Right but I don't know specifically how the matching is done so I was just funny that the only example I tried seemed to lean into metric and deride imperial. I'm not saying that's actually the case it just was funny to me that I got that result.
DDG defaults to the Bing database, iirc. Probably that's not all that different from Google, but I think you can preface your search with !g to get identical results.
I'm convinced the Imperial system is like those languages they make up for fantasy novels. I've only ever witnessed it in D&D and it seems impractical to learn for the day to day.
You usually don't convert the units in the day to day. Either something is a few inches, a few feet, or a mile away. Construction workers can usually measure stuff out by hand (literally) if they're doing stuff like framing.
A cup is quite literally a standard cup size. Any modern recipe will just be like "2 ¼ cups of milk" you can measure it or eyeball it. Anything smaller and you're using measuring spoons anyway, so conversion doesn't matter again.
Why do non-US people get weirdly emotionally invested in it? I mean, if we're criticizing, it's worse that US recipes use cups and tablespoons (measures of volume) for ingredients (like flour) that should be measured by weight.
I'm an immigrant in Canada. Canada officially adopted the metric system, migrated from 1970 to 1985, when the commission was abolished.
40 years later, due to inertia AND the proximity to a larger country that still uses a backward metric system, we have a mash-up of both systems here.
So yeah, I kind of feel it strongly.
But well, it's like people: you like them for their inherent qualities, you love them for their quirks.
It's the same here in the US, and I'm not sure that everybody realizes it. We officially adopted the metric system, too, but we haven't undertaken the massive effort needed to replace all of the legacy systems. For instance, all of our food labels have the volume in (milli)liters, and weight in grams; true, mostly that's listed as the conversion of the fluid ounces or ounces, but a few products have only the metric units. The required nutrition information label on the back is entirely in (milli)grams. Electricity is metered in metric units, and the electromagnetic spectrum is demarcated in them, too. All of our cars, motorcycles, bicycles, computers, and electronics use metric dimensions. (Hence the joke among mechanics about the 10mm socket always going missing.) Randomly, I've been looking for a couple of different light bulbs to buy online; every specification of a US bulb (base size, globe size, electrical requirements, luminous flux, color temperature) is a metric unit. Our money is metric, not just the denominations, but US law specifies the size and weight of coinage in metric units. (The dollar coin, for example, is 2mm thick.) Heck, even the US customary units are now officially defined in terms of SI units!
It's pretty much the units that people interact with day-to-day that we've kept the US customary system. Except for, y'know, drugs and ammo. The most-American of all things, cars, food, money, drugs, and ammo, all metric. What more do you want from us?! 😉
I'm not advocating for the continued use of imperial units. I do all of my work in metric units. I'm just explaining why the average person in the US doesn't really care about one system over another.
Sorry but cups seem to mainly be a Usian thing. As far as I'm aware most of the world uses actual metric measures, grams, ml and sometimes tbsp and tsp.
I'm getting it intermittently too, for what it's worth. Depending heavily on the unit. For example, I tried and realized "100 yards in real units" doesn't work, but "100 feet in real units" does.
Yes I've tried it. I'm simply saying it's not just "not google or microsoft". If one's goal was to avoid MSFT completely, then something like Brave Search would be preferable to them. If your only goal was privacy-respecting search, then DDG would suffice.
No one would know 3 ceniyards would be equal to about an inch.
But see that's one of the main problems. US goes yard-feet-inch-fraction of inch. And Meteric goes meter-centimeter-millimeter. The feet-inch type measurement disappears and those are the most common for people in everyday life.
~3 decimeters in a foot.
I feel like if the meteric system used decimeters more it would have caught on.
My door frame needs to be 36 inches or 3 ft wide. ×3 = 9 Decimeters.
But if I give a measurement in decimeters to a person that uses metric it's like I'm using some kind of forbidden unit.
I feel like metric people just use Meter, Centimeter, and Millimeter the same way and wouldn't change the decimal. They know how big the three are just like US people know Yard, Foot, Inch.
That string is about 10 centimeters long. Not many would describe it as .1 meter. It's about 4 inches or 1/3 of a foot.
Metric ton is a megagram. A US ton is .907 megagrams. UK ton is 1.016 megagrams
One spawns a pre-coded widget with obvious math equations inside, the other puts out values in a way you can't tell if it calculated stuff or made it all up. I am sure it triggers a side-calculator too, but I can't know if it exists, and if it was properly triggered this time after they presented the output like an answer from their Search Assist LLM tool.
This, and that you get a working multi-unit converter widget you can use again and again without asking DDG once more. I think the old way clearly wins.
It's a regional search toggle. You can click it and set it to any region. If OP set it to Latvia at some point, it will stay on Latvia until they change it again
Not loving the search engine but the phone browser is a life saver. I barely touch web sites on my phone, but fuck me, away from my home setup and Pihole, I want to scream.
Yet DDG still uses AI. Better use Startpage instead. It's like what Google used to be before they became shit and evil. I find it has better results than DDG, next to that they don't use AI. They also value privacy. And it's Dutch, so non American.
I just checked out startpage having never heard of it. They want me to log in. They want me to download an app. Their video search apparently censors NSFW content even with safe search turned off. The overall search results aren't better than any other search engine as far as I can tell. This is likely the last time I check out startpage.
I switched to Startpage a few months ago. I've personally found the search results to be better than DDG. I still use Google for shopping. Can't say I ever use the video search function, though. Never been prompted to sign in or create an account. Never downloaded an app.
Did you get the right website? Logins or apps are new to me. Search results are much better than Google or DDG. The blocking of NSFW with safe search off is also something new to me. I've been using it for some years now. For my work I have to use many different search engines. This one is the best one imo. Their privacy focus and EU location are also better than most.
The first line was broadly right. But you blundered on the second, especially by phrasing it in a condescending way, because how many figures you should quote to depends on more context than just how many figures the input was quoted to.
The hard mounting points, set in concrete for a large generator are to be 60 feet apart, per the manufacturer's instructions. The construction company rounds 18.288m to 18m because "significant digits, oi!"
The mounting points are now 28 centimeters too close together. The generator shows up on site, and now needs to sit to the side for four days while the hard points are moved. Or, maybe longer, because concrete trucks need to be scheduled ahead of time. It could be two weeks.
They should limit free searches to a certain number per day, maybe 10 searches. That way people would come back knowing they can try it again, making the free level actually useful, and perhaps eventually get pulled into paying for it. The 100 searches hard limit wasn't enough to convince me that I should pay $5/mo., or whatever it is, for just 300 searches. I've never gone back to try it again. It should be $5/mo. for 100 searches per day. That would get many more people on board, since that's more than most people would use in a day, and they could still have the higher tiers for the heavy users.
They've priced it wrong if they want the site to grow. But, maybe they've priced it right for whatever size they want it to be.
Yeah, that's great and all, but consider the following:
If I'm standing in the middle of a field and I need to measure sixty-ish feet for a fence, and I don't have a meter stick, I can get pretty close by walking heel-to-toe for sixty paces. There's no equivalent method for a meter and no metric unit that has a human body equivalent, while the most imperial length units all have human body equivalents.
Also, even if I do have a meter stick, how tf am I supposed to measure and mark 0.288 of one? Sixty feet is easier to work with.
There's also the matter of a foot being equally divisible into 2, 3, 4, or 6 equal lengths, all of which also have human body equivalents. If you know them all, and measurements relative to other objects aren't required, you can build things that measure up relative to themselves by just using fingers, hands, feet, marks, a square, and a straight edge, no ruler or tape required. I have projects close to ten years old built that way that are still standing strong.
A yard (3 feet) is .9144 meters. Since you're throwing accuracy out the window using heel-to-toe of different foot sizes, it's just as accurate, and just as usable.
Pretty close? If your foot is a UK size 12 and therefore 1ft long that will work, but any variance, say 1cm, equates to 60cm / 2ft across your 60ft.
Incidentally shoe sizes are measured with the size 12 UK being 1ft in length. Each shoe size goes down by one barleycorn which is an archaic measurement equivalent to a third of an inch, so a UK size 11 is 11 and 2/3 of an inch, a UK ten is 11 and 1/3 of an inch, and so on.
I would measure the 60ft using a lifesize printout of Johnathan Edwards 18.29m triple jump world record from 1995 which I keep handy.
My step length is 0.8m. After taking 25 steps, I have travelled 20m (roughly 65feet). 5 times that is 100m. 10 times that is 1km. Notice how easy those numbers are to multiply and divide. And notice how much easier it is to take regular steps than heel-to-toe steps. You know you could memorize how big your body parts are in metric too, right?
I'd argue that the only reason your preferred units are easier for you is because you are familiar with them.
Also, even if I do have a meter stick, how tf am I supposed to measure and mark 0.288 of one?
If only there was a way to calculate 0.288 of a meter. Maybe we could get a mathematician to draw up some kind of formula that'd let us cypher 29% of a meter.
I, and most people who work on land, can large-step a metre pretty accurately. In forty years of trade I don’t think I’ve ever under ordered product after pacing an area and adding 10% wastage.
The only time we routinely use accurate, calibrated measuring equipment is for boundary disputes.
sure, but at that point you can just use any arbitrary unit if all you need to do is keep it in a rough ratio. the SI system is useful because it's standardized, allows for precision, and you can easily convert units. A liter is a decimeter cubed, try doing that with feet and gallons.
but yeah, i agree people would benefit from more straightedge and compass construction skills instead of trying to read the milimeters of a measuring tape that's not even guaranteed to be straight
145 replies
Ok, but also
DDG is just a people pleaser. 🤷♂️
This is just funny:
I’m pretty sure it’s just a fuzzy context match.
The only outlier is that God uses inches apparently?
"If you give the Devil an inch, you'll be taken for miles!"
They make about as much sense as cubits.
Right but I don't know specifically how the matching is done so I was just funny that the only example I tried seemed to lean into metric and deride imperial. I'm not saying that's actually the case it just was funny to me that I got that result.
OP:
TIL DuckDuckGo is into BDSM.
The duality of duck.
I can tell that a student on a software engineering placement had a very fun afternoon making this
FREEDOM🏈🏈🏈
BRBRBRBRBRBR
OK, that got me smiling hard. :)
I've been told the DDG results are the same as Google, yet every time I compare they are quite different.
I've been using DDG since Trump's first term, when Google started manipulating COVID search results if memory serves.
DDG defaults to the Bing database, iirc. Probably that's not all that different from Google, but I think you can preface your search with
!gto get identical results.if you put !g anywhere it'll redirect you to google.com
There are many bangs that you can use.
!g is this right?
Hah. Same.
I don't know why you're all complaining. 1 mile = 3 muricaball fields = 24.7 Dodge™ Chargers = 2245.45 sausages = 3 thumbs-up (sponsored by Exxon and Doritos).
Its very simple.
This is just absurd.
1 mi =17.6 muricaball fields ~ 309 dodge chargers ~ 10560 sausages
(oh god I fucked up the math didn't I... here it comes...)
Here’s what I like about it:
But also turning off AI and location.
If, like me, you don't like to login to things, you can set your browser to use NoAI DDG by default.
That's obviously an AI-fake!!!1111
They at least had the good sense to shift USC to exact metric decimal definitions.
Yuck yuck yucky. USC hurts. And RIP US-based engineers.
It's not fun that you have to use multiple search engines now. I mainly use Qwant and I qwant to like it but wow is it terrible.
Forget search engines, i feel like im going through different browsers now just to get what i want. The internet is getting so bloated cause of AI. 😑😑
It's a dumpster that was once fun.
I'm solely using DDG and while it took some time to acquainted with it these days I usually always find what I'm looking for.
I'm convinced the Imperial system is like those languages they make up for fantasy novels. I've only ever witnessed it in D&D and it seems impractical to learn for the day to day.
You usually don't convert the units in the day to day. Either something is a few inches, a few feet, or a mile away. Construction workers can usually measure stuff out by hand (literally) if they're doing stuff like framing.
A cup is quite literally a standard cup size. Any modern recipe will just be like "2 ¼ cups of milk" you can measure it or eyeball it. Anything smaller and you're using measuring spoons anyway, so conversion doesn't matter again.
This is how not to construct things.
Measure twice, cut once. Then start over cause you measured with your hands like a buffoon.
Alright! Alright! I'll do it again! So… one… two… three… four… five… six feet and… yeah, that ought to be six feet a half.
Professionals tend to do it wrong and then just cover it up afterwards because it's faster/saves money.
Source: did carpentry/home renos when I was younger.
The US uses stupid measurements and makes up any excuse to keep using them
Why do non-US people get weirdly emotionally invested in it? I mean, if we're criticizing, it's worse that US recipes use cups and tablespoons (measures of volume) for ingredients (like flour) that should be measured by weight.
I'm an immigrant in Canada. Canada officially adopted the metric system, migrated from 1970 to 1985, when the commission was abolished.
40 years later, due to inertia AND the proximity to a larger country that still uses a backward metric system, we have a mash-up of both systems here.
So yeah, I kind of feel it strongly.
But well, it's like people: you like them for their inherent qualities, you love them for their quirks.
It's the same here in the US, and I'm not sure that everybody realizes it. We officially adopted the metric system, too, but we haven't undertaken the massive effort needed to replace all of the legacy systems. For instance, all of our food labels have the volume in (milli)liters, and weight in grams; true, mostly that's listed as the conversion of the fluid ounces or ounces, but a few products have only the metric units. The required nutrition information label on the back is entirely in (milli)grams. Electricity is metered in metric units, and the electromagnetic spectrum is demarcated in them, too. All of our cars, motorcycles, bicycles, computers, and electronics use metric dimensions. (Hence the joke among mechanics about the 10mm socket always going missing.) Randomly, I've been looking for a couple of different light bulbs to buy online; every specification of a US bulb (base size, globe size, electrical requirements, luminous flux, color temperature) is a metric unit. Our money is metric, not just the denominations, but US law specifies the size and weight of coinage in metric units. (The dollar coin, for example, is 2mm thick.) Heck, even the US customary units are now officially defined in terms of SI units!
It's pretty much the units that people interact with day-to-day that we've kept the US customary system. Except for, y'know, drugs and ammo. The most-American of all things, cars, food, money, drugs, and ammo, all metric. What more do you want from us?! 😉
I'm not advocating for the continued use of imperial units. I do all of my work in metric units. I'm just explaining why the average person in the US doesn't really care about one system over another.
Why dont they use feet? 😉
Sorry but cups seem to mainly be a Usian thing. As far as I'm aware most of the world uses actual metric measures, grams, ml and sometimes tbsp and tsp.
Where the machine is right, it's right.
How can you say its superior when it wont even tell me how many washing machines are in a giraffe.
I'd like to see the X-ray of that.
Found the African
It's probably your fault for specifying what kind of giraffe.
Its not a joke! It actually works!
Does it work for football fields to real units?
I use noai.ddg and don't get the converter thingy.
I use noai.ddg and get the converter thingy
I don't get it for football fields or other 'anything but metric' units which is what I was going for.
oic, yeah. When I try to convert "football fields" into meters, it gets it confused with sqft.
theres one for olympic sized swimming pool which is a substitute for volume.
A football field is 100 yards, so just try "100 yards in real units" if you're genuinely curious.
Tried going to regular ddg and don't get the converter thing, just regular results. I probably turned off a setting somewhere.
I'm getting it intermittently too, for what it's worth. Depending heavily on the unit. For example, I tried and realized "100 yards in real units" doesn't work, but "100 feet in real units" does.
I don't want to ask it yards. I want to ask it in 'anything but metric' units like football fields and Olympic sized swimming pools.
Didn't try regular measurements before, but yeah now I see it when I use those.
Really curious what the pattern is here. I don't get the converter on noai either.
120 yards really, the end zones are part of the field.
True, but:
its not google or Microsoft. that alone makes ddg far superior.
It uses bing's search index though...
okay. have you tried it? the index isn't representative of the algorithm and IMHO the results are way better on ddg
Yes I've tried it. I'm simply saying it's not just "not google or microsoft". If one's goal was to avoid MSFT completely, then something like Brave Search would be preferable to them. If your only goal was privacy-respecting search, then DDG would suffice.
ah okay, yeah I agree.
It uses a combination of search indexes including their own.
The index is one thing and how you query it is another
I use mojeek 😢
Used this all the time until I recently stumbled across the cli program
unitsNow do imaginary units
Ecosia:
Now that's obviously just plain incorrect. Everyone knows that real units are measured in bananas.
60 feet = 102.857 bananas
https://bananaforscale.info/convert/length/60-feet-to-bananas
🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌
Kiloyard Yard Centiyard Milliyard
Easy fixed US Customary
No one would know 3 ceniyards would be equal to about an inch.
But see that's one of the main problems. US goes yard-feet-inch-fraction of inch. And Meteric goes meter-centimeter-millimeter. The feet-inch type measurement disappears and those are the most common for people in everyday life.
~3 decimeters in a foot.
I feel like if the meteric system used decimeters more it would have caught on.
My door frame needs to be 36 inches or 3 ft wide. ×3 = 9 Decimeters.
But if I give a measurement in decimeters to a person that uses metric it's like I'm using some kind of forbidden unit.
Decimeters are still fine, wait till you hit people with the Dekameter or Hectometer
if you wanna be real fun you can always swap out Tons with Megagrams and its not even wrong
I feel like metric people just use Meter, Centimeter, and Millimeter the same way and wouldn't change the decimal. They know how big the three are just like US people know Yard, Foot, Inch.
That string is about 10 centimeters long. Not many would describe it as .1 meter. It's about 4 inches or 1/3 of a foot.
Metric ton is a megagram. A US ton is .907 megagrams. UK ton is 1.016 megagrams
Doesn't seem to work for volume, having tried gallons and teaspoons. But it works for length and mass/weight.
Seems useful for those cases you don't know what a furlong even measures.
I wonder how well it handles ounces.
Works too, but it's some AI thingy not the native search (which also uses AI so maybe it doesn't really matter).
One spawns a pre-coded widget with obvious math equations inside, the other puts out values in a way you can't tell if it calculated stuff or made it all up. I am sure it triggers a side-calculator too, but I can't know if it exists, and if it was properly triggered this time after they presented the output like an answer from their Search Assist LLM tool.
This, and that you get a working multi-unit converter widget you can use again and again without asking DDG once more. I think the old way clearly wins.
It converts into another imperial weight unity, and an international volume unity...
It didn't ask for clarification if you are dealing with precious metals...
I'm not sure any system like that can really work for ounces. But well, that's not bad.
Yes, but:
Random, but what's with the Lettland toggle? I can see you're German, why is there a toggle that basically says "Latvia"?
It's a regional search toggle. You can click it and set it to any region. If OP set it to Latvia at some point, it will stay on Latvia until they change it again
Not loving the search engine but the phone browser is a life saver. I barely touch web sites on my phone, but fuck me, away from my home setup and Pihole, I want to scream.
put your conversions in krunner like the foss gods intended
YES
I dunno bout you, but it's just easier to say 60ft than 18. 28m!
And I find 20m easier to say than 65.61ft? Sorry, am I missing a joke? Sometimes it's hard to Poe's Law the Americanisms.
Yes, you're missing the joke.
he's missing it by like 1,609.34 meters...
It would be easier to just say a mile.
What a stupid figure of speech.
What's a mile?
About 15 freedoms long
How many school shootings is that?
The joke being 'Murica?
' Tis an idiotic place
...no
Man, non-americans can be so slow lmao.
I will not be accused of stupidity by an American
Demonstrably the most stupid of developed nations
Cruel and evil, too
You can't even capitalise words correctly, you intellectual midget
Babe is so angry. Did you not read the comment thread?
Those kinds of widgets at the top of search are the thing I miss most after switching to searx
Yet DDG still uses AI. Better use Startpage instead. It's like what Google used to be before they became shit and evil. I find it has better results than DDG, next to that they don't use AI. They also value privacy. And it's Dutch, so non American.
Most AI features were turned off by default for me and if you really want to be sure, there is always https://noai.duckduckgo.com/ you can use.
Your phone keyboard also uses AI. And file search you use everyday.
Please, don’t boycott the good company just because they have a separate fancy UI for a chatbot.
I just checked out startpage having never heard of it. They want me to log in. They want me to download an app. Their video search apparently censors NSFW content even with safe search turned off. The overall search results aren't better than any other search engine as far as I can tell. This is likely the last time I check out startpage.
I switched to Startpage a few months ago. I've personally found the search results to be better than DDG. I still use Google for shopping. Can't say I ever use the video search function, though. Never been prompted to sign in or create an account. Never downloaded an app.
Did you get the right website? Logins or apps are new to me. Search results are much better than Google or DDG. The blocking of NSFW with safe search off is also something new to me. I've been using it for some years now. For my work I have to use many different search engines. This one is the best one imo. Their privacy focus and EU location are also better than most.
I've been using it for months and never signed in or installed an app. I don't remember it ever asking me to.
60' is 18m.
Y'all need to learn about significant digits.
The first line was broadly right. But you blundered on the second, especially by phrasing it in a condescending way, because how many figures you should quote to depends on more context than just how many figures the input was quoted to.
60' is 60min(utes)
Technically correct (the best kind of correct).
I don't have to learn shit about that goofy ass measurement system
Delightfully ambiguous :-)
I'm talking about the one that english people use
What's the wee apostrophe for? That means fuck all to me.
It's an old abbreviation for feet. A double quote is also an old abbreviation for inches.
It's a shorthand I learned from my father who was an engineer back before my country converted to the metric system.
There's a reply below making fun of this as the apostrophe and quote are also abbreviations for minutes and seconds too.
Not so good for building things, eh?
The hard mounting points, set in concrete for a large generator are to be 60 feet apart, per the manufacturer's instructions. The construction company rounds 18.288m to 18m because "significant digits, oi!"
The mounting points are now 28 centimeters too close together. The generator shows up on site, and now needs to sit to the side for four days while the hard points are moved. Or, maybe longer, because concrete trucks need to be scheduled ahead of time. It could be two weeks.
An engineer using DDG for units conversion should be procecuted for malpractice.
244,837,834,977,280
If you haven’t, you need to try Kagi search and that’s the best search engine in existence
They should limit free searches to a certain number per day, maybe 10 searches. That way people would come back knowing they can try it again, making the free level actually useful, and perhaps eventually get pulled into paying for it. The 100 searches hard limit wasn't enough to convince me that I should pay $5/mo., or whatever it is, for just 300 searches. I've never gone back to try it again. It should be $5/mo. for 100 searches per day. That would get many more people on board, since that's more than most people would use in a day, and they could still have the higher tiers for the heavy users.
They've priced it wrong if they want the site to grow. But, maybe they've priced it right for whatever size they want it to be.
Pay for a limited number of searches? Are they fucking insane?
Yeah, that's great and all, but consider the following:
If I'm standing in the middle of a field and I need to measure sixty-ish feet for a fence, and I don't have a meter stick, I can get pretty close by walking heel-to-toe for sixty paces. There's no equivalent method for a meter and no metric unit that has a human body equivalent, while the most imperial length units all have human body equivalents.
Also, even if I do have a meter stick, how tf am I supposed to measure and mark 0.288 of one? Sixty feet is easier to work with.
There's also the matter of a foot being equally divisible into 2, 3, 4, or 6 equal lengths, all of which also have human body equivalents. If you know them all, and measurements relative to other objects aren't required, you can build things that measure up relative to themselves by just using fingers, hands, feet, marks, a square, and a straight edge, no ruler or tape required. I have projects close to ten years old built that way that are still standing strong.
A yard (3 feet) is .9144 meters. Since you're throwing accuracy out the window using heel-to-toe of different foot sizes, it's just as accurate, and just as usable.
Pretty close? If your foot is a UK size 12 and therefore 1ft long that will work, but any variance, say 1cm, equates to 60cm / 2ft across your 60ft.
Incidentally shoe sizes are measured with the size 12 UK being 1ft in length. Each shoe size goes down by one barleycorn which is an archaic measurement equivalent to a third of an inch, so a UK size 11 is 11 and 2/3 of an inch, a UK ten is 11 and 1/3 of an inch, and so on.
I would measure the 60ft using a lifesize printout of Johnathan Edwards 18.29m triple jump world record from 1995 which I keep handy.
My step length is 0.8m. After taking 25 steps, I have travelled 20m (roughly 65feet). 5 times that is 100m. 10 times that is 1km. Notice how easy those numbers are to multiply and divide. And notice how much easier it is to take regular steps than heel-to-toe steps. You know you could memorize how big your body parts are in metric too, right?
I'd argue that the only reason your preferred units are easier for you is because you are familiar with them.
If only there was a way to calculate 0.288 of a meter. Maybe we could get a mathematician to draw up some kind of formula that'd let us cypher 29% of a meter.
I have seen many, many metre sticks. Precisely zero of them did not have cm markings on them.
and mm markings, letting you measure 28.8cm or 288mm.
You take big steps. Those are one meter. And you're done faster. Good enough for a rough measurement.
I, and most people who work on land, can large-step a metre pretty accurately. In forty years of trade I don’t think I’ve ever under ordered product after pacing an area and adding 10% wastage.
The only time we routinely use accurate, calibrated measuring equipment is for boundary disputes.
Why are you pretending you don't know a yard and a meter are fairly close?
sure, but at that point you can just use any arbitrary unit if all you need to do is keep it in a rough ratio. the SI system is useful because it's standardized, allows for precision, and you can easily convert units. A liter is a decimeter cubed, try doing that with feet and gallons.
but yeah, i agree people would benefit from more straightedge and compass construction skills instead of trying to read the milimeters of a measuring tape that's not even guaranteed to be straight
Btw. Warum ist es auf deutsch aber auf Lettland eingestellt?
Pourquoi pas?