 2009 for anyone with young children.
That to me is a moral cause.
I've said before that throughout the noughties my living standards shot up hugely, mainly because I was lucky enough to own a home which nearly trebled in value. It was all built on sand, yet I lived like a king for a few years (all this was under a Labour government) whilst Gordon Brown preached to me about prudence and no more boom and bust. Then of course, it all caved in, and I've since had five years of flatlining living standards. I accept that. I also accept that I have no God given right to living standards continually rising. And I also believe it is morally wrong to expect my living standards to rise by borrowing money from the future; money which should go to my kids.
Of course, we still are borrowing a lot, and the economy is proving phenomenally difficult to turn around, mainly because there are lots and lots of people like you who don't believe in making radical changes to the way the system works and therefore dig in against it. The Tories should stick to their guns, and when tax cuts to working people, letting people spend their own money rather than giving it to the government to spend it for them, proves to work, as it will, and the economy gets growing again, then hopefully people like you will be persuaded.
By the way, I'm as working class as you get. But not wracked by prejudice.
I think the classification of people into working class, middle class ,toffs etc is very imperial. Nobody really knows what they mean anymore. Need a metric system for this .I don't think that ABC1C2 rubbish works either . Just have a simple scale of 1 (uber chav)-100 (very posh) would work best and turn slackers into strivers more as you could more easily define your progress
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
Rubbish. There are dozens of engineers in my office fully competent in using both. We still use feet, knots in aviation, miles and yards on our highways, and pints and gallons to measure liquids. We weigh each other in stones and pounds, our height in feet and inches.
Who 'f*cks up' on any of that?
It makes no difference whatsoever. In fact, it improves mental arthimetic and numerical reasoning by building conversions into everyday life.
Believe me, f*ck ups due to calculation errors happen all the time. Within the metric system. People miss decimal points, fail to communicate the size of the structure required with the adjacent team, fail to use the latest design standards, or don't understand what's 'buildable' out on site.
If the Hubble space telescope screwed up because of something as simple as base dimensions, the project had much bigger and fundamental management issues than that.
A few Mars spacecraft have been lost that way too, the latest one was the British Beagle 2, in 2003, it cost a ton of money and it was lost due to imperial measurements.
However it could be worse, Cameron could have announced the return to the Babylonian system (based on 60).
I think you're wrong about Beagle 2. AFAICR they never got to the bottom of the cause of its loss, and I don't think imperial units came into any of the possible causes. Could be wrong, though.
I remember the landing rockets or the parachutes were programmed to fire at an altitude based on feet instead of meters, as a result they fired to late and it crashed.
There was a case a few years back of a very well known oil major (I will spare their blushes) where the guys in the head office set a drilling target in feet. For some inexplicable reason, the people on the rig thought this number was in meters. They were merrily drilling on towards the centre of the Earth when someone in head office said "Errrr......WTF?"
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
I think the imperial units were based on the number 12 because it is easier to divide, or something like that, I remember Indians are good in mathematics since ancient times because they used a metric system based on 12. However it is hopelessly complicated compared with the decimal system because we have 10 fingers not 12, ohh history of maths.
Yes, you can divide* 12 by 2, 3, 4 and 6, whereas you can only divide 10 by 2 and 5.
The Babylonians used base-60 (which we still use in time and angles) because you can then divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
I think base-24 is probably a good system to aim at. This enables simple division by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Basing a currency off that would be a good plan for bringing back a non-decimal currency system, and it would help mean that we could talk about pounds in lower quantities, because one pound would divide into twenty-four shillings and each shilling could divide into 24 pence - so you have a more useful range of human readable numebrs then with the daft one hundred pence to a pound.
* Here I mean "divide with no remainder".
Someone once said that if humans had six fingers on each hand we would have colonized the Galaxy by now...
I think the classification of people into working class, middle class ,toffs etc is very imperial. Nobody really knows what they mean anymore. Need a metric system for this .I don't think that ABC1C2 rubbish works either . Just have a simple scale of 1 (uber chav)-100 (very posh) would work best and turn slackers into strivers more as you could more easily define your progress
Where would a think-as-shit premier league footballer go?
I think the classification of people into working class, middle class ,toffs etc is very imperial. Nobody really knows what they mean anymore. Need a metric system for this .I don't think that ABC1C2 rubbish works either . Just have a simple scale of 1 (uber chav)-100 (very posh) would work best and turn slackers into strivers more as you could more easily define your progress
Don't the marketing people love that ABC crap though?
And the Bbc, ever helpful, did invent a well publicised new system.
They run races in furlongs as well!! and measure height in hands!!
They on-course bookies don't offer the fractions that they used too,100-8 etc.Bring back fractions.
oh there was a time not so long ago where you could go into a bookmaker and beg to be given the 100/8 instead of 12/1. Worked with older cashiers who admired your nostalgic knowledge of bookmaking odds!!
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson · Tory tax giveaway promises cost £7.2bn per year by 2020. How afforded? Who pays?
I guess that's compared to the situation where you never raise the thresholds despite inflation. In practice if you're still printing money to inflate away the debt you'd probably have raised them at least some of the way even without a conference speech pander.
I think the classification of people into working class, middle class ,toffs etc is very imperial. Nobody really knows what they mean anymore. Need a metric system for this .I don't think that ABC1C2 rubbish works either . Just have a simple scale of 1 (uber chav)-100 (very posh) would work best and turn slackers into strivers more as you could more easily define your progress
You could have an annual re-rating of your status points. Then publish the results on-line. Oh, the horror of that e-mail arriving....
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
Rubbish. There are dozens of engineers in my office fully competent in using both. We still use feet, knots in aviation, miles and yards on our highways, and pints and gallons to measure liquids. We weigh each other in stones and pounds, our height in feet and inches.
Who 'f*cks up' on any of that?
It makes no difference whatsoever. In fact, it improves mental arthimetic and numerical reasoning by building conversions into everyday life.
Believe me, f*ck ups due to calculation errors happen all the time. Within the metric system. People miss decimal points, fail to communicate the size of the structure required with the adjacent team, fail to use the latest design standards, or don't understand what's 'buildable' out on site.
If the Hubble space telescope screwed up because of something as simple as base dimensions, the project had much bigger and fundamental management issues than that.
A few Mars spacecraft have been lost that way too, the latest one was the British Beagle 2, in 2003, it cost a ton of money and it was lost due to imperial measurements.
However it could be worse, Cameron could have announced the return to the Babylonian system (based on 60).
Sorry, there are arguments to be made against the imperial system. But arguing that scientists and engineers can't handle it, or means pupils can't learn either in school is bollocks.
Neither is abolishing it because a few space exploration projects crap at project management a convincing excuse.
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
I think the imperial units were based on the number 12 because it is easier to divide, or something like that, I remember Indians are good in mathematics since ancient times because they used a metric system based on 12. However it is hopelessly complicated compared with the decimal system because we have 10 fingers not 12, ohh history of maths.
Yes, you can divide* 12 by 2, 3, 4 and 6, whereas you can only divide 10 by 2 and 5.
The Babylonians used base-60 (which we still use in time and angles) because you can then divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
I think base-24 is probably a good system to aim at. This enables simple division by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Basing a currency off that would be a good plan for bringing back a non-decimal currency system, and it would help mean that we could talk about pounds in lower quantities, because one pound would divide into twenty-four shillings and each shilling could divide into 24 pence - so you have a more useful range of human readable numebrs then with the daft one hundred pence to a pound.
* Here I mean "divide with no remainder".
Imagine the number of coins.
I like coins. They last longer than notes and I have a cool money bag to carry them around in.
I think the classification of people into working class, middle class ,toffs etc is very imperial. Nobody really knows what they mean anymore. Need a metric system for this .I don't think that ABC1C2 rubbish works either . Just have a simple scale of 1 (uber chav)-100 (very posh) would work best and turn slackers into strivers more as you could more easily define your progress
Where would a think-as-shit premier league footballer go?
about 14 ? lose a mark for getting sent off for dissent or diving ,gain a couple if you shake hands with ref
Were you watching, Ed Miliband? That is how to deliver a speech.
Of course it's easier to deliver a speech when you have something to say.
Indeed. But it's much harder to govern when you've made billions of unfunded promises. Especially when you believe that you are "paying down the debt".
LotO forgetting the deficit is bad, the PM thinking he is in surplus is arguably worse.
Sorry, there are arguments to be made against the imperial system. But arguing that scientists and engineers can't handle it, or means pupils can't learn either in school is bollocks.
It's not that they can't handle it, it's that the time and effort spent handling it could be more productively used handling something else.
Is it true that Cameron has said we'll be returning to imperial units of measurement? If so, he's lost my vote.
If it's UKIP policy he'll do it, however i'm not sure it is UKIP policy.
It would be equivalent to saying: we want to make life especially hard for Brits who want to become scientists or engineers.
But I guess it wouldn't affect those who want to get degrees in Media Studies.
I wonder how all those US scientists and engineers manage in a country that still uses Imperial measurements? Could it possibly be that being forced to do calculations in something other than multiples of 10 actually helps people do mental arithmetic and be more flexible in their thinking?
I do wonder how the most successful engineering and science based industry on earth survives since it is almost entirely run in Imperial units.
Come on Richard: are you seriously telling me you support reintroducing Imperial into the classroom?
Yes absolutely. Anything that both improves mental arithmetic and fits people better for life in the real world (bearing in mind that nature is annoyingly non-metric) would be a good thing. The ability to do conversions with ease is a huge life skill no matter what you are converting to and from.
Why don't we create a new system using bases of 7 and 19? That would improve mental arithmetic even more than imperial.
Because we do not have the majority of our population, some of our major industries and many of our most important overseas customers using them. Unlike the Imperial systems.
I think the classification of people into working class, middle class ,toffs etc is very imperial. Nobody really knows what they mean anymore. Need a metric system for this .I don't think that ABC1C2 rubbish works either . Just have a simple scale of 1 (uber chav)-100 (very posh) would work best and turn slackers into strivers more as you could more easily define your progress
You could have an annual re-rating of your status points. Then publish the results on-line. Oh, the horror of that e-mail arriving....
It's been an hour since Cameron's speech and we are talking non stop about arithmetic systems instead of taxes. Lets hope for Cameron that PB is an exception and the rest of he country isn't currently debating imperial vs metric.
Sorry, there are arguments to be made against the imperial system. But arguing that scientists and engineers can't handle it, or means pupils can't learn either in school is bollocks.
It's not that they can't handle it, it's that the time and effort spent handling it could be more productively used handling something else.
The time and effort is negligible. I do this for a living.
Have the Tories really said that they will reinstate Imperial units in schools?
No. It was an off the cuff comment by Cameron in a Newsnight interview - I doubt it will see the manifesto.....they have other battles to fight....
Good. Utterly crazy. Mandating the metric system was one of the good things Margaret Thatcher did.
He's a bright guy, Cameron, why would he say such a daft thing even off the cuff. Could it be that he's trying to emulate Nigel? Cue Dvorak's New World symphony (aka Hovis ad).
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
Rubbish. There are dozens of engineers in my office fully competent in using both. We still use feet, knots in aviation, miles and yards on our highways, and pints and gallons to measure liquids. We weigh each other in stones and pounds, our height in feet and inches.
Who 'f*cks up' on any of that?
It makes no difference whatsoever. In fact, it improves mental arthimetic and numerical reasoning by building conversions into everyday life.
Believe me, f*ck ups due to calculation errors happen all the time. Within the metric system. People miss decimal points, fail to communicate the size of the structure required with the adjacent team, fail to use the latest design standards, or don't understand what's 'buildable' out on site.
If the Hubble space telescope screwed up because of something as simple as base dimensions, the project had much bigger and fundamental management issues than that.
A few Mars spacecraft have been lost that way too, the latest one was the British Beagle 2, in 2003, it cost a ton of money and it was lost due to imperial measurements.
However it could be worse, Cameron could have announced the return to the Babylonian system (based on 60).
I think you're wrong about Beagle 2. AFAICR they never got to the bottom of the cause of its loss, and I don't think imperial units came into any of the possible causes. Could be wrong, though.
I remember the landing rockets or the parachutes were programmed to fire at an altitude based on feet instead of meters, as a result they fired to late and it crashed.
Have the Tories really said that they will reinstate Imperial units in schools?
No. It was an off the cuff comment by Cameron in a Newsnight interview - I doubt it will see the manifesto.....they have other battles to fight....
Good. Utterly crazy. Mandating the metric system was one of the good things Margaret Thatcher did.
He's a bright guy, Cameron, why would he say such a daft thing even off the cuff. Could it be that he's trying to emulate Nigel? Cue Dvorak's New World symphony (aka Hovis ad).
He wasn't serious . Evan Davis asked him the question to start off on something a bit different to what Paxman might ask him and Cameron responded by saying something like he quite liked imperial units personally.That was it
Sorry, there are arguments to be made against the imperial system. But arguing that scientists and engineers can't handle it, or means pupils can't learn either in school is bollocks.
It's not that they can't handle it, it's that the time and effort spent handling it could be more productively used handling something else.
The time and effort is negligible. I do this for a living.
It's small. But multiply that small cost by a lot of people doing it and it adds up to a lot of wasted effort that could be doing something more useful.
Sorry, there are arguments to be made against the imperial system. But arguing that scientists and engineers can't handle it, or means pupils can't learn either in school is bollocks.
It's not that they can't handle it, it's that the time and effort spent handling it could be more productively used handling something else.
The time and effort is negligible. I do this for a living.
It's small. But multiply that small cost by a lot of people doing it and it adds up to a lot of wasted effort that could be doing something more useful.
Like what? Its not as if those engineers could start theHeathrow expansion earlier !!
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
I think the imperial units were based on the number 12 because it is easier to divide, or something like that, I remember Indians are good in mathematics since ancient times because they used a metric system based on 12. However it is hopelessly complicated compared with the decimal system because we have 10 fingers not 12, ohh history of maths.
Yes, you can divide* 12 by 2, 3, 4 and 6, whereas you can only divide 10 by 2 and 5.
The Babylonians used base-60 (which we still use in time and angles) because you can then divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
I think base-24 is probably a good system to aim at. This enables simple division by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Basing a currency off that would be a good plan for bringing back a non-decimal currency system, and it would help mean that we could talk about pounds in lower quantities, because one pound would divide into twenty-four shillings and each shilling could divide into 24 pence - so you have a more useful range of human readable numebrs then with the daft one hundred pence to a pound.
* Here I mean "divide with no remainder".
Someone once said that if humans had six fingers on each hand we would have colonized the Galaxy by now...
Must have been why in the old Apothecaries weights and measures 60 grains equalled an ounce and 480 grains an Apothecaries ounce. When I qualified we had to be able to convert Apoth to metric ..... no calculators then either ....... and formulae for medicines could be in either system. However, a 480 grain ounce was much more useful for calculations and, IMHO much less likely to error. I’ve seen decimal points put in the wrong place with potentially disastrous consequences.
Converting to the Avoirdupois system could be a bit of a whatsit as there were 437.5 Apothecaries grains in one of those!
Sorry, there are arguments to be made against the imperial system. But arguing that scientists and engineers can't handle it, or means pupils can't learn either in school is bollocks.
It's not that they can't handle it, it's that the time and effort spent handling it could be more productively used handling something else.
The time and effort is negligible. I do this for a living.
It's small. But multiply that small cost by a lot of people doing it and it adds up to a lot of wasted effort that could be doing something more useful.
You don't have a clue what you're taking about. Sorry.
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
I think the imperial units were based on the number 12 because it is easier to divide, or something like that, I remember Indians are good in mathematics since ancient times because they used a metric system based on 12. However it is hopelessly complicated compared with the decimal system because we have 10 fingers not 12, ohh history of maths.
You have three sections to each finger, and four fingers: 12 sections.
Imperial units are stupid. They make leaning science harder, and they lead to engineering fuck ups.
To want to return to them because you see metric as some kind of European plot is so spectacularly absurd as to defy belief. If both UKIP and the Conservative Parties were to have this as their official policy it would be extraordinary.
Can somebody please start the Pro-Metric Conservative Party?
It's perfectly possible to know both, and use the correct approach when it most fits. I'm of the age where I mostly use miles and yards for long distances, and metres and centimetres for short ones. I'm also fairly adept at roughly translating between miles and kilometres, and between feet and metres/centimetres.
Aside from the obvious Mars Climate Orbiter, what other major engineering fuck ups have been caused by such things?
(Edit: and I've also had reason to use chains and links in the past, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend using them on new projects).
It is not often that tears come during a political speech - but Cameron was genuinely moving then. His comments on the NHS and his personal experience were very powerful
Yes Sam looked close to tears.
I did shed a few - it was something very rare in politics. Genuine passion.
Comments
They on-course bookies don't offer the fractions that they used too,100-8 etc.Bring back fractions.
The Babylonians used base-60 (which we still use in time and angles) because you can then divide by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
I think base-24 is probably a good system to aim at. This enables simple division by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12. Basing a currency off that would be a good plan for bringing back a non-decimal currency system, and it would help mean that we could talk about pounds in lower quantities, because one pound would divide into twenty-four shillings and each shilling could divide into 24 pence - so you have a more useful range of human readable numebrs then with the daft one hundred pence to a pound.
* Here I mean "divide with no remainder".
Tory tax giveaway promises cost £7.2bn per year by 2020. How afforded? Who pays?
Team Casio shall have our revenge.
Need a metric system for this .I don't think that ABC1C2 rubbish works either .
Just have a simple scale of 1 (uber chav)-100 (very posh) would work best and turn slackers into strivers more as you could more easily define your progress
And the Bbc, ever helpful, did invent a well publicised new system.
Neither is abolishing it because a few space exploration projects crap at project management a convincing excuse.
LotO forgetting the deficit is bad, the PM thinking he is in surplus is arguably worse.
https://mobile.twitter.com/GeneralBoles/status/517282711594336256/photo/1
Lets hope for Cameron that PB is an exception and the rest of he country isn't currently debating imperial vs metric.
Cue Dvorak's New World symphony (aka Hovis ad).
UKIP leader on Dudley Council, and PPC for Walsall South, has resigned from the Party. .@CCHQPress
Who is the Tory MP? Kelly...
May be a hoax keep watching.
However, a 480 grain ounce was much more useful for calculations and, IMHO much less likely to error. I’ve seen decimal points put in the wrong place with potentially disastrous consequences.
Converting to the Avoirdupois system could be a bit of a whatsit as there were 437.5 Apothecaries grains in one of those!
(8m33s into the video below.)
http://youtu.be/U6xJfP7-HCc
I can't believe I missed Cameron's speech live. It sounds great - anyone know where it is on replay?