6 ms·

Yeah, I know. That's why I make fun of it some times. Not because it is French; though an American I hope I am not a damned ungracious American, and though I be

Yeah, I know. That's why I make fun of it some times. Not because it is French; though an American I hope I am not a damned ungracious American, and though I believe we may fairly call the original debt squared after Normandy, I recognize and respect the generous Gallic heart from which it sprang. But "the" metric system, so called, functions entirely on the happy coincidence of macroscopic distance being divisible at human discretion, while the similar and simultaneous effort at decimalizing time foundered on the rocks of how long it actually takes Earth to revolve upon its axis and to circle the sun. Both efforts originate in the same silly hamartiac human desire to prescribe a shape to which reality must conform, and thus may come in for about equal gentle contumely on that score. Especially since, in another example of its designers' foolishly misplaced priorities, metric offers no units at the human scale. They may have prefigured the brutalists in this way.

Zanfa 1y ago
You mean like my feet aren’t a foot long, my thumb isn’t an inch? Ironically, my pinky is a centimeter thick and a meter is when I take a long step.
- Joker_vD 1y ago
  The width of my palm (with my thumb, tightly pressed to it) at its widest is 10 centimeters, which is quite handy. Oh, and my "inch" is almost exactly 3 centimeters.
  - capitainenemo 1y ago
    There's a couple of convenience approximations I use to work with US Imperial.. 30cm is a "metric foot" (it's actually even closer to 1 light nanosecond which is kinda cool for thinking about distances at computer speeds) 250ml is a "metric cup"
    - throwanem 1y ago
      And now the famous triviality of order-of-magnitude and unit conversion goes entirely out the window...
      - coxmi 1y ago
        That’s where duodecimal comes in…
        throwanem 1y ago
        Duodecimal metric! Tell me more.
      - capitainenemo 1y ago
        You do what you can with the limitations of the system. Some rounding helps with a lot of feet/cups. 4 metric cups to the litre..
    - lostlogin 1y ago
      Speaking of feet - I got irritated when buying shoes and trying to convert shoes sizes. It turns out that UK/US sizes are based on the length of a barley corn. Quite why it isn’t just in centimetres is baffling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_size
      - throwanem 1y ago
        I'll give you this one, but only with the qualification that inches would be fine too. There's no benefit to the manufacturers in more rational standardization, though. As with women's clothing sizes, why would Levi's (for example) make it easier for me to find something that matches my style and budget, from anyone other than them? Hell, even men's sizes which nominally are in inches do this! I have to go a size up in Levi's vs Wranglers because Levi's size small, the bastards, while Lee mostly run true to size but none of their cuts is really worth wearing. And don't even talk to me about boot sizes! Inches vs. centimeters? Baby stuff. Get on my level. :D
steamrolled 1y ago
The point of the SI system is not that one meter is "better" than one foot. It's that we picked one subjective point of reference and then made almost all the other units related to that in a straightforward way and scaled with a common set of prefixes. In everyday life, the metric system offers no big benefit, except for consistency for international standards and trade. But if you're doing anything engineering-related, your life is simpler if you don't need conversion factors to move between liters, meters, joules, watts, amperes, volts, ohms, and so on. And FWIW, even to the extent that US engineers sometimes use inches and Fahrenheit, almost everything else they do is anchored to SI.
- kergonath 1y ago
  > And FWIW, even to the extent that US engineers sometimes use inches and Fahrenheit, almost everything else they do is anchored to SI. Inches are defined relative to the SI as well.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    As are Fahrenheit degrees.
    - throwanem 1y ago
      I don't know why people seem to think this is an "own."
- throwanem 1y ago
  Even when we use inches, they're frequently themselves metricated via division by 1,000 to produce the "thou." This is an extremely strong convention; I have one (inexpensive) digital caliper that can read in fractional inches, but every such tool I own reads in both millimeters and thou. I do think it's funny all these folks insisting metric is so humanist seem never to have noticed which of their finger joints is an inch long. For me that's the second of the little finger, but I have large squarish peasant hands. As for the rest, treating a centimeter as 10/25 of an inch and vice versa seems to work well enough for measurements not requiring particular precision, or in other words anything I'd be comfortable doing without a caliper. Where's the trouble, really?
kergonath 1y ago
> But "the" metric system, so called, functions entirely on the happy coincidence of macroscopic distance being divisible at human discretion What do you mean exactly? Any distance is divisible arbitrarily, it’s a continuous scale regardless of the unit system. We could define the metre as a foot (or rather, as the distance of some physical phenomenon close enough to a foot) and build a decimal system out of it, and it would have the same advantages as the metric system. > while the similar and simultaneous effort at decimalizing time foundered on the rocks of how long it actually takes Earth to revolve upon its axis and to circle the sun The fact that there are 60 seconds in an hour and 24 hours per day has absolutely nothing to do with how quickly the earth revolves. Your argument works (kinda) for the number of days in a year, that’s all. > Both efforts originate in the same silly hamartiac human desire to prescribe a shape to which reality must conform No, this is completely backwards. This effort originates from the idea that we should observe and understand nature, and build a rational society based on this understanding. The original metre was a fraction of the length of a meridian for a reason. They did not change the size of the Earth to conform to an arbitrary unit. Instead they came up with a unit that made sense to them, for both philosophical and practical reasons. They did the opposite of what you say. > Especially since, in another example of its designers' foolishly misplaced priorities, metric offers no units at the human scale The metre is about 2 thirds of an average human height (give or take, the average also changed with time). How is that not a human scale? If you want to go lower, to the scale of something you can hold, you have centimetres. If you want to go larger, to the scale of a distance you can walk, you have kilometres. And all conversions and comparisons spanning the 5 orders of magnitude relevant to our daily lives are seamless and make sense. What is your problem with this system? > They may have prefigured the brutalists in this way That is actually hilarious. The enlightenment philosophers and humanists who came up with the metric system are polar opposites of the brutalists. They rationalised our understanding of the world around us. They did not rebuild it square.
- throwanem 1y ago
  > They rationalised our understanding of the world around us. They did not rebuild it square. This is a distinction without a difference. Read James C. Scott, for pity's sake.
lostlogin 1y ago
> metric offers no units at the human scale. How do you apply this to the imperial system? I’ve heard this criticism before, but limited to temperature, with people saying they want more increments. I’m not sure why half a degree centigrade is so hateful.
- throwanem 1y ago
  Fahrenheit has finer divisions at the human scale, yes. A scale calibrated to the boiling point of water, at the top end, can tell me nothing useful about my environment beyond the manner in which it has probably killed me.
  - henrikschroder 1y ago
    If Fahrenheit is better than Celsius because the units are smaller, doesn't that mean that the kilometre is better than the mile because it has smaller units? It is all subjective. You like what you grew up with because it is familiar, not because it is better. You know by rote memorisation how much 100 feet is and what 75F feels like, the same way I know by rote memorisation how much 50 meters is and what 25C feels like.
    - throwanem 1y ago
      Show me where I have at any time argued one system is better than the other, as opposed to precisely that no system is strictly preferable, and I'll answer this point. Until then I can't and thus also won't. In the meantime your grasp of nuance or lack thereof is no pressing concern of mine. And my entire thesis has been flagrantly subjective throughout, save where the minor matter of relevant history is involved. To attempt to answer this with the charge of subjectivity, as though to do so accomplished other than to recapitulate what has been obvious all day, seems not only pointless but risible.
  - lrasinen 1y ago
    It's the other end of the scale that's very relevant in northern latitudes (Celsius was Swedish, after all). Negative temperatures => it's freezing. A very common morning coffee table discussion (translated from Finnish): "What's the weather like?" "Plus all day" "Kids, wear your Gore-Tex shoes to school"

Zanfa 1y ago

You mean like my feet aren’t a foot long, my thumb isn’t an inch? Ironically, my pinky is a centimeter thick and a meter is when I take a long step.

Joker_vD 1y ago
The width of my palm (with my thumb, tightly pressed to it) at its widest is 10 centimeters, which is quite handy. Oh, and my "inch" is almost exactly 3 centimeters.
- capitainenemo 1y ago
  There's a couple of convenience approximations I use to work with US Imperial.. 30cm is a "metric foot" (it's actually even closer to 1 light nanosecond which is kinda cool for thinking about distances at computer speeds) 250ml is a "metric cup"
  - throwanem 1y ago
    And now the famous triviality of order-of-magnitude and unit conversion goes entirely out the window...
    - coxmi 1y ago
      That’s where duodecimal comes in…
      - throwanem 1y ago
        Duodecimal metric! Tell me more.
    - capitainenemo 1y ago
      You do what you can with the limitations of the system. Some rounding helps with a lot of feet/cups. 4 metric cups to the litre..
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    Speaking of feet - I got irritated when buying shoes and trying to convert shoes sizes. It turns out that UK/US sizes are based on the length of a barley corn. Quite why it isn’t just in centimetres is baffling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_size
    - throwanem 1y ago
      I'll give you this one, but only with the qualification that inches would be fine too. There's no benefit to the manufacturers in more rational standardization, though. As with women's clothing sizes, why would Levi's (for example) make it easier for me to find something that matches my style and budget, from anyone other than them? Hell, even men's sizes which nominally are in inches do this! I have to go a size up in Levi's vs Wranglers because Levi's size small, the bastards, while Lee mostly run true to size but none of their cuts is really worth wearing. And don't even talk to me about boot sizes! Inches vs. centimeters? Baby stuff. Get on my level. :D

steamrolled 1y ago

The point of the SI system is not that one meter is "better" than one foot. It's that we picked one subjective point of reference and then made almost all the other units related to that in a straightforward way and scaled with a common set of prefixes. In everyday life, the metric system offers no big benefit, except for consistency for international standards and trade. But if you're doing anything engineering-related, your life is simpler if you don't need conversion factors to move between liters, meters, joules, watts, amperes, volts, ohms, and so on. And FWIW, even to the extent that US engineers sometimes use inches and Fahrenheit, almost everything else they do is anchored to SI.

kergonath 1y ago
> And FWIW, even to the extent that US engineers sometimes use inches and Fahrenheit, almost everything else they do is anchored to SI. Inches are defined relative to the SI as well.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  As are Fahrenheit degrees.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    I don't know why people seem to think this is an "own."
throwanem 1y ago
Even when we use inches, they're frequently themselves metricated via division by 1,000 to produce the "thou." This is an extremely strong convention; I have one (inexpensive) digital caliper that can read in fractional inches, but every such tool I own reads in both millimeters and thou. I do think it's funny all these folks insisting metric is so humanist seem never to have noticed which of their finger joints is an inch long. For me that's the second of the little finger, but I have large squarish peasant hands. As for the rest, treating a centimeter as 10/25 of an inch and vice versa seems to work well enough for measurements not requiring particular precision, or in other words anything I'd be comfortable doing without a caliper. Where's the trouble, really?

kergonath 1y ago

> But "the" metric system, so called, functions entirely on the happy coincidence of macroscopic distance being divisible at human discretion What do you mean exactly? Any distance is divisible arbitrarily, it’s a continuous scale regardless of the unit system. We could define the metre as a foot (or rather, as the distance of some physical phenomenon close enough to a foot) and build a decimal system out of it, and it would have the same advantages as the metric system. > while the similar and simultaneous effort at decimalizing time foundered on the rocks of how long it actually takes Earth to revolve upon its axis and to circle the sun The fact that there are 60 seconds in an hour and 24 hours per day has absolutely nothing to do with how quickly the earth revolves. Your argument works (kinda) for the number of days in a year, that’s all. > Both efforts originate in the same silly hamartiac human desire to prescribe a shape to which reality must conform No, this is completely backwards. This effort originates from the idea that we should observe and understand nature, and build a rational society based on this understanding. The original metre was a fraction of the length of a meridian for a reason. They did not change the size of the Earth to conform to an arbitrary unit. Instead they came up with a unit that made sense to them, for both philosophical and practical reasons. They did the opposite of what you say. > Especially since, in another example of its designers' foolishly misplaced priorities, metric offers no units at the human scale The metre is about 2 thirds of an average human height (give or take, the average also changed with time). How is that not a human scale? If you want to go lower, to the scale of something you can hold, you have centimetres. If you want to go larger, to the scale of a distance you can walk, you have kilometres. And all conversions and comparisons spanning the 5 orders of magnitude relevant to our daily lives are seamless and make sense. What is your problem with this system? > They may have prefigured the brutalists in this way That is actually hilarious. The enlightenment philosophers and humanists who came up with the metric system are polar opposites of the brutalists. They rationalised our understanding of the world around us. They did not rebuild it square.

throwanem 1y ago
> They rationalised our understanding of the world around us. They did not rebuild it square. This is a distinction without a difference. Read James C. Scott, for pity's sake.

lostlogin 1y ago

> metric offers no units at the human scale. How do you apply this to the imperial system? I’ve heard this criticism before, but limited to temperature, with people saying they want more increments. I’m not sure why half a degree centigrade is so hateful.

throwanem 1y ago
Fahrenheit has finer divisions at the human scale, yes. A scale calibrated to the boiling point of water, at the top end, can tell me nothing useful about my environment beyond the manner in which it has probably killed me.
- henrikschroder 1y ago
  If Fahrenheit is better than Celsius because the units are smaller, doesn't that mean that the kilometre is better than the mile because it has smaller units? It is all subjective. You like what you grew up with because it is familiar, not because it is better. You know by rote memorisation how much 100 feet is and what 75F feels like, the same way I know by rote memorisation how much 50 meters is and what 25C feels like.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    Show me where I have at any time argued one system is better than the other, as opposed to precisely that no system is strictly preferable, and I'll answer this point. Until then I can't and thus also won't. In the meantime your grasp of nuance or lack thereof is no pressing concern of mine. And my entire thesis has been flagrantly subjective throughout, save where the minor matter of relevant history is involved. To attempt to answer this with the charge of subjectivity, as though to do so accomplished other than to recapitulate what has been obvious all day, seems not only pointless but risible.
- lrasinen 1y ago
  It's the other end of the scale that's very relevant in northern latitudes (Celsius was Swedish, after all). Negative temperatures => it's freezing. A very common morning coffee table discussion (translated from Finnish): "What's the weather like?" "Plus all day" "Kids, wear your Gore-Tex shoes to school"