W Celsius

With decimal measurements, precision can’t be nearly as granular. If your measurement is precise to one 1/8 of a unit,

My metric measurents are precise to 1/10th of a unit. Like 22.7°C or 34.7cm.

While I get this is a meme, I do think the imperial measurement system deserves some credit. More the vast majority of humanity’s existence it has been an incredibly capable and powerful system. It’s only in more modern times where a system like metric is an upgrade. This is also ignoring the few ways where imperial still eke out a win, but that is besides the point.

Imperial’s weird gaps between units are pieces that come from a variety of different systems that got layered together over the centuries it lasted. 5280 feet in a mile? Based on the Roman mile which was 5000 paces from a soldier. 12 inches in a foot? From a different way people counted on their hands.

Length of an inch and length of a foot? From different parts of the body. Weird? Certainly. Practical? Amazing so. They were easier for day to day tasks and for measuring on the small, human scale. Metric is easier to calculate between different units and that is an amazing innovation.

Fahrenheit is weird today, but was more practical when it was first established. Even then it has value in how it is more granular without the necessity of decimals. Celsius is still the better unit, 0° being freezing and 100° being boiling for water is very useful. It gives you two easy to remember extremes.

Imperial had to walk, so metric could run in a way. Both systems are great in their own ways and in their own times. Imperial isn’t needed anymore, but deserves recognition for being good for its time and for being more practical historically.

The only dud metric really has is metric time, and that is because everything we have ever done has been based on the older time keeping system. Cultures have laid claim to certain dates and times of day within the old system that just have constrained us to it.

I definitely prefer metric overall, but I genuinely believe that imperial deserves more credit for getting us to the point where metric makes sense to swap to.

I very much prefer to cook/bake/prep in metric grams.

2c white flour, sifted.
1c brown sugar, packed.
1c room temperature water.
2tsp active dry yeast.
2tbsp vegetable oil.
1/2tsp baking powder.
2 egg yolks.
5 egg whites.
Pinch of cinnamon.

Fuck you. Tell me how many grams that is. I don't need five different tools to measure out my ingredients. I need a wet bowl, a dry bowl, and a scale.

Also this isn't a real recipe I just started naming shit at random.

I'm curious, what are the areas that matter that you see metric having replaced imperial?

I still see imperial used for building materials, tools, furniture, product dimensions, food packaging, recipes, travel distances. The doctor still tells me my weight in pounds. It's what we use at my job when describing products to clients.

They're talking about using Fahrenheit in a day to day capacity like for the weather, not as a scientifically rigorous definition. 0°F is very cold and 100°F is very hot. If you treat it as almost a percentage of how "very hot" it is then it can be a pretty good indicator.

Don't get me wrong if I had to choose between all of metric and all of imperial then I'd ditch Fahrenheit in a heartbeat, but it's not often in my day to day life that I think I'd ever use any temperature outside of (approximately) -15°C and 35°C. Therefore Fahrenheit in that specific regard offers more granularity and a nice 0-100 type of temperature scale for the temperatures I'd see on a day to day basis.

What if you get a new ruler that's 4 times as precise than the one you have that measures to 0.1cm? You don't want to record it as 0.70cm, because that's more precise than your measurement. But you could record it in 40ths with fractions.

Another way to look at it is that decimal is already a fractional system (1/10, 1/100, 1/1000) that doesn't allow you to use 90% of possible fractions.

Yeah I think at that point it would be easier to just go metric.

Most Americans actually seem to be five with metric and probably would not mind it too much if we just switched. The objections are basically: 1) it's too expensive to switch now (okay), or 2) it's part of our identity (doubt). I swear to God everything is a culture war with some people.

More rational people, especially in STEM where it's already the standard, prefer it.

In general though, I would argue that Americans know metric better then Europeans know US customary, for what that's worth

It's mostly about what you're used to. Americans buy soda in liters, run 5km and do drugs by the gram. But we buy gasoline and milk in gallons and our recipes call for flour by volume. It's mostly inertia. At the end of the day you have to communicate with people around you so you use units they understand.

Having the more granular temperature seems more practical. I often find myself adjusting my thermostat by just a single degree F. Do heating/ac thermostats in Europe use half degrees as increments? Even then I don’t think it’s as granular. But just integer values would be super annoying.

That's how I like my showers

Celsius makes most sense in places that experience proper winter.

Is it above 0? Then the snow is melting.
Is it below 0? Then the melted snow has turned into slippery ice. Have fun!

I didn't know my wife had an account on here! Hey, babe!

As a European living in the US now for many years the temperature scale is the least of my annoyances. It's easy enough to memorize be ranges for what to wear. Fahrenheit is more granular, which is nice sometimes but really doesn't matter.

No, let's convert all the ridiculous weight/volume measures first. Having two kinds of ounces makes no sense. Measuring solids by volume (mostly) doesn't make sense. Having different units for different magnitudes doesn't make sense.

Fortunately things are often labeled in both metric and customary units so I can convert way easier.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to have my 12 fluid ounces of coffee and a 1/3 cup of oatmeal.

As you approach 0°F it is getting dangerously cold. As you approach 100°F it's getting dangerously hot. Celsius is obviously better scientifically, but fahrenheit is pretty reasonable for everyday use (unlike other imperial measurements).

I know it's all based on what's familiar, but I imagine I'd have a hard time converting to Celsius for a weather report. I've lived in tropical climates in the US for over half my life so when people say things like "it's a hot 30 degrees out there!" it just short-circuits my brain.

Never got this. I saw one fucking dumb american actually defend the rrtarded system by saying "It's actually more precise" - what a fucking stupid thing to say, when you don't even have a smaller unit than freaking Inches. Atleast we have mm. You guys use 1\4 Inch. Wtf is that??

"The fraction allows you to communicate length and tolerance in a single number"

I don't see how that isn't true of decimals, too. 0.1 indicates a precision of 1 digit, 0.12 indicates a precision of 2, 0.120 indicates a precision of three.

Yeah I think at that point it would be easier to just go metric.

Most Americans actually seem to be five with metric and probably would not mind it too much if we just switched. The objections are basically: 1) it's too expensive to switch now (okay), or 2) it's part of our identity (doubt). I swear to God everything is a culture war with some people.

More rational people, especially in STEM where it's already the standard, prefer it.

In general though, I would argue that Americans know metric better then Europeans know US customary, for what that's worth

It's mostly about what you're used to. Americans buy soda in liters, run 5km and do drugs by the gram. But we buy gasoline and milk in gallons and our recipes call for flour by volume. It's mostly inertia. At the end of the day you have to communicate with people around you so you use units they understand.