Imperial Or Metric?

[anarres]

Marla get a grip on reality - a pint is only half a liter if you want to get scammed!

It's 1.76 pints to the liter (IIRC), so if I order 2 pints and you give me 1 liter I would punch you in the face for being foolish.

I'n only half joking you know - in England you really would get stabbed if you tried that as a publican.

Edit: Metric is best of course

 

[Marla_Singer]

Marla get a grip on reality - a pint is only half a liter if you want to get scammed!

It's 1.76 pints to the liter (IIRC), so if I order 2 pints and you give me 1 liter I would punch you in the face for being foolish.

I'n only half joking you know - in England you really would get stabbed if you tried that as a publican.

Edit: Metric is best of course

In France when you order a pint you get half a litre of beer.
And the waiter is punched in the face if you get less than half a litre.

 

[kryszcztov]

Metric, except for temperature, celcius is too inprecise.

I don't see the real need to be more precise than 1 °C for everyday life... And in science we have floating numbers... But the real unit for temperature in the metric system is the Kelvin (K) (same "precision" though, but always positive). BTW, 0 °C corresponds to freezing water and 100 °C to evaporating water in normal conditions (atmospheric pressure) ; I'm curious to know what Fahrenheit is based on.

 

[Winner]

I don't see the real need to be more precise than 1 °C for everyday life... And in science we have floating numbers... But the real unit for temperature in the metric system is the Kelvin (K) (same "precision" though, but always positive). BTW, 0 °C corresponds to freezing water and 100 °C to evaporating water in normal conditions (atmospheric pressure) ; I'm curious to know what Fahrenheit is based on.

Me too, it seems to be very confusing.

 

[Che Guava]

Metric, except for temperature, celcius is too inprecise.

How is celcius imprecise? At 1 atm, water boils at 100, and freezes at 0, not to mention that each celcius degree is equal to one kelvin. Easy as pie.

Gabriel Farhenheit simply measured the 'coldest temperature he could imagine' for 0 degrees (supposedly outdoors in winter in Germany) and used his own body temperature for 100 degrees (which he got wrong, since body temp in F is 98.6). It's 5/9 of a kelvin.

 

[Truronian]

Fahrenheit was based on the range of temperatures that Mr. Fahrenheit thought practical. He put 0 at the lowest recorded temperature at the time, and 100 at his body temperature (it is thought he had a fever at the point of measuring this). Its a terribly awkward system.

EDIT, I had a funny feeling I would get beaten to this one. Dang-you Che Guava

 

[joycem10]

What is a "Stone"? I heard Higgins refer to it on Magnum PI once and assumed it was some obscure British unit of measurement,

 

[anarres]

1 stone = 14 pounds (lb)
1 pound = 16 ounces (oz)
1 ounce = 28.something grams

More crazy is that everyone in the UK knows their weight in stones and not in Kg!

 

[kryszcztov]

Gabriel Farhenheit simply measured the 'coldest temperature he could imagine' for 0 degrees (supposedly outdoors in winter in Germany) and used his own body temperature for 100 degrees (which he got wrong, since body temp in F is 98.6). It's 5/9 of a kelvin.

LOL LOL LOL. Worst that I could have ever imagined. If I'm not mistaken : 0 °C = 32 °F, and 0 °F = -17.778 °C. That's not what I call a cold winter in Germany... Pfff, Fahrenheit is as crappy as the rest.

1 stone = 14 pounds (lb)
1 pound = 16 ounces (oz)
1 ounce = 28.something grams

 

[Zarn]

Imperial!

It's as simple as my nation's bureaucracy! I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[Narz]

Metric makes more sense as a practical system.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

I frequently use both.

I like both too, and think they some things suit the metric more, and some the imperial more.

Though I prefer feet and inches to centimetres and metres...

.

 

[cegman]

For height and distance I prefer Imperial. For most other things I prefer Metric. I have never learned Imperial conversions for anything but distance. Unfortunately I use height and distance way more than any other measurement. Of course pounds are very useful too.

 

[feline_dacat]

Metric! Despite being at Imperial College.... (har har, i'm so funny....)

 

[toh6wy]

I'm more familiar with Imperial, but I still think Metric is better.

 

[bathsheba666]

When a student, I spent one summer holiday working for a piling company.

Towards the end of the time, they sent me out of the stockyard on site, where they were building supports to replace an old narrow canal bridge on the Fosse Way.

The site manager showed me the plans, the supports needed to be 1.9 metres thick.

He proceeded to measure out the 1 metre, 9 millimetres and off we went.

He was still surprised later, when he told me he had checked, and I was right.
I always wondered, when crossing other bridges, how many of their supports were only half the right size?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Which, in your opinion is better, Imperial or metric?
...

Metric for sure. It's the only natural measurement system for the base-10 number system. I might note that it's used universally in medicine, even in the US which uses the imperial system.

 

[h4ppy]

English all the way. I don't care about breaking it down because miles to feet just isn't usefull to me.

 

[Bootstoots]

Metric, quite obviously, though I use imperial units most of the time in everyday life due to their widespread use here.

By the way, why are kilograms instead of newtons typically used for weight measurement of a person?

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Although I learned the stupid Imperial system and the US still uses this bad system, I much, much prefer metric (which is generally used in the military). The only thing I don't like is Celcius, because it only has 5 degrees for every 9 of F.