|
Antifreeze Head posted:We had them in Canada too, only they looked a bit more modern. By modern I mean to 1980s standards. Some of the top of the line ones would auto-advance as well. Totally past my time as a 90s kid but I do recall one of those being wheeled out for a film about bears and a sex ed film during my time in elementary school.
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 16:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 00:38 |
|
|
1500quidporsche posted:Totally past my time as a 90s kid but I do recall one of those being wheeled out for a film about bears and a sex ed film during my time in elementary school. Why not just combine the two: 
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 16:31
|
|
|
Krispy Kareem posted:Why not just combine the two: Holy poo poo those bedroom eyes are killing me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 18:15
|
|
|
I've brought up filmstrips a couple of times in the thread. I enjoyed them back in the mid seventies because they were a change of pace. Other options would be the 1950s/1960s educational films that had been patched together a thousand times and had wonderfully warbly soundtracks, as well as big black and white TVs on rickety wheeled stands. They'd roll one of those things in, pull the shades down and turn off the lights and we'd be treated to special educational broadcasts about the wonders of THE METRIC SYSTEM and the horrors of COSMOS 954. I have no idea what a modern classroom must look like. I expect the students file in and spend the rest of the period playing with their phones while the teacher sleeps under their desk.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 18:55
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:I have no idea what a modern classroom must look like. I expect the students file in and spend the rest of the period playing with their phones while the teacher sleeps under their desk. "Smart boards" were just becoming a thing in my last year of high school. Their use was primarily limited to the teacher trying to figure out how to use it before giving up halfway through the class. They were completely useless and a waste of the school's budget, I hope they're gone now. There was nothing like the history teacher deciding he didn't want to teach for a full week so he had you watch the director's cut of Das Boot every class.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 19:15
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:I've brought up filmstrips a couple of times in the thread. I enjoyed them back in the mid seventies because they were a change of pace. Other options would be the 1950s/1960s educational films that had been patched together a thousand times and had wonderfully warbly soundtracks, as well as big black and white TVs on rickety wheeled stands. The metric system is so much loving better at absolutely everything and I hate being in Canada where I am trapped between superior units and the old timers that can only think in miles and Fahrenheit. Maritime units can gently caress off too. 1500quidporsche posted:"Smart boards" were just becoming a thing in my last year of high school. Their use was primarily limited to the teacher trying to figure out how to use it before giving up halfway through the class. They were completely useless and a waste of the school's budget, I hope they're gone now. I had an English professor once who was completely baffled by a regular old overhead projector. This was 2005 or so and he was maybe 30 so surely he had seen one of these things. It has one button and a knob; couldn't figure it out. Antifreeze Head has a new favorite as of 19:18 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 19:15
|
|
|
Antifreeze Head posted:The metric system is so much loving better at absolutely everything and I hate being in Canada where I am trapped between superior units and the old timers that can only think in miles and Fahrenheit. Maritime units can gently caress off too. This was in Canada in the mid seventies when they were beginning the indoctrination process. We all had to buy new rulers that had both Imperial and Metric units on them and purge classroom references to the Old Ways. God help you if you wrote "ton" instead of "tonne" or "centimeter" instead of "centimetre." A standards of measurement change is no small thing and it's easy from my experience to understand the unwillingness old timers have to embrace Metric. Things worked fine for us as individuals so it was hard to see any benefit to switching. I was in England not long after the decimilisation of their currency and it was a similarly interesting mess.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 19:31
|
|
|
Smartboards are terrible. We had just gotten them installed in the school I did my student teaching at and for one of my principal-supervised lessons I figured I'd demonstrate my utilization of technology by creating my own smartboard lesson. Absolute disaster. The pen completely stopped registering the moment I started and even rebooting didn't help. We did create and download some lessons that the kids enjoyed. But it was mostly novelty. In the end there wasn't much a smartboard could do that a dry/erase did better. Worse yet, the smartboards were installed over the classroom chalkboards or dry/erase boards, meaning you lost existing functionality. The digital projector half of the smart board was good though. We had it hooked to a media server so you could easily stream any educational video you needed. Also they used a webcam instead of a 80 pound overhead projector. I miss chalkboards, though. Dick Trauma posted:I have no idea what a modern classroom must look like. I expect the students file in and spend the rest of the period playing with their phones while the teacher sleeps under their desk. If you pull out your phone in class, you're likely to lose it for the day. And if the teacher falls asleep they know all the kids will pull out their phones and put video of them snoring on YouTube. So it's kind of like a really lame mutually assured destruction.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 19:44
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:A standards of measurement change is no small thing and it's easy from my experience to understand the unwillingness old timers have to embrace Metric. Things worked fine for us as individuals so it was hard to see any benefit to switching. I was in England not long after the decimilisation of their currency and it was a similarly interesting mess. I understand that 1000m = 1km and how that's all super great, but that convertibility is not useful in daily life. It really, really doesn't matter that the distance between places can be divided or multiplied by 10 easily. And water freezing at 0 degrees and boiling at 100 is also equally meaningless to daily life. There just isn't a tangible benefit. SLOSifl has a new favorite as of 19:56 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 19:53
|
|
|
1500quidporsche posted:"Smart boards" were just becoming a thing in my last year of high school. Their use was primarily limited to the teacher trying to figure out how to use it before giving up halfway through the class. They were completely useless and a waste of the school's budget, I hope they're gone now. Nope, they're becoming the de facto blackboard replacement. My mom is 57 and a middle school teacher, and she loves the smart boards.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 19:54
|
|
|
I imagine 2015-era smartboards are better/more reliable than 2005-era smartboards.SLOSifl posted:It's not "old timers" in the US a least, it's everyone. And all signage, things like the spedometer in cars, poo poo painted on the streets. 300+ million people can survive solely on imperial units, and the benefit to switching to metric is a hard sell to most people. Eh it's closer than you might think due to the metrication efforts. I've noticed almost all products list their net weight in both, measuring cups often have both if they're the glass kind, I don't think I've ever been in a car that didn't have km/h printed in a small ring on the speedometer, or a button to change the units. But yes, the entire road network's signage is probably one of the biggest hurdles to conversion.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 19:59
|
|
|
Antifreeze Head posted:The metric system is so much loving better at absolutely everything and I hate being in Canada where I am trapped between superior units and the old timers that can only think in miles and Fahrenheit. Maritime units can gently caress off too. Nautical miles make perfect loving sense because they're equal to a minute of arc along a meridian. SI accepts it even though it's a non-SI unit. Lots of map projections don't use a single linear scale, so when you're working with charts something that's a minute of arc no matter where on the map you're located is pretty goddamned useful. carry on then posted:I imagine 2015-era smartboards are better/more reliable than 2005-era smartboards. The 1997-era ones used IR lasers mounted in the upper corners and spinning mirrors to draw a curtain of laser light across the surface, and sensors would pick up the reflection from shiny tape around the markers to triangulate the pen position. They pretty much sucked. SLOSifl posted:It's not "old timers" in the US a least, it's everyone. And all signage, things like the spedometer in cars, poo poo painted on the streets. 300+ million people can survive solely on imperial units, and the benefit to switching to metric is a hard sell to most people. Lots of places aren't entirely metric. Get into a car in the UK, and you'll see miles on the speedometer, miles on the speed limit signs and distance markers in miles. Beer's still sold in pints. A Canadian football field is still 110 yards long. hackbunny posted:I guess this is how the British rationalized their absurd pre-decimal coinage too Maybe, but for temperature it's really true, both scales are entirely arbitrary. This: -459.67=totally cold -40=really loving cold 0=freezing point of water/ammonium chloride 32=freezing point of water 212=boiling point of water is every bit as arbitrary as -273.15=totally cold -40=really loving cold -17.7778=freezing point of water/ammonium chloride 0=freezing point of water 100=boiling point of water and the former scale allows you additional precision before you start breaking out the decimal point. And since it's dimensionless, it doesn't matter much for calculations. Like, if I'm trying to figure out how much energy it takes to heat a building to a desired temperature the fact that I use C or F means literally nothing to the calculations. For volume, mass, distance, yeah, SI's great, but C isn't *based* off of anything like the other derived units in SI are, it's just an arbitrary unit; it's literally "just take the base unit, Kelvin, and add 273.15 to it." That's every bit as useful as "take the base unit, Kelvin, and add 459.67" to it. Phanatic has a new favorite as of 20:40 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 20:08
|
|
|
My school had one of these:  No idea what it was used for, though Antifreeze Head posted:Edit: here's some content via the Best Movie Poster Thread. I've seen this, it's actually not a silly action movie, just that kind of incredibly naive new age/fringe science movie they loved to make in the 70s-80s, like Brainstorm and Altered States. Also the kind of movie that Ghostbusters risked to be if Dan Aykroyd had his way Wasabi the J posted:That's some Regular Show-levels of made-up movie premises bad. And it doesn't even mention that he trained the dolphin to talk! SLOSifl posted:I understand that 1000m = 1km and how that's all super great, but that convertibility is not useful in daily life. It really, really doesn't matter that the distance between places can be divided or multiplied by 10 easily. And water freezing at 0 degrees and boiling at 100 is also equally meaningless to daily life. There just isn't a tangible benefit. I guess this is how the British rationalized their absurd pre-decimal coinage too
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 20:14
|
|
|
KozmoNaut posted:Nope, they're becoming the de facto blackboard replacement. My mom is 57 and a middle school teacher, and she loves the smart boards. Seconding this, I worked briefly over the summer for an outsourced K-12 IT support company, every school I worked in (a charter middle/high school & a public school district's middle and high school) had them in pretty much every room.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 20:44
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Lots of places aren't entirely metric. Get into a car in the UK, and you'll see miles on the speedometer, miles on the speed limit signs and distance markers in miles. Beer's still sold in pints. A Canadian football field is still 110 yards long. 110 yards is 100.6 metres 
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 20:46
|
|
|
hackbunny posted:I guess this is how the British rationalized their absurd pre-decimal coinage too I have a very obsolete keying to simplify all that new money nonsense. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:01
|
|
|
I don't know what it's like elsewhere but my experience in Canada is we tend to mix imperial and metric a lot. Like, you'll never hear someone say they're 183cm tall or to use 236.6ml of water, they'd say 6 feet tall or 1 cup of water 
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:06
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Maybe, but for temperature it's really true, both scales are entirely arbitrary. Well, here on the Planet Earth, where Humans live, having 0 be the freezing point of water (the arbitrary substance on which we and virtually all other lifeforms rely) and the boiling point of water (you know, the most abundant compound in the universe) be 100 makes a lot of sense. See, with humans having 10 fingers and 10 toes (typically) our number system is base 10. This means that things that are in base 10 make more sense to our poorly-evolved monkey brains. I realize here that I may be talking with some kind of AI for whom everything is sharply divided into constants and variables, but for Humans virtually everything is arbitrary so the argument is kind of meaningless. I mean why "measure" things anyhow? A thing is the length it is, and it's either longer or shorter or the same as other things. Why divide a given thing into a number of other things, it's totally arbitrary. Uncle Enzo has a new favorite as of 21:10 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:07
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Lots of places aren't entirely metric. Get into a car in the UK, and you'll see miles on the speedometer, miles on the speed limit signs and distance markers in miles. Beer's still sold in pints. A Canadian football field is still 110 yards long. Worth noting that though Britain and America use the pint as a measure for beer, the pints aren't the same. The US seems to think a mere 16oz is a pint, when everyone knows that a pint of beer is rightfully 20oz, and Americans broke the system to sell short measures. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:07
|
|
|
Uncle Enzo posted:Well, here on the Planet Earth, where Humans live, having 0 be the freezing point of water (the arbitrary substance on which we and virtually all other lifeforms rely) and the boiling point of water (you know, the most abundant compound in the universe) makes a lot of sense. See, with humans having 10 fingers and 10 toes (typically) our number system is base 10. This means that things that are in base 10 make more sense to our poorly-evolved monkey brains. I realize here that I may be talking with some kind of AI for whom everything is arbitrary, but for Humans virtually everything is arbitrary so the argument is kind of meaningless. I could make a system where the freezing point of water is 0 and the boiling point is 10, and it'd be (a) base 10 and (b) entirely useless. You'll note that the SI unit of temperature is the Kelvin, and it's got nothing to do with base 10. My point is that unlike the other derived units in SI, the base-10ness of a temperature scale doesn't really add any utility. Phanatic has a new favorite as of 21:18 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:11
|
|
|
Uncle Enzo posted:Well, here on the Planet Earth, where Humans live, having 0 be the freezing point of water (the arbitrary substance on which we and virtually all other lifeforms rely) and the boiling point of water (you know, the most abundant compound in the universe) makes a lot of sense. See, with humans having 10 fingers and 10 toes (typically) our number system is base 10. This means that things that are in base 10 make more sense to our poorly-evolved monkey brains. I realize here that I may be talking with some kind of AI for whom everything is sharply divided into constants and variables, but for Humans virtually everything is arbitrary so the argument is kind of meaningless. Yeah but base 2 is also really loving easy, especially when dividing things, because we can pretty reliably figure out a good approximation where "half" is, because you can compare the halves until they match. This is why time, globes, old money, units of measure, usually end up being easily halved quite a few times.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:16
|
|
|
Base 12 is better because you can easily divide into halves, thirds, and quarters, easily
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:25
|
|
|
Wasabi the J posted:Yeah but base 2 is also really loving easy, especially when dividing things, because we can pretty reliably figure out a good approximation where "half" is, because you can compare the halves until they match. Oh agreed, if Fahrenheit went from 0 to 64 I don't think you'd see me complaining. Also temps need to be in Celsius or Kelvin for alllllll kinds of stuff in science, you absolutely can't just mix in whatever temp scale you want and expect it to work. If nothing else, a lot of formulas are related to the size of the degree increments themselves, and having them set in size by freezing water = 0 and boiling water = 100 makes a lot of sense.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:26
|
|
|
Uncle Enzo posted:Also temps need to be in Celsius or Kelvin for alllllll kinds of stuff in science, you absolutely can't just mix in whatever temp scale you want and expect it to work. If nothing else, a lot of formulas are related to the size of the degree increments themselves, and having them set in size by freezing water = 0 and boiling water = 100 makes a lot of sense. Such as? Calculating in terms of Kelvin is crucial for a lot of things, I agree: if you try to do, say ideal gas law stuff with Pv=NRT with temps in centigrade, or Stefan-Boltzman or Planck's law or anything like that, your answers will be wrong. But I can't come up with anything where working in centigrade is crucial. The degree increment in Kelvin and centigrade is exactly the same, and if that degree interval is important you're going to be using K, not degrees C. Phanatic has a new favorite as of 22:05 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 21:48
|
|
|
robodex posted:Like, you'll never hear someone say they're 183cm tall or to use 236.6ml of water, they'd say 6 feet tall or 1 cup of water Yeah because where metric is the norm, people don't use metric measurements in that stilted way. Like for height, in Italy you'd say you were "1 and 83" tall e: I think the most useful part of metric is that 1 L of water weighs 1 kg, and fits in a 10x10x10 cm cube. Like if I need to measure a volume of water (or milk etc.) and I don't have a graded container, I can use a scale hackbunny has a new favorite as of 22:44 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 22:38
|
|
|
hackbunny posted:Like for height, in Italy you'd say you were "1 and 83" tall No-one in Italy needs to say that 
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 22:40
|
|
|
hackbunny posted:e: I think the most useful part of metric is that 1 L of water weighs 1 kg, and fits in a 10x10x10 cm cube I'll keep that in mind next time I'm carrying a cube of water around
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 22:43
|
|
|
blugu64 posted:I'll keep that in mind next time I'm carrying a cube of water around You probably can't carry one kg anyway.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 22:45
|
|
|
blugu64 posted:I'll keep that in mind next time I'm carrying a cube of water around But then you do some quick math and realize a cubic meter of water weighs a literal ton e: and since human bodies have almost the same density as water, you can quickly and correctly tell if you can compress a body in a suitcase or car trunk, knowing the body's weight. Like I know I could fit an appropriately liquefied/compressed average adult body in my hiking backpack; probably not lift it, but it would fit e2: I'm saying metric is a godsend for napkin math e3: metric paper sizes are great too: fold a stack of A(N) paper in half, you get an A(N+1) sized booklet, in the same aspect ratio. Get with the program, USA 
hackbunny has a new favorite as of 22:55 on Oct 15, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 22:47
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Such as? Calculating in terms of Kelvin is crucial for a lot of things, I agree: if you try to do, say ideal gas law stuff with Pv=NRT with temps in centigrade, or Stefan-Boltzman or Planck's law or anything like that, your answers will be wrong. But I can't come up with anything where working in centigrade is crucial. The degree increment in Kelvin and centigrade is exactly the same, and if that degree interval is important you're going to be using K, not degrees C. In calculating thermal expansion you only need the amount of change in temperature, so it doesn't matter if you use K or C. It does matter if you use F or whatever else though. And I mean if you're trying to argue that Kelvin makes more sense scientifically then we agree, but for everyday use like "is it hot outside/ is it below freezing" C works great, plus has a simple conversion to K if needed. And earlier you were saying that Fahrenheit made just as much sense as Celsius, now you point out that Kelvin and centigrade have a ton of similarities that make them easy to substitute if needed. Look, I'm just saying that yes I do agree: water freezing being zero is arbitrary and prevents using temperature in ratio form. What I'm getting at is while it is indeed arbitrary, if you look hard enough everything is arbitrary. Using easily-measured states of a hyper-abundant and extremely important compound for endpoints makes a lot of sense. The only real problem with C scientifically is the lack of a true zero, but F has that problem and lots more. I work in mostly in metric at work (I'm in the US) and man is it nice to be able to do simple calculations in your head.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 22:57
|
|
|
Uncle Enzo posted:In calculating thermal expansion you only need the amount of change in temperature, so it doesn't matter if you use K or C. It does matter if you use F or whatever else though. When calculating thermal expansion, if you work in C or F it just changes the coefficient you multiply by to get your delta. How is multiplying by, say, 16.6E-6 per degree C any easier or harder than multiplying by 9.4E-6 per degree F (for copper)? Obviously you run into problems if you mix units, and I agree with you that the other SI units are innately easier to deal with than Ye Olde English measurements, but it doesn't matter when you're dealing with temperature. quote:And I mean if you're trying to argue that Kelvin makes more sense scientifically then we agree, but for everyday use like "is it hot outside/ is it below freezing" C works great, plus has a simple conversion to K if needed. And earlier you were saying that Fahrenheit made just as much sense as Celsius, now you point out that Kelvin and centigrade have a ton of similarities that make them easy to substitute if needed. Kelvin is a base unit in SI. It's great, fine, makes sense. Celsius is a derived unit, and the derivation is just "take the base unit and add this constant offset to it." There's nothing about it that makes more sense, or makes calculations any easier, or unit conversions any easier, than just using the base unit. If you're defining utility in terms of the weather we usually experience in daily life, then maybe it's just because I've lived where it gets really loving hot in the day and really loving cold at night that makes me think F is a more practical scale for those units, just because the interval is so much smaller. quote:The only real problem with C scientifically is the lack of a true zero, but F has that problem and lots more. That's why God invented Rankine. quote:I work in mostly in metric at work (I'm in the US) and man is it nice to be able to do simple calculations in your head. Again, I'm just not seeing a case where centigrade makes the calculations any easier in your head than Kelvin. Or Farenheit.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2015 23:18
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:I have no idea what a modern classroom must look like. I expect the students file in and spend the rest of the period playing with their phones while the teacher sleeps under their desk. I remember teaching in Seoul a few years ago and having an enormous HD touch screen TV at the front of the class. It was so dope using that thing. I made dozens of neat interactive PowerPoint games for it and when we had free time I'd let the kids play things like crayon physics on it. I'm pretty sure it was a CRT too, so God only knows how much it weighed. When I was in school if you even got to look at a computer, that counted as a pretty exciting day. It didn't even need to be switched on. The school's TV being wheeled in was usually a thrill too. Well... except for the day we had to watch a video of an abortion being performed. Catholic education ftw.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 00:17
|
|
|
Guess I can cross "metric derail" off of my bucket list!  As recompense I will offer you all a kilogram a.k.a. The World's Roundest Object  EDIT: That thing is rounder 'n a motherfucker!
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 00:23
|
|
|
The main problem is you daft fuckers using imperial tend to use units of volume for non-fluids which is a pain in the dick if you need to weigh them and you don't have a graduated cylinder handy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 01:40
|
|
|
Uncle Enzo posted:In calculating thermal expansion you only need the amount of change in temperature, so it doesn't matter if you use K or C. It does matter if you use F or whatever else though. And I mean if you're trying to argue that Kelvin makes more sense scientifically then we agree, but for everyday use like "is it hot outside/ is it below freezing" C works great, plus has a simple conversion to K if needed. And earlier you were saying that Fahrenheit made just as much sense as Celsius, now you point out that Kelvin and centigrade have a ton of similarities that make them easy to substitute if needed. Having typical human body temperature be the breakpoint between 2 digits and 3 digits is handier for a system designed around use by humans. Not having to go into decimals to describe perceptible temperature differences is nice too. Personally my lab uses degrees F for everything because for the same price you get equipment with more precision.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 01:55
|
|
|
Yes, exactly. It is way more useful to know the temperature of all things based on if it would have a fever if it was a human.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 02:34
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:Having typical human body temperature be the breakpoint between 2 digits and 3 digits is handier for a system designed around use by humans. Not having to go into decimals to describe perceptible temperature differences is nice too. When asked the temperature of something, I've not ever heard someone use decimal places unless there is a scientific necessity. No-one has ever said "ahh, much cooler today - only 25.6C!"
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 02:42
|
|
|
Antifreeze Head posted:We had them in Canada too, only they looked a bit more modern. By modern I mean to 1980s standards. Some of the top of the line ones would auto-advance as well. I experienced slide projectors with the built-in cassette player like that in my childhood, but once I saw a before-my-time slide projector that played vinyl  
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 04:56
|
|
|
Kelvin is actually derived from Celcius - it was the temperature scale that starts at absolute zero, where an increase of one degree is 1/100th of the difference between the freezing and boiling points of water at one atmosphere. Eventually both Kelvin and Celcius were redefined to be based on the difference between absolute zero and the triple point of water, but there really isn't any sense in which Celcius is "derived from" Kelvin.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 06:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 00:38 |
|
|
Jabor posted:there really isn't any sense in which Celcius is "derived from" Kelvin. In the formal sense. “Degrees Celsius” is an SI derived unit. What is the base unit from which it is derived? The kelvin.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2015 08:23
|
|
