61–70 of 106 posts
How many 180° turns can a prime minister manage before they fall down?
Yes Minister - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLm2X6sFa48
Everybody's shitting on Imperial, U.S. customary, or whatever you want to call them units... Allow me to give a slightly different perspective: as a scientist, if I'm doing chemistry then metric is the way to go. Conversions are easier, centigrade and Kelvin just make a lot more sense... But for many day-to-day things I think the Imperial units are better. Temperature? Fahrenheit is a 0-100 scale, where 0 is pretty m…
Everybody's shitting on Imperial, U.S. customary, or whatever you want to call them units... Allow me to give a slightly different perspective: as a scientist, if I'm doing chemistry then metric is the way to go. Conversions are easier, centigrade and Kelvin just make a lot more sense... But for many day-to-day things I think the Imperial units are better. Temperature? Fahrenheit is a 0-100 scale, where 0 is pretty m…
For volume: US based recipes very often resort to "1 cup", and I generally find they're rounding a long way from... say... 3/4 cup. In metric, people don't tend to round more than 10ml at a time, so you'll see 120ml, not 100ml when they mean 120ml.
For distance: "About an inch" is the most useless instruction in DIY or crafting.
People seem to be very reluctant to use the awkward and 3 fifths or w/e you end up with in imperial.
When you say "people are better at estimating", are you adjusting for the reduced precision?
Wow, just when you think things couldn't get more stupid. Revert to a clearly inferior and difficult to use measurement system for what? Politics?
The metric system is too "European", and more specifically French for post-Brexit Britain. We need a patriotic system of measurement, not some foreign idea designed to take away our sovereignty.
(It's the sad and cynical exploitation of tribal, nativist nationalism containing aggressive, neofascist, pining-for-the-past-more-than-usual, and anti-intellectual sentiments.)
As reported in [0], the UK Government survey asked consumers: “If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items: i) in imperial units ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent.” There was no option iii) for using metric only (except a freeform entry field). Talk about biased. I suppose we should be thankful that the recent self-inflicted destruction of the UK Govt's credibility has at least probably sa…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fortnight Middle English fourtenight, alteration of fourtene night, from Old English fēowertȳne niht fourteen nights.
(First Known Use of silver lining - 1871, same source) ...and as for etc (Et cetera), may I offer you my contrafibularities.
Everybody's shitting on Imperial, U.S. customary, or whatever you want to call them units... Allow me to give a slightly different perspective: as a scientist, if I'm doing chemistry then metric is the way to go. Conversions are easier, centigrade and Kelvin just make a lot more sense... But for many day-to-day things I think the Imperial units are better. Temperature? Fahrenheit is a 0-100 scale, where 0 is pretty m…
As a counterpoint: I find the implicit imprecision caused by having poor/no divisibility a constant frustration in my day-to-day life. For volume: US based recipes very often resort to "1 cup", and I generally find they're rounding a long way from... say... 3/4 cup. In metric, people don't tend to round more than 10ml at a time, so you'll see 120ml, not 100ml when they mean 120ml. For distance: "About an inch" is the…
No, I wasn't thinking about it that way. I was imagining a task where you get people to estimate the length of various objects by looking at them, and just take the mean error. So the size of the units wouldn't matter. If someone wanted to say 1.33268 inches, I'd let them.
Concerning divisability: it depends on how you think about it. Many people found dividing in half, and half again, etc. to be intuitive, and it is intuitive in e.g. woodworking (because physically dividing in half is easy), but yeah...in a lot of applications I just want to be able to move decimal points around.
For volume in recipes: you're right. I think the problem with the U.S. here is that we use volume in recipes at all. Weight! Use weight! Flour is many different densities... But yeah, recipes are in general trash. For your case, you'll usually see cups and tablespoons (...lol) like "1 cup plus 2 tablespoons".
For distance: "about an inch" makes a lot of sense to people raised with inches. It doesn't strike me as weird at all.
Concerning awkward 3 fifths: imperial wouldn't use fifths, it'd be divisions by two. So half, quarter, eighth, etc. There are some specific cases, like a bottle of liquor is often called a "fifth" because it's approximately a fifth of a gallon, but that's specific to that application.
What the actual F. That is just insane. Brexit has been such a rolling disaster. It's constantly reminds me why compulsory voting in Australia is the best thing since sliced bread. It's just insane what the British have decided to do to themselves.
How about letting people decide if they wish, or not, to partake in a system that is rigged on either side? A choice of 'either pile of shit', is not necessarily a choice that is acceptable to those that would prefer their bread without.
I am horribly anti-brexit, it has caused me and so many I know so much grief. I hate everything about it, but you can take your 'actual F' and F yourself if you would like to force me to vote.
Everybody's shitting on Imperial, U.S. customary, or whatever you want to call them units... Allow me to give a slightly different perspective: as a scientist, if I'm doing chemistry then metric is the way to go. Conversions are easier, centigrade and Kelvin just make a lot more sense... But for many day-to-day things I think the Imperial units are better. Temperature? Fahrenheit is a 0-100 scale, where 0 is pretty m…
Observation as a Canadian: Until the US decides to finally convert (e.g. never), the rest of the anglo-sphere will be forever stuck in an awkward inbetween zone anyways. We supposedly converted to metric in the 70s but it's only ever been half-hearted, as many trades (especially construction) continue to work in imperial measurements, and most people work in an awkward combination of the two. As Canadians we typicall…
Oddly enough all the automotive fasteners and bolts switched to metric some time ago here in the USA. Which makes the (relative) lack of available metric bolts/screws doubly frustrating.
Just put imperial measurements on consumer goods next to metric and satisfy the brexiteers, no need to change everything.