| |||||||||||||
Dimensions in SI unitsDimensions in SI unitsPosted Jul 24, 2006 11:24 UTC (Mon) by osma (subscriber, #6912)Parent article: R Cubed's thin, fast Linux notebook (NewsForge)
My first reaction when seeing an article about a new, lightweight laptop is to check its weight - and for a European like me, weights in pounds aren't that informative. So for the fellow Europeans and other SI people:
weight: 1.64 kg + 400 g power supply
Of course, had LWN or NewsForge provided SI dimensions in the article or summary I wouldn't have had to use Google Calculator - that would have been one more reason to keep up my LWN subscription ;)
Myself, I quite like my 1.35 kg Dell Latitude X300 and wouldn't switch to anything heavier. Linux support could be improved though.
(Log in to post comments)
Dimensions in SI units Posted Jul 24, 2006 13:17 UTC (Mon) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] Let me second that. Americans are taught international units in school and all products in America are labelled with both international and American units. The rest of us have forgotten, or never knew, the English-American system. It is hard to think of a single redeeming merit of that system: it is striking that not only the erstwhile British colonies, but increasingly Britain itself, have abandoned it. So why do sites like LWN insist on inflicting pounds and ounces on us?
Here in India, we used to have, but have now largely forgotten, the pound, the mile, the quart, the degree Fahrenheit; but apparently many people find it hard to let go of feet and inches... Thank you, England, for your imperial legacy.
Dimensions in SI units Posted Jul 24, 2006 14:13 UTC (Mon) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]
To be fair, LWN is only quoting from the NewsForge article here, so NewsForge is the real culprit. It doesn't make what you said any less valid, of course, but you should direct your disapproval towards NewsForge, not LWN. :)
Dimensions in SI units Posted Jul 25, 2006 3:59 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] I use the 'English' system of pounds and inches mostly exclusively by myself.
I donno, it's just what I am used to. It's difficult to get a mental picture of centimeters or how much a kilogram weighs. With pounds and inches it makes estimation easier for me.
Of course I freely translate between different systems of measurement when I feel like it.
Also inches and feet are more fitting to the human body. My thumb is a inch wide, my foot is almost a foot long. All the roads in the country side are in a exact mile wide grid. Spread out from finger tip to finger tip with my arms outstretched is two yards almost exactly and I weigh pretty much 200 pounds.
I am basicly my own built in measurement system. :P
Dimensions in SI units Posted Jul 30, 2006 10:21 UTC (Sun) by kreutzm (guest, #4700) [Link] This was about the way the imperial system (and many related ones) were created. The only issue was the "approximately" when going from one to a related system ...
|
|||||||||||||