Which is the reason every pair of shoes is the exact same size
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Serious America and the metric system
- Thread starter Adamant Zoroark
- Start date
did you even read what you quoted you fuckstick, that goes for the other guy too
"Regardless of the high variance of feet size between individuals..."
i.e. I am acknowledging that foot size differs between any given person. But while most of the world may not be able to tell me exactly how long a foot is formally, I can only assume a sane and logical thinker would guesstimate that a "foot" is roughly the size of their foot were somebody to ask them. THE GOD DAMN DEFINITION OF INTUITIVE.
And you suck at being pedantic, LucaroarkZ. Volume is measured in (cubic) meters, it's a derived value.
"Regardless of the high variance of feet size between individuals..."
i.e. I am acknowledging that foot size differs between any given person. But while most of the world may not be able to tell me exactly how long a foot is formally, I can only assume a sane and logical thinker would guesstimate that a "foot" is roughly the size of their foot were somebody to ask them. THE GOD DAMN DEFINITION OF INTUITIVE.
And you suck at being pedantic, LucaroarkZ. Volume is measured in (cubic) meters, it's a derived value.
Last edited:
Really, it is a touchy topic. In my circumstance, imperial measurements is what I have been used to my entire life and is what holds most relevance in the materials around me (measuring sticks, social interaction, etc). That doesn't mean I don't like the metric system, I think the metric system is lovely and has excellent advantages. However, trying to use it and apply it when imperial takes priority with everyone else around you, it is like a flower that is not given any sunlight to grow. I guess another situation is if you had taken Spanish or French in high school and never had a chance to use it outside of school; what you learned will eventually fade away.
lol nobody uses cubic meters (at least I haven't heard anyone use that, except for maybe really massive volumes.) The base unit for volume in the metric system is the liter, which is equivalent to the volume of a cube with sides of 10 centimeters. So it is technically derived from a distance, but it is nonetheless a base unit.
As long as you agree to keep meters and shit out of my American industrial machinery and height measurements.
Please like, user Imperial.
As someone who does their own mechanical work, fuck differentiating between metric and imperial. Especially every american-produced car which has BOTH measurement systems everywhere on their fucking cars.
On another note:
The cubic meter is used a lot for bulk volumes. In every case you've got more than a few thousand litres of something, cubic metres is the way to go. Ventilation systems, cargo, hydroengineering, et cetera. If you do calculations, it's a LOT easier to use cubic metres than litres.
That being said, the litre would be the base Metric unit as you say. Cubic metres would be the SI unit for volume, derived from the metre. Metric units are basically just the daily-use deviation of SI units, forgoing cubic metres for litres, and m/s for km/h.
Cresselia~~
Junichi Masuda likes this!!
How can someone actually find US unit easier than metric unit?
US unit (inch, pounds, etc) is not even decimal. (it doesn't go up by 10, you have this funny 12 for inch to feet, and 14 for pound to stone)
So difficult to calculate.
Oh, that Fahrenheit is simply abominable.
Non-metric simply stinks when you're a scientist.
US unit (inch, pounds, etc) is not even decimal. (it doesn't go up by 10, you have this funny 12 for inch to feet, and 14 for pound to stone)
So difficult to calculate.
Oh, that Fahrenheit is simply abominable.
Non-metric simply stinks when you're a scientist.
Because people who grew up learning the metric system finds metric units easier. Base 10 measurements is just as arbitrary as the next unit system. I grew up learning inches, feet, etc. and as such, I just so happen to find those units easier than metric units. If someone told me it's 30C today, I'd have to actually google what that even means in farenheit, because the hell would I know how hot that is. With all that said, both of these systems are trash. Every programmer lives and breathes with base 2, base 16, or gfto.
Funny thing yesterday. We had to measure everyone's height in my gym class, and I had to be the guy to do it. The measuring tape was only in metric and literally every single person asked me "What's that in feet/inches?".
I didn't have trouble converting for them, but it's kinda funny as I live in Canada, as I mentioned before.
I didn't have trouble converting for them, but it's kinda funny as I live in Canada, as I mentioned before.
Dammit man, I'm an engineer, not a programmer!
... Bones would be extremely displeased with me for making this terrible attempt at a parody of his signature line. And I'm an engineering student, not quite an engineer yet...
On that note, every time I see my homework in my engineering classes in inches, pounds, Rankine/degrees F (yeah, how many of you have heard of the Rankine scale? Me neither, until one of my teachers talked about it,) cubic inches, and.... ugh, BTU, I cringe and want all of that shit changed to metric. It's fucking pathetic to be doing anything math/science heavy like engineering and not be using metric.
I study chemistry so I almost exclusively use metric. I live in America so I am used to both units. I hardly even use imperial for any measures except distance now because metric is so much easier.
I'm still pretty shitty at converting between F and C (trick is knowing a few points of reference like 37 C = body temperature, 60 F = ~15.5 C but w/e) but most other units are either basically used for scientific purposes or are easy to get a feel for anyway. I can see a foot being more useful than a meter for everyday distances but arguing one system is more "intuitive" than the other is pointless, and the math is easier with metric.
One thing I've always wondered... how well do Imperial units scale? For instance, how do you measure stuff like the thickness of a human hair, the width of a cell or the mass of a celestial object? Metric has deviations such as mictrometres or nanometres, and prefixes to add scalability, like gigatons or teratons. Though rarely used, you can measure distances in megametres or petagrams (which might be a terribly impractical unit, hence the invention of tons).
Come to think about it, most other measurements than length, temperature and weight tend to fall within the SI system regardless of country (apart from the engine industry, which appears to prefer horsepowers over watts for some reason). You've got the candela, Newtons, decibels and all that stuff in the US too, right?
Come to think about it, most other measurements than length, temperature and weight tend to fall within the SI system regardless of country (apart from the engine industry, which appears to prefer horsepowers over watts for some reason). You've got the candela, Newtons, decibels and all that stuff in the US too, right?
Cresselia~~
Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Maybe like 0.0000000000000000000000000003 inch? And have fun counting the zeroes?
Just a wild guess.
Forces are noted in pound-force a lot of the time, but for scientific purposes Newtons are used. Candela and decibels are used (I think there's an English unit called candlepower? That shit is super obsolete though)
Speaking of car engines: On the same engine where we measure displacement in liters, we measure power in horsepower and torque in pound-feet, which, in metric countries, I think are measured in kW and Newton meters respectively? Correct me if I'm wrong
To be honest I can't understand how this debate is still going on. It's pretty simple:
1) In official fields, like industry and academia, a common measure must be agreed upon as a matter of convenience. The metric system is often most convenient, but it barely matters as long as everybody is using the same units. If you are a chemist, you will use moles over grams; if you are in the car industry you will use horsepower over watts; if you are an astronomer you will use parsecs over metres; because in each case these are the most useful.
2) However, using different units within the same such field can cause problems. (It is an often-repeated fact that the Apollo 13 disaster was due to a miscalculation by one of the engineers, who forgot to convert his units.)
3) In everyday situations, it couldn't matter less.
1) In official fields, like industry and academia, a common measure must be agreed upon as a matter of convenience. The metric system is often most convenient, but it barely matters as long as everybody is using the same units. If you are a chemist, you will use moles over grams; if you are in the car industry you will use horsepower over watts; if you are an astronomer you will use parsecs over metres; because in each case these are the most useful.
2) However, using different units within the same such field can cause problems. (It is an often-repeated fact that the Apollo 13 disaster was due to a miscalculation by one of the engineers, who forgot to convert his units.)
3) In everyday situations, it couldn't matter less.
I grew up in the US, but travel to a lot of countries and have had to slowly teach myself the metric system. I love it. Even in everyday things! It's so much easier. I still have terrible covering when I need to, from system to system, but not when increasing from day meter to kilometer.
Why change? Almost everything, except the everyday person already uses it. Industry, medicine, science, military, etc all use the metric system. It drives me crazy! I want to keep sharp on my metric system when talking to people, but it's difficult. With a slow introduction (which is what is occurring in the United states) it will eventually be turned to a metric country. There has never been an official announcement of the US's intention for this, but you can see it, it's just getting the everyday person to accept it. Which will be the longest and hardest part.
Why change? Almost everything, except the everyday person already uses it. Industry, medicine, science, military, etc all use the metric system. It drives me crazy! I want to keep sharp on my metric system when talking to people, but it's difficult. With a slow introduction (which is what is occurring in the United states) it will eventually be turned to a metric country. There has never been an official announcement of the US's intention for this, but you can see it, it's just getting the everyday person to accept it. Which will be the longest and hardest part.
metric measures seem to be based more off a simple scale. Celsius: 0degrees. Water freezes. 100degrees. Water bioils. I do use imperial for height though
Well if you live in the US you pretty much have to use Imperial for height/weight since we haven't adopted the metric system as our primary measurement system, so nobody would understand you if you didn't. But otherwise, my daily use of units tends to be a mixture of Imperial and metric (I'm more inclined to think in metric but I pretty much have to use Imperial otherwise people in the US will not understand a damn thing I'm saying.) For example, I'll have my iPhone's weather app report temperatures in Celsius for my own personal use since I prefer Celsius, but for general everyday conversation I have to convert that number to Fahrenheit.
However, one of my friends grew up in Quebec, so whenever I'm talking to her I use metric units for my height/weight (well, you're measuring the latter in kilograms so technically it'd be mass) and I can even mention temperatures in degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit!
There was one time, though, when I accidentally reported temperature in degrees Celsius to my parents without mentioning it was degrees Celsius... That was pretty hilarious, actually.
However, one of my friends grew up in Quebec, so whenever I'm talking to her I use metric units for my height/weight (well, you're measuring the latter in kilograms so technically it'd be mass) and I can even mention temperatures in degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit!
There was one time, though, when I accidentally reported temperature in degrees Celsius to my parents without mentioning it was degrees Celsius... That was pretty hilarious, actually.
BenTheDemon
Banned deucer.
We're so stupid that we won't even switch to a simpler system.
I remember people saying that metrics is hard in school. Because multiplying and dividing by 10 is soooo hard.
I also have a soft spot for the metric system since I weigh exactly 100 kg.
I remember people saying that metrics is hard in school. Because multiplying and dividing by 10 is soooo hard.
I also have a soft spot for the metric system since I weigh exactly 100 kg.
Clearly the Americans must think the metric system is so difficult, with its base-10...
But seriously, your comment reminded me of a time in 11th grade when someone actually asked how many millimeters were in a centimeter. I... Just... I just... Just... Even to this very day, I can't comprehend the sheer stupidity. The fact that someone didn't know how many millimeters were in a centimeter, especially when we worked exclusively in metric units in the class in question and the fact that it's so fucking easy to learn anyway... Ugh, I wish I could legally get a beer right now (that's another thing I don't like about the US, but it's for another time)
But seriously, your comment reminded me of a time in 11th grade when someone actually asked how many millimeters were in a centimeter. I... Just... I just... Just... Even to this very day, I can't comprehend the sheer stupidity. The fact that someone didn't know how many millimeters were in a centimeter, especially when we worked exclusively in metric units in the class in question and the fact that it's so fucking easy to learn anyway... Ugh, I wish I could legally get a beer right now (that's another thing I don't like about the US, but it's for another time)