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Liters are not SI units. Metric isn't magic. It's not ergnomic nor designed around the human body or everyday experiences. It started arbitrary. Then was def

by diydsp 15d ago

Liters are not SI units. Metric isn't magic. It's not ergnomic nor designed around the human body or everyday experiences. It started arbitrary. Then was defined as in terms of the wavelength of radiation from krypton-86. (the meter was 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of that particular transition to match the original arbitrary metal bar) Then they based it on the distance light travels in an arbitrary amount of time (1/299,792,458 of a second). These were all decidedly non-human scale measurements with no actual scientific basis. Yes they used scientific references, but theyre all arbitrary references.

dietr1ch 15d ago
I didn't say it was SI units, but it's easily convertible to them. Metric isn't magic, but it's a cohesive set of legos that can be transformed easily without requiring messy arithmetic and hard to memorise scale constants. Are you not pretending people use the modern, most-precise definitions in the day-to-day just to give yourself a stab at claiming that Metric is awful? Non-metric would face the same dilemma when trying to establish units in a way that can be scientifically replicated. The counter point is that non-metric is so bad that people don't even bother using it in this endeavor ;)
- bigstrat2003 15d ago
  > I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem. I guess it depends on how you define "problem". It took me years (probably a decade or so) to get good at estimating measurements. I would expect that to relearn how to estimate using metric units would take a decent portion of that (though probably not all). That is a very real cost to me if we were to adopt metric units. Meanwhile, metric also confers no benefit to me (ease of conversion math is irrelevant when I carry a calculator in my pocket, and I've learned the conversions I need in everyday life). So the cost-benefit analysis of switching to metric would be negative for my usage. But more to the point, it's fucking rude to come in here as you did and call people "uncivilized" for something as petty and meaningless as which units of measurement they use.
  - dietr1ch 15d ago
    (he meant to reply to a sibling comment)
- diydsp 15d ago
  [dead]
dgellow 15d ago
Virtually the entire world but the US is using metric. I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem
dietr1ch 14d ago
Oh man, and I completely missed the part where Imperial units aren't even standardised globally.
klaff 14d ago
Metric isn't magic but as an engineer who's had to use both systems for my whole career[^1] I despise the imperial system. Factors of 3, 8, 12, 640, 5280! Fractions used in carpentry. Just centering a picture on a wall is annoying. I will agree that a temperature interface in °C should read in increments of 0.5 in order to have roughly the same resolution as when in °C (and many don't, but that's poor UX). I don't care about 0-100 being roughly aligned to human environments - 0-100 being aligned to freezing/boiling of water is just as good a reference. [1] of the many things that Reagan should be despised for, cancelling metrication is probably not in the top 5, maybe not top 10. I still despise him for it.

by diydsp 15d ago

dietr1ch 15d ago

I didn't say it was SI units, but it's easily convertible to them. Metric isn't magic, but it's a cohesive set of legos that can be transformed easily without requiring messy arithmetic and hard to memorise scale constants. Are you not pretending people use the modern, most-precise definitions in the day-to-day just to give yourself a stab at claiming that Metric is awful? Non-metric would face the same dilemma when trying to establish units in a way that can be scientifically replicated. The counter point is that non-metric is so bad that people don't even bother using it in this endeavor ;)

bigstrat2003 15d ago
> I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem. I guess it depends on how you define "problem". It took me years (probably a decade or so) to get good at estimating measurements. I would expect that to relearn how to estimate using metric units would take a decent portion of that (though probably not all). That is a very real cost to me if we were to adopt metric units. Meanwhile, metric also confers no benefit to me (ease of conversion math is irrelevant when I carry a calculator in my pocket, and I've learned the conversions I need in everyday life). So the cost-benefit analysis of switching to metric would be negative for my usage. But more to the point, it's fucking rude to come in here as you did and call people "uncivilized" for something as petty and meaningless as which units of measurement they use.
- dietr1ch 15d ago
  (he meant to reply to a sibling comment)
diydsp 15d ago
[dead]

dgellow 15d ago

Virtually the entire world but the US is using metric. I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem

dietr1ch 14d ago

Oh man, and I completely missed the part where Imperial units aren't even standardised globally.

klaff 14d ago

Metric isn't magic but as an engineer who's had to use both systems for my whole career[^1] I despise the imperial system. Factors of 3, 8, 12, 640, 5280! Fractions used in carpentry. Just centering a picture on a wall is annoying. I will agree that a temperature interface in °C should read in increments of 0.5 in order to have roughly the same resolution as when in °C (and many don't, but that's poor UX). I don't care about 0-100 being roughly aligned to human environments - 0-100 being aligned to freezing/boiling of water is just as good a reference. [1] of the many things that Reagan should be despised for, cancelling metrication is probably not in the top 5, maybe not top 10. I still despise him for it.