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It's time for the US to use the metric system

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Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine if you're jumping from one unit to another (ie. inches to feet, feet to yards). But conversion from smaller to larger units require much more (unnecessary) effort. Eg. For a 1-acre square plot of land, what is the length of its sides in feet?

208.7 by 208.7 feet. Its not hard. Found it on Google: https://www.infoplease.com/askeds/dimensions-acre "The acre, by the way, was originally an English unit of measurement that described the area that a yoke of oxen could plow in a day."

Okay so quickly, without google, how many gallons are there in a cubic yard?

Now for the people who know metric it's fairly trivial to calculate how many liters there are in a cubic meter. A liter is defined as being one cubic decimeter. A decimeter being one step down from a meter means for cubic measurements it's a factor 1000. one cubic meter multiplied by a thousand is 1000 cubic decimeters or, equivalently, 1000 liters.

Note how in both examples you start with nice round numbers. I havent cherry picked a starting point that ends up nicely in metric.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#32

We do use it. Many common products are sold in hard metric quantities. It is difficult to buy plywood in non-metric thickness. Non-legacy electronic components are metric. The US military pushes for metrication. This is all done as a result of globalization or the need for commonality.

Um, I disagree with this. Plywood still comes in 5/8" and 3/4" thicknesses. Boards are still 2x4's and 2x6's, in even feet lengths. I own a wood shed manufacturing business. These sizes aren't going to change, nor are people going to start calling an "8'-2x4" a "2.4384m-50x100cm board".

> Plywood still comes in 5/8" and 3/4"

You might see it signed as 5/8 and 3/4 but usually it's 15mm and 19mm.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#33
I made the transition to the metric system fairly late in life (moved overseas) and here are some tricks I discovered to make the metric system "feel" right to me.

- A liter is equal to four of my kitchen's 1 cup measuring cups. Sort of. Close enough for government work.

- My feet are around 25cm. Four of my feet are a meter. Sort of.

- 0C is cold, 10C is brisk and I need a jacket, 20C is so nice out, 30C is hot, 40C I want to die from sweat, 50C I will die.

That's all it took for me to orient myself in the metric system. Metric not that hard to use on an every day basis.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#34

Yes and no. Scientific measurements should definitely use metric. Home measurements and measurements that don't matter are perfectly fine using the American system; they're more understandable in a way.

Looks like someone disagrees but couldn't contest me with a comment. Stop down print without reason

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#35

Yes and no. Scientific measurements should definitely use metric. Home measurements and measurements that don't matter are perfectly fine using the American system; they're more understandable in a way.

Looks like someone disagrees but couldn't contest me with a comment. Stop down print without reason

Whoever downvoted this should never reproduce.

Re: It's time for the US to use the metric system

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like someone disagrees but couldn't contest me with a comment. Stop down print without reason

Whoever downvoted this should never reproduce.

The guidelines ask us not to complain about downvotes in the first place, but we definitely don't need this kind of comment here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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