My fellow 'Muricans, do you prefer metric or standard measurements?
We're taught both metric and US customary units in school. I prefer metric for most things, to the point I have a metric-only tape measure among other things.
However, I'll die on the hill that Fahrenheit is superior for ambient air temperature. 0 degrees to 100 degrees neatly encompasses the range of average surface temperatures seen throughout the year in the contiguous US.
Metric in logic, but standard measurements are ingrained into my brain so it's more practical. I think that sucks.
Agreed. If I am making it building something then I prefer metric. If I am thinking about how tall something is or how long it is I think in standard. I just feel that one foot is a good size to measure something rather than meters or centimeters. It's much easier for me to imagine a 6 foot tall object than a 1.83 meters or 183 centimeters. It's just easier to break something up into 6 parts than it is to break something into 1.83 parts or 183 parts.
I know you could use a unit that equals 25 centimeters and that would be similar to a foot, but no one uses that for some reason.
I always preferred metric and Celsius. When I lived in South Korea, I was able to adapt immediately. Now I live in Europe and it makes all of the conversions easier.
Americans resistant to metric, in my opinion, are not very smart.
Murican' here. The only place I prefer Fahrenheit is in weather mainly for how ironically base 10 it scales for human related comfortability for outdoor activity.
100°+ dangerous heat
90s very hot, drink lots of water
80s shorts weather
70s comfortable
60s long sleeves
50s jacket weather
40s bring a coat
30s coat and hat (water freezing is here at 32°)
20s layers
10s insulated layers
0s very cold, protect exposed skin
-0s dangerous cold
Everywhere else I'm fine for C°
30 is hot
20 is not
10 is cool
0 is freezing
-10 is terribly cold
You can just scale it down and have the same experience. It's all just habit and familiarity
The whole point is that it is ironically base 10. I thought that was the goal?
Base 10 is nice for crossing regimes of scales, orders of magnitude. But we don't really engage with temperature that way. The problem I have with F-heit on its own, is that it's much too precise. The difference of a degree is meaningless, especially when considering weather. Fahrenheit weather maps are cluttered, dials and buttons on thermostats and in cars are slow, thermometer readings change too frequently, etc. USian shoe sizes have the opposite problem. If you need to use half sizes all the time then FFS just multiply the scale by 2.
That's incidental:
I mean, base 2 is superior imho.
Dangerous heat depends on humidity, it varies wildly.
So give it a few more years of global warming and you won't want to use that anymore either.
Be thankful you at least stick to one system.
I'm British so we use some weird mash up of everything.
Weight - imperial when weighing people, fruit and veg (from a market), metric when weighing everything else.
Height - imperial when measuring people, metric with everything else.
Distance - imperial when walking or driving. Metric when running.
Fluids - imperial for milk and beer. Metric for wine and soft drinks. We fill our cars with litres of petrol but calculate fuel economy in miles per gallon.
This is the way.
I was raised needing a yardstick with inches on one edge and centimeters on the other, and the words "
'Merika,Great Britain fuck yeah!" scrawled along the center.(Edit: I crossed out 'Merika, so now you can borrow my yardstick.)
... wait... What about stones (as a unit of weight)? Or is this just a Scotland thing? (People were asking my weight. I had kilos, I had pounds, but they were wanting stones. .... Like really?!?)
14lbs in a stone.
Should have mentioned we do people weight in stones/pounds.
Top Gear hosts have used stones
My perspective is probably unique but…
I don’t have a hard preference for either. I know both and I use both on a regular basis. If I need to convert, I convert. I find that one might be easier or more practical for specific instances or applications, but that’s far from a blanket statement that one is always superior, and I have little tolerance for that kind of thinking.
I also convert, neither system bothers me. I truly believe that the pushback against standard measure is that most people who use metric don’t know the conversions well enough to comfortably use them. Most Americans don’t either, hence their resistance to metric. But once you learn how to convert between the systems in your head (roughly) you can navigate both. It’s like being bilingual
If America adopted the metric system the need for convertion would go away. So there is no need to be bilingual in this stuff... Use metric and that is it. But you cannot do that as a single person. Laws should be passed.
There’s really no need. You’re (collectively) the ones bothered by it.
The A system is superior to any american shenanigans!
A4 paper size FTW!
2xA5=A4
2xA4=A3
2xA3=A2
2xA2=A1
2xA1=A0 = 1 m²
And the ratio between sides is √2
It's beautiful
It's perfect 🥹
And they all taste identical.
Metric ARE standard measurments, the others are wierd.
Both are standard, just who's standard.
ISO (metric) are standard. All others are regional, therefore not standard. Standard of one is not a standard, it is an exception.
Metric. All day, every day.
My digital micrometer has a button for switching between regular and metric I don't give a single fuck
Metric. Imperial is a fucking mess. At least with Metric, most size measurements are 10 to the power of something.
I'm used to Imperial but metric is objectively better and easier to use.
Metric 100% when I'm working with mechanical stuff my mind works in metric but my brain has been poisoned to use imperial in other things and I actually really dislike it.
Metric. I do a lot of woodworking and auto repair and anytime I have to use not metric it's annoying
I normally don't talk about this in public.
But I'm Bimeasurable. I go both ways. Sometimes at the same time. That 7 inch 5mm I got packing is exciting.
Metric for most measurements except temperature (Fahrenheit - same reason you gave) and colloquial distances/velocities (e.g miles to the store, miles per hour).
Metric seems to be the superior measurement. Problem is , I can visualize 6in and NOT 6cm.
You can measure the length of your fingers, forearm etc in metric to gain some reference points
But a classic 12" ruler is 30 cm.
Half of that is 6" or 15cm
Half again is 3". Or 7.5"
Then realize visualizing didn't need to be accurate because it never will be anyway and go from there.
An inch is about 2.5 cm if you need a quick and dirty reference.
Converting by halfs was my go to.
It depends on what I'm doing.
Baking: metric - grams on a food scale help me replicate recipes perfectly.
Cooking meat: standard - 140°F steak, 165 chicken
3D printing: metric always
Woodworking/household: standard - inches are just the standard for all the things. Wood, curtains, hardware, etc
Mechanical: ??/?? Depends on where it's made! I hate having to switch wrenches or sockets due to the wrong standard.
This is the way
Metric. I've had my phone set up to display the temperature in Celsius for the last ~8 years so that I can get a sense of it without doing math all the time.
I prefer metric, it just makes more sense. Also having to add fractions in order to measure something is maddening. 10 1/4" + 4 17/32" vs. 260mm + 115mm
Metric - so much easier to understand and work with. I personally hate the imperial system, but I know it because of where I grew up. I would shed no tears if the U.S. switched to metric tomorrow.
100% metric
I tend to use metric when I'm designing 3D models.
In woodworking and other linear measurements, I use imperial units.
Celsius for my 3D printer, but Fahrenheit for weather.
Driving is miles.
In cooking I use imperial units.
Metric for Physics.
When I see imperial units in high school physics I wonder what is the point. We typically use SI units so that constants are the same across the board. I can't imagine c being anything else other than 3e8 m/s.
I remember my sophomore thermodynamics class in college always seemed artificially hard because the only really difficult problems were ones where they decided to use fucking BTUs.
I'm reading the wiki and that sounds like hell. I prefer the 4200J/kg/K edit: wait that's just heat capacity, maybe you were stuck in even more hell.
Scientists and physicists go in to use metric in work. US Engineers often go on to use imperial. Slugs and kips are units somewhere in there. But the engineers that calculate with gravity tend to be back in metric
Same as you. I agree on Fahrenheit on the same principle, but it's not that big of a deal and °C isn't that hard to adjust to.
You get used to what you use. When people tell me F I have no idea what they are talking about. I hate when my car or home reset to F after a power outage because they display gibberish. Is 68 a good inside temp? I know exactly what to expect for C.
This is true, but Fahrenheit is directly based on climate norms (though thanks to global warming there's an argument to be made for recalibration). For F, 0 is as cold as it typically gets most places, 100 is as hot as it typically gets most places. By that metric it's a useful measure for climate temperatures. For that purpose, measured temperature norms make more sense than the freezing and boiling points of water.
From what I've read, that's only a story that it was based on climate temperatures in his hometown. According to the story phycist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit defined the 0 and 100 degree points of his scale as the highest and lowest temperatures regularly observed in his hometown of Danzig, now Gdańsk, Poland, then later when he needed to recreate the 0 point of his scale he came up with a brine that stabilizes at a specific temperature.
What we do know for certain is that the brine existed, was made of water, ice, and ammonium chloride, it did indeed stabilize at 0°F, and according to a letter he wrote the scale was based on the Rømer scale, but adjusted in magnitude so he could make 32 divisions between the brine stable temperature and the freezing point of a regular water solution, then 64 divisions between that point and what he observed to be the normal human temperature. The reason for 32 and 64 divisions was that since those numbers were factors of 2, they would be easier to divide linearly between their respective upper and lower bounds.
Fahrenheit observed that using this scale water boiled at roughly 212°F then after the popularity of the Celsius scale some 50 years later redefined his scale so that it kept the original freezing point of 32, but now had 180 divisions between Fahrenheit's boiling point. This kept his existing scales fairly accurate to the new definition (the upper bound which was 96°F was now measured to be 98.6°F and the lower bound of the brine was 0°F now measured at 4°F) and used the new convention of defining the scale by water while keeping some nice number of divisions between their points, although they are a little more arbitrary now than they were before.
I use metric when working on personal projects and cad, I would vote yes if a miracle happened and switching all of the us to metric was on the ballot.
I have my phone set to show me the temperature in Celsius. I've tried really hard to internalize how far a kilometer is, and have failed so I still have my distance units set to miles.
I grew up with metric, so I have my temp/weather set to C as well. The only time I deal with F is with my thermostat. I’ve driven long enough to be able to visualize how far a mile is, but I still can’t visualize in feet past human height.
Imperial system (or whatever the US system is called ) should go away. Let's all just one standard.
Unfortunately, since I'm from the US, I only really know this one, and it's hard to switch when nothing else has switched. I'd put up with the pain of switching though.
Sadly, the US system is not the same as imperial. As far as I know the main difference is the gallon.
1 gal. Imp. = 1.201 gal. U.S.
I also hate having lb.f. and lb.m (pounds force and pounds mass), which have different units and at sea level are different by a factor of about 32).
Between all the science classes and the love of building PCs I'm all in on the metrics system.
For F and C, C is better for things like cooking, where what water is doing is useful. F is better for what we feel. Low numbers feel cold, hot temperatures (approaching 100) feel hot. I know people get used to C, if you're using it every day, but I still think F is the better system for it. That doesn't mean we should use it though. I think we should just switch to C and deal with it.
Metric all the way
Metric. I’m a mechanical engineer. I absolutely hate the amount of extra work i have to do because this country idiotically still uses USCS / standard. Every American company I’ve worked for is metric, but suppliers are often standard only.
Metric system 100% of the way.
I would prefer that we had continued on the path of converting to metric until Reagan killed it.
PhD in stem, also Murican, I use the metric system. I also have the conversions memorized, like 1 inch is 2.54 cm.
°C -> °F: double and add 30.
°F -> °C: subtract 30 and halve.
As of today, I am completely unable to estimate or visualize metric values with the exception of the meter (because it is roughly the same as a yard). That said, I would prefer to switch to metric and get used to it rather than continue using our current measurements. It would be vastly preferable to me to use mm and cm over fractions of an inch (I hate fractions, I much prefer decimals).
For temperature, I still prefer F over C. As you said, F is much more metric-like with a 100 degree range that roughly spans the typical weather environments we live in. And considering that the boiling point of water is only 100 C at sea level, that fact is no more valuable than remember that water boils at 212 F at sea level. The reality is, I don't actually care what specific temperature water boils or freezes at (at any particular elevation). I happen to know what the values are in both C and F, but it doesn't matter in my life (except for when I was trying to bake when living in Colorado).
Fun fact, the boiling point of water at sea level isn't quite 100 C, though it is close enough that 100 is a good enough estimate in most circumstances. The actual boiling point is 99.98 C.
Because everyone's thermometer is accurate to three significant digits.
Excluding a few examples like frequently used gym weights, common fastener sizes, and short distances, I still have to do rough conversions in my head to have an idea of what a metric measurement is, so I guess I'd say imperial.
But I wouldn't be upset if the US converted to metric.
Weight of human beings, weights at the gym, etc.: pounds
Height of people: feet and inches
Height of buildings: mostly feet, but occasionally meters.
Depth of water in scuba: meters
Kitchen weight: grams
Kitchen volume: fluid ounces only between 0-128 oz, then gallons after that. Decimal places, not fractions. So for example, cocktail recipes should all be in ounces, no tablespoons or teaspoons.
Distances in wilderness: meters/km
Distances on a football field: yards
Distances on a basketball court: feet
Distances on roads or in cities: miles
All temps in Fahrenheit.
Energy in calories for food and heat, watt hours for electricity, joules for everything else.
metric, since i was in the stems. people would freak out if you use kelvin.
Metric for everything but temperature because 69F is nice.
This is first time i have heard compelling and sensible argument for farenheit.
Raised in imperial land but studied science in college, so I prefer metric for almost everything other than talking about large distances.
I use both all the time, prefer metric
Metric
Fahrenheit is nice for talking about the weather, but metric is just better for everything else.
I'm comfortable working in both systems, I prefer standard for furniture building because I need to divide by 3 or 4 more often than by 5. I'm also going to fly in knots, nautical miles and feet of altitude.
I hop back and forth.
For temperature, Fahrenheit just makes more sense because a human useful range is basically 0 to 100 instead of 0 to ~30.
For measurements I use a mix. Feet and inches are useful for medium size things, but below a quarter inch I use millimeters because fractions of an inch is just a fucking mess.
Most often I don't get a choice. There is one system that makes sense for this because it is already in use.
My house was made in a standard system - the studs are 16 inches on center. The pipes are half inch (there is nothing half inch about pipes if you measure them). Using metric would be a big pain because the house was designed around standard measurements and so things are much easier to stick with it.
Our roads are standard. I can set my speedometer to metric - but then I'm in danger of breaking the law if I forget to convert. I tell someone "go X km and turn right" - but they won't know what a km is, and their odometer won't tell them either.
I work with farmers in Candada who measure crop yields in kg/acre because their local elevator buys their crop by the kg, and their land was measured in acres long before the country went metric - this is mostly about where they put the roads so land makes more sense when you measure in standard even though everything else in the country is metric.
I use metric where there is no reason in the real world to do otherwise. Which means I mostly don't use metric because almost everything I do deals with the world around me.
Same! It isn't really a preference ad much as it is just using what fits into what everyone else is doing.
I am certainly more used to imperial for car speeds, temps, and cooking but that is because it is what I use and what recipes commonly list and what I have practice using. If society flipped over to metric I would probably get used to it in less than a year.
I much prefer metric, but I live in the US so the Imperial units are what I grew up with and can work with most easily. The rest of the world uses metric, so I end up dealing with metric units quite a lot too. I have gotten to the point where I have a fairly good intuitive grasp of most metric units. I almost always use metric when I'm measuring things for my own use.
I do prefer Celsius to Fahrenheit for temperature. Fahrenheit may have made sense in the era and location where it was created, but in the larger world, where climate change is well underway, it no longer fits. The idea that the normal range of temperature fit into 0 F to 100 F was never true outside of the temperate zones. Just within the lower 48 states in the US we regularly experience temperatures above 110 F in the south and below 0 F in the north.
Also, it has always been true that the temperature that matters most is the freezing point. Putting that at 32 has never made any sense.
It frustrates me that the US came so close to adopting metric, then backed away, while the rest of the world moved forward. Now we're stuck with the worst of both systems.
It depends how you mean it. I prefer Imperial measurements because they’re what I’m used to but I honestly think the U.S. should join the rest of the world and use the Metric system.
I like cm and meters, also like feet and inches.
When I make bread, it's grams and kg for sure.
My phone tells me the temp in C, but I understand F better.
I freaking love the cups to pints to quarts to gallons thing though. It's archaic and beautiful. Gallon divides easily into 4 quarts, 8 pints, 16 cups. 128 oz. I like that doubling pattern. 8 pints in a gallon 8 ounces in a cup, it's just fundamentally pleasant in some way.
metric for math, F for temperature, whatever the fuck ounces/cups are for cooking because thats what my measuring receptacles say
Prefer metric. So much easier conversions. However, it is hard for me to think long distances and weight in terms of metric, on the fly, and ambient temperature.
Also a lot of tools are still in "standard" so have no choice but to use it.
I've converted to metric as an adult. Including Celsius. Does it piss my wife off? Yes. It's better though
Non American here…. Why not just use the same units as the rest of the world? Just to be less confusing? So fareinheit you might like better, you’ll get along with Celsius too after getting used to them.
The real answer is entire industries are already set up to produce certain measurements of materials. Outside of all the idiots whining, it would cost trillions to change many industries over to cleanly divisible products that would fit cleanly through the rest of supply chains.
An effort that I think should happen, but... well...
The rest of the world converted. Is the US so special that they're the only ones who can't?
I already said it's an effort I think is worth it.
Go ahead and try to convince the thousands of corporations that are willing to spend millions lobbying Congress to save pennies per product that they suddenly need to change over such an arbitrary detail...
Every other country on the planet convinced their businesses to do it. Again you're saying that the US is special somehow that it can't.
Again, you're not arguing with me, but with the companies that will spend millions to save pennies...
The US is special in that bribery is (now openly) legal. These corporations will not change just because Congress says so. They'll just change congress.
You do realize, that all industries that sell worldwide already did this?
Not US ones. Not the US wing of international ones.
Seriously, you do not fathom what I'm talking about...
For ONE example: Road signage. There are millions of mile markers in the US alone. That doesn't include bigger signs, like, "X service in Y miles". That doesn't include a lot.
Do you know how much each mile marker sign costs, let alone the much bigger signage? Even at tens of dollars, that's a lot of money, for one type of sign.
How many industries and other areas of daily life so you think include such verbiage?
Besides, I already said it's an effort I think is worth it, so you're just being a shithead.
Well, Road signs Need to be changed every twenty or so years anyway. So just switch them then. Who cares if the transition takes that long?
Most people with half a brain. Besides, road signs was just one example about cost, not feasability. Other industries, like construction, have a whole lot more invested in specific units.
Again, yes it's possible to switch, and I think it'd be worth it, but... again, go convince those industries that do everything possible to save pennies per product and tell them they have to change...
I'm in Canada, I swear I use both on a daily basis
I use grams for weighing food in the kitchen, because the imperial units toggle button doesn't work on my cheap scale. I use metric when designing for my 3D printer. I use imperial for everything else, because that's what I'm surrounded by, and of course, I'm used to that.
I agree about the temps, but I'd pick a better hill to die on. In the increasingly unlikely event that the U.S. ever officially embraces the metric system, I'll be happy for the change.
One more reason to say "Fuck Ronald Reagan", he killed our attempt to switch to metric. Asshole.
IMO measurements are actually one of the few areas in life where we are living in a decent timeline because US Customary is basically an affine rescaling of SI Units (affine but not linear because (at least) of x [K] = (x [°F] − 459.67) × 5/9) with exact conversion factors if you're careful. And then my personal preference for the units I was socialized under become irrelevant for practical work.
5/9 is close enough to half for most purposes, and 30 is close enough to 32 - you can be within a reasonable margin of error converting to F/C with much easier math. Sure it isn't perfect, but most of the time you don't need that accuracy in the first place.
No thank you, I like hard math. I didn't learn all this math to not use it 😆
Just make sure you don't get too many significant digets in your answer and so get the wrong answer.
I do like metric for a few things distance and mass. Temperature I prefer Standard when cooking or asking about the weather. Scientific metric is much neater and handy. When talking pressure I understand/like PSI better than Pascal.
I prefer metric but the C vs F I’m completely indifferent
Celsius does seem like a horrible measurement for weather.
Otherwise, metric is the clearly the best, but it's foreign to me. I honestly have no idea what 175 cm looks like, or how heavy 5 kg is.
What is wrong with celsius?
There's only about 30° difference between freezing and unbearably hot. Doesn't seem accurate enough.
Accurate? It's accurate; 0º water freezes. 100º water boils. 40º weather is hot AF. 40º and humid, is miserable.
Sure, for science, it's brilliant. In the real world nobody really cares about anything beyond halfway to boiling.
Under 40, bundle up
40s wear a coat.
50s jacket
60s hoodie
70s indoor clothes
80s as little as possible
90s naked
Vs.
4-10 wear a coat
10-15 jacket
15.6-20.5 hoodie
21.1 -26.1 indoor clothes
26.6-32.2 as little as possible
Over 32.2 naked
I didn't have to add decimals to any of the F values. There is no noticeable difference at half a degree fahrenheit.
They probably just aren't familiar. I'm not. I like the idea of 0-100F being what humans can safely and directly experience (+/-30) but I have plenty of contacts that intrinsically know what C means to the same degree.
Then again, as someone from a cold northern country, using celsius and having 0 as the temperature where water freezes is very handy when you need to think about driving conditions. Anything below 0 means the roads are probably icy and you should be careful.
I haven't had to think twice about 32F being the freezing point since before I could drive. It's just one of a thousand numbers I can remember. There's no particular advantage between g being 9.8m/s/s or 32ft/s/s. Nothing round about pi being 3.14. Whatever you use becomes recognizable quickly. My car takes 87 octane gas, takes 5w30 oil, has a wheel bolt pattern of 5x108mm or 5x4.25in, has a 63.4mm center bore, 320mm front brake rotors... The list goes on.
Where I live, in southern Europe, we get 40ºC several days a year (104ºF), and the odd 40 to 45ºC (113ºF). Thankfully dry. If humidity is low, and you have water and shadow, know how to dress, and you are reasonably healthy, 100 to 113ºF are safe, albeit not comfortable. People do live in Arizona, no?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's roughly the range, not an exact definition. More humidity, laboring to survive, or not having modern access to water would make 100+ considerably dangerous. Similarly, not having shelter, having high wind, or being wet makes 0- considerably dangerous. So yes, with current tech and convenience, we can casually survive -20 to 120, but it's still pretty awful.
I was also saying the range in regards to what we can touch and perceive. I know 1000 is very hot and melts some metals, but I can't really touch a 200 degree pot of water, either. I don't have intrinsic knowledge of the difference.
The thing is that Fahrenheit is basically arbitrary. From what I read in Wikipedia, 0 is the temperature of some harebrained brine solution, and 100 the approximate temperature of the human body.
Temperatures may make more sense to you because of habit, but the references are nonsensical.
Knowing that 0 is where water freezes, and that 100 is where water boils, is a way more useful reference in general.
I know that 18 is a baseline comfort temperature, 30 is nice hot weather, anything above 38 is damn hot. normal body temp around 37...
We usually remember reference temperatures in whatever scale we use, but the basis of Centigrade seems way more logical to me.
Used to Imperiel, especially with fluid amounts and temperature. It can die in a fire when talking about dimensions though. For example, when trying to figure out what the one up or down size of a socket wrench is is infuriating in fractuons. Metric is so much easier.
The problem with metric is that m10 wrenches, and especially sockets, are like socks in a dryer, the can teleport into another dimension.
I had a wera M10 socket on my desk, no other tools or sockets 🤷
Talking about distance, miles.
The limited wood working that I do, Metric. It's just easier to calculate.
Measuring things for other purposes, such as measuring windows for blinds... Imperial, because most places use it.
I prefer to use standard but metric was used very little when I was in school. Just advanced science classes. Like a little intro in grade school, somewhat in high school and then standard in college. Still every day usage is vastly dominated by standard. Now that being said I would prefer for america to fully use metric. It would suck for me but its just so stupid to be using standar measurements. I will say though that standard measurements are very human.
I was not taught both, but I try to use both when I post stuff on Lemmy, for the sake of readers. I typically have to look up the conversion.
Beyond that, I’ve started baking in metric because my super-precise scale handles it nicely, and there are an absolute ton of metric weight-based recipes but not a lot in imperial. Volume-based baking is just bad. It never turns out consistently. Volume is ok for cooking, not baking.
I also use Celsius for temps in games because that’s usually the default, but not meatspace because everything around me is presented in freedumb units. I don’t really have a preference between the two, but I’d just love if we switched to kelvin. I’m a big fan of scales that start from 0. It’s not even remotely practical for everyday use, but it IS precise!
I prefer metric for stuff I can use it for but in my industry everything small is measured in thousandths of an inch and everything big is measured in inches + fractions of inches so I usually use that in my day to day.
woodworking, house stuff, cooking, imperial all the way.
engineering, modeling, etc, metric city.
The only reason I prefer Freedom Units is because that's what I've grown up with and know. If I had grown up using metric, I would choose that all day. It just makes more sense, there's no random "12 inches to a foot" or "16 tablespoons to a cup" (I had to look this one up).
Metric is easy. A decameter is 10 meters. There are 10 decimeters in a meter. Each step up or down is 10 of the previous.
They aren't freedom units anymore. Maybe fascist units, tyranny units, something more along those lines.
The term was always tongue-in-cheek.
No. Americans have always called themselves leaders of the free world, leaders of democracy, the land of the free, and until about a year ago, they were, in principle, a free nation.
Now they are not. Now calling them free, is a lie. You dont get to call them freedom units anymore. If you want that back, you'll need to get your freedom back. I will always let anyone i see that uses that term know they are no longer free, as long as they aren't.
The loss of their freedom, and their choice to very little about it so far, will mean lots of pain and destruction for many people while their leader wages war on peiple starves them of power etc... all of his actions are blood on their hands. Unless they start doing everything in their power to prevent it.
I know it's not nearly as easy as 10s, but I always think of Freedom Unit liquid measurements in 4s.
1 gallon = 4 quarts (the name kind of gives that one away) 1 quart = 4 cups 1 cup = 4 quarter cups (yeah yeah, I know. Duh. But wait...) 1 quarter cup = 4 tablespoons
And then teaspoons have to be little assholes and throw the whole thing off, but whatever.
I used metric for years outside of the United States. its used pretty much everywhere else in the world basically. and then I came back to the US and I continued to use metric. and every once in awhile someone gives me a funny look like im a pretentious frog, a cultured Fancy pants or something. and I just want to tell them that I don't give a shit about what they think. and I'm bored with people. and I'm staying inside
standard metric measurements
I just measure everything in burgers, the way God intended.
Whatever is the most appropriate for the task at hand. Sometimes it makes sense to make your own.
Either is fine.
I have to admit I can picture American units more intuitively, but that’s just what you’re used to and use all the time. I have no idea what my height in metric is but it’s easy enough to look up and I’d remember it if I had reason to use it.
I also like afflicting measurement puns on my British colleagues. They groan in pain and may not appreciate the humor, but I’m amused at carrying on weather smalltalk about 30° vs 30°
I refuse to use imperial measurements for anything.
Then I whipped it out and said, yeah baby, it's 200 long...
Fahrenheit for temperature until the day I die. The rest I don’t really care, the mental conversions are easy to get close enough. But F for temp as a human being is vastly superior
How is it vastly superior? 0 is freezing. 100 is boiling. 25 is comfortable human temperature.
I’m not a cup of water
Tbf you are water, just really impure.
The meat is going to be very uncomfortable long before the water freezes or melts
Thermostats and other temperature displays with three digits for Celsius are a tacit admission that Fahrenheit is more useful.
Don't be scared of decimals. But it's whatever you are used to for measurement units. If you grow up with one, the other won't make any sense. You will prefer what you are used to.
Degree Celsius is just generally more preferable because it has an easy to understand, and to explain, scale. 0°C being water freezing and 100°C being water boiling. Degree Farenheit is just whatever the fuck (hence why the whole world adopted degree Celsius).
Same with the rest of the metric system, it's all divisible nicely. The USA is just stubborn to change, but are slowly converting, they will probably end up like the UK, using both.
The fact that Celsius needs three digits to express what Fahrenheit can do with two shows that Celsius degrees are too close together. Plus, you need a sign since Celsius is often negative.
Fahrenheit just covers the human-felt temperature range better. 0°F is very cold, 99°F is very hot.
And the zero-and 100-points of both scales are equally arbitrary. Kelvin at least has a zero point based on an intrinsic property of temperature. And “double” or “half” mean something in kelvin.
It doesn't? Nobody needs the accuracy of 3 digits to tell the temperature, a 1°C change is just about perceivable to us. So having more of a scale is irrelevant, we dont generally use decimals in weather reports because it's not needed (and if you do want more, then having 3 digits is literally a non-issue).
You also use a sign for negatives in Farenheit when it gets that cold and you use 3 numbers when it gets that hot. This is the first time I've ever heard this argument for Farenheit aha, it's like clutching at straws.
Basing Celsius around water, something we all come into contact to, which we freeze and boil all the time. Is not really an "arbitrary" scale. Farenheit was based on a solution of brine for 0 and then a rough estimate of human body temperature for 100, two things not even related.
You wouldn't like Kelvin, that uses 3 numbers.
I never seen a sign or a third digit on a Fahrenheit thermostat. Every time I set my car to metric it adds a tenths digit because Celsius degrees are too coarse.
What car is that, I am european and I haven't seen even a single time a car show anything in tenths of a degree and besides how the fuck is a thermostat going to get that precise without being a lab one or for a small space.
They are an admission that the U.S. market is large. 99 % of the world's countries using Celcius is a blatant admission that celcius is more useful.
Precisely. You get it
Customary for "by feel" estimates. Metric for calculations that require precision.
Metric all of the things. I haven't lived in the US for over a decade now, but spent the first ~30 years of my life there.
I use both. Probably more imperial, but I use plenty of metric. Im always converting between them for a variety of reasons. Just the other day my wife and I started our first mead. We did several volume conversions and used both measuring systems when convenient.
I can really only understand Fahrenheit, miles, and feet..centimeter millimeter are nice though for small things. Celsius kind of makes sense. Sometimes it gets so cold here Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same!
Metric, although I’ve never picked up an innate sense of Celsius
I'm accustomed to standard and would much prefer metric.
Mostly metric, but I've lived in metric land long enough that temperature and distance are intuitive now.
TBH, it's a foolish "argument" to have as some hard dividing line when electric voltage, plugs, which side of the road people drive on, money, language, alphabets, shoe size numbers, for a while video format, the size of printer paper, the age where adults can drink alcohol, car safety specs, governance systems, whether or not eating horse meat is OK, the day on which Christmas falls, marginal tax rates, flags, what we call headache medicine, what medicines are over the counter, and standard fuel grades, among a million other things, are also varied globally.
Hard disagree. These other things being varied are different in one very very important way.
Science is metric. Even in America it's not controversial to use metric in science, it's mostly required.
And we have come to understand the world in so much amazing detail, as well as the universe at large because we can understand each other when we need to explain the knowledge we are unlocking with science
If we all have that common base we have proven that we are much much much more capable when we do. So the metric system IS the better choice because it's what we use when we NEED to be using the same frame of references.
If we can remove the burden of having to relearn basic units of measurement when you have an interest in higher learning, why the hell would you want to waste time having to learn that as an adult?
Anyway that's my argument for metric being clearly a better direction. Because it's what built the modern world and is one of the few things that humanity got right(even if there are still hilariously ridiculous things inside it to poke fun at!)
That's my argument anyway, I do hope I have convinced you though I dont expect to. And I think it's really more of a matter of when are we just going adopt it and give those that come after us that benefit
I live in both worlds, metric and imperial. I know one is objectively better. That's not what I'm saying.
What I'm telling you is that the world is full of convoluted, arbitrary standards. Even the length of 1 meter or 1gram was arbitrary to start. Using 100 divisions of liquid water's STP points is very arbitrary. Science uses what it wants. Great. Science used to demand people speak Latin or French, too.
What you're also missing is that 99% of Americans do not care one bit that people going to university need to learn something else. They also learn fancy words! They learn how to use the weird v on the calculator! They're expected to learn strange esoteric nonsense (per the average person). That's work for them.
Whatever the large, large number of people on the left side of the IQ bell curve learn as kids is what will stick because many undereducated people deal with a lot of fear and living life around loss aversion. Changing something like units of measure is a fundamental element of their experience in life. To change that triggers huge loss aversion biases. Idiot patents will wage culture wars so they can raise kids just as stupid as they are. You don't even understand this is a psychological issue.
Go look at the panic around the redesign of the US dollar I'm 1996. I forget who said it, but "Americans are creatures of habit." We treat our post-WWII "traditions" like they're older than the sun. It's a conservative country, and this change of any sort is fought tooth and nail.
You're trying to use logic to make a case against an emotional and cultural artifact. Disagree all you want. Shout it from the rooftops. Doesn't make it so, or even you "right" or me "wrong." There only wrong is if you think it's a choice the average person makes any more than they choose their name.
And that list should have educated you on how many actually practical things there are that are potentially easier or more practical to change (LOL) before worrying about metric units, like it's some holy war for science. Science don't care about your feelings. It doesn't need you to convince random people online of anything. Go DO science instead.
I prefer metric for everything but indoor/outdoor temperature. Fahrenheit is based on human comfort ranges and feels more precise when used for that
I like using metric for measuring with a tape measure. Feels a bit more accurate and easy to remember as you go.
But wire size I think AWG (American wire gauge) is far superior than metric. Easy to remember, 18 16 14 12 or 10 AWG. Compared to metric which just lists the outside diameter. So those same sizes in metric are 1, 1.5, 2.5, 4, 6 mm²
I'm sure if I used it every day it'd be different. And the larger sizes in AWG are kind of a mess. It's even numbers til 1 AWG, then there's technically a 0 AWG, then it goes 1/0 to 4/0, then 250 - 1000 MCM (but also some people call it kcmil?)
Still just "feels" right to me after using it for so long
What is an "outside diameter" supposed to be?
mm² is also not a diameter, radius or circumference, but the area of the wire cross section.
How are AWG defined?
They're defined like all American measurements. By "feel" of each size
I've been doing electrical work for 11 years and I can feel a 12, 14, 16, or 18 awg wire in my hands and tell you the difference.
I mostly don't like how there's no rhyme or reason to the metric equivalent. All the numbers are basically random in order of each other so it's a crapshoot tryin to say something is one or the other. But again, I don't use it regularly
I'm sure that's mainly being used to one or the other? 0,5..0,75..1,5..2,5..4mm² are all quite distinct if you work with them a little. Imperials break my head though, can't do all these fractions and conversions in my head.
I know what you're sayin but AWG doesn't use fractions. A good equivalent would be like shirt size. Small, medium, large, extra large. It's just that size wire and that's the end of it. You don't need to know the diameter or cross section of conductor or whatever.
And even fractions are more of a feeling for us I guess. If you work with tools you can spot an inch, quarter inch, foot, etc. It really does come down to a "feeling" in a way that's difficult to put in words.
I'll tell you, it's the opposite of what you think, big number awg is absolutely tiny and 0 or 3/0 is huge. It's used in the UK sometimes for the thickness of sheet steel, mainly seen it for ducting, it's just an ass backwards measurement systems. They take the diameter in inch then take the logarithmic of it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge
Fascinating how they would come up with something like that!
What's the freezing point and boiling point in Fahrenheit?
The obvious question is: Of what?
Alcohol? Saltwater? Milk?
Water was chosen as it's common and repeatable and an arbitrary scale was made. It's logical but it's not profound. Any accepted range of a repeatable pair of temperatures could be used.
I prefer metric as it's based on logic and I'm familiar with it, but it's utility is not because it's based on water.
32° & 212° lol
Fahrenheit for temp, metric for everything else. Base 10 system is just easier.
Metric by far for most things. But for air temperature, Fahrenheit reigns supreme. I will die in that hill with you. Celsius is not granular enough.
And for the speeds used by and distances traveled by cars I do prefer miles per hour over kilometers per hour. I lived with kph in another country and just never cared for it for long distance or higher speeds. If I had to do math problems and getting feet or inches uninvolved, then fuck all that, but as a measure of travel I do prefer them.
But I love metric for most everything else. So clean and efficient.
You know there’s this newfangled invention called a decimal point?
No shit. And yet when you look at the weather temperatures, the reports are all without a decimal. And when you set your thermostat, it is also without a decimal. So in practical daily usage, it is still not granular enough precisely because the decimal is omitted.
No shit weather forecasts are without a decimal. Why would they include a decimal? Do you think weather forecasts are that accurate? I’ll bet all weather models calculate in celsius anyway, they just convert to Fahrenheit and round it. The error bars are probably much larger than a degree celsius to begin with.
No it’s not. My thermostat and pretty much all digital thermometers I have around the house use 1 decimal.
That's great that that's available now. When I had a Celsius thermostat it didn't have that level of control. Would've been great to keep the house more comfortable.
In regards to weather, it's generally accurate where I'm at. And again, we're still just talking preferences and I like the finer increments in Fahrenheit for weather. For what it's worth if anything, I have my computer setup to tell in Celsius and my phone in Fahrenheit so I get both on a daily.
This is again not really an issue with the thermostat. Back in the day they were analog so in theory they had infinite precision. Early digital ones didn’t have that level of precision because there was no point to it. The heating system itself simply wasn’t that precise. The temperature would swing quite a bit around the set temperature. The heating would be either on or off, so it would heat to a bit above the set temp, then cool down to a bit below it, etc. It would have been the same for Celsius or Fahrenheit.
Modern central heating uses a modulating heater, so it will only heat the radiators a little when the temperature difference to the set temperature is small, resulting in a more constant and thus more comfortable temperature. It’s even better with in-floor heating where the concrete slab of the flooring acts as a huge thermal buffer. Due to this more precise thermostats make sense (but only up to a point, because who can tell the difference between 20.0ºC and 20.1ºC)
Accurate how? If they predict a temperature of 18ºC, it will be around that temperature for a short time in the middle of the day, but outside temperatures aren’t constant. It’s coldest just before dawn and hottest in the afternoon. Between those two extremes the temperature rises and falls over the day. What is the point in saying it will be 18.4ºC instead of just saying 18º? There is no need for that level of precision. Even outside the temperature change over the day, the temperature also changes significantly depending on location. If I’m in an area with lots of trees and shade the temperature will be much lower than if I’m on an asphalt street. So even as you walk around the temperature will vary a lot.
Ffs dude. It's a preference. No need to go all autistic on me over it.
It’s a bullshit preference that makes no sense.
Also can’t help being autistic, I was born that way.
In the light of all the mayhem that their president is causing, it is great to see US Americans hone in on the topics that really count.