4 ms·

Because I don't want to deal with a hundred of anything, and I don't want to deal with decimal points. I want everything I measure to be near single digit numbe

by CyLith 5mo ago

Because I don't want to deal with a hundred of anything, and I don't want to deal with decimal points. I want everything I measure to be near single digit numbers. Hence, inches for common dimensions like a "2x4". I can handle something being 5 1/4 inches. How the hell large is 133 mm? Humans are not good at intuiting numbers far from unity. Miles are great. The typical highway speed limit is about a mile a minute. You can easily lower bound how long it will take to get somewhere if you know how far it is in miles. In cooking, I often need to halve quantities in recipes, hence pounds and ounces. Watching cooking channels give metric quantities is absolutely baffling to me. You see things like 175 mL. That is 2 sigfigs too many.

nonfamous 5mo ago
>> That is 2 sigfigs too many Don’t take up baking then, where the difference between 175 mLs of water and 200 mLs of water can be the difference between unworkable dough and the perfect pie crust.
mahkeiro 5mo ago
You don't want to manage a decimal point but you are fine adding two set of units? Like in 6'3?
- Jach 5mo ago
  When Europe switches to metric time I'll switch to reporting centimeters for my height.
- CyLith 5mo ago
  Yes. I see the 6 and I think: pretty tall, just a bit taller than me as a baseline. Then the 3 indicates another bit more. At no point am I adding the quantities to achieve a total. It’s two pieces of information in something akin to a binary search. I do woodworking and framing and approach is similar. Measure out to 6 feet first, then move out 3 inches more. It’s iterative refinement. To measure lengths I always do a few bisections like 3 feet, 2 inches, and 3/4 plus a sixteenth. I can remember a sequence of 3 or 4 integers for about a minute, long enough to transfer the measurement. Give me something like 135mm, and I’ll forget in a few seconds.
wodenokoto 5mo ago
> How the hell large is 133 mm? 1 1/3 decimeter, perhaps?

by CyLith 5mo ago

nonfamous 5mo ago

>> That is 2 sigfigs too many Don’t take up baking then, where the difference between 175 mLs of water and 200 mLs of water can be the difference between unworkable dough and the perfect pie crust.

mahkeiro 5mo ago

You don't want to manage a decimal point but you are fine adding two set of units? Like in 6'3?

Jach 5mo ago
When Europe switches to metric time I'll switch to reporting centimeters for my height.
CyLith 5mo ago
Yes. I see the 6 and I think: pretty tall, just a bit taller than me as a baseline. Then the 3 indicates another bit more. At no point am I adding the quantities to achieve a total. It’s two pieces of information in something akin to a binary search. I do woodworking and framing and approach is similar. Measure out to 6 feet first, then move out 3 inches more. It’s iterative refinement. To measure lengths I always do a few bisections like 3 feet, 2 inches, and 3/4 plus a sixteenth. I can remember a sequence of 3 or 4 integers for about a minute, long enough to transfer the measurement. Give me something like 135mm, and I’ll forget in a few seconds.

wodenokoto 5mo ago

> How the hell large is 133 mm? 1 1/3 decimeter, perhaps?