5 ms·

I agree it's not worth the hate, but in my opinion SI units are much more convenient. Using your own example, miles vs kilometers may not feel like a big diffe

I agree it's not worth the hate, but in my opinion SI units are much more convenient. Using your own example, miles vs kilometers may not feel like a big difference, but the fact that you have proportional units (mm, cm, m, km) for any possible distance has the potential to save you a lot of trouble. Having completely different units for the same thing (land miles / nautical miles for distance), usually not proportional between them, is less practical than the SI at every level. Not only for an engineer but also for home owners and almost everyone of us. I understand why there are some places in the world where they still use systems other than the SI, mainly for legacy reasons. But I think the practical benefits of a more coherent (and standard) unit system exist not only for the engineer.

ghaff 7y ago
That's fair enough. Whatever the advantages of Imperial in some narrow contexts, I'm not sure very many would argue for them absent legacy. On the other hand, it's pretty much an academic debate because a switch isn't happening for mainstream use. The desire and political will just aren't there. The little push that once existed is essentially gone whatever some tech types might want.
- rocqua 7y ago
  I like arguing for arcane standards, and there are aspects of the imperial system I like. Specifically, I tend to advocate for a base 12 system based arround the inch. Base 12 because the very structured multiplication table, which also makes for easy dividing. The inch because I find my lengtg estimation accuracy to be better captured by inches.
  - Moru 7y ago
    Your length estimation accuracy is dependent on what you used more.
    - rocqua 7y ago
      I have never used inches outside screen diagonals. Yet I still feel inches better match my accuracy. My actual accuracy in inches is horrible though, because I never get into contact with them.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I assume that 12 inches to a foot is the reason that, at least when I was growing up, we were taught multiplication tables up to 12x12 rather than 10x10.
fhars 7y ago
My favourite use of units is still the „2mm Scale Association“, a British model railroad club that builds their trains at a scale or two millimeteres to the foot (which is slightly larger than the standard N-track). It always blows my mind when I try to think how people come up with a scale like that.
- mlyle 7y ago
  Kinda a crazy ratio, but not -really-. If you have modelmaking tools measured in mm, and a bunch of legacy dimensions of trains and buildings that are often round numbers of feet, it becomes tempting to use a scale like this. After all, you tend to get round numbers of mm to make things... It might be convenient to make a starmap where e.g. 10 light years is 1 cm. Yes, the actual dilation factor is strange, but it's pretty easy to plot a set of cartesian coordinates measured in light years on a 1 cm grid.

ghaff 7y ago

That's fair enough. Whatever the advantages of Imperial in some narrow contexts, I'm not sure very many would argue for them absent legacy. On the other hand, it's pretty much an academic debate because a switch isn't happening for mainstream use. The desire and political will just aren't there. The little push that once existed is essentially gone whatever some tech types might want.

rocqua 7y ago
I like arguing for arcane standards, and there are aspects of the imperial system I like. Specifically, I tend to advocate for a base 12 system based arround the inch. Base 12 because the very structured multiplication table, which also makes for easy dividing. The inch because I find my lengtg estimation accuracy to be better captured by inches.
- Moru 7y ago
  Your length estimation accuracy is dependent on what you used more.
  - rocqua 7y ago
    I have never used inches outside screen diagonals. Yet I still feel inches better match my accuracy. My actual accuracy in inches is horrible though, because I never get into contact with them.
- ghaff 7y ago
  I assume that 12 inches to a foot is the reason that, at least when I was growing up, we were taught multiplication tables up to 12x12 rather than 10x10.

fhars 7y ago

My favourite use of units is still the „2mm Scale Association“, a British model railroad club that builds their trains at a scale or two millimeteres to the foot (which is slightly larger than the standard N-track). It always blows my mind when I try to think how people come up with a scale like that.

mlyle 7y ago
Kinda a crazy ratio, but not -really-. If you have modelmaking tools measured in mm, and a bunch of legacy dimensions of trains and buildings that are often round numbers of feet, it becomes tempting to use a scale like this. After all, you tend to get round numbers of mm to make things... It might be convenient to make a starmap where e.g. 10 light years is 1 cm. Yes, the actual dilation factor is strange, but it's pretty easy to plot a set of cartesian coordinates measured in light years on a 1 cm grid.