"Moshe Goldfarb" <brick.n.straw******.com> wrote in message
news:9t96hqagi7vh.172qilsj253n$.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Fri, 16 May 2008 19:55:15 -0600, Bruce Grubb wrote:
>
>> In article <1l1i4zt4ow56w.1le5ew7pmd4of$.dlg@40tude.net>,
>> Moshe Goldfarb <brick.n.straw******.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 17:00:21 -0500, Ivan Marsh wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 17:57:01 -0400, Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 16:47:58 -0500, Ivan Marsh wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 14:06:43 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Ivan Marsh <ivanmarsh******.com>
>>>>>>> wrote
>>>>>> At least Java went to Mars.
>>>>>
>>>>> Was Java running the innards of that 40 million dollar Tonka Toy that
>>>>> went brain dead on Mars 10 minutes after it landed?
>>>>
>>>> Suggesting that hitting Mars much less landing safely on the surface is
>>>> trivial?
>>>
>>> Not at all.
>>>
>>> The thing fscked up.
>>>
>>> I'm just wondering if Java was what fscked it up.
>>
>> Might have been who ever NASA used as the subcontracter. Remember how
>> Lockheed Martin went off and put English standard units into equations
>> designed for Metric units and got the Mars Climate Orbiter clobbered?
>
> I believe they did a similar thing with the Hubble as well.
> One team was using English the other metric.
>
> Personally, as an Engineer, I could never understand the reasoning for
> Englsih vs MKS.
>
>> When I went to college in the mid 1980's our physics book used metric so
>> I
>> couldn't understand this. I mean why on Earth would anyone outside the
>> automotive industry use English standard units?!
>
> The problem is thinking and converting.
>
> Example: Typical American (like me) knows a foot is *this long* (stretch
> your arms out) but has no idea how big a meter is.
> They are constantly trying to convert which makes a mess of things.
>
> If they were taught in terms of MKS their would be no problem.

Anyone in engineering and science had better know MKS. Not 100% sure of
this, but is not the US the last market on earth using metric? Even the
British sell gas by the litre.