Britain - The Official Thread
- Thread starter Ross
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- merseyxshore
They hate us. The contempt jumps out of the screen whenever I see them talking.
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Boris Johnson to reportedly bring back imperial measurements to mark platinum jubilee | Brexit | The Guardian
Move is an apparent attempt to win support from Brexit voters in seats Tories fear losing
As the World burns Johnson is on the case solving the most pressing issues of our times.
news.sky.com
It will win the votes of a few Brexit supporting gammons - got to keep the base happy.
Platinum Jubilee: Boris Johnson poised to mark celebrations with post-Brexit pledge to bring back pounds and ounces
During the 2019 election campaign Mr Johnson promised a new "era of generosity and tolerance towards traditional measurements" and claimed measuring in pounds and ounces was an "ancient liberty".
It will win the votes of a few Brexit supporting gammons - got to keep the base happy.
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I know its set to be optional, but 'm sure they'd be some finacial costs to retailers changing their weighting system. People under 40 won't understand pounds and ounces and won't want to, or shouldn't have to, learn them. 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pounds in a stone. No body needs that in their life.
I mean we already kind of do use it when it comes to the weight of a person. Just like we still use miles rather than kilometers for travel distances (and speed) when travelling by vehicle at least, and a person's height is generally still feet and inches rather than centimeters, a person's weight is generally accepted as measured in stones and ounces. But anyone millenial or younger are going to be baffled by trying to buy food stuff in pounds and ounces.
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Yup, we already have plenty of freedom and experience to use either in our day to day lives, this is an empty offering. Who really buys by weight anyway these days, I'd say the majority don't, because of the amount of stuff that comes pre-packed.
I'd almost like to start a social media campaign, "Johnson's IMPERIAL plans see petrol price SKYROCKET!! £8.40 per Gallon!!".
On the back of the debate about the crown on pint glasses, I'm surprised there's not been more talk about UKCA marking.
- 87,577
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
It's never been prohibited to include Imperial weights and measures on a product. The EU regulations make it mandatory to use metric (actually SI, which I'll cover in a second) weights and measures, with any other units included for information only.
Legally cars must have their power displayed in kW (SI) and torque in Nm (also SI), but most manufacturers only include this in official documentation and more prominently market them with PS ("metric") and Nm (SI) - some holdouts also use hp/bhp (interchangeably, despite one being scalar and the other a vector) and very, very rarely lbft.
They do this because the numbers for PS and Nm are bigger, even though PS is measured in kgm/s so should have torque in kgm.
200PS = 196hp = 146kW
20.4kgm = 147lbft = 200Nm
PS is a metric unit rather than an SI unit, because it's a conversion of an imperial measure into metric units with a "round it to a less unpleasant number" fudge. Similarly kgm is metric rather than SI, because it doesn't use the right unit for force; kgm should actually be kgfm, meaning "kilograms-equivalent force", which is the amount of force a kilogram exerts under gravitational acceleration... and the unit for that is the Newton.
This still happens despite being a specific law since 1972. So long as the SI units appear in the official documentation, they can market it however they like.
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To be honest I'm not really sure which units are metric and which are imperial. The only one I need to stop and think with is Fahrenheit. Pre-decimal currency also makes no sense, despite how many times my parents have tried to explain it to me.
HenrySwanson
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Exclusive from the Guardian showing the roots of the Windrush scandal:
www.theguardian.com
Windrush scandal caused by ‘30 years of racist immigration laws’ – report
Exclusive: legislation has been designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population, according to leaked government paper
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Well... you shouldn't have any trouble with remembering that a "metre" is metric...
Generally if the measurements have entirely new words for subdivisions or multiples, it's Imperial (or, as @Liquid notes, "Standard" in the USA).
Foot -> Yard -> Furlong -> Mile = Imperial; Centimetre -> Metre -> Kilometre = Metric
Ounce -> Pound -> Stone = Imperial; Milligram -> Gram -> Kilogram = Metric
Fluid ounce -> Pint -> Gallon = Imperial; Millilitre -> Litre -> ... actually nothing, though you can use new prefixes, nobody does = Metric
For metric, metre, litre, gram are the ones you need to know. Everything distance, volume, or weight, is just micro (1/1000000)/milli (1/1000)/centi (1/100)/kilo (1000)/mega (1000000) of it.
Rarely used are deci (1/10), deka (10), and hecto (100)
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I think there's scope to confuse things even further. Kiloyards, decapounds, centigallons, millichains...
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It's also crazy to portray this as somehow a 'Brexit benefit', when the UK shifting to metric units had nothing to do with EU membership in the first place.
The trouble with 'moving away from metric' is that science, technology and the rest of the world use metric terms as standard, indeed standard notation in science uses 'standard units' or SI units, which the UK adopted well before it ever joined the EU, and no amount of Brexiteer bull**** will change the fact that the UK will need to keep using metric notation for most things indefinitely.
And, as for our beloved Imperial units - pints of milk/beer, feet and inches, pounds and stones etc., we use them routinely anyway, so I'm not sure what Boris is planning here other than another pointless soundbite.
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Exactly that.
Oh I've also just been made aware of the phrase "Platty Joobs" to refer to this weekend's events, and frankly you can ** this country and every ** in it.
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Dotini
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"Flying Saucer" hat reported by The Guardian:
www.theguardian.com
Flying saucer hat lifts off as royals and guests don jaunty headwear
Kate, Meghan, Carrie Johnson and Liz Truss choose ‘cartwheel’ hat, once part of Dior’s new look in 50s
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Darth Windsor caught using her force lightning in public!
Dotini
(Banned)
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Since the phenomenon was captured both from below and from above, that rules out the bird explanation. The object cannot be closer to both cameras at the same time.It's a herring gull - and it's fast because it's close to the camera, Dougal.
Which I suppose neatly knits together UAP idiocy and Birds Aren't Real idiocy into a giant Venn Diagram of Dumb.
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Of course it can. Incredible that both someone exceptionally stupid and some purportedly intelligent person can be confused by simple geometry in the exact same way.
Also the flapping wings are a giveaway. That and it being impossible to move in London without tripping over a gull or a skyrat.
