[R] [OT ?] rant (was : Re: Conversions From standard to metric units)

[Michael Dewey]

At 00:48 04/04/2009, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>On 03/04/2009 5:37 PM, Emmanuel Charpentier wrote:
>>Le vendredi 03 avril 2009 à 14:17 -0400, stephen sefick a écrit :
>>>I am starting to use R for almost any sort of calculation that I need.
>>>  I am a biologist that works in the states, and there is often a need
>>>to convert from standard units to metric units.
>><rant>
>>US/Imperial units are *not* standard units.
>
>But they are fun:  you should see the arguments 
>you can have about whether imperial fluid ounces 
>are the same volume as US fluid ounces. (They're 
>not: US ounces are bigger.  But not big enough so that their gallons catch up!)

Even late in the day I cannot resist sharing the 
astonishment of a colleague from the United 
States when I told him I had been taught as a child the rhyme
A pint of pure water
Weighs a pound and a quarter

whereas he had been taught
A pint's a pound
The world around



>Duncan Murdoch
>
>
>The former "metric system"
>>is now called "Système International" (International System) for a
>>reason, which is *not* gallocentrism of a "few" 6e7 frogs, but rather
>>laziness of about 5.6e9 losers who refuse to load their memories with
>>meaningless conversion factors...
>></rant>
>>                                         Emmanuel Charpentier
>>                                         who has served his time with
>>                                         pounds per cubic feet, furlongs
>>                                         per fortnight, BTU and other
>>                                         figments of British/American
>>                                         sadistic imagination, thank you
>>                                         very much...
>></rant> # Again, didn't work the first time...
>>
>>>                                                  Is there a package in
>>>R for this already?  If not I believe that I am going to write some of
>>>the most often used in function form.  My question is should I include
>>>this in my StreamMetabolism package.  It is not along the same theme
>>>lines, but could loosely fit.  The reason that I ask is that I don't
>>>want to clutter CRAN with a small package containing some conversion
>>>functions because I am to lazy to source them into R every time that I
>>>use them, but I also don't want the StreamMetabolism package to turn
>>>into StephenMisc Fuctions.  Thoughts, comments, or suggestions would
>>>be appreciated.
>>______________________________________________
>>R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>

Michael Dewey
http://www.aghmed.fsnet.co.uk