• GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    24 hours ago

    I will not be arguing that the imperial measurement system is better than metric, because it isn’t. metric is obviously better.

    I stopped watching after this.

      • Mpatch@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        19 hours ago

        Oh fuck I didn’t even get to volume mesurments, I knew the imperial system was fucked but until I actualy did some Wikipedia. Well my God what the fuck.

        • Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          18 hours ago

          The video in question directly addresses that chart, correctly poining out that it’s quite misleading in the implication that the measurements on it are ever converted between in any context ever. But no, there is no context where someone converts between feet and miles, or uses sticks or hands or fingers or palms or chains or all those other units I promise you haven’t heard of. Imperial is bad, but it’s not that bad.

          Similarly, it is completely irrelevant to know that a gallon is an integer number of cubic inches at all, that is a conversion that is simply never done.

          • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            10 hours ago

            A spacecraft weighing two tons fires its engine in a straight line for five seconds. It uses up 100 pounds of fuel, and the engine is rated to exert 500 pounds of force. What is the delta V, in miles per hour?

            I can do that calculation in metric easy peasy, because all the SI units convert at a 1:1 ratio, and I can easily convert between the different scales. Can you do the math in Imperial without looking up the conversion factors?

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              4 hours ago

              Yeah, the US system is inconvenient with feet and inches and ounces and ounces and pounds. But for the most part it’s fine right up until you start doing physics or engineering at which point you want to strangle your country folk until they start using metric. But noooooooo all the tradesfolk want their drawings in customary despite the fact that our products are in metric and it’s just better.

            • Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              5 hours ago

              Nope, but nobody does calculations like that in imperial either. All science is done in metric, then converted to imperial at the end if that’s needed.

            • angband@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              5 hours ago

              Well you would also have to look up the conversion factor for tons, pounds, and miles, to SI units, so I dunno what you’re on about.

              My chevy uses SI displacements and all that. Roll back 70 years and, sure, they used imperial displacments and volumes.

              So what? The time to do the math is a trivial portion of the investment, and only done to convert units for consumer volume and for publicity.

              Most uses are more simple, like putting 1 oz of 2-4,D in a gallon with a nice glop of chemsurf.

              And the history of math, counting, and measurement is endless and sublime, they got shit done with primitive tools and measures.