5 ms·

Imperial units are not “human scale” any more, or less, than metric: https://xkcd.com/526/ https://xkcd.com/526/

by teddyh 3y ago

contrarian1234 3y ago
A 1 foot sandwich can be easily shared with 2, 3, 4 or 6 friends. And nobody has 5 friends anyway. There are no meter long sandwiches .. and if there were, you couldn't split it between 3 people. It's impractical. It's like if there were 100 degrees in a a circle.. You'd go nuts Metric is for when you've made a mess of things and have completely given up on having nice round integer values EDIT: This comment has been timed to coincide with when Americans wake up to defend me :) ~ USA! USA!
- pavlov 3y ago
  Splitting a meter-long sandwich between three people is easy. You give each person a footlong slice, and the remaining 8.6 cm to the dog.
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    Or, you know... You look at it, more or less find the one third point from the tip, cut it there, then cut the remaining larger part in half. Which is probably the same way you'd do it if it was a 3.28ft-long sandwich instead.
    - pavlov 3y ago
      Impossible. Ever since Hercules accidentally stepped on his lunch sandwich in the stables of Augeas, his 12-inch foot has been the standard measurement for Ideal Sandwich.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- the-dude 3y ago
  In The Netherlands you can order beer in meters.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    At any spring break resort or in Vegas, you can order beer by the yard Edit: mustn't forget the French Quarter either
    - the-dude 3y ago
      Obviously a meter of beer is better than a yard of beer.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        Those last 3" (76.2mm) would just be foam anyways
        the-dude 3y ago
        Foam is measured in fingers.
- teddyh 3y ago
  Depends on how thick it is, doesn’t it? Why the insistence on measuring the length? Couldn’t you just as easily talk about 1kg sandwiches?
- Symmetry 3y ago
  I dunno, a quarter meter sandwich seems just as natural as a quarter pound burger.
- regularfry 3y ago
  > It's like if there were 100 degrees in a a circle There are 100 gradians in 90 degrees, does that count? They're probably supported on your calculator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    It's a similar kind of thing to decimal time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time
- vGPU 3y ago
  I could down a meter long sub by myself, and I’m fairly certain my dog could too. No need to share.
interestica 3y ago
I never understood why we never popularized a comparable metric measurement. A quarter-meter perhaps?
- snovv_crash 3y ago
  A decimeter is about 5 inches, which is the height of a cup, diameter of a burger, span across a hand, etc. To me that's a lot more human-friendly than a 'foot' being 12 inches.
  - teddyh 3y ago
    “Hand” is already a historical unit, equalling almost exactly 10cm; i.e. 1dm. Horses are measured in hands. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_(unit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_(unit)>
blululu 3y ago
You are citing a cartoon with a dick joke and a mom joke to say that metric is just as human oriented as imperial. Seriously: Imperial: 1 Foot ~ the length of some guy's foot. 1 Second - the duration of one heart beat. Metric: 1 Meter - some 1/10000 of 1/4 of an mis-measurement of the circumference of the Earth. 1 Second - stolen from the Imperial system cause 86 microdays did not easily divide by 10, 7, 24, 60, 30, 31 or 29.
- Lapha 3y ago
  The first mechanical clock that could accurately and reliably measure seconds was a pendulum clock with a length of one metre. Seconds and metres go hand in hand with the metric system.
taeric 3y ago
I mean, sorta? First, arbitrary numbers are arbitrary. But I can point to my foot and say that is about a foot in size. An inch is roughly one of my knuckles. A yard is roughly a step. Even that comic you linked drives this home. None of them are referenced to humans. They are things we mostly know, sure. But they aren't based on a human. (Well, I suppose the mass ones have an amusing set of people listed.) And this avoids the measures that, for my memory, just haven't made it to metric yet. Acre, Astrological Unit, Knot, etc.
IYasha 3y ago
"3 L - TWO-LITER BOTTLE" Um, okay...
HPsquared 3y ago
As computer specialists, we should advocate a return of the Imperial system using fractions of an inch for measurements. This is because it fits perfectly into the binary floating-point system. There are no more problems relating to 0.1 being an irrational number in binary. It's all broken down into 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 etc which in binary is 0b0.1, 0b0.01, 0b0.001, 0b0.0001

Imperial units are not “human scale” any more, or less, than metric: https://xkcd.com/526/ https://xkcd.com/526/

by teddyh 3y ago

Imperial units are not “human scale” any more, or less, than metric: https://xkcd.com/526/ https://xkcd.com/526/

A 1 foot sandwich can be easily shared with 2, 3, 4 or 6 friends. And nobody has 5 friends anyway. There are no meter long sandwiches .. and if there were, you couldn't split it between 3 people. It's impractical. It's like if there were 100 degrees in a a circle.. You'd go nuts Metric is for when you've made a mess of things and have completely given up on having nice round integer values EDIT: This comment has been timed to coincide with when Americans wake up to defend me :) ~ USA! USA!

pavlov 3y ago
Splitting a meter-long sandwich between three people is easy. You give each person a footlong slice, and the remaining 8.6 cm to the dog.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  Or, you know... You look at it, more or less find the one third point from the tip, cut it there, then cut the remaining larger part in half. Which is probably the same way you'd do it if it was a 3.28ft-long sandwich instead.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    Impossible. Ever since Hercules accidentally stepped on his lunch sandwich in the stables of Augeas, his 12-inch foot has been the standard measurement for Ideal Sandwich.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
the-dude 3y ago
In The Netherlands you can order beer in meters.
- dylan604 3y ago
  At any spring break resort or in Vegas, you can order beer by the yard Edit: mustn't forget the French Quarter either
  - the-dude 3y ago
    Obviously a meter of beer is better than a yard of beer.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      Those last 3" (76.2mm) would just be foam anyways
      - the-dude 3y ago
        Foam is measured in fingers.
teddyh 3y ago
Depends on how thick it is, doesn’t it? Why the insistence on measuring the length? Couldn’t you just as easily talk about 1kg sandwiches?
Symmetry 3y ago
I dunno, a quarter meter sandwich seems just as natural as a quarter pound burger.
regularfry 3y ago
> It's like if there were 100 degrees in a a circle There are 100 gradians in 90 degrees, does that count? They're probably supported on your calculator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian
- HPsquared 3y ago
  It's a similar kind of thing to decimal time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time
vGPU 3y ago
I could down a meter long sub by myself, and I’m fairly certain my dog could too. No need to share.

interestica 3y ago

I never understood why we never popularized a comparable metric measurement. A quarter-meter perhaps?

snovv_crash 3y ago
A decimeter is about 5 inches, which is the height of a cup, diameter of a burger, span across a hand, etc. To me that's a lot more human-friendly than a 'foot' being 12 inches.
- teddyh 3y ago
  “Hand” is already a historical unit, equalling almost exactly 10cm; i.e. 1dm. Horses are measured in hands. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_(unit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_(unit)>

blululu 3y ago

You are citing a cartoon with a dick joke and a mom joke to say that metric is just as human oriented as imperial. Seriously: Imperial: 1 Foot ~ the length of some guy's foot. 1 Second - the duration of one heart beat. Metric: 1 Meter - some 1/10000 of 1/4 of an mis-measurement of the circumference of the Earth. 1 Second - stolen from the Imperial system cause 86 microdays did not easily divide by 10, 7, 24, 60, 30, 31 or 29.

Lapha 3y ago
The first mechanical clock that could accurately and reliably measure seconds was a pendulum clock with a length of one metre. Seconds and metres go hand in hand with the metric system.

taeric 3y ago

I mean, sorta? First, arbitrary numbers are arbitrary. But I can point to my foot and say that is about a foot in size. An inch is roughly one of my knuckles. A yard is roughly a step. Even that comic you linked drives this home. None of them are referenced to humans. They are things we mostly know, sure. But they aren't based on a human. (Well, I suppose the mass ones have an amusing set of people listed.) And this avoids the measures that, for my memory, just haven't made it to metric yet. Acre, Astrological Unit, Knot, etc.

IYasha 3y ago

"3 L - TWO-LITER BOTTLE" Um, okay...

HPsquared 3y ago

As computer specialists, we should advocate a return of the Imperial system using fractions of an inch for measurements. This is because it fits perfectly into the binary floating-point system. There are no more problems relating to 0.1 being an irrational number in binary. It's all broken down into 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 etc which in binary is 0b0.1, 0b0.01, 0b0.001, 0b0.0001