Metric system is dumb, and here is why (Rant) (2014)

@mbannick: I'm not taking a swipe, I'm saying that this is a really lousy, outdated attitude to things and should have ceased after World War II. If it makes you feel better, I'm none too pleased with Brexit and how that was mostly "our country first and damn co-operation" either.

I hate that I know imperial better than metric for certain things. I grew up using stone, pounds, and ounces for weight, and feet and inches for height, but I can't really think in feet and inches for distance - easier for me to think in metres. But my main points of reference for the weight and height of a person are pro wrestling and American football, so I know what my height - 6"2 - means but don't really know what 1.89m means. In the UK, we're sort of all over the place with what units we use; we still use miles instead of kilometres, but I know litres better than pints/gallons/floz. I'd be in favour of switching everything to metric to be in line with the rest of Europe, even though it would probably give me more of a headache than most people of my generation.

Also the temperature should be in Celsius.

And the first day of the week is Monday, and that is a hill that I am willing to die on.

Oh, and here's a quote from FX's Archer, season five:

Malory: "Metric? Who uses metric?"

Lana: "Every single country on the planet, except for us, Liberia, and Burma".

Archer: "Wow, really? Coz you never think of those other two as having their shit together".

This thread is 2 years old... but you do realise the English use the imperial system right? Who'd you think the yanks got it from? Now excuse me whilst I have a pint, or 568ml of lager. ;)

@rebel_scum: I know, and I also think it's super-annoying and we should probably also get off our arses and do something about it, but nooooo - apparently parliament has more important things to do.

Frankly though, my biggest annoyance is that I have zero clue how long a yard or a mile is and can't picture it in my head. At least I can say a pint is "roughly the size of the cup I'm holding" and leave it at that.

That's a bit disingenuous, the U.K. is stuck in some limbo state where both systems are used to varying degrees. For instance, if you checked the weather before you went to the pub you'd find it's 13C out.

@funkys: That's beer garden weather, shorts and T-shirt time. I use imperial and metric pretty much interchangeably but I think S.I. units being metric makes a lot of sense for simple maths (spellcheck wants to change it to math, fml)

PS. This thread's some quality trolling.

Huh. A thread with a bad opening post gets necro'd with another bad post. Makes sense.

This might be the worst first post in the history of the Giant Bomb message boards, and I'm including all the Korean spammers.

Don't mean to be that guy (yes I do, I'm sorry I lied), but what you're actually thinking of is a GiB, or Gibibyte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte. A Gigabyte is technically 1,000,000,000 Bytes as advertised, while a Gibibyte is 1024^3 bytes, though both terms are mostly used interchangeably.

Also, metric is dope.

This is a dumb old thread that should probably be locked, but it's worth saying that the benefit of the SI isn't just in the ease of conversion between metres and kilometres etc., but the that the base units are defined in terms of natural constants, and then all other units are derived from them. The real benefit being that you remove almost all constant factors from calculations. There are simple examples like 1 m^3 = 1 kL vs. the weirdness of 1 ft^3 = 7.48052 liquid gallons, but the real beauty comes when you get into things like 1 Nm = 1 J/radian. (Yes, I know radians are dimensionless, don't @ me)

Wow, this was a while ago, but sure, let's do this. =P

What I'm actually thinking of is GB, as it is actually used. Did you read the page you linked to, or its notations? It says Gibibyte is what the IEC decided to change the Gigabyte's name to in 1998, but computer and telecom companies are split on adopting the terminology. The IEC's attempt to change the name in order to avoid confusion with metric terminology hasn't worked out so far, with low adoption rates even now, 20 years later. The hardware manufacturers usually use GB = 10^9 while the software manufacturers almost exclusively use 1 GB = 2^30. As long as the consumers' operating systems keep telling them that their hard drives have x number of GB, and websites tell people that what they're downloading is x number of GB, GiB won't be adopted as a meaningful standard.

Also, metric is simple and useful, but cold, boring and arbitrary. It tries to apply a rigid structure to a non-rigid world. The GB/GiB question is actually a decent metaphor for one of its problems: In computers, binary is fundamentally linked to how they are made and work. Transistors are off or on, 0 or 1. They don't physically use decimal. We use decimal because we have 10 fingers to count on, that's it. The decimal system is for our benefit, and not inherently superior in measuring the universe. In bar tending and hairdressing, people use "finger" as a unit of measurement. It's fast, easy, requires no tools and that you might not get exactly the same size drink or haircut doesn't matter, so the measurement is still popular.

Well, this looks like fun! What's up with you guys thinking the week starts on Sunday?

I’m an American and taking part in the return of this old thread does not directly benefit me, so eat a fat one, I’m out of here. Also, thanks for all learning to write in English for my benefit, you can go back to using your native languages now since I’m leaving.

If I had my way you would all be speaking Gaelic and eating coddle yiz yanky doodle dandies. Pog mo thoin!

@breadbull: While I do spend several minutes each day feeling embarrassed that my fellow countrymen elected our current leader and certainly don’t put a lot of stock in blind nationalism, if you think any non-English speaker is using the English language online, in person, for business, profit, or any endeavor for any reason other than their own benefit, you are absolutely mistaken. Attempting to placate or condescend about it only adds irony to the mix.

Realize this is an old thread but I've thought about this before, so I'll weigh in. Just waiting for 13 deadly sims to start anyway. As a former chem major who immediately jumped ship when things got hards...metric system is fucking dope. Whenever you have to do any kind of math, the process is so much more streamlined when you are using the metric system. It's not even close. Imperial system makes no sense and is a pain to convert, and its only a matter of time until we ditch it. I took a lot of courses with a lab and they made us use Imperial occasionally and every time we were like "what even is an inch, how do I work with this shit?" People who like it have never had to really work with it in any meaningful way.

I will say that Celsius is still weird to me and Fahrenheit is easier to use when talking about the weather specifically, but not for anything else.

Not a metric/imperial thing, but do Americans really not use 24hr clock?

After watching the CD-I video again the other day, I was struck by how vehemently Dan thought 24hr clock should only be used by the US military.

Why make life harder and add a level of ambiguity to your plans? If you say “meet you at 6 o’clock” how does the other person know if you mean am or pm. Just say “meet you at 18:00” and they’ll know exactly what time you mean.

Not just Americans. Most English-speaking countries use the 12-hour clock to varying degrees.

It really isn't that difficult. When speaking colloquially, context resolves any ambiguity. When you need to be exact and context isn't obvious, add AM or PM.

Metric is easily the most preferable for baking. I don't need to get out several measuring cups or worry about leveling off scoops, I can just weigh them in grams and generally get way better results.

But for the weather and temperature, I prefer Fahrenheit over Celsius. It's cleaner than using decimals. And it's a bit weird measuring outdoor temperature based on water boiling and freezing points when you'll never use 60% of the scale. Celsius is great for scientists, but it doesn't feel right for everyday use.

@fledeye: I mean, it's called "Military Time" for a reason.

Welp, grab a shovel gents. Your graves aren't going to dig themselves.. ;P

I love how I didn't read anything in this thread prior to my post. Not sure why so much serious "discussion" coming out of a silly topic.

I do not like the 24hr clock because I'm dumb and don't want to do unnecessary math. Also, for a large portion of those hours the vast majority of people are sleeping so there is very little overlap and not much confusion when communicating time. If I said "Lets meet at 6" then I mean 6 PM because I'd jump off a bridge if I was doing anything at 6 AM.

@fledeye: I remember when I was a kid, I saw a clock at a hospital that was divided into 24 hours. I asked my parents why and they said it was because the hospital never closed. So in the context of any type of that profession that might use a 24-hour clock, it makes sense. Military, hospitals, a manufacturing job or a warehouse that has people operating 24/7. I can see the need. In everyday conversation, it's not really necessary, though. If we're meeting for dinner at 6, it goes without saying that you mean 6 PM. In the case of many businesses in the US, the distinction between AM and PM is usually implied and contextual.

It is pretty amusing to teach people how easy it actually is to convert time to a 24-hour clock, though. Take how many hours it is past noon, add 12. That's usually all it takes.

I'm all for writing today's date as 11 April 2018, though. Rather than 11/4/18 or 4/11/18. Just put the month in there and that makes it easier to read. This only really comes up if I happen to be reading an article from a European site, but I wouldn't mind that being the same across the board.

from my time at University, the metric system felt like the clear winner when it comes to science. It's just so much easier to convert weight & volumes around. I don't feel as strong towards Fahrenheit or Celsius. If you're used to Fahrenheit it works for daily life. If you're used to Celsius it works just as well. If you're doing science, just go for Kelvin instead. Same with time. Weight & volume in metric is real important though.

My thing with 12 vs. 24 hour is that when using language to explain time, I prefer 12 hour - it's better to say 9pm than 2100 or whatever - but I use a 24-hour clock on my computer, my phone, and my alarm clock so visually I prefer a 24-hour clock. I think in general we Brits much prefer to use 12-hour clocks because it's what we're used to. But this isn't something I feel very passionately about, and if 12-hour timekeeping dies because everyone has digital timekeeping, I'll shed not a tear.

But the real question here is Swatch internet time - is that still a thing? I remember Jeff would often bring it up when discussing time, dunno if that's because he thinks it's genuinely better or if he just thinks it's funny.

If someone expects me to do something at 6 o'clock in the morning, then they can fuck right off. As others have said, the vast vast majority of time people can infer from context without having to think about whether someone means AM or PM. Also, it's still fewer syllables to say "six pee em" than it is to say "eight-teen hun-dred hours", which is 5 and a half syllables.

You can just drop the "hundred" part though, I'd just say "meet you at eighteen".

Close this Thread down fucking monsters ! enjoy your Feet Leg yards hands bullshit how long was a feet in the 1500 anyway ! And if it's feet shouldn't it be toes instead of inches !

An interesting thing about the US military is that uses both miles and kilometers. For example, you might go on a 12-mile road march or do a two-mile run for a PT test. When looking at a map and heading towards your next objective, you're going to be talking about distance in terms of kilometers (klicks).

How much weight is in your rucksack? That's measured in pounds. What are the effective ranges of a given weapon system? You're talking about meters.

Only in the US. Anywhere that habitually uses it don't call it military time.

You aren't really doing maths though - when I look at the time and it's 2259 (current time in the UK) I'm not converting to 10:59PM, that's just the time. Even if you are, it's just knocking 12 off (hours%12); it's not hard.

I will just point out something from earlier in the thread though - Celsius (spelling from chart) was described as "Logical scale at which Zero is the Base level", but zero is just as arbitrary. That's an argument for Kelvin.

@soulcake:

Toe was already taken as a unit of energy.

Basically, anything official that might have to be shared with NATO allies is metric.

Except for flight altitude references, which are still done in feet. For some reason.

@frytup: Makes sense. The NATO thing, not the flight altitude thing. Related question: during commercial flights in Europe, does the pilot announce the cruising altitude? It's pretty common in the US.

I'll use this to take this off my chest: why the fuck you americans use proof for alcohol content?? I know the origin of that; but now it's just double the ABV and you are the only one to do that. Measuring by volume is a simple percentage, why should anyone feel the need to measure stuff by doubling it?

@stordoff: Yea it does make sense and you're not doing any adjustment when your in an environment that uses the 24hr clock I guess.

I am though, so whenever I see it I have to then convert it to my (normal) time.

Worse than the 24hr clock is time zones though. So annoying.

@cagliostro88: Because bigger number means it's better.

Honestly I'm not sure of the exact answer, but it probably has to do with our liquor laws and I don't just mean the dry state laws. We have rigid regulations for what makes whiskey a bourbon or a rye for quality control purposes, such as what proof range it has to be when it enters the barrel and what it has to be when it leaves the barrel. Also bonded whiskey or approach (another quality control regulation) has additional restrictions, the main one being it has to be 100 proof. So in this instance, proof is literally written into the law and I think it's a point of pride in distillers.

@burncoat: Ok but that is a process that everybody else does for their alcohol (plus other varied regional restrictions), but they simply use the percentage for it. Doubling it doesn't change anything if not resulting in a bigger number as you said. If I tell you this to be proper "insert random spirit or liquor" it has to be 40% abv it's exactly the same as if i'm telling you it has to be 80 proof. It's like deciding randomly that in food break-downs info i don't know, sodium?, it's now measured in double it's percentage and called something else, it doesn't make it any sense, and it's oddly confusing for the consumer. For example if i take a liter of wine at 13% abv I istantly know there is 130 milliliters of ethanol inside, what's the point of doubling it? I'm just ranting but I must say I was very confused when i first approached american culture, i didn't know there was this difference (because you are the only one in the world that do this), so i simply thought that proof and abv were the same and i was very confused thinking about what you guys were drinking.

This is my actual bugbear. I grew up being taught metric, but we still use miles & m/h on road signs & car speedometers. I prefer metric personally but honestly I just wish we'd settle on one or the other globally. The dumb mashup of both is needlessly confusing. I don't want to have to remember that 1 foot is 30.4 centimetres, and that 1 yard is 3 feet and that 1760 yards are in a mile which means 1 mile is 1.61km to make sense of distances. It's a ballache. As it is I end up using metres for shorter distances & things like height (I am 1.84m tall for example) but the ubiquity of miles when it comes to driving mean I often end up thinking in them for travelling.

I just wish we'd standardise this shit. It's helpful. We live in a global world these days after all. Using the same scales of measurement and temperature and so forth doesn't seem like a huge ask.

Once Britain used non-decimal currency. I can't even begin to wrap my head around it, it was based on Roman currency, Pounds, Shillings & Pence. 12d in a shilling. 20s in a pound. Fortunately that changed in 1971, before I was born, but it was alarmingly recently for such an overly elaborate system. And then you have farthings which were 1/4 of a penny & the halfpenny which is a 1/2 a penny obviously. 5 shillings is a crown & 2/6 was half a crown. And the guinea, which was used by some business for luxury items and was 21 shillings (or 1/1/-). Look I don't know why. Tradition, as with most stupid things in this godforsaken country.

Yeah, my eyes just totally glazed over reading that. Honestly it's one of my pet peeves when I'm reading fantasy. Everything from Harry Potter to the Stormlight Archive books feature ridiculous, completely arbitrary currency systems. I get it. It's unique, it's world building. I love those things, usually, but when it comes to currency it just annoys the hell out of me!

The metric system is superior, but honestly: imagine trying to get 65% of the EU to convert to imperial. That's the nightmare of trying to move the United States to the metric system. 326 million people living in what are essentially 50 separate countries as far as education and transportation jurisdiction are concerned, does not add up to any sort of decent transition.

And while I'm at it, folks using metric need to start using the decimeter. It's always "centimeter" this, and "meter" that. The decimeter is just the right length to be useful for describing the dimensions of objects, but nobody ever uses it.

As someone in the UK who frequently watches live content from both America and Japan, you are absolutely correct (especially with DST - American DST dates are offset by a few weeks from the UK). I've got my computer set to show three clocks, which is just dumb.

It's mostly a historical artifact:

The term proof dates back to 16th century England, when spirits were taxed at different rates depending on their alcohol content. Spirits were tested by soaking a pellet of gunpowder in them. If the gunpowder could still burn, the spirits were rated above proof and taxed at a higher rate.

The crazy part is that American proof isn't even that. It wasn't established until around 1848, and was just defined to be twice the ABV (rather than the ~1.75 conversion factor to the historical proof). FWIW, legally it has to be labelled in ABV, and only CAN be labelled proof in addition.

@stordoff: ah yes i knew the origin of it with the gunpowder, but the fact that the american one isn't even that but esthabilished later as an arbitrary doubling make even less sense. Who the fuck in 1848 decided to present and promote a law basically saying "you know measuring alcohol by volume? Fuck that, double those numbers. Why? Just cause"

Maybe it’s because of where I grew up and the people I hang around with now, but most people I know prefer to use 24hr.

For an actual example of the 06:00/18:00 thing, I run a youth group and we were going swimming at 18:00 on a Saturday. I didn’t produce the info for the parents and the person who did had put 6:00. I had a parent ring me to ask if it was supposed to be morning or evening because the information they had wasn’t clear. Said parent was glad they did ring me, as because I always use 24hr, they did think it was supposed to be in the morning. It was only because their daughter didn’t want to come if it was before breakfast that they checked.

Here in Norway we use 24 hour clock, so I get of work at 16:00. But if people ask me in person, I say I get off at 4. So usually we write in 24, but talk in 12. If somebody asked me what time it is, I would never tell the time as 14:30 but half past 2 (or half 3 as we say it). Not sure if this is of any help, but I feel a lot of the yanks think we all go around talking like US Military "1400 hours, hut hut".

I know it's a zombie post but I'll pipe in and say - I could give two shits about the system we use here in the USA (though I vastly, vastly, VASTLY prefer using SI as USCS is quaint, arcane truly convoluted and ugly) but SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT AND PICK ONE FUCKING SYSTEM. I don't need to know that my bag of Lays Potato Zingers are 1.4196 oz (40g) or my 50 "lb" (what the fucks a LB? or the difference in an "FL OZ" or a damn "OZ") bag of Ol' Roy dog food is 22.676kg. Contrary to myth, Americans DO know (and visualize) the metric system. It's our fucked up government sitting on it's hands to finally, once and for all pass the legislation to make it happen - tho it will confuse the aging trilobytes who apparently make all our decisions for us so they can perpetuate some bygone era when granny used cups and teaspoons and DAMNIT THEY WORKED FOR HER, THEY'RE GOOD ENOUGH FOR US I still can't weigh a package and wrap my head around 2lbs and 13oz. So, US government - Stop this dual label shit please. And BTW, our "US Pint" is 473ml. This is ridiculous.