I had no idea

As oppose to: 10 millimeters in 1 centimeter. 100 centimeters in 1 meter. 1,000 meters in 1 kilometer.

Why are we using random body parts and odd objects as a baseline in quantities not easily divisible by 10 to make measurements?

I've found, that "for me," it depends on what I am doing which determines the system I'm using.
Distance: Kilometers makes the most sense.
Temperature: Celsius makes way more sense
Measurements around the house and building: Inches and feet are the standard.
Design: Points and Picas are the most useful
Computer: Pixels (unles the output is print, then back to Points)
Weight: Pounds/ounces
Volume: Liters and Milliliters

Comedy tag?

From now on, when people ask how tall I am, I'm going to tell them I'm 864 poppy seeds. If they look confused, I'll explain that's 216 barleycorns.

You can see that he is reading slightly off camera because it is all so damn confusing!

That seems unnecessarily confusing.

How do you describe density? Pounds per litre?

And pixels are a terrible way to measure "computer". That's why so many 3rd party Windows applications screw up when you change the DPI (which obviously should be DPCM )

When I was growing up in Ireland all the roadsign distances were in KM and the speed limits in MPH. Confused the hell out of tourists

Of course, this only applies if you desire to really go beyond using inches, feet, maybe yards, and miles. I can't think of needing to use any of these other outdated measurements within the imperial system.

I get a pint of beer or milk and a litre of cola

It's not a conscious choice to use those methods, they just are what they are.
And I don't measure density, honestly, I have no reason to.

And I am a graphic designer, and when I'm designing for the web, pixel is the Only way to go, as all dimensions in the CSS and HTML are indicated in pixels.

- A web graphic is always 72 dpi, unless for some strange reason its
needed at higher clarity, then I use 96 dpi.
- Images for ads in news print are usually good at 200 dpi.
- Graphics used for full colour print use 300 dpi
I instinctively know the size on the image as it adjusts between the different dpi settings. it's part of the job from doing it for so many years (lol - plus, Photoshop tells you as you reduce the dpi what size it is )

But like I said, if I'm designing for print, then I use Points and Picas - not pixels.

I hate Imperial measurements.

this video was way funnier than may answer... "yes"

*comedy

Adding video to channels (Comedy) - requested by Deano.

I always thought Fahrenheit makes much more sense, on a day to day basis then Centigrade. 100 ~ the hottest day of the year, 0 ~ the coldest, also 100 ~ human body temperature.

But yeah, for everything else the metric system works better.

I'm from Canada so sadly even in Farenheit 0 is not approximately the coldest day, we get -40 . My favorite chart for temperature scales though is:

Farenheit: 0 degrees = alive and 100 degrees = alive

Ceslsius: 0 degrees = alive and 100 degrees = death

Kelvin: 0 degrees = death and 100 degrees = death

As an American living in Thailand, I've adjusted pretty well to metric units for most things (to the point that I'd prefer them for MOST things).

Celsius has more sensible set points (1 and 100 being freeze and boil of water), but I still prefer to think in Fahrenheit for temperatures. For some reason it is harder for me to overcome the inertia of ~25 years of using Fahrenheit than it was to get used to metric distances.

One other thing I noticed about this video is that you could easily make similar arguments about our system of time being backwards or primitive. For some reason we have days of 24 hours, which are sometimes divided into 12 AM and 12 PM hours. Each hour has an arbitrary 60 minutes. Each minute has 60 seconds. Sometimes we divide seconds into hundredths (1/100) or milliseconds (1/1000). We have 12 months, each containing somewhere between 28 and 31 days. One year has 365.242199 days, so we call it 365 and then add one more on leap years, or occasionally skip a leap year since that fraction isn't a perfect 1/4.

That is all very messy and based on local, non-universal phenomena -- just like all those silly antiquated imperial units. Maybe at some point we'll shift to metric time based on radioactive isotope decay rates or something.

Not to me, I use F at work all the time because it's more precise than Celsius.

It's way easier to pinpoint what a steak is cooked to with Fahrenheit. In terms of outdoor temperature, I'll concede that I prefer Celsius.

I believe the important point is there's no reason to choose just one measurements scale. We are all perfectly capable of conceptualizing more than one system of measure and choosing the one that's most appropriate.

If I choose to use the fahrenheit temperature scale when setting a comfortable room temperature, it's not going to mess up my celsius engineering calculations at work.

I can bake a cake using cups and tablespoons and easily switch to milliliters and grams while performing chemistry experiments.

If someone is evangelizing the adoption of a single measurement scale, I have to assume that person is either; so dense they are unable to retain the information for more than one system...or that person is being unnecessarily close minded and contentious.

The guy's point is taken, but come on - of the 30 units he mentioned, most of us use and have even heard of 4-6 of them.

Well, unless you are an engineer at NASA and someone using the wrong system crashes your probe into Mars. That could be expensive.