451–460 of 589 posts
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I challenge you to make a 1/3 cut in meter length wood using a metric ruler. Must be accurate to 1/128 inch (0.2mm), the tolerance used in fine woodworking.
Can I pick the blade thickness?
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"It cannot perfectly represent the amount" you say, and then perfectly represent the amount. You represent a quarter as the fraction 25/100ths to show how impractical it is, instead of writing 1/4. Would it be so hard to build a ruler with thirds measured on it, so you don't need to try and guess 0.333333 from mm readings? Like http://teaching.monster.com/nfs/teaching/attachment_images/0... but made of metal
Buy an imperial rule. There's some inches that are sub-divided into tenths (maybe 1/20), and others sub-divided into sixteenths (maybe 32nds or 64ths). Often with heavier markings on more significance. For easy division and fractioning of whatever it is you are doing. If it's imperial only (v. rare nowadays) there's usually a coarser scale or two for easier subdivision or when the 16ths and finer just don't matter. B…
If you use fractions often or work with weirder fractions anybody who is worth their grain of salt will build custom temporary rulers or helper systems anyways. And then it won't matter at all if your unit is hyperinches or fractions of lightspeed traveling through frozen beer in a second.
I can see how anybody who grew up with inches likes that one better, but in the end it is just numbers on a scale.
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You are definitely (and thankfully) not the norm. Imperial units are awful. They're more ... human, maybe, in that a foot is about one human foot long, and that an inch is about one human thumb width, and how 0F feels "pretty cold" and 100F feels "pretty hot", and to me the charm of imperial units begins and ends right there. Those are literally the only redeemable qualities about imperial units, and they have nothin…
For mass, distance, area, and volume metric has an obvious advantage because for all of those we regularly deal with such a range of values that we want subunits, and basing those subunits on powers of 10 fits in much better with our number system and makes computation and conversion easier. This lets one make a pretty good argument that metric has advantages sufficient to justify having to buy new rulers and scales.…
The rest of the world already using ℃. Imagine no more dual scale thermometers, no more switches in weather apps, etc :D
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>They're more ... human, maybe, in that a foot is about one human foot long, and that an inch is about one human thumb width, and how 0F feels "pretty cold" and 100F feels "pretty hot", and to me the charm of imperial units begins and ends right there. As far as we know, humans are the only thing in the universe that care about any of this stuff. A computer couldn't care less if you are using 1 foot or 0.3048 meters.…
These units are terrible for humans too. Humans are good at base 10. For this human, the relationships when (for instance) talking about water are great - 1g = 1ml = 1cm^3
Humans are really good at doubling and halving, which the Imperial system excels at.
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I'm one of the weird people that actually really likes imperial units. For instance: 1 foot -- base 12. This is a superior base to 10. It can be easily divided into 4ths, 3rd, and 2nds. Base 10 can only easily be divided into 2nds. 1 inch -- an easily identifiable unit of measure for smallish things. About the width of my thumb. A pretty good unit. For low precision, inches become 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/6, 1/64, etc. Each…
I feel like imperial units are human units. they are units used on a human scale, where as metric are more 'computer'. example: a human really cant look at something and divide it by 10 very well, but 1/3, 1/2, 1/4, very easy to do. the sizes makes human sense, like a foot being about a human foot, etc.
A meter is a slightly longish step.
A decimeter is the width of a hand.
A centimeter is the width of a pinky finger.
A milimeter is twice the thickness of your fingernail.
It is actually no less or more intuitive than the imperial system (except when it comes to calculations, unit conversion and interfacing with other SI units like Volts, Joules, Watts etc.) I feel very comfortable working with digits like 12.5 or 33.33. I think a lot of the imperial-versus-metric-debate boils down to the question how big your love for fractions is and how things are measured around you. If everything is built with 2 by 4 wood, then a metric system is inconvinient. If your hardware store sells 4x8cm wood, then going to inches would be inconvinient.
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I'll concede that freezing is very important to a lot of people, but at the same time, I don't think it's particularly onerous to remember that the freezing point is 32 degrees. As far as boiling and cooking, I would argue that there is no magic number anyways, since boiling point is variable by elevation. At 7500 feet / ~2250 meters, water boils at 198°F.
> As far as boiling and cooking, I would argue that there is no magic number anyways, since boiling point is variable by elevation. At 7500 feet / ~2250 meters, water boils at 198°F. That's an excellent point, let's examine the relationship between altitude and boiling point, in both American units and everywhere-else-in-the-world units [0]: 5000 feet -> 202.97 F 7500 feet -> 198.33 10000 feet -> 193.6 F Compared to:…
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Hmm, good for usage you say. Ok, let's stick to "standard" imperial units. How many feet in a yard? Yards in a mile? What the hell is a quart? And since base 12 is great, what is 12 feet called? 144 feet? A 12th of an inch? Or, ounces: How many ounces in a gallon? A pound? And how many _kinds_ of ounces are there, anyways? Fun fact: The term “ounce” is of Latin origin from the word “uncia” which means “a twelfth part…
A yard is three feet, or about the length of a man's stride. A quart is about the maximum amount of whiskey one can drink without dying. A pint's a pound, the world around. My favorite is the cord, which is 128 cubic feet, or more often a stack of firewood 4 feet tall by four feet wide by eight feet long.
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Nit: 1/3 of a meter is rational. You're looking for "whole number."
But 1/2 isn't a whole number either. Base-10 absolutism rears its head again. The objection to 1/3 is that it has a non-terminating decimal expansion. This is not a problem if you're using base-anything-with-3-as-a-factor.
As for temperature, 0 is really gold and 100 is really hot in pretty much every scale, that's just a very subjective way of describing things.
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These units are terrible for humans too. Humans are good at base 10. For this human, the relationships when (for instance) talking about water are great - 1g = 1ml = 1cm^3
Humans are naturally bad at base 10. This is noticeable when learning counting and arithmetic - children often skip 7 and jumble 6, 7, 8. Base-10 is not so bad once one has learned it, though. Humans are really good at doubling and halving, which the Imperial system excels at.
What's double of 3.7 feet? Or half of 1.5? What is 3.7 feet even? Is it 3 feet 7 inches or 3 feet plus 7th of a feet (This last question is a nitpick)
Any of these in metric are super simple, but just harder to do in base-12.
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>I suspect that only a minority of people in metric-using countries -- those with basic chemistry knowledge fresh in their mind -- know that "one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade". I wouldn’t be so certain about that. I’ve used that to conceptualize volumes and weights ever since I first learned that in school.
You comment on HN threads about measurement systems. You are not normal. None of us here are.