So much for a 'bilingual' Canada

[Leafless]

My teenage kid says he's 52 kilos... the youth use metric. I was in elementary when we converted so I still think in pounds, but use kilometres for distance.

Tiny engine, tiny amount of cc's = tiny power.

Big engine, lots of cc's = big power.

Easy huh!

Easy but dumb.

My husband runs a Planer... his calipers are in millimeters. He uses millimeters because fractions of inches are not accurate enough.

I guess your husband never heard of imperial measurements in 1/16", 1/32", 1/64", 1/128" or 1/1000's of an inch. How much more accurate do you want than that????

Weight is measured in grams, not millileters, which measure volume.

Next time you go out a buy milk or a box of soap and other items, look and you will observe there is no weight but is measured by volume.

It is waaaay easier to measure distance with metric. 1.5 kilometers is exactly 1500 meters. How many yards (quickly) is a mile and a half?

Who the hell ever measured miles by yards in everyday life?

How much is 1/2 a mile, .5 miles.

Simple eh.

Ha ah ha. More modern? Efficiency is modern. Cutting a thing down to the smallest increment of a standard ruler is mudh less accurate than cutting a thing down to the smallest increment on a metric ruler.

Cutting things down to the smallest increment with a ruler, usually millimeters, require magnavision and is impossible to read unless you use calipers.

We got 2 mm of rain today -- how much is that in inches? Would it even register on the "inch" scale?

Two mm of rain would not even be worth reporting or would be reported as light rain only. You are going to extremes, unless of course you are a meterologist.

Metric temperature makes more sense too. Water freezing at 0. Makes way more sense than water freezing at 32.

It does?

Water freezing at '0', exaggerates colder temperatures and as a result everyone not only feels colder but is more likely to use more energy to compensate for the perceived colder centigrade temperatures.

Give this tip to GOVERNMENT or the hydro, oil and gas companies and they will no doubt, if seriously thinking about conservation, switch back to fahrenheit.

[Montreal_Alex]

This topic has certainly gone off in a tangent!

[guyser]

This topic has certainly gone off in a tangent!

Thats true.

Metric is far more accurate for most measurements and that is why it is used. we are not officially metric, but we were, but lyin Brian changed it.

CC's are accurate for all the engines used today from snow machines to cars. Cars are advertised in litres and most people know what they are getting.

Vehicles have both kph and mph because of economy of scale. We travel a lot to the US so it makes it easier for people to keep an accurate read on the highways no matter where they are.

Going back to just imperial would be dumb. Want to trade some gas? Here...I will sell you 100 gallons of gas for X dollars, sound like a good deal? Ok, now dont beotch when you find out that I sold you US gallons , not the Imperial gallon. Such a deal.....

[Wild Bill]

I wanted to jump into this thread earlier but I've been busy with some household woodworking.

Just got back from a trip to Home Depot where I picked up some 4'x8' sheets of plywood and some 2x4's.

I looked for them first in metric but I couldn't find any...

[Argus]

The BNA Act made immigration a shared jurisdiction and almost all provinces are involved in immigrant selection to some degree.

I don't believe other provinces get to limit immigration, and I don't think other provinces are allowed to specify immigrants along cultural lines.

Look Argus, it's easy in Canada to blame the problems of federal bureaucracy on bilingualism.

I'm not. That would be overstating things. However, it stands to reason when you limit your selection criteria to only about 5% of the population capable of passing language tests then you're drastically limiting the available pool of talent

[AngusThermopyle]

Just got back from a trip to Home Depot where I picked up some 4'x8' sheets of plywood and some 2x4's.

What are you making Wild Bill?

[Wild Bill]

What are you making Wild Bill?

Just putting in some inventory. I run a guitar amp sevice/build business from my home. Once in a while I'll make a cabinet for some speakers or a new amp I've built.

It just seemed appropriate to mention, with posts claiming how metric we've become!

[AngusThermopyle]

I'm starting a small project over the Christmas holidays. I love building high end computers so I'm goin to turn my spare room into a little lab where I can build and benchmark them. I'll need to build a workbench and some shelving for my parts and so on.

The machine I'm using now is the latest I've built, it's a sweet deal. It has a Q6600 quad processor that I've overclocked from 2.4 to 3.0 Ghz. I still have to add the liquid cooling system (I should be able to push it to at least 3.4 - 3.5 on liquid) and another 8800GTX video card. I'm also going to put in another 500gig HD and run a raid zero striped array, I want to add a 10,000 rpm Raptor as the primary high speed drive.

I'm thinking about building an AMD quad core next. Sorta torn about that though since the Intel chips are outperforming the AMD parts at this time. It's not about the performance advantage really. I want to do some comparative testing between the different cpu's, just for fun, you know.

Edited December 9, 2007 by AngusThermopyle

[Wild Bill]

I'm starting a small project over the Christmas holidays. I love building high end computers so I'm goin to turn my spare room into a little lab where I can build and benchmark them. I'll need to build a workbench and some shelving for my parts and so on.

The machine I'm using now is the latest I've built, it's a sweet deal. It has a Q6600 quad processor that I've overclocked from 2.4 to 3.0 Ghz. I still have to add the liquid cooling system (I should be able to push it to at least 3.4 - 3.5 on liquid) and another 8800GTX video card. I'm also going to put in another 500gig HD and run a raid zero striped array, I want to add a 10,000 rpm Raptor as the primary high speed drive.

I'm thinking about building an AMD quad core next. Sorta torn about that though since the Intel chips are outperforming the AMD parts at this time. It's not about the performance advantage really. I want to do some comparative testing between the different cpu's, just for fun, you know.

When I first started work for an order desk selling electronic parts Intel had just brought out the world's first 8 bit 5 volt only CPU! I don't know what Intel is like to deal with today but in those early days we found them to be incredibly arrogant to both customers and their distis alike. Ever since then whenever I buy a new motherboard I go with AMD if at all possible!

I was there through those times, on the cutting edge of all the latest and greatest. We brought the world's first personal computer into Canada, the Osbourne I. Couldn't keep them in stock, they sold so fast.

Now I'm back with vacuum tubes! High tech, soft touch, as the guy wrote about. Guitarists have never really accepted transistors. They don't sound at all the same. For clean tones like jazz or bass guitar there are some successful transistor amps but for blues, rock and vintage guitarists wouldn't use a transistor amp if you held a gun to their heads!

It's a niche market. Schools haven't taught tube circuits since the mid 60's so there's not a lot of guys like me around. Not a great amount of money but man! do I get a lot of free beer!

[AngusThermopyle]

Now I'm back with vacuum tubes! High tech, soft touch, as the guy wrote about. Guitarists have never really accepted transistors. They don't sound at all the same. For clean tones like jazz or bass guitar there are some successful transistor amps but for blues, rock and vintage guitarists wouldn't use a transistor amp if you held a gun to their heads!

I used to be into Audiophile quality stereo. You can get some very good transistor based components but the very best are usually Hybrids, transistors and tubes. Companies like Audio Innovations and Classe Audio make some superb components. Keep in mind these things cost big bucks, for instance a 25 watt per channel Audio Innovations amp starts at around $3,000.

I've been thinking about putting another system together, probably go with Rotel and Mission. It wont be cheap though, the system I let my ex take when we split up was about $10,000.

I've used AMD since the K series of processors. I had to switch to Intel though, their Core series quite simply spanks the AMD parts. The machine I really loved was my Commodore Amiga, it was revolutionary for it's time and outperformed everything else on the market. It's GUI would run in 256K of memory and it would truly multitask with ease.

Edited December 10, 2007 by AngusThermopyle

[Pat Coghlan]

First, if Quebec is to remain part of Confederation, then Ottawa will have to operate in French and English.

Where there's a real need to communicate between regions, yes, but the bilingual requirement is not restricted to this need. In addition, since many manager are getting tired of employees disappearing for language training for a year or more, they classify positions as bilingual imperative, which closes the door to those who don't already have official language results on file.

I have been on language training myself. Recently, about half a dozen of my former classmates and a teacher met for a night out of beers. I asked if anyone was actually using their second language. The answer was a unanimous NO. There's a million bucks in language training dollars down the drain. I would expect similar results for the THOUSANDS of public servants who go on language training.

[Wild Bill]

I used to be into Audiophile quality stereo. You can get some very good transistor based components but the very best are usually Hybrids, transistors and tubes. Companies like Audio Innovations and Classe Audio make some superb components. Keep in mind these things cost big bucks, for instance a 25 watt per channel Audio Innovations amp starts at around $3,000.

I've been thinking about putting another system together, probably go with Rotel and Mission. It wont be cheap though, the system I let my ex take when we split up was about $10,000.

Actually, transistors are all right for hifi applications. The main difference between the two types of devices is how they handle distortion.

Transistors are very clean reproducers of a signal. Even less distortion than tubes, although both devices can deliver THD levels below what the human ear can distinguish so that point is moot. The problem is that they have no slope to the curve as they enter distortion territory. It's clean, clean, clean, - fuzzbox! It also tends to be a harsh and grating form of distortion.

Tubes have a long shallow slope into distortion as they're overdriven. This actually more closely matches the properties of the human ear. The distortion initially is more of a compression, with the wave not clipped hard at the top but rather just reduced in peak amplitude. This sounds like the tone is becoming "warmer" and "thicker" until it finally becomes too "over the top". This makes tube sound far more appealing when you are dealing with prerecorded music, especially when it has fast and loud transients like the "whap" of a snare drum or the sudden initial "boom" from a strong vocalist.

What engineering types don't understand is that an electric guitar is NOT SUPPOSED to be hifi and undistorted! Unless you're Wes Montgomery playing clean jazz, of course. Rock and roll is all about distortion but it was pioneered with tube distortion.

This all means that you can't sound like Eddie Van Halen if you use transistors, period!

Perhaps more important, tubes are immune to the effects of the EMP triggered by nuclear explosions. If one were exploded over your city every transistor device within miles would be "snackered".

Even those made by AMD!

[AngusThermopyle]

Perhaps more important, tubes are immune to the effects of the EMP triggered by nuclear explosions. If one were exploded over your city every transistor device within miles would be "snackered".

Good point, one that many people tend to forget.

Yeah, I do prefer tubes, but keep in mind that I'm also one of those people who prefer the sound of a good turntable with good vinyl over CD's. By good turntable I mean something like a Linn with Itok arm, also half speed mastered discs. They produce a more natural sound than CD's, which sound too harsh and frankly, unnatural.

I have heard some special master editions of CD's which sounded good, they were played on a Rotel player. These discs go for $70.00 a piece though, not really in the affordable category. Most people poo poo the idea of high end audio equipment, I find they're the ones who have never actually listened to such a system. The difference is obviuos from the very first notes. Either that or they think Sony and Pioneer are high end.

[Keepitsimple]

It's taken me many years to arrive at the conclusion that learning French is a good idea - not to appease Quebec and not necessarily to promote bilingulism - but to broaden our access to and understanding of the world. The beauty of French is that it is one of the "Romantic" languages that has many of it's roots in Latin. Once you have a grasp of French, it's much easier to learn Spanish, Italian and few others. Nothing separates people and culture like a lack of communication.

A little background - I was born and raised in Montreal so I know a fair bit about the two solitudes. At a young age, children can pick up a second language relatively easily - and stimulating the speech centers of the brain can only help overall development. I had the opportunity to learn French when I was younger but never really got past a High School understanding. That was ignorance on my part because back in the sixties, Anglophones were still the dominant culture in Montreal and there was no compelling reason to learn French. How sad - a huge opportunity wasted.

So.....do we all sit back and assume that English will conquer the world? Finally, after many years, I'm ready to embrace French being given a bit more priority in Canadian schools. There are logistics to deal with - like new Canadians who are already struggling to learn English.

I don't have all the answers - and perhaps Bernard Lord can come up with a few - but I am not opposed to French throughout Canada.

[AngusThermopyle]

I don't have all the answers - and perhaps Bernard Lord can come up with a few - but I am not opposed to French throughout Canada.

One question, why should we have French throughout Canada? I really see no practical or pressing need for it, other than ideology and agenda driven desires. The percentage of French speakers outside Quebec is miniscule and the cost is large.

Rather than teach our children French it might be a better idea to teach them one of the more commonly used languages of commerce.

It appears that Asia and South America are emerging centers of commerce, why not teach kids the languages associated with these area's and give them a real world advantage for the future. We should quit the whole politically correct pandering to Quebec thing once and for all.