42 replies to this topic

[*Anastasia]

I could argue against Metric all goddamned day.

I could point out that decimal-based units aren't as easily subdivided into fractions as Imperial Units.

I could say that it's silly that countries have spent untold millions (or even billions!) of dollars to metricate for no tangible benefit, or note how many school districts in Canada have abandoned teaching Metric entirely, or are teaching it in conjunction with the supposedly-defunct Canadian (Imperial) Units, because once kids get out of school and into the real world, they find that outside of a few specialized fields, Metric is rarely used, almost half a century since it was introduced.

I could note that for as much as Metric's fanboys like to indicate how 'consistent' it is compared to Imperial, it has its own inconsistencies. For instance, the base unit for every type of measurement is the one without any additional modifiers (meter rather than centimeter, liter rather than kiloliter, etc.), except for one: the kilogram, not the gram, is inexplicably the base unit for mass.

And while we're on inconsistencies related to mass: the tonne being the unit for 1,000 kilograms, not the megagram. Presumably this is just to sow confusion and dissent among non-Metric users who then have to qualify their speech with phrases like, 'Metric tonne,' or, 'Imperial ton,' which look redundant when transcribed since they're spelled different but pronounced the same.

Or how about we talk about temperature? Centigrade and Fahrenheit are both stupidly arbitrary. Picking the freezing and boiling points of pure water at a specific air pressure and ambient temperature is no less arbitrary than using the freezing point of brine, the change in volume of linseed oil, or, gosh darnit, doing the whole thing backwards. The only non-arbitrary temperature scales are those that use absolute zero as a 0-point, such as Kelvin and Rankine, which are admittedly both impractical for daily use.

I could argue all these things till the cows come home to the sound of the fat lady singing, but I won't, because there's only one argument I need to make for why Imperial Units are better: the humble foot. The foot is, by far, the most useful unit of distance measurement ever devised. It's short enough that you can use it for short distances, but long enough that one doesn't need to resort to scientific notation to express longer distances in common use. Being dozenal, it can be easily subdivided into twelfths, sixths, quarters (or 'fourths' as apparently the Metric lot call them), thirds, and halves without resorting to fractions: far more than the tenths, fifths, and halves decimal units can be.

There is no Metric foot. The centimeter is shorter still than an inch, and the meter longer than the yard. Sure, there's the decimeter (and don't get me started on the confusion caused by the hard/soft-'C' pronunciations of 'deci-' and 'deca-'), but even it's too short to be useful: which is probably why no one uses it. Ever wondered why, despite metrication, rulers are so commonly found in thirty-centimeter lengths? If everything was truly better in tenths, why not a decimeter ruler? Because no one has any use for a ruler a third of a foot long, that's why. The foot is just… perfect.

The foot is perfect, and if you don't use it, you should feel bad.

So, now that I've sufficiently poisoned the well, let's have a nice, civil poll on units of measurement.

A note on Question 4: During the crafting of this poll, I got into a debate with an American over whether pounds measure weight (force) or mass. Though the pound is a unit of both force and mass, he proposed that the common usage of the word 'pounds' was that of weight: that is, the force of gravity acting upon a person. Now, growing up in Canada, it was drilled into our heads during schooling that speaking of how much a person 'weighs' is a misnomer, because we're actually speaking of mass: which is why a person's 'weight' is measured in kilograms, not newtons (the Metric unit for force). My American friend speculated that, 'If it's different in Canada, I can only blame the cold getting to your heads.' To cover my bases in case this is accurate, I've included Metric options for both kilograms and newtons, and encourage comment on whether you believe common usage of the word 'pound' refers to mass or weight.

[TheDogMan]

Some american units are actually quite useful when it comes to everyday simple conversions and fractions. For example, the foot is separated into 12 inches rather than 10 centimeters. 12 is much easier to work with as you attempt to get fractions: 12, 1/2 (6/12), 1/3 (4/12), 1/4 (3/12) 1/6 (2/12), etc.. You can't really do this with centimeters, you only get 1/2 (5/10) that is nicely turned into a fractions. Of course, we have calculators and it's not too hard to just look at a ruler and say "oh that's 1.3 centimeters."

 

You can also do this with quarts, cups, pints and gallons: they're much more manageable for everyday things. You see how it's easier to get 1.5 quarts of something: buy 1 quart and 1 pint.

 

For the rest, it's absolutely ridiculous. I mean, where do they even get the length of a mile!? 

[*Anastasia]

In hindsight, I should've added another question for what temperature people use when cooking. I've never encountered an oven that's not in Fahrenheit, but this Australian chef whose YouTube videos I watch always gives temperatures in Celsius, so apparently everything is upside-down over there.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Fahrenheit was originally designed with the idea that 100° would be normal human body temperature, but due to a calculation error it came out as 98.6, and the whole thing went to shit. Metric is based on the circumference of the Earth. But yeah, it's all arbitrary.

 

Most people default to whatever system they were raised with. In the US we use the Imperial/US standards, i.e. miles, feet, inches, ounces, etc. Science and medicine tend to favor the base ten metric system, and that makes sense. I've grown used to certain measurements in metric, but it still feels "foreign" to me, like a second language. If I am trying to imagine the size of something, it's always in Imperial/US.

[Learz]

Metric is better in most cases.

 

The fact is, ANY system is going to be arbitrary. The idea is to try and make it the least arbitrary as possible.

Metric does this, because it was designed for this purpose. Imperial does not, because it was created over thousands of years by dozens of cultures.

 

Imperial system has so many mismatched and horribly designed things I can't even start. Most are only used in extremely specific situations that you will never encounter in real life.

 

Metric was designed by mathematicians and scientists. Hence why everything is in base 10. So what if a foot has 12 inches, meaning it divides evenly into fractions? Use percents. Gosh. The foot sure sucks when you try to use percents, but the friggin metric system rocks. Almost as if we use a scale of 100%, and not 120%. And no, the foot is not good. It is not perfect. It kinda sucks in actual usage. Source: I built and repaired furniture for several years. Metric is far superior for measuring, designing, and using.

 

True story: 99% of the people in this thread don't know how long a foot is. Unless you deal with measuring things on a daily basis, you don't know. Hold up your hands, put them a foot apart. You're wrong. You've got them about 1.5 to 2 feet apart. A foot is short. Really short. Now measure 20 inches with your hands. Yeah, I can see you running those calculations in your head. Okay, lets see, a foot is 12 inches, so two feet would be 24 inches. I want 20 inches, so I need to move my hands 4 inches closer. How big is an inch? Um, hmm, let's say its about this big. move 4 of those, and ta da! 20 inches! (side note: you think you know how long an inch is. You're wrong).

 

Yeah, the meter is kinda big. You know why? It's designed to replace the yard, the more common unit of measurement. Feet suck at measuring anything more than 5 or 6 feet long. Yardage is far superior to feet. Unless you're measuring small things, at which point the centimeter is better than feet or inches.

 

 

tl;dr I'm going to shut up. For actual use, metric is better in every way imaginable. Measuring, designing, building, distances, etc. Math, Science, and Engineering. Metric wins.

For common daily use, feet and inches are better, because you do not need exact measurements. You estimate. The Imperial system was designed by common, every day people. They needed fast, easy numbers that could be broken down, estimated. Halves, thirds, quarters. Bartering, marketplaces, etc. This is why the foot is so popular. It's a small unit that can be used for almost everything, and can be broken down easily into smaller units very quickly. You won't be completely accurate, but since when did a normal person need to know a measurement to the 16th of a foot?

 

/rant

[*Anastasia]

True story: 99% of the people in this thread don't know how long a foot is. Unless you deal with measuring things on a daily basis, you don't know. Hold up your hands, put them a foot apart. You're wrong. You've got them about 1.5 to 2 feet apart. A foot is short. Really short.

I just did that, compared it to distances between keys on my keyboard, got a ruler—a foot-long ruler, because that's how long rulers are—and measured it. I had 11½", actually shorter than a foot—but not by much. A foot is perfect.

[Learz]

THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM SUCKS AND WE ALL KNOW IT

rabble rabble rabble

 

The sad thing is since I grew up in America I'm like Jorost. Hardwired to use it. I think in feet. And it sucks

 

Completely unrelated.

[*Anastasia]

Completely unrelated.

Matt. Wat r u doin. Matt, stop. I like you. Quit being so sarcastically smug. You're ruining my impression of you.

Completely unrelated.

[Shokkou]

There are no words to describe the fucks I don't give... except the ones I just used, of course.

[Thrash]

All US and farenheit, but I do understand metric volume due to being an alcoholic.

[*Anastasia]

Anyway, I think my main beef with Learz' argument boils down to…

The Imperial system was designed by common, every day people. They needed fast, easy numbers that could be broken down, estimated. Halves, thirds, quarters. Bartering, marketplaces, etc. This is why the foot is so popular. It's a small unit that can be used for almost everything, and can be broken down easily into smaller units very quickly. You won't be completely accurate, but since when did a normal person need to know a measurement to the 16th of a foot?

As a common, everyday person, I want measurements that common, everyday people can use. I don't want to have to work things out with a calculator, or worry about percentages. As such, I feel the Imperial system is much friendlier and better-suited to everyday use, as you say yourself. There's a reason decimal time crashed and burned: it's just not practical, and I don't find Metric practical for other uses, either.

And you're correct, all measurement systems are going to be arbitrary: but rather than having a goal to making them less arbitrary, I feel the goal should be to make them more useful and more approachable. If mathematicians and scientists prefer Metric, be my guest, use it. But that shouldn't be any reason to force it on the rest of us.

[Phate]

This thread is amazing. It's one of my favorite threads.

<3 Anna and Learz

[*Anastasia]

This thread is amazing. It's one of my favorite threads.

<3 Anna and Learz

KiWi said something similar in the last poll. I have this feeling you two are secretly turning into these two:

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Metric makes more sense, being based on base 10 like most of our other math. But like I said above, you use what you're used to. Technically Gerald Ford converted the US to the metric system nearly 40 years ago, but it hasn't really caught on. The military uses it, hospitals, science... That's about it. For common, everyday usage most Americans use the traditional measurements, if for no other reason than almost everyone else uses them.

 

And then there's metric time, which has never caught on. It's like the Esperanto of the metric system.

 

I'm not sure it's correct to say the imperial/US traditional system was "designed." Some aspects of it, for sure. But it would be more accurate to say it evolved. It's not like a committee sat down and hashed everything out. Which is pretty much exactly what did happen with the metric system, which was much more consciously designed.

 

But like everyone has been saying, it's all arbitrary. As long as you keep the units constant, you can measure with whatever you want. The Harvard Bridge in Cambridge (aka the Mass Ave Bridge) was famously measured in Smoots, described as the height of then-graduate student George Smoot. That's why I propose we establish our own system of Invictan weights and measures. For example, hairiness will be measured in KB. Or gayness in Nas.

[Manoka]

I use both, but metric is really nice when it comes to comparing things to water, and more importantly across spectrums, which makes it really easy for doing scientific calculations. (heat and energy from velocity are easy to compare, for instance). 

 

I still like Fahrenheit for temperature, because the precision seems a little nicer, you get into the negatives anytime you go below freezing with Celsius, and that just doesn't seem like a good idea for a relative idea of how cold it is, plus it's bigger, so it relies more on half degrees and fraction than saying "22 degrees", but yeah, it's not horrible. 

 

 

All of it is arbitrary, for instance, what is the meter truly based on? A millimeter is just a random length, no better than any other length. It's based on the distance the speed of light travels in a second, but not 1 in 300,000,000's or something rounded off, oh no, it's 299, 792, 458,meters exactly, so it's kind of arbitrary. 

Edited by Manoka, 18 November 2014 - 10:01 PM.

[KiWi]

True story: 99% of the people in this thread don't know how long a foot is. Unless you deal with measuring things on a daily basis, you don't know. Hold up your hands, put them a foot apart. You're wrong. You've got them about 1.5 to 2 feet apart. A foot is short. Really short. Now measure 20 inches with your hands. Yeah, I can see you running those calculations in your head. Okay, lets see, a foot is 12 inches, so two feet would be 24 inches. I want 20 inches, so I need to move my hands 4 inches closer. How big is an inch? Um, hmm, let's say its about this big. move 4 of those, and ta da! 20 inches! (side note: you think you know how long an inch is. You're wrong).

As long as you allow some tolerance;

I am the 1%

Bitch

(both on the foot thing, (10% tolerance or abouts. Since I had to read the thread, guess physically in front of my screen, then grab a ruler to double check/checked with body parts :v ) and on the inch thing (I used graph paper that was on my desk, and my tolerance was my fingers thickness/I suppose I was on the smaller side, but your fingers have 'flesh' to them, so when I go to grasp something with my fingers they 'indent' a bit, introducing oh so many physical fingertip related inaccuracies :v )

---

As an aside, generally your (for grown men) foot will be a foot (again, you'll have to make adjustments, just like Learz said "durr, to get 20 inches, that's 2 feet minues 4...." which does introduce tons of errors, but that's just life. A piece of (standard loose leaf) paper will be 11.5". And back to the grown person thing, from the tip of your (my, but this is my story) pointer finger to the crook of your thumb is 6".

[KiWi]

Also; do you not all practice your "5, 5 dollar, 5 dollar foot long" dance, including accurate foot long representation with your hands in front of your mirror?

I'm not saying you have to be able to just guesstimate with your hands lengths easily in the imperial system; but if the need was to arise, you should practice now or be sorry later.

[Phate]

True story: 99% of the people in this thread don't know how long a foot is. Unless you deal with measuring things on a daily basis, you don't know. Hold up your hands, put them a foot apart. You're wrong. You've got them about 1.5 to 2 feet apart. A foot is short.

Nope, I got 10", I guess I think things look bigger than they are

[*Anastasia]

And back to the grown person thing, from the tip of your (my, but this is my story) pointer finger to the crook of your thumb is 6".

4½". Do I have tiny hands?

[Phate]

And back to the grown person thing, from the tip of your (my, but this is my story) pointer finger to the crook of your thumb is 6".

4½". Do I have tiny hands?
 

5", so either no, or I do too.