Brexit consequences

[kwackers]

IMF Forecast…

I read this in The Telegraph's Android app and thought you'd like to see it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/201 ... tain-will/

Al

So: 'It's going to be more rubbish than before but the good news is someone else is doing worse'.

[mjr]

Divide £50 exactly between three people, using decimal currency.
Now do the same using £ s d

Is the point that you can't divide £50 exactly between three people using decimal currency, but it's £16 13s 4d? (if I've remembered 12d=1s and 20s=£1 correctly)

It doesn't matter much which system you use because there will always be some cases that don't work in either. For example, hexagonal close packing doesn't total up nicely in either, does it?

[al_yrpal]

IMF Forecast…

I read this in The Telegraph's Android app and thought you'd like to see it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/201 ... tain-will/

Al

So: 'It's going to be more rubbish than before but the good news is someone else is doing worse'.

No, Brexit will be reaching out beyond the club of EU low growth economies. Short term pain and long term gain..

Al

[kwackers]

No, Brexit will be reaching out beyond the club of EU low growth economies. Short term pain and long term gain..

Al

We were going to do that anyway.
We can't have lower than forecast growth and beat other economies unless we'd have beaten them by even more with the pre-brexit growth.
The only way that could work is if we've done in their economies more we've knobbled ours and that's not something to be proud of either.

[AlaninWales]

Divide £50 exactly between three people, using decimal currency.
Now do the same using £ s d

Is the point that you can't divide £50 exactly between three people using decimal currency, but it's £16 13s 4d? (if I've remembered 12d=1s and 20s=£1 correctly)

It doesn't matter much which system you use because there will always be some cases that don't work in either. For example, hexagonal close packing doesn't total up nicely in either, does it?

The point is twofold: The combination of bases used in imperial money (and other measurements) enabled a variety of everyday calculations to be made more readily (the example given being a typical one - they payment of wages or shares). The combination of bases used in imperial money (and other measurements) also mean that people generally were familiar with and used to using, multiple bases. Pre-school (and unschooled) children were able to handle calculations that most secondary school pupils are now painfully taught. It was a (deliberate) dumbing down.

[reohn2]

..........It was a (deliberate) dumbing down.

So the rest of Europe and most of the world are dumbed down and should be calculating everything in multiples of 8.12.14, or 16 to make them 'brighter' and less dumb?
That's the logical conclusion of what you're saying.

When I consider a job,I try to find the easiest way to do it so long as the result is successfully the same.
The imperial system isn't the easiest when the rest of the world is metric.

[broadway]

We haven't ditched imperial measures to any great extent.

Today's weather forecast is 31. Will you be taking your gloves and hat when you go out?

The centigrade scale is not part of the metric system.

The temperature where I am is 302K.

I still prefer Fahrenheit to Centigrade for everyday use as it has nearly twice as many degrees in the normal range of weather temperatures, so allowing more accurate whole number temperatures to be communicated.

However, the relatively uninformative Centigrade caught on with the Met Office and the BBC, for reasons unknown. I don't particularly mind that as I can quickly and easily adapt to any system of units and don't demand uniformity and conformity from everyone else like many ardent fans of metrication.

If your definition of the metric system is using SI base units are there any in common use?

[Ben@Forest]

So the rest of Europe and most of the world are dumbed down and should be calculating everything in multiples of 8.12.14, or 16 to make them 'brighter' and less dumb?
That's the logical conclusion of what you're saying.

Dumbing down or not I think several studies have shown that familiarity with a more 'complex' numerical system made people savvier with mental arithmetic. It's like memory and phone numbers - how many did you used to know off the top of your head? When I was a teenager I reckon I knew more than 25, now, thanks to pre-sets and mobiles I know about three not including my own and I have four (home/mobile/work/work mobile). I frequently meet people who don't know their own mobile number. But electronic memory games are promoted as a useful stimulus!

[reohn2]

So the rest of Europe and most of the world are dumbed down and should be calculating everything in multiples of 8.12.14, or 16 to make them 'brighter' and less dumb?
That's the logical conclusion of what you're saying.

Dumbing down or not I think several studies have shown that familiarity with a more 'complex' numerical system made people savvier with mental arithmetic. It's like memory and phone numbers - how many did you used to know off the top of your head? When I was a teenager I reckon I knew more than 25, now, thanks to pre-sets and mobiles I know about three not including my own and I have four (home/mobile/work/work mobile). I frequently meet people who don't know their own mobile number. But electronic memory games are promoted as a useful stimulus!

In a world of soup you'll go hungry if you only have a fork!

[kwackers]

It's like memory and phone numbers - how many did you used to know off the top of your head? When I was a teenager I reckon I knew more than 25,<snip>

I've got a memory like a sieve, particularly for names and numbers, always have had.

In the days before "pre-sets" and mobiles I carried a book around with me with them all written down. I believe such things were fairly popular...

[mjr]

It's like memory and phone numbers - how many did you used to know off the top of your head?

That's not due to worsening memory, it's due to the explosion in phone numbers! Not only do you have four (home/mobile/work/work mobile) but so do lots of other people and it's no longer one household number to contact any member of that household, so you're using each number less and repetition helps get things into your memory. Also, few people seem willing to do the annoying hoop-jumping process to keep their mobile numbers, so they change more often than they used to, which was basically when you moved house, and then they'd change completely, including prefix because the geographic areas used to be much smaller, the codes longer and the actual numbers shorter - they were more meaningful than today's 07veryLongRandomNumber, which also helped you to memorise them.

However, these days, I can remember all the numbers from my payment cards because they get used so much online and they have a little meaning.

But electronic memory games are promoted as a useful stimulus!

I quite like simple games like HoloKen as both a test of how awake I am and as an attempt to wake me up. I suspect there are others. Quizzn looks interesting but is currently too difficult to change its data from the default to your wordlist.

[Ben@Forest]

It's like memory and phone numbers - how many did you used to know off the top of your head?

...it's due to the explosion in phone numbers! Not only do you have four (home/mobile/work/work mobile) but so do lots of other people and it's no longer one household number to contact any member of that household, so you're using each number less and repetition helps get things into your memory.

I suppose one thing was that probably half the numbers I knew were local, which at one point were 4 digits only. And if I needed a code it was usually only one of two. I used to know numbers like the local swimming pool and cinema. But even when I first started work if you called across an office 'What's X's number?' someone would rattle it back to you without thinking even if it was Exeter, Liverpool or Glasgow.

[al_yrpal]

BOE view of things..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/201 ... investors/

Metric Schmetic who cares?

Al

[Vorpal]

I'm really looking forward to the UK taking control of it's unitary systems again and reverting to fahrenheit and shillings.

[53x13]

I'm really looking forward to the UK taking control of it's unitary systems again and reverting to fahrenheit and shillings.

Oh for a return to the days of cubits and perches.

As Jack Taylor was once quoted saying 'I don't like progress'!