good, england... let the imperial flow through you!

[Greenman]

We are kinda fucked up in our units as it is.
Beer comes in UK pints (not your wussy American ones), people are weighed in stones and pounds unless they are in hospital when it's Kg. They measure their height in feet and inches, unless it's in a medical setting. It's miles on the motorway but litres when filling your tank. So measuring your fuel consumption is interesting!
Coke is in grams, hash is in fractions of an ounce.

Welcome to the USA!

 

[Shmee]

Funny cuz I usually measure Star Destroyers in kilometers.

 

[MrSquished]

I remember fondly ten years ago, I had gotten my EU citizenship. I thought one day, some day, I'd move there to explore Europe from. No language barrier. Huge.

And then they went full retard. Like the US turned out to.

They should re do their measurement system based on the average IQ of their Brexit majority. Nothing can measure higher than the number 80. The new and improved imperial measurement system. Nothing is ever further than 80 miles away, and nobody weighs more than 80 pounds. Created by Brexiters, based on Brexiters

 

[PowerEngineer]

I got my degrees in science where SI units are the only units. In grad school I took a couple engineering classes and was like, "WTF"; we were doing crap like ?? slugs = pound-mass*fathoms/fortnight^2. The engineers seemed to hold it as a badge of honor to do unnecessary unit conversions.

Let's go full science, er... physics anyway:

Natural Units

 

[WelshBloke]

I got my degrees in science where SI units are the only units. In grad school I took a couple engineering classes and was like, "WTF"; we were doing crap like ?? slugs = pound-mass*fathoms/fortnight^2. The engineers seemed to hold it as a badge of honor to do unnecessary unit conversions.

The metric system is a thing of beauty.
Everyone knows the litre of water weighs a Kg thing but... (and I stole this text)

"It goes much further.

In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade-which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it.

Whereas in the Imperial system, the answer to 'How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?' is 'Go fuck yourself, because you can't directly relate any of those quantities."

 

[mikeymikec]

it made me cry the other day when I tried to compare the cost of two products and one gave its price per fl oz and the other gave it in price per ml.

 

[sdifox]

it made me cry the other day when I tried to compare the cost of two products and one gave its price per fl oz and the other gave it in price per ml.

1 fl oz = 30.5 cc. I have to do this conversion when I buy US goods. And we get a lot of US goods here.

 

[Iron Woode]

 

[Torn Mind]

Horsepower gives a vibe Watts or Kilowatts does not.

So pathetic that the metrics have to make the "metric horsepower" to compete.

 

[IronWing]

Horsepower gives a vibe Watts or Kilowatts does not.

So pathetic that the metrics have to make the "metric horsepower" to compete.

Horsepower as a unit was invented by James Watt, for whom the Watt is named.

The problem with horsepower is that a horsepower is not a horsepower is not a horsepower. Its value changes with use. Adding to that, manufacturers lied about the horsepower of their products, boosting the rating for sales and understating them for tax purposes, so for older equipment, the power ratings have little relationship to the actual power produced.

 

[Stiff Clamp]

*applause* I respect their independent streak. And appreciate the vote of confidence in our (their) measurement system.

 

[Zorba]

I'm pretty much OK with either system, though as @IronWing says actual science uses metric, for, I think, good reasons. Human weight is in stone/lbs and height in feet/inches (until you have a hospital appt, when it confusingly all goes metric), everything else is weighed in Kg/g, as @WelshBloke said.

Long distances are in miles, short ones in m/cm, and the only way I ever remember how many yards are in a mile is by converting from yards to feet to inches to cm to meters to km to miles (because the yard/mile relation only makes any sense if you remember what a furlong is, which nobody not involved in horse racing does).


I make an exception for Farenheit, which is the Devil's unit (used by all the thermometers in hell) and which means nothing to me without doing the conversion. It's a good way of telling that someone is either a boomer or an American if they use Farenheit (and hence to be shunned by all right-thinking folk).

Yeah, who wants a temperature scale that can account for the vast majority of human environmental temperatures from 0 to 100, as opposed to one that is -20 to 40. But it is really nice to know the current ratio of boiling to freezing at any point.

 

[Zorba]

The metric system is a thing of beauty.
Everyone knows the litre of water weighs a Kg thing but... (and I stole this text)

"It goes much further.

In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade-which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it.

Whereas in the Imperial system, the answer to 'How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?' is 'Go fuck yourself, because you can't directly relate any of those quantities."

Can you buy a Calorie from your power company? Or do you buy W-hr or Newton-meters (the proper SI energy unit)?

In the US I buy BTUs of gas, one unit of gas is 100 BTUs, so I can heat 1 pound of water 100 degrees F or 100 pounds 1 degree F.

For you to know how much power you need, you have to do a unit conversion as well.

This is why units get fucked up and SI has its own bastardizations too, people make up a unit that makes their life easier. Obviously this is much worse in English units, because they are much older and there was less rigger in controlling them.

But tell me, how many people give their weight in Newton's or measure tire pressure in Pascals. Speaking of a bastard unit, let's talk about Bars, it's not really an ATM, but let's pretend that it is.

It's really just what you are used to.

 

[KillerCharlie]

I really don't care what units I work in, as long as it is decimal based instead of fractions. Most of my career has been in aerospace, which uses decimal inches. I went to a gas equipment manufacturer for a while that used feet, inches and fractions of an inch to 1/64, OMG that was so annoying. The reason was because they used tape measures in the shop and didn't want to buy decimal ones. I said "Can we at least ditch the feet? Tape measures have total inches on them," but I didn't get far.

I personally think English units are better suited for everyday use. Probably just because I'm used to them, but SI units need more significant digits in a lot of cases, because they aren't based on real world things.

Exactly - the problem is using fractions instead of decimals, not the unit system itself. Most of my tape measures have tenths of an inch markings.

 

[Paperdoc]

Americans may not realize that they do NOT use the SAME "Imperial" units for many things.
1 IMP GALLON = 4.546 litres, but 1 US GALLON = 3.785 litres

1 IMP QUART = 1137 ml, but 1 US QUART = 946 ml

and so on for many volume units.

English "Standard" nut and bolt sizes drive American mechanics nuts! And unlike Metric tools, you would find it tough to buy English wrench sockets in the USA.

Let's not get started on chips, crisps and french fries! Or Football!

 

[lxskllr]

Exactly - the problem is using fractions instead of decimals, not the unit system itself. Most of my tape measures have tenths of an inch markings.

Ok, so there's 10 tenths to the inch, so that must mean there's 10 inches to the foot. Wait a minute. That doesn't sound right :^/

 

[Torn Mind]

Americans may not realize that they do NOT use the SAME "Imperial" units for many things.
1 IMP GALLON = 4.546 litres, but 1 US GALLON = 3.785 litres

1 IMP QUART = 1137 ml, but 1 US QUART = 946 ml

and so on for many volume units.

English "Standard" nut and bolt sizes drive American mechanics nuts! And unlike Metric tools, you would find it tough to buy English wrench sockets in the USA.

Let's not get started on chips, crisps and french fries! Or Football!

Wine gallon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So, so, so. Americans preserved tradition better than ye old Brits did.

Yes, the city of Hamburg did conquer America and made it hamburger and fries instead of fish and chips.

Perhaps the American system is the "ancient English way of measurement".

 

[SaltyNuts]

What gets me is the whole stupidity of people that think that having each measurement based on a multiple of 10 of some other measurement is somehow necessary superior, when the most common numbers people buy/use are not whole numbers under that system. A GALLON of milk is what people are used to buying, and want to buy. They don't want to go to the store and buy 4.5463791294395559 liters or 3.7852223176769 liters or whatever, and have to worry about the exact numbers and if someone is trying to change of the decimal amounts they are selling to try and screw them over. They want to find and purchase ONE GALLON of milk, nothing more, noting less - so easy, so simple. Get over it, the existing measurement system uses the numbers/amounts they do because that is what people USE and want to SEE. Metric system is for chumps UNLESS you grew up using it, and you are used to going to the store and buying like, whatever, 4 liters or 5 liters or whatever of milk. But quit trying to change a system that works just fine and that people grew up using and want to keep using because it ain't broke by any stretch and makes life easier...

Good on you UK!!!

 

[Torn Mind]

What gets me is the whole stupidity of people that think that having each measurement based on a multiple of 10 of some other measurement is somehow necessary superior, when the most common numbers people buy/use are not whole numbers under that system. A GALLON of milk is what people are used to buying, and want to buy. They don't want to go to the store and buy 4.5463791294395559 liters or 3.7852223176769 liters or whatever, and have to worry about the exact numbers and if someone is trying to change of the decimal amounts they are selling to try and screw them over. They want to find and purchase ONE GALLON of milk, nothing more, noting less - so easy, so simple. Get over it, the existing measurement system uses the numbers/amounts they do because that is what people USE and want to SEE. Metric system is for chumps UNLESS you grew up using it, and you are used to going to the store and buying like, whatever, 4 liters or 5 liters or whatever of milk. But quit trying to change a system that works just fine and that people grew up using and want to keep using because it ain't broke by any stretch and makes life easier...

Good on you UK!!!

The sell them in 1 liter bottles, with some variation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/9etgo4

Interesting reading. The Finns sure love milk more than all others....

 

[WelshBloke]

What gets me is the whole stupidity of people that think that having each measurement based on a multiple of 10 of some other measurement is somehow necessary superior, when the most common numbers people buy/use are not whole numbers under that system. A GALLON of milk is what people are used to buying, and want to buy. They don't want to go to the store and buy 4.5463791294395559 liters or 3.7852223176769 liters or whatever, and have to worry about the exact numbers and if someone is trying to change of the decimal amounts they are selling to try and screw them over. They want to find and purchase ONE GALLON of milk, nothing more, noting less - so easy, so simple. Get over it, the existing measurement system uses the numbers/amounts they do because that is what people USE and want to SEE. Metric system is for chumps UNLESS you grew up using it, and you are used to going to the store and buying like, whatever, 4 liters or 5 liters or whatever of milk. But quit trying to change a system that works just fine and that people grew up using and want to keep using because it ain't broke by any stretch and makes life easier...

Good on you UK!!!

Why the fuck would I want a gallon of milk? I'm not a calf.

 

[SaltyNuts]

The sell them in 1 liter bottles, with some variation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/9etgo4

Interesting reading. The Finns sure love milk more than all others....

No, I don't want a 1 liter bottle, or 3.786546549816 of them, or any other number of them. i want one bottle with one gallon in it, period. LOL, this is not a difficult concept, some things are just easier using measuring quantities that exist because of HISTORICAL PRACTICE, not because they are some 10 multiple of some randomly determined number LOL...

 

[SaltyNuts]

Why the fuck would I want a gallon of milk? I'm not a calf.

I don't know that your not a calf, dude. Prove it. And Arnold recanted his claim, you know...

 

[MrSquished]

No, I don't want a 1 liter bottle, or 3.786546549816 of them, or any other number of them. i want one bottle with one gallon in it, period. LOL, this is not a difficult concept, some things are just easier using measuring quantities that exist because of HISTORICAL PRACTICE, not because they are some 10 multiple of some randomly determined number LOL...

I don't give a fuck what the size container is called, as long as it's about as much milk as I want to store in my fridge, with two fucks given what the measurement is if it's a whole number.

Are you like numerically disabled?

 

[brianmanahan]

Why the fuck would I want a gallon of milk? I'm not a calf.

back in my dairy days, we'd go through a gallon a day

it was cheap and times were tough, so i would just chug the stuff. 2 big glasses of whole unpasteurized at a meal.

 

[WelshBloke]

back in my dairy days, we'd go through a gallon a day

it was cheap and times were tough, so i would just chug the stuff. 2 big glasses of whole unpasteurized at a meal.

I can't imagine choosing to drink a glass of milk as an adult! I cook with the stuff occasionally and there's some in the fridge if someone wants a spot in their tea but the idea of getting through 5 litres a day is fucking weird!