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this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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As someone who's all about science and all the things that use metric as it's standard, I understand why us Americans argue for imperial measurements.
We know them.
I can general look at something and relatively tell how big it is based on my experience with the imperial system.
I'm not saying metric isn't better but there's also different languages with some of them being able to express certain emotions or features better than others. Yet you don't see people demanding we all adapt a singular language.
People who grow up almost anywhere else on earth can also tell how big something is based on their experience with metric. That's not something inherently based on the imperial system. The same way you go "oh that's about 3 feet", we go "oh that's about 2 meters".
And of course, switching systems overnight is insane, people are used to imperial, you're right. But at the very least do what Britain did, and have both systems in parallel at the same time, everywhere. And in time, people would get used to metric too.
What I've noticed is that for those using other measurements, intuitively knowing about how long a meter is seems like witchcraft. But for use who are used to metric, it's just "about this much 🫲🫱" or "about this much 🚶".
And you can't learn new things?
They already said they're American lol
We have to exist in a context that resists it. The weatherman will tell you the temperature in Fahrenheit. The road speed limit is listed in mph. You buy milk and gas in gallons.
If anything, Americans who force themselves to use metric in everyday use are working much harder at it than any European.
You should start by adopting metric in anything remotely scientific. Like
Paorbar, notmmHgorPSIPSIis a dumpster fire of an abbreviation, the correct one islbf/in²lb/lbfconfusion is not worth it when we have newtonsBTUwhich nobody can really comprehend, or gasoline-gallon-equivalents that nobody knows how to translate to anything elsecm³orml, notccFFS)Lb-Ftwhich is wrong on so many levelsMB/sorkb/s, notkbps,Kb/s,kbit/sorMbitCan you imagine having different units across the world for voltage or data? Like a 2¾-lemon battery or a 2 million floppy hard drive. That would be absolutely insane.
There is an awful lot of inconsistency in the imperial system too, like pound being abbreviated
lb,P(inPSI) or even£, or miles beingmiorMinMPHYou acknowledge what they really mean is ft lbf right? Usually pronounced foot pounds. It's a common unit of torque in the imperial system. I feel like people are just jumping on the bandwagon. This is coming from a diehard Nm preferrer, we need to choose our battles. How bout we die on the hill of bite force being measured with units of pressure? Like really? Fucking pressure? Utterly meaningless as a unit of comparison between bite strength of animals, since all you need to get a bigger number is SHARPER FUCKING TEETH.
Yeah, you can make really great pressures easily with sharp things, making an atomically sharp point is surprisingly easy.
But my favorite hill is this.
Recommended units for data have been mibibytes (MiB), gibibytes (GiB), etc. for a few years now
They're more accurate because they use powers of two (actually 1024 instead of 1000)
"Accurate" is probably not the correct word anymore. It was when technical limitations dictated power-of-two capacities. Commodore 64 came out with 64 kiB = 2^16^ B of memory, and FAT32 cannot handle file sizes ≥4 GiB (2^32^ B). However, RAM/ROM/Flash chips manufacturers no longer make exclusively powers-of-two capacities, instead opting for (decinal) GB to save 7 % of the cost (and other fake capacity shenanigans). I prefer binary too but the two unit systems can coexist, people just need to label them correctly.
Ah I didn't know that
About torque though: If my memory doesn't betray me, one Newtonmeter is 100 grams hooked to a one meter long lever. Is that really different from one pound hanging off a one foot lever? I might be wrong, since I was born metric and have no clue in general.
It's 1 Newton at 1 meter.
As simple as 1 pound at 1 feet to be fair, the bad part is that pound is used as a measure of force as well as of mass. It works on the surface of the earth but not anywhere else.
Pounds are a measure of force, not mass. The imperial unit for mass is Slugs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(unit)
I wonder what you’ll get when you ask for 0.02 slugs of ham at a butcher's. Probably nothing but a horrified look.
Yes, but I mean everyone uses it as a measure of mass.
To be fair there exists a mass unit called pound mass, as opposed to pound force.
Gasoline gallon equivalents should die in a fire. It's an invented statistic that's meant to give you an idea of how much you'll be spending to run an EV compared to an ICE car, but there's so much slop in the numbers, and they can change over time.
Also, can we kill off hp for cars? Your EV's battery will be rated in kwh. Your motor can be rated kw. These numbers work together and is exactly what the metric system is best at.
quick, how many barleycorns in a gunthers chain?
What?
2367 I reckon.