Good Things, Bad Things: Measurements and Distances

This post is the last and belated part of the Good Things, Bad Things series.

The USA is the only industrialized country to be using a systems of units that differs from the international standardized, or metric, system. In fact, the World Factbook by the CIA, in Appendix G, states that:

At this time, only three countries - Burma, Liberia, and the US - have not adopted the International System of Units (SI, or metric system) as their official system of weights and measures. Although use of the metric system has been sanctioned by law in the US since 1866, it has been slow in displacing the American adaptation of the British Imperial System known as the US Customary System. The US is the only industrialized nation that does not mainly use the metric system in its commercial and standards activities, but there is increasing acceptance in science, medicine, government, and many sectors of industry

This issue about units of measurements causes many differences, both for the good and for the worse. The system now called American Customary Units was derived from the English and later Imperial Units, but even that is not entirely correct or accurate. For example, an American Wet Pint is much smaller than its British counterpart (and even the Amreican dry Pint for that matter, but who the hell drinks a dry beer?!), and the only explanation for that might be that no one wants to drink more than an American pint of domestic beer, especially when compared to a nice smooth pint of Guiness. Anyway, I digress.

One problem with American Customary Units is that they hold true only at a certain location on Earth, specifically at latitude 45, which is roughly where the USA is. This is so typical of Americans: to invent a set of units that can be true only at a certain location in the universe. As usual, as long as Americans keep to themselves and don't try to meddle with the affairs of others that is not a problem. However, they rarely do, and at some point they even decided to venture to space. Now, on space, as everyone knows, there is no gravity. As a result, there is also no definition of weight, which is the force that stems from the product of mass and gravity, hence no gravity - no weight. Since the American Customary Units assume a weight of 1 lb as its basic unit of measurement, and calculates the mass that produces this weight at latitude 45 and sea-level, this entire system of units is useless in space. Thus, for scientific purposes, it makes more sense to use Standard International units, i.e. the metric system, whose base unit is the Kg for mass, and not weight. Mass is invariant no matter what the gravity acceleration is. Why am I telling you all this? For two reasons: 1) it's virtually impossible to teach American students to distinguish between mass, weight and the units used for both. They know that some multiplication or division is required, but not exactly which is what. 2) it's the cause of one of the most colossal failures in NASA's history.

There are also positive sides to using American units. For example, we still think about temperature in Celsius, but if you look at Fahrenheit it makes more sense: the weather in Cincinnati this year ranged from really cold when it was zero Fahrenheit to hot when it was 100 Fahrenheit. On the other hand, spatial distances are shrunk or expanded as needed: for example it's much nicer to live in a 1000 sq. ft. apartment than in a 100 sq. meters apartment. It's easier to drive 500 miles to a party than it is to drive 800 Kms, as we did on the weekend of the 4th of July. ;-)

Good Things, Bad Things: Infrastructures

This post is part of the "Good Things, Bad Things" series.

In order to discuss the infrastructure in the US, let me first define what I mean by the term. For me infrastructures is everything that pertains to your ability to conduct your life. Good infrastructures are the ones that you don't have to think about: they are there, they are reliable, and they deliver everything you need when you need it.

In general I can say that the infrastructures in the USA are better than the ones in Israel. However, there are several exceptions to that rule. The infrastructures that are better than Israel are: broadband internet connection (we have 30Mbit/s fiber optics, at a cost that is lower than the cost in Israel for a tenth of that), roads (there are far less traffic jams here than in Israel), and the postal service, which is absolutely excellent, fast, efficient, and cheap. Service providers, and infrastructures providers among them, are usually more polite and don't require endless conversations to get rid of, but they are still inefficient just as their Israeli counterparts are. I really enjoy the banks here. We have an account with a major bank, and we pay absolutely no fees and get excellent service online and in the branch. It's a real pleasure that is in complete contrast to the appalling way Israeli banks work.

The infrastructures that are not as good as the ones in Israel are: buildings, that are built from IKEA style wooden plates and are just as strong as them, electricity, which has the tendency of failing every time there is a storm, public transportation, which is virtually non-existent in Cincinnati, and plumbing, which is a major problem in the building we live in, probably because of poor maintenance by the company that manages the property. The latter two are probably local problems, as public transportation in NYC, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco is supposed to be better, and the property management company is just one company and others may be better.

Though infrastructures in the US are better than in Israel, I feel that they may be deteriorating due to the economic problems. For example, the roads in Cincinnati have a lot of holes in them, and in the winter the city didn't plow the snow from the smaller streets or had money for salt to prevent the roads from freezing. Hopefully this is a temporary thing, that will pass when the economy improves.

Good Things, Bad Things: Weather

This post is part of the "Good Things, Bad Things" series.

Weather in Israel can be described as having four seasons: December, January, February, and Summer. The former three are generally called winter, but are quite warm, but the latter ranges between hot and dry to blistering and humid.
After moving here I have finally realized that there are real differences between summer, fall, spring and winter. In the summer it's hot, muggy and rainy. In the fall the trees turn to all shades and colors. In the winter it's cold and sometimes snows. I really enjoyed the snow. Then, spring brings everything back to life, and the trees grow leaves in all different colors once more.

However, this wide range of temperatures and weather phenomena have a price: the weather here is very unstable. One day it's hot, the next it's soaking wet. Electricity lines were knocked out for several days twice since we came here. There are tornado alarms and flood alerts every now and then.

Still, I like the weather in Cincinnati, especially when it's not too hot or rainy.

Good Things, Bad Things: Technology

This post is part of the "Good Things, Bad Things" list I am trying to compile to describe our life here in Cincinnati before the first anniversary of our relocation.

A good thing about life here is the abundance of gadgets and technology. But it is not uniformly distributed around the US, between companies, or among people. For example, we are connected to the internet using a fiber optic cable and we have a bandwidth of 30Mbps download. That's something that most Americans can't get because the infrastructure just doesn't get to their houses. Some of them also don't want to be connected to the internet all the time, and prefer the old fashioned dial up.
However, if you are a technology enthusiast, like we are, you can get almost anything you want, for a price that is. I have a new Kindle2, which can download books using the cellular network provided for "free" by Amazon ("free" means it's part of the book's cost and there is no extra charge for it).

When we first moved here we decided that since we didn't have a lot of money we should not get a TV and rely on internet connection and online entertainment options. As most of these websites don't work outside of the United States, Israelis rarely experience them. However, we have found out that we can follow almost every show that plays, a day or two after it was aired, at any of the websites of TV channels: ABC, NBC, TBS, CNN, and I guess several more - all have sites that allow you to watch TV. There is also Hulu, which aggregates several of these networks for our convenience. From Israel we can watch channel 10 (except for the football games, which was very annoying), but their relying on Windows Media technologies is very annoying compared to the superior Flash technology that all American channels use nowadays.
And then you have Netflix, which for a very small fee a month ($9) streams unlimited videos and TV shows which were distributed on DVDs, or sends the DVDs (one at a time) home.
So, basically, we don't need any TV now. In the future we may get a computer to act as a media player and stream all the videos that we want to a computer monitor (30 inch maybe?).

The main problem nowadays is cellular connection. When we first arrived here this was one of the first thing we did, thinking that we will have to communicate in some way or another with one another and with others. So we went to the only company that was generous enough to give us a plan without credit history: Verizon. It was a huge disappointment. It seems that the company messes up the user interface of it's phones, in the name of uniformity and "ease of use". I couldn't deal with my pay-as-you-go phone, which was really horrible, and switched to T-Mobile as soon as I could. There I could keep my old Sony-Ericsson, because they have a GSM network, but they don't have a 3rd generation network in Cincinnati area. How pathetic is that? And what good does it do anyone that they have Google phones if they don't have the 3rd generation infrastructure to support them? In general it seems that none of the American networks supports 3G very well outside the main cities along the coast. And that is my main complaint about American technology: you can get it, but it is limited to the rich areas and rich people living in them. Try to get internet connection or 3G in Kansas or North Dakota. You'll be happy to have limited cellular connection and dial up internet there...