• Impound4017@sh.itjust.works
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    5 hours ago

    If I might make an argument for the imperial system? I’ll acknowledge that it is bad, particularly from a scientific perspective, but one advantage that imperial has over metric is its use case for human related issues. Most of the stuff you interact with daily is much more easily measured in feet and inches vs meters and centimeters (this ignores decimeters, but I’ve literally never seen anyone use decimeters in my entire life). Another good example is temperature. Celsius is more objective, but when dealing with the standard sorts of temperatures humans are generally concerned with, Fahrenheit gives you more granularity within that range.

    All that is to say: If I’m at work and someone uses imperial for an official measurement, I’m putting my fist through the drywall, but from a day to day perspective, I actually prefer imperial.

    Also, the mile is fucking indefensible. I’ll happily leave all 5280 of its feet out to rot.

    • Rothe@piefed.social
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      30 minutes ago

      It is not best for “human related” issues at all, imperial is pretty bad for those as well, but because you have grown up with it it seems so to you.

    • Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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      4 hours ago

      Most of the stuff you interact with daily is much more easily measured in feet and inches vs meters and centimeters…

      … only if it’s what you’re used to.

    • Damage@slrpnk.net
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      5 hours ago

      Most of the stuff you interact with daily is much more easily measured in feet and inches vs meters and centimeters

      Hard disagree. The centimeter is the best measurement there is for everyday stuff, you can easily express both round values or weird ones, and don’t need to switch between two scales as you do with feet and inches (and the stupid fact that there’s 12 inches in a feet, wtf). Meters are for distances.

      (this ignores decimeters, but I’ve literally never seen anyone use decimeters in my entire life)

      BECAUSE THE METRIC SYSTEM IS DECIMAL AND YOU DON’T NEED STUPID CHANGES BETWEEN UNITS, MOST PEOPLE JUST SAY TEN CENTIMETERS!

      Celsius is more objective, but when dealing with the standard sorts of temperatures humans are generally concerned with, Fahrenheit gives you more granularity within that range.

      If you’re measuring ambient temperature, 99% of the time being more precise than 1°C is pointless, in a room you may have more variance than that from a corner to another, same goes for outside. For things where you need better precision you sure as hell wouldn’t be using the imperial system, and you could instead take advantage of this neat trick called DECIMALS.

      Edit: addendum for everyday convenience: buying shit at the supermarket. The label expresses price per kilo but the packaging is in grams? You don’t even need to think about it. Drinks? They can even mix litres and kilos, no problem, the difference would be below negligible.
      Here in Italy we usually ask for meat cuts in “etti”, aka hecto grams aka 100grams, so I look at a cut, I see it’s 35€/kg, I ask for 3 etti, immediately know it’ll be 10.5€ (ALSO BECAUSE SALES TAX IS INCLUDED ON THE LABEL FFS)