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I find it interesting that the book is available about everywhere save for North America according to the author, but the first distances in the text are given

I find it interesting that the book is available about everywhere save for North America according to the author, but the first distances in the text are given in yards, mainly used only in North America. Ok, this is not the exact book text, but still, it looks as a misfit to the audience of the book.

clickety_clack 2mo ago
In England they still use imperial for some things, like miles, mph and mpg for cars, pints for drinks etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if shooting still used yards as well.
cestith 2mo ago
The UK wasn’t on the metric system during the first world war. https://ukma.org.uk/press/metrication-timeline/ https://ukma.org.uk/press/metrication-timeline/
- williamdclt 2mo ago
  still isn't for most purposes, and most people are still more comfortable with yards than meters for day-to-day stuff (friends are often looking at me blankly when I give a distance in meters)
  - RugnirViking 2mo ago
    > most people are still more comfortable with yards than meters I feel this is highly context dependant, too. Hanging out with a rural group of people born in the 80s? yards. Anyone in a city and/or born after 1990 is probably more comfortable with meters
    - roryirvine 2mo ago
      I'm a year older than Conway and have never heard people using yards to mean anything other than a concreted or paved area, even in rural settings. Maybe posh horsey types are different, but even they're mostly concerned with furlongs and hands and suchlike. (Not wanting to disparage Conway or his work - it's likely that, as gp suggests, his choice of measurements is simply due to the historic source material)
      - stonogo 2mo ago
        I was in England last month and the road signs still have yards on them. Their government has a whole website complaining about it: https://metrication.uk/transport/roads/distance-signs/ https://metrication.uk/transport/roads/distance-signs/
    - BoxOfRain 2mo ago
      When I was a student one of my mates was going on about the superiority of the metric system and how he wished the UK would adopt it fully rather than the heterogenous mix we actually have. The football was on in the background, and shortly after a goal was scored he exclaimed 'that must have been from thirty yards!' Personally I quite like the fact we use both, it underlines that our human systems of measurement are arbitrary rather than baked into the fabric of reality. I'm too old to be a zoomer and too young to be a millennial, but I'm more or less bilingual with unit systems. Useful for a European who deals with the US often!
      - CDRdude 2mo ago
        I find it mildly amusing that fully metric countries are seemingly stuck with some standardized measurements based on imperial units. Like how a soccer/football goal is 8 feet x 24 feet / 7.32 m x 2.44 m. Or how a standard shipping conatiner is 40 feet x 8 feet x 8 feet 6 inches/ 12.192 m x 2.438 m x 2.591 m. Or standard gague railways being 4 feet 8.5 inches / 1.435 m.
        oblio 2mo ago
        That's due to outsized British and American influence, but even that is waning. Nobody will change legacy sizes such as football goals, but every sport invented outside of those countries will use metric sizes. As the US wanes in influence, this will happen more and more.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - mrguyorama 2mo ago
    IMO metric is missing a critical measurement that is roughly the size of "a foot". Most measurements in one measuring system have very similar equivalents in other measuring systems or useful approximations, like a pound being 1/2 a kilo, a liter being about a quart, or a meter being about a yard. Even various ancient chinese measurements can be similar like this. Except the metric system seems to have eschewn the common measurement of "About the length of a human foot". It confuses me. What do you call a footlong submarine sandwich in the metric system? A third-meter-long? A decimeter-long? It wouldn't fit into the power-of-ten based system.
    - ninalanyon 2mo ago
      In the UK 300 mm is, or at least used to be, referred to as a metric foot.
    - kamma4434 2mo ago
      I lived all of my life in metric countries and I never felt that was missing. One foot is 30cm, two is half a meter, three one meter.
    - MDCore 2mo ago
      I went to school with a 30cm ruler in the 80s. As a result I have an instinctual sense for that length.
      - mrguyorama 2mo ago
        Why shouldn't a measurement that is so natural and familiar to most people that most human societies developed an analogous version and even places without it still end up using it, be a first class citizen of that measurement system? That's what confuses me. It's a dumb confusion admittedly. It's basically an argument to "Beauty" or aesthetics or similar.
        oblio 2mo ago
        Why do you need feet to measure anything? I've never in my life measured anything using feet. Paces, that's a different story, but those are closer to 1m, anyway.
wpm 2mo ago
A yard and a meter are basically the same anyways within a reasonable margin of error for lengths less than 5 or 10 meters.
soperj 2mo ago
Never met a Canadian who used yards, unless they're talking about the grass in front or back of their house.
rozab 2mo ago
Britain has a strange relationship with metric units, and there are certain things particular imperial units are still used for. Beer and milk is in pints (but nothing else), people are in stones, and how far you can sling something (a golf drive, a rugby ball, or a bullet) would be yards.
zrail 2mo ago
It comes out mid-August according to https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0593467426/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0593467426/

clickety_clack 2mo ago

In England they still use imperial for some things, like miles, mph and mpg for cars, pints for drinks etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if shooting still used yards as well.

cestith 2mo ago

The UK wasn’t on the metric system during the first world war. https://ukma.org.uk/press/metrication-timeline/ https://ukma.org.uk/press/metrication-timeline/

williamdclt 2mo ago
still isn't for most purposes, and most people are still more comfortable with yards than meters for day-to-day stuff (friends are often looking at me blankly when I give a distance in meters)
- RugnirViking 2mo ago
  > most people are still more comfortable with yards than meters I feel this is highly context dependant, too. Hanging out with a rural group of people born in the 80s? yards. Anyone in a city and/or born after 1990 is probably more comfortable with meters
  - roryirvine 2mo ago
    I'm a year older than Conway and have never heard people using yards to mean anything other than a concreted or paved area, even in rural settings. Maybe posh horsey types are different, but even they're mostly concerned with furlongs and hands and suchlike. (Not wanting to disparage Conway or his work - it's likely that, as gp suggests, his choice of measurements is simply due to the historic source material)
    - stonogo 2mo ago
      I was in England last month and the road signs still have yards on them. Their government has a whole website complaining about it: https://metrication.uk/transport/roads/distance-signs/ https://metrication.uk/transport/roads/distance-signs/
  - BoxOfRain 2mo ago
    When I was a student one of my mates was going on about the superiority of the metric system and how he wished the UK would adopt it fully rather than the heterogenous mix we actually have. The football was on in the background, and shortly after a goal was scored he exclaimed 'that must have been from thirty yards!' Personally I quite like the fact we use both, it underlines that our human systems of measurement are arbitrary rather than baked into the fabric of reality. I'm too old to be a zoomer and too young to be a millennial, but I'm more or less bilingual with unit systems. Useful for a European who deals with the US often!
    - CDRdude 2mo ago
      I find it mildly amusing that fully metric countries are seemingly stuck with some standardized measurements based on imperial units. Like how a soccer/football goal is 8 feet x 24 feet / 7.32 m x 2.44 m. Or how a standard shipping conatiner is 40 feet x 8 feet x 8 feet 6 inches/ 12.192 m x 2.438 m x 2.591 m. Or standard gague railways being 4 feet 8.5 inches / 1.435 m.
      - oblio 2mo ago
        That's due to outsized British and American influence, but even that is waning. Nobody will change legacy sizes such as football goals, but every sport invented outside of those countries will use metric sizes. As the US wanes in influence, this will happen more and more.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- mrguyorama 2mo ago
  IMO metric is missing a critical measurement that is roughly the size of "a foot". Most measurements in one measuring system have very similar equivalents in other measuring systems or useful approximations, like a pound being 1/2 a kilo, a liter being about a quart, or a meter being about a yard. Even various ancient chinese measurements can be similar like this. Except the metric system seems to have eschewn the common measurement of "About the length of a human foot". It confuses me. What do you call a footlong submarine sandwich in the metric system? A third-meter-long? A decimeter-long? It wouldn't fit into the power-of-ten based system.
  - ninalanyon 2mo ago
    In the UK 300 mm is, or at least used to be, referred to as a metric foot.
  - kamma4434 2mo ago
    I lived all of my life in metric countries and I never felt that was missing. One foot is 30cm, two is half a meter, three one meter.
  - MDCore 2mo ago
    I went to school with a 30cm ruler in the 80s. As a result I have an instinctual sense for that length.
    - mrguyorama 2mo ago
      Why shouldn't a measurement that is so natural and familiar to most people that most human societies developed an analogous version and even places without it still end up using it, be a first class citizen of that measurement system? That's what confuses me. It's a dumb confusion admittedly. It's basically an argument to "Beauty" or aesthetics or similar.
      - oblio 2mo ago
        Why do you need feet to measure anything? I've never in my life measured anything using feet. Paces, that's a different story, but those are closer to 1m, anyway.

wpm 2mo ago

A yard and a meter are basically the same anyways within a reasonable margin of error for lengths less than 5 or 10 meters.

soperj 2mo ago

Never met a Canadian who used yards, unless they're talking about the grass in front or back of their house.

rozab 2mo ago

Britain has a strange relationship with metric units, and there are certain things particular imperial units are still used for. Beer and milk is in pints (but nothing else), people are in stones, and how far you can sling something (a golf drive, a rugby ball, or a bullet) would be yards.

zrail 2mo ago

It comes out mid-August according to https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0593467426/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0593467426/