3 ms·

So to summarize, the defence is "feet seem easier to eyeball than meters" and "some people in the world still use Imperial". It is indeed contrarian. Also stat

by davedx 14y ago

So to summarize, the defence is "feet seem easier to eyeball than meters" and "some people in the world still use Imperial". It is indeed contrarian. Also stating that metric is derived form real physical properties of the universe "is about as useless and arbitrary in daily life that seriously, who cares" -- so it's useless to know that 1 liter of water is 1 kg?

VLM 14y ago
The best defense came in the comments, divisibility. Metric 10s can only be divided by 2 and 5 and thats about it without breaking out fractions and decimals, but imperial 12s and 16s are awesome for practical commerce because its so easily divided. Probably the best compromise that offends both sides equally would be using metric as the root unit and multiplier concept, with hexadecimal to express multiples. So 0xD3 hex kilograms would be 211 decimal kilograms, and a kilogram would be 16 times 16 times 16 grams not 10 times 10 times 10 grams, so that would be 864256 decimal grams aka 0xd3000 hex grams or very near 1900 decimal pounds. So a wood pallet with 0xD3 kilos of product on it with some packaging material weighs about a old fashioned ton in total. Either that or we should offend everyone equally by switching to a small prime number base to eliminate the usefulness of divisibility... so henceforth an imperial pound shall be precisely 7 ounces not more not less. Suddenly metric starts sounding better...