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Cause it's not terrible. It still works ok the way it is, and people tend to use FB Messenger or something if they want a more complex group chat with Android u

Cause it's not terrible. It still works ok the way it is, and people tend to use FB Messenger or something if they want a more complex group chat with Android users in it. Considering that they do this even if it's an all-Android chat, I don't think it's Apple's fault, as scummy as they act with SMS. Also, people don't care for metric cause it's not better. Basing your system around the physical properties of water doesn't help for daily usage, just for some sciences and yes for nerds to feel better. For example, many digital thermostats have to add increments of 0.5 when you switch to Celsius since each degree is twice as coarse, and you can feel the difference. Put ˚F and ˚C weather forecasts side by side, and ask people which they prefer. It's a nice spread of 0-100˚F outdoors usually, and you basically don't go outside if it's not. Freeway speeds, 0-85MPH legally and 100 means trouble. Freeway miles, about 1 per minute. Feet/mile is weird, but that's cause nobody converts miles to feet; you don't care to compare say a trip distance to the height of a human.

xcskier56 4y ago
I will agree that one of the few places that the imperial system is hands down better than metric is that on the highway it's roughly 1 mile per minute. That and it's just barely possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, so makes for a nice clean time barrier. But these are just coincidences and are the exception not the rule
- hot_gril 4y ago
  They are coincidences since these units were created well before modern cars, but they seem to have been created with reasonable relations to human constraints, instead of water.
  - spiderice 4y ago
    Everything you said about temperature is 100% true. Fahrenheit is simply better for day to day use. I disagree with you about distance measurements. I think the relationship between millimeters, centimeters, and meters is so much better than the relationship between 1/8th inch, an inch, and a foot, that it makes up for the convenience of traveling roughly one mile per minute on the freeway.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      I'm "split" on small lengths. Inches and feet were designed to divide nicely into many things, like 1/3, but the conversion is a little bothersome. Sub-inch measurements are usually expressed in fractions instead of decimals. Decimal inches are an option, but I guess that doesn't match the theme. So it's a matter of whether you want to do things in fractions or decimals, and one is probably better, but I can't tell which.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  IMO the imperial system is full of these coincidences, and if you look at history, you can see how they emerged: from historical people changing the size of the units until they had enough useful coincidences. A mile is about 1000 steps for a marching army, about 20 minutes of walking, or about 1 minute by car. Comfortable Farenheit temperatures roughly run from 0 to 100. A foot is about the length of a foot or a forearm, and an inch is about the length of the top joint of a thumb. 1/1000th of an inch (a "mil") is roughly the smallest discernable difference in size of objects when you look closely. People are about 6 feet tall. People weigh 100-200 lbs. The "lucky coincidences" continue. They do because they were evolved, not because they were accidents. Contrast that with the metric system, which was built around properties of water and powers of 10 (which are not obviously better than the powers of 2 and 3 that the imperial system uses - next time you need a 1/3rd recipe you can see what I mean). It is not an accident that a day is 2x2x2x3 hours and an hour is 2x2x3x5 minutes (attempts to adopt metric time were proposed, but rejected). Neither is it an accident that a foot is 2x2x3 inches, and a mile is 2x2x2x2x2x3x5x11 feet (although I have never divided anything by 11 recently). Imperial volumetric measurements are basically binary fixed point: 1 gallon is 16 cups, and 1 cup is 16 tbsp. There are lots of historical names for the intermediate units, like quarts and furlongs, but those have evolved over a longer period of time. For scientific use, the metric system is obviously a lot easier, and order of magnitude matters a lot more than easy divisibility and "feel" of a unit. For everyday use, I am not sold on it.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Yeah, the only thing human-centric about metric is using the same base as the number of fingers most people have.
  - xcskier56 4y ago
    There are a few coincidences in the imperial system that make life easy. That highway driving speed is around 1 mile per minute is a pure coincidence. Most/all of the other examples you list are pretty useless to me for daily life: - A mile is closer to 2100 paces for me, a 6’2” guy - 20min/mile walking is just as useful as 12min/km which is about equivalent speed - Temps, sure it’s a nice 0-100 witch is symmetric but not much else - 1/1000th of an inch doesn’t impact my daily life - height and weight are similar to temperature. A pleasant range that doesn’t make anything in my life easier - imperial volumetric measurements are actually insane and actively make my life worse. It doesn’t matter that they’re readily divisible by common numbers bc it’s impossible to remember what number to divide by to go between them.
kccqzy 4y ago
> It's a nice spread of 0-100˚F outdoors usually This is such a U.S. and Europe centric view of "outdoors" that I almost spit out my coffee. And probably a small part of U.S. and Europe at that. Ask people in the tropics or subtropical regions and they probably never experienced 0˚F in their whole life. Originally the lower defining point, 0°F, was established as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride. That's just as arbitrary as defining 0˚C as the freezing point of water.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  I don't mean that one small region hits 0-100˚F. That's not very common in the US or Europe either. But across all inhabited areas, 0-100˚F is pretty representative (again noting the sub-0 extremes where you're not going outside anyway). And say your area is just 60-100˚F, that's still decent, certainly better than a 22 degree range in Celsius.
stirlo 4y ago
If you grow up with metric none of these assumptions apply. You learn that 0C is cold, 20C is nice and 40C is hot. At what F do you need to worry about snow? like 30ish? Metric this is 0C so there's usefulness both ways.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Whether or not you grow up with it, you have to use an extra decimal point to differentiate between noticeably different indoor temps, and you can't say "it's in the 20s" or something and know what to wear. Memorizing 32˚F for freezing is a one-time thing, which really only matters for ice. You might have snow at 40˚F or no snow at 0˚F. Believe it or not, people don't seem to know the ˚F boiling point of water, probably cause it's just not a factor in everyday life. Your kettle whistles when it's boiling.

xcskier56 4y ago

I will agree that one of the few places that the imperial system is hands down better than metric is that on the highway it's roughly 1 mile per minute. That and it's just barely possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, so makes for a nice clean time barrier. But these are just coincidences and are the exception not the rule

hot_gril 4y ago
They are coincidences since these units were created well before modern cars, but they seem to have been created with reasonable relations to human constraints, instead of water.
- spiderice 4y ago
  Everything you said about temperature is 100% true. Fahrenheit is simply better for day to day use. I disagree with you about distance measurements. I think the relationship between millimeters, centimeters, and meters is so much better than the relationship between 1/8th inch, an inch, and a foot, that it makes up for the convenience of traveling roughly one mile per minute on the freeway.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    I'm "split" on small lengths. Inches and feet were designed to divide nicely into many things, like 1/3, but the conversion is a little bothersome. Sub-inch measurements are usually expressed in fractions instead of decimals. Decimal inches are an option, but I guess that doesn't match the theme. So it's a matter of whether you want to do things in fractions or decimals, and one is probably better, but I can't tell which.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
IMO the imperial system is full of these coincidences, and if you look at history, you can see how they emerged: from historical people changing the size of the units until they had enough useful coincidences. A mile is about 1000 steps for a marching army, about 20 minutes of walking, or about 1 minute by car. Comfortable Farenheit temperatures roughly run from 0 to 100. A foot is about the length of a foot or a forearm, and an inch is about the length of the top joint of a thumb. 1/1000th of an inch (a "mil") is roughly the smallest discernable difference in size of objects when you look closely. People are about 6 feet tall. People weigh 100-200 lbs. The "lucky coincidences" continue. They do because they were evolved, not because they were accidents. Contrast that with the metric system, which was built around properties of water and powers of 10 (which are not obviously better than the powers of 2 and 3 that the imperial system uses - next time you need a 1/3rd recipe you can see what I mean). It is not an accident that a day is 2x2x2x3 hours and an hour is 2x2x3x5 minutes (attempts to adopt metric time were proposed, but rejected). Neither is it an accident that a foot is 2x2x3 inches, and a mile is 2x2x2x2x2x3x5x11 feet (although I have never divided anything by 11 recently). Imperial volumetric measurements are basically binary fixed point: 1 gallon is 16 cups, and 1 cup is 16 tbsp. There are lots of historical names for the intermediate units, like quarts and furlongs, but those have evolved over a longer period of time. For scientific use, the metric system is obviously a lot easier, and order of magnitude matters a lot more than easy divisibility and "feel" of a unit. For everyday use, I am not sold on it.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Yeah, the only thing human-centric about metric is using the same base as the number of fingers most people have.
- xcskier56 4y ago
  There are a few coincidences in the imperial system that make life easy. That highway driving speed is around 1 mile per minute is a pure coincidence. Most/all of the other examples you list are pretty useless to me for daily life: - A mile is closer to 2100 paces for me, a 6’2” guy - 20min/mile walking is just as useful as 12min/km which is about equivalent speed - Temps, sure it’s a nice 0-100 witch is symmetric but not much else - 1/1000th of an inch doesn’t impact my daily life - height and weight are similar to temperature. A pleasant range that doesn’t make anything in my life easier - imperial volumetric measurements are actually insane and actively make my life worse. It doesn’t matter that they’re readily divisible by common numbers bc it’s impossible to remember what number to divide by to go between them.

kccqzy 4y ago

> It's a nice spread of 0-100˚F outdoors usually This is such a U.S. and Europe centric view of "outdoors" that I almost spit out my coffee. And probably a small part of U.S. and Europe at that. Ask people in the tropics or subtropical regions and they probably never experienced 0˚F in their whole life. Originally the lower defining point, 0°F, was established as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride. That's just as arbitrary as defining 0˚C as the freezing point of water.

hot_gril 4y ago
I don't mean that one small region hits 0-100˚F. That's not very common in the US or Europe either. But across all inhabited areas, 0-100˚F is pretty representative (again noting the sub-0 extremes where you're not going outside anyway). And say your area is just 60-100˚F, that's still decent, certainly better than a 22 degree range in Celsius.

stirlo 4y ago

If you grow up with metric none of these assumptions apply. You learn that 0C is cold, 20C is nice and 40C is hot. At what F do you need to worry about snow? like 30ish? Metric this is 0C so there's usefulness both ways.

hot_gril 4y ago
Whether or not you grow up with it, you have to use an extra decimal point to differentiate between noticeably different indoor temps, and you can't say "it's in the 20s" or something and know what to wear. Memorizing 32˚F for freezing is a one-time thing, which really only matters for ice. You might have snow at 40˚F or no snow at 0˚F. Believe it or not, people don't seem to know the ˚F boiling point of water, probably cause it's just not a factor in everyday life. Your kettle whistles when it's boiling.