>> ^djsunkid:
At one restaurant where I worked the chef had recently changed all the baking recipes over to metric. Grams and Millilitres instead of Ounces, Pounds, Cups, Tablespoons and Fluid Ounces. For some recipes that was great. But for a bunch of them, I actually ended up writing the ounces back in in the margins. After all, the scale I was using was marked in ounces and grams, and it is easier to remember 3 ounces, 5 ounces and 10 ounces than 85g 141g and 283g.


Yeah, but that's because the recipe was created in the imperial system. If you started with the metric system, I'm sure you'd use more rounded figures and it'd turn out as the same dish... 90g, 140g, 280g... or, in Australia we have metric cups and metric spoons, which work great, pretty much all of our recipes work in amounts of 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and whole cups... and then amounts of the metric teaspoon, tablespoons etc.

If you start from a metric world then everything falls into nice, easy to use amounts.

I just recently read a book about the forms of measurement around the world and where they came from, and why some places keep sticking to their imperial amounts. And I get that... I do get how some lengths are easy to work in your head (hell, as metric as I am, I think of people's heights in feet and inches... and nothing else, nothing else I measure like that, just height. I know my height in feet and inches, but not cm... weird).

But when you try to do ANYTHING like calculations using imperial it all falls flat really, really fast. Things like miles... a mile was originally 8 furlongs. A furlong being the length of a field you could work with your oxen over the course of a day. And 8 furlongs being pretty much how far you could walk in an hour. So a mile was how far you could walk in an hour, and was 8 times as long a field as you could work with your oxen in a day. And that worked out to 5000 feet.

BUT...

Technology got better, so ploughing became easier and furlongs became longer (as they remained being the length you could work in one day)... so to still say a mile was 8 furlongs, well, a mile became longer and longer until it was 5280 feet. There's logic in there to begin with, but using a measurement of 5280 as a base unit is insane... utterly insane.

>> ^SlipperyPete:
my auto will go 300 hectares to a single tank of kerosene
shifts into H


Hectare is a unit of area, not distance.

1 km^2 = 100 hectares

>> ^quantumushroom:
My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!


That's nothing. My car will do the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs.

>> ^honkeytonk73:
>> ^alizarin:
>> ^quantumushroom:
My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!

This is approximately .002 mpg, or 10.5 feet per gallon

Must be driving a Hummer.


That would be a Hummer, pulling 15 other Hummers. All running.

>> ^Payback:
If Imperial is so much better, why is pot not sold by pound and ounce?


It is over here! 1/8th bag is your average buy ... allegedly!

>> ^longde:
Payback, switching to the metric system won't stop incompetence.

To alot of the commenters, I don't know a school (except maybe in Texas) that does not teach the metric system alongside the english system.


To which I ask, why learn the Imperial at all? What's the benefit of knowing both, aside for the fact that you would have to multiply all your roadside sign distances by 1.6?

Payback, switching to the metric system won't stop incompetence.


To alot of the commenters, I don't know a school (except maybe in Texas) that does not teach the metric system alongside the english system.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

In reply to this comment by longde:
It's a non issue. Any engineer worth his/her salt can do conversions. And really, to work in a global environment, you absolutely have to know the metric system. It is taught in most schools from the elementary level.

Didn't some multi-billion dollar piece of hardware slam into Mars due to a "salted" engineer's metric/imperial conversion error?

>> ^spoco2:
(I know these change based on purity of water and air pressure, but for all useful purposes)
What temperature does water freeze?
What temperature does water boil?
Well I'd say that depends on how thick your brine is

>> ^quantumushroom:
My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!


QM is feeling so proud he didn't get downvoted to -26 this time.

Maybe you should add something political to balance it out!

>> ^longde:
You know, I'm an engineer that finds the metric systems easier to use. But in "civilian" life, I LIKE dealing with pounds and pints. There is an intersection here with culture that should not be dismissed.
People, even professionals, should be able to choose what tools they work with.


That's true, except that one system has a clear advantage over the other.

So why not start by making both systems readily available to anyone? Put distances on road signs with both miles and kilometers and let people choose what tools they want to work with

>> ^longde:
You know, I'm an engineer that finds the metric systems easier to use. But in "civilian" life, I LIKE dealing with pounds and pints. There is an intersection here with culture that should not be dismissed.
People, even professionals, should be able to choose what tools they work with.


You're allowed to. Canadians still mention pounds and feet, mostly because that's what our parents taught us, even though aside from measuring people, pints and groceries, those measures are archaic to us.

You know, I'm an engineer that finds the metric systems easier to use. But in "civilian" life, I LIKE dealing with pounds and pints. There is an intersection here with culture that should not be dismissed.

People, even professionals, should be able to choose what tools they work with.

and then some assbackwards state will pass a measure banning metric system
or claim since we're a christian nation....