4 ms·

You're misinformed. A foot as a measurement in 2018 has no more to do with a human foot than a computer chip has to do with a potato-powered calculator. Imperia

You're misinformed. A foot as a measurement in 2018 has no more to do with a human foot than a computer chip has to do with a potato-powered calculator. Imperial units have had standard metric translations for a long time.

okket 8y ago
Of course, you can use or invent whatever measure system you like, if you provide a translation. But why translate? Why not use what the rest of the world uses? When you come from the outside, it feels like a trip to middle ages reading about 'furlongs', 'hogsheads' and 'pennyweights'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units
- Piskvorrr 8y ago
  "There's this widespread legacy system. Why won't those stupid people just migrate to the newish and better one?" (Key words: legacy, migrate. I still see dozens of WinXP systems around, alive and kicking.)
  - rainbowmverse 8y ago
    That's exactly it. Metric is on every single food item. Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. I would have to convert back to feet and miles if the article didn't have it because I'm not used to those units since I never have an opportunity to use them in my daily life. Metric is not as intuitive as its promoters insist. Intuition is developed through use. Civilization-scale issues require civilization-scale solutions. I can't unilaterally convert to metric in every context because it would be terribly impractical. I would spend my days doing conversions. That's a huge waste of finite time and energy.
    - mschaef 8y ago
      > Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. The problem with that analogy is that a 64-bit computer is inherently, in isolation, much more powerful than an 8-bit. For the vast majority of cases, the same is not true for a switch from from, say, ounces to ml to measure the size of a bottle of water.
      - Piskvorrr 8y ago
        That's a bit of a mixed bag. Once you do realize that 1 cm3 (1 ml) of water is also 1 g (as it's 1000g/1l = 1g/1ml), and that a 10x10x10 cm cube is 1 l (and is 1 kg), it does get powerful in unexpected ways ("cook half liter of water...hm, how do I measure...well that's 500 ml, so I'll just weigh 500 g, exactly the same thing"); and a 10 l bucket of water weighs 10 kg; similarly with other decimal units. This, I think, is intrinsically useful - how does this translate into US units, are there such simple conversions? (IDK, so this is not a rhetorical question)
        mschaef 8y ago
        > how does this translate into US units, are there such simple conversions? Not really. I have a couple of these types of conversions committed to memory (1 gal water = 7 pounds, etc.), but it's all pretty ad hoc. That said, I haven't found too much use for it. All that said, I very much appreciate the orthogonality and consistency of SI. In an ideal world, the US would be on it, or at least on something the same as the rest of the world. Aside from sheer habit, I think the most compelling argument for the reason we aren't is that the units we use are so heavily baked into physical objects.
- mschaef 8y ago
  > it feels like a trip to middle ages reading about 'furlongs', 'hogsheads' and 'pennyweights'. I've lived in the United States for my entire life (43 years) and have never come close to ever seeing these units in use. To be honest, while I've heard of them, I couldn't even give a reasonable definition. I'm pretty sure the primary modern use for these units is either as a historical curiosity or as a way to pass judgement.

okket 8y ago

Of course, you can use or invent whatever measure system you like, if you provide a translation. But why translate? Why not use what the rest of the world uses? When you come from the outside, it feels like a trip to middle ages reading about 'furlongs', 'hogsheads' and 'pennyweights'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units

Piskvorrr 8y ago
"There's this widespread legacy system. Why won't those stupid people just migrate to the newish and better one?" (Key words: legacy, migrate. I still see dozens of WinXP systems around, alive and kicking.)
- rainbowmverse 8y ago
  That's exactly it. Metric is on every single food item. Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. I would have to convert back to feet and miles if the article didn't have it because I'm not used to those units since I never have an opportunity to use them in my daily life. Metric is not as intuitive as its promoters insist. Intuition is developed through use. Civilization-scale issues require civilization-scale solutions. I can't unilaterally convert to metric in every context because it would be terribly impractical. I would spend my days doing conversions. That's a huge waste of finite time and energy.
  - mschaef 8y ago
    > Food is like a modern 64 bit system. Meanwhile, the roads are still in miles per hour and all temperatures are in Fahrenheit, so I need an 8 bit subsystem to run it. The problem with that analogy is that a 64-bit computer is inherently, in isolation, much more powerful than an 8-bit. For the vast majority of cases, the same is not true for a switch from from, say, ounces to ml to measure the size of a bottle of water.
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      That's a bit of a mixed bag. Once you do realize that 1 cm3 (1 ml) of water is also 1 g (as it's 1000g/1l = 1g/1ml), and that a 10x10x10 cm cube is 1 l (and is 1 kg), it does get powerful in unexpected ways ("cook half liter of water...hm, how do I measure...well that's 500 ml, so I'll just weigh 500 g, exactly the same thing"); and a 10 l bucket of water weighs 10 kg; similarly with other decimal units. This, I think, is intrinsically useful - how does this translate into US units, are there such simple conversions? (IDK, so this is not a rhetorical question)
      - mschaef 8y ago
        > how does this translate into US units, are there such simple conversions? Not really. I have a couple of these types of conversions committed to memory (1 gal water = 7 pounds, etc.), but it's all pretty ad hoc. That said, I haven't found too much use for it. All that said, I very much appreciate the orthogonality and consistency of SI. In an ideal world, the US would be on it, or at least on something the same as the rest of the world. Aside from sheer habit, I think the most compelling argument for the reason we aren't is that the units we use are so heavily baked into physical objects.
mschaef 8y ago
> it feels like a trip to middle ages reading about 'furlongs', 'hogsheads' and 'pennyweights'. I've lived in the United States for my entire life (43 years) and have never come close to ever seeing these units in use. To be honest, while I've heard of them, I couldn't even give a reasonable definition. I'm pretty sure the primary modern use for these units is either as a historical curiosity or as a way to pass judgement.