5 ms·

Imperial measurements do have the benefit of more even divisors than metric. Pretty common to talk about measurements of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 of an inch and fin

Imperial measurements do have the benefit of more even divisors than metric. Pretty common to talk about measurements of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 of an inch and find those graduated on a ruler. Or 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/8 of a cup for liquid measures, etc. But then machinists generally work in thousandth or ten-thousandths of an inch.

analog31 6mo ago
I'm a fairly experienced machinist, though it's not my occupation. At the present time, machinists have the least problem with metric. The unit conversions are built into all of the machines and measuring tools. You press the inch / mm button. The ruler has inches on one side and mm on the other. Everything is standardized on IEEE floating point. ;-) It's a headache to maintain collections of parts and tools such as taps and dies for both standards. The biggest shift is simply the obsolescence of old stuff, and emergence of new stuff. And industries have adopted the practice of reducing the overall variety of parts needed. I work in the development of industrial measurement equipment, and where a design might once have had 30 different sizes of fasteners, now it's 5, all metric. Designs rarely need nuts and spacers any more. Washers are integrated into the screws. No more "philips" or flat head screws. And so forth.
- SoftTalker 6mo ago
  > Designs rarely need nuts and spacers any more. What is the modern approach where nuts/bolts and spacers would have been used? > No more "philips" or flat head screws. Torx? Rivets? Something else?
  - analog31 6mo ago
    Threaded holes and rivnuts. Now a rivnut is a part, but the fabricator keeps it in stock instead of us. More shaped stampings and castings so that spacers aren't needed. Reducing parts also reduces handling of parts. Probably CAD makes it easier to design these things in. At where I work, we use hex head (trying not to say Allen). I see lots more Torx in products as well.
crote 6mo ago
The problem is that fractions suck to do math with. Rather than doing basic addition you have to do a divisor conversion and then do an addition. Heck, the third-pounder burger failed because a significant fraction of the American consumers believed it was smaller than a quarter-pounder! And most of the kitchen stuff is a chicken-and-egg problem: the US used 1/2 cup because that's what it is used to, the rest of the world has recipes calling for 50g of flour. If the US was used to weight-based measurements everyone would have a kitchen scale with 0.1g precision lying around, instead of a bunch of measuring cups.
- dylan604 6mo ago
  You sound like an 8th grader asking the teacher when will we ever use this in real life type question. Fractions aren't that bad when like anything in life you are practiced in using them. Let's see what's faster in a kitchen, scooping something by measuring cup or trying to get a specific weight by 0.1g precision? I'm home after working all day trying to feed myself and mine. I'm not trying to win a start for my restaurant by the Michelin man. These incessant arguments of "why is someone doing something different than what I'm used to so stupid" are funny if not tiring. Why not ask why are there so many different spoken languages in the world instead of just speaking like me? We could go into if Rust is better than Go, or why Romulans are better than Klingons. The problem is that nobody wants to understand the differences and just want to rag on the person opposing their views. Yawn
  - digitalPhonix 6mo ago
    > scooping something by measuring cup or trying to get a specific weight by 0.1g precision Why are you conflating speed and precision? A cup-ish measure would be 200g and no one is measuring that to .05% accuracy. On the flip side, good luck getting .1g precision out of a measuring cup if you need it.
    - dylan604 6mo ago
      I'm pretty sure my reasoning was in my comment. Nobody making dinner wants to weigh things out. That's why there are measurements like 'add a pinch', 'just a skosh', or similar. Pretty much the only people I know that measure would be bakers. The point you're not willing to accept is that there's no dying need to be that precise and using "cup-ish" measures is good enough and works just fine.

analog31 6mo ago

I'm a fairly experienced machinist, though it's not my occupation. At the present time, machinists have the least problem with metric. The unit conversions are built into all of the machines and measuring tools. You press the inch / mm button. The ruler has inches on one side and mm on the other. Everything is standardized on IEEE floating point. ;-) It's a headache to maintain collections of parts and tools such as taps and dies for both standards. The biggest shift is simply the obsolescence of old stuff, and emergence of new stuff. And industries have adopted the practice of reducing the overall variety of parts needed. I work in the development of industrial measurement equipment, and where a design might once have had 30 different sizes of fasteners, now it's 5, all metric. Designs rarely need nuts and spacers any more. Washers are integrated into the screws. No more "philips" or flat head screws. And so forth.

SoftTalker 6mo ago
> Designs rarely need nuts and spacers any more. What is the modern approach where nuts/bolts and spacers would have been used? > No more "philips" or flat head screws. Torx? Rivets? Something else?
- analog31 6mo ago
  Threaded holes and rivnuts. Now a rivnut is a part, but the fabricator keeps it in stock instead of us. More shaped stampings and castings so that spacers aren't needed. Reducing parts also reduces handling of parts. Probably CAD makes it easier to design these things in. At where I work, we use hex head (trying not to say Allen). I see lots more Torx in products as well.

crote 6mo ago

The problem is that fractions suck to do math with. Rather than doing basic addition you have to do a divisor conversion and then do an addition. Heck, the third-pounder burger failed because a significant fraction of the American consumers believed it was smaller than a quarter-pounder! And most of the kitchen stuff is a chicken-and-egg problem: the US used 1/2 cup because that's what it is used to, the rest of the world has recipes calling for 50g of flour. If the US was used to weight-based measurements everyone would have a kitchen scale with 0.1g precision lying around, instead of a bunch of measuring cups.

dylan604 6mo ago
You sound like an 8th grader asking the teacher when will we ever use this in real life type question. Fractions aren't that bad when like anything in life you are practiced in using them. Let's see what's faster in a kitchen, scooping something by measuring cup or trying to get a specific weight by 0.1g precision? I'm home after working all day trying to feed myself and mine. I'm not trying to win a start for my restaurant by the Michelin man. These incessant arguments of "why is someone doing something different than what I'm used to so stupid" are funny if not tiring. Why not ask why are there so many different spoken languages in the world instead of just speaking like me? We could go into if Rust is better than Go, or why Romulans are better than Klingons. The problem is that nobody wants to understand the differences and just want to rag on the person opposing their views. Yawn
- digitalPhonix 6mo ago
  > scooping something by measuring cup or trying to get a specific weight by 0.1g precision Why are you conflating speed and precision? A cup-ish measure would be 200g and no one is measuring that to .05% accuracy. On the flip side, good luck getting .1g precision out of a measuring cup if you need it.
  - dylan604 6mo ago
    I'm pretty sure my reasoning was in my comment. Nobody making dinner wants to weigh things out. That's why there are measurements like 'add a pinch', 'just a skosh', or similar. Pretty much the only people I know that measure would be bakers. The point you're not willing to accept is that there's no dying need to be that precise and using "cup-ish" measures is good enough and works just fine.