Hey metric system people...

[warpus]

why did you ask the question again after I answered you

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_mile

You didn't really answer me, you just said what that mile is called locally. You didn't explain what it is, where it came from, what other measurements it relates to, etc.

The link does all that, thanks

 

[Lohrenswald]

well there isn't anything to it

like , essentially you ask "does this have origin", and the article says "this has origin"

there's nothing more fundamental explained

 

[red_elk]

...and pressure in inches of mercury

 

[Thorgalaeg]

It is tradition!

 

[warpus]

well there isn't anything to it

like , essentially you ask "does this have origin", and the article says "this has origin"

there's nothing more fundamental explained

Sure but "a mil" tells me absolutely nothing, while the details in that article you link at least explain stuff.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Well it says like even in the old days miles here were like over 7 times longer than in England and there's no reason given why there's such a large difference

 

[warpus]

Probably just some drunk vikings asking some people they conquered in Britain somewhere what they use to measure distances and then applying a 10x error margin

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Most cars from the past five years or so report fuel economy on the dashboard.

Good point. It has been a while since I sold cars. That was a new thing back in my day, and you had to press a button to cycle the trip odometer to show it...which to the best of my knowledge no one ever did. Is it a full time display now?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You are right, I forgot about knots and nautical miles. For planes, both feets and meters are currently used depending on plane model, which I think can be dangerous. Don't know about Airbuses, but Boeings use feets for altitude, while Soviet and Russian planes use meters. There was even one major air crash partially caused by different type of horizon indicator used in Boeings and Tu-154, although this is not directly related to unit systems.

As a submariner in the cold war I can tell you there is an advantage to the Russians using metric and the Americans not using metric. There is an obvious tendency to establish a cruising depth on some fairly round number, and as a handy example 100 meters and 300 feet are just far enough apart for submarines that don't know the other is there to pass without crashing into each other. No US submarine would ever cruise at 330 feet, and I assume no Russian submarine would ever cruise at 90 meters.

 

[Farm Boy]

Good point. It has been a while since I sold cars. That was a new thing back in my day, and you had to press a button to cycle the trip odometer to show it...which to the best of my knowledge no one ever did. Is it a full time display now?

It's distracting as hell. And the monitors are too bright even when they're turned down. One of those instances where technology made it worse, not better.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have this curious question that just came up. I was talking to someone about their new car, and since they commute pretty far how efficient it is was naturally an issue. We also talked about the value of the car they traded in, and of course there is metered wear and tear involved.

Obviously, being backwards Americans and not metricasificated, when we talked about how efficient the new car is we talked about gas mileage.

And since we aren't metrifactionalitated here in our benighted land when we were talking about wear and tear and value there was mention of the mileage on the odometer.

So, if we had been properly metricalifragilized would there be a different common usage word than mileage in either of those instances?

In Europe the odometer would display "royal with cheese"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In Europe the odometer would display "royal with cheese"

Nice! Not a really obscure reference, but a very good one.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Probably just some drunk vikings asking some people they conquered in Britain somewhere what they use to measure distances and then applying a 10x error margin

see there's no answer so only a boring joke gets made

sorry

 

[Gori the Grey]

there already is one

But I think what Tim is saying is what if you didn't have that place to go, then where would you go to address yourself to the question of how metric-speakers refer to gas efficiency?

A question to be asked!

 

[Zelig]

Good point. It has been a while since I sold cars. That was a new thing back in my day, and you had to press a button to cycle the trip odometer to show it...which to the best of my knowledge no one ever did. Is it a full time display now?

Typically no, but I dunno that I'd expect people to care about fuel economy less than their trip odometer.

I typically leave my display on "km to empty" but the toggle is on the end of the signal level so I regularly hit it by accident and have to cycle back through all the display options.

It's distracting as hell. And the monitors are too bright even when they're turned down. One of those instances where technology made it worse, not better.

You don't need monitors for that - my car show economy on the dash where the backliight can be set to "illegibly dark".

 

[PhroX]

I dunno about miles and all that stuff, but as a hydraulics engineer I must insist that pressure is measured in meters.

 

[Verbose]

I knew that an American mile was different from a British mile, but what sort of a mile is 10 km long? Is this something in use in use in the region before metric took over?

A Nordic "mil". Everyone had their own national "mile" once upon a time. Or local for that matter…

National standardisations started fairly early — coin and measures — as soon as any government was able to impose a standard.

Even the metric system has been adopted as a series of independent national decisions. It's just that the usefulness of a local/national "mile" in any one of the hundreds of German micro states fx quite fairly early on seen as maybe not so much a matter of national prestige, and more like a monumental hassle and impediment to the smooth transaction of business.

The thing about the Nordic "mil" is that it's what supplanted older national "mils", and the modern update is fully metric. All you need to do is divide the km figure by ten.

 

[CKS]

Good point. It has been a while since I sold cars. That was a new thing back in my day, and you had to press a button to cycle the trip odometer to show it...which to the best of my knowledge no one ever did. Is it a full time display now?

I've got a hybrid Camry. It has three fuel efficiency measures that are on full time (right this instant, since starting the car, since resetting it), and a couple of others that you can toggle on and off (another right this instant, another since resetting it, and one that gives it for each minute of the last fifteen that also tells how much the battery was recharged). Toyota really wants me to brag about how many mpg I get, I guess.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Diesel Citroen C4 here. I can choose between instant consumption, average consumption in the last ten minutes or average since last reset. Average since last reset (months ago) is 4'3 litres /100 km btw.

 

[Angst]

In Denmark we don't speak English. But I think I still have a few points.

Everyone uses words casually that as used don't really make a lot of sense. My favorite example is apocalypse, which doesn't mean the end of the world, but a revelation ("lifting the veil"). So when someone says something is post-apocalyptic, it literally means it's after a revelation of something, not that it's after some calamity.

Now, mileage. Words are often used irrationally and the literal meaning of mileage is not why the word mileage is useful. Mileage is useful to denote how long/far something can be taken with reasonable effeciency. It's used metaphorically in many other places than cars.