Going imperial

[Puzzled]

Does anyone under 50 use imperial for all measurements. I know we have a right hodgepodge of units in day to day life but when it comes to simple measuring metric makes far more sense. Some of the project videos you watch from US youtubers just make your brain hurt when they measure small gaps in inches rather than mm.

If stores replace metric measurements with imperial it will just end up with a lot of confused customers looking up the conversion on their phone or asking staff (who will probably look it up on their phone). At least its fairly easy to convert imperial to metric rather than the other way round.

 

[DXP55]

I use both - if someone says it's 5ft 6in I can immediately visualise it in my head but not 1m 680mm

I measure things in inches if I just want a guide to it's size but use metric for exact cutting sizes etc.

 

[thenewoc]

I think we're a bit of a mixed bag with this...

pint of lager/beer not litre
litres of petrol though rather than gallons
mm, cm, m for length rather than feet and inches
feet and inches for height though
miles rather than kilometres
stones and pounds for human weight rather than kilograms
food produce, grams & kilograms

 

[Alibaba99]

You talking about the French Arienne rocket launches that went Pete Tong? That was down to code monkeys using a 16 bit integer to represent the value of a 64 bit variable.

I suspect it's a reference to the Mars Climate Orbiter. Where there was a mismatch between the information from NASA which was supplied in metric and the units expected by lander which had software requiring imperial.

 

[Junglist]

3.7 grams yo

Henry!

 

[MagicBoy]

Don't the.US still use imperial?

A different imperial standard. So for example one of their gallons is ~3.7 litres instead of a British ~4.5 litres.

It's stupid post-WW2 era Tory boomer politics to be honest. I'll keep miles per gallon and pints of beer, the rest belongs in the dark ages. If I find stores swapping back to a system of measurement I don't understand (and I'm 40+) then I'll take my custom elsewhere. The ***kng Tories went to teaching metric in school in the 1980s FFS. 99% of the people that support bringing back the nonsensical dead imperial measures will be dead or senile within 20 years.

 

[thenewoc]

A different imperial standard. So for example one of their gallons is ~3.7 litres instead of a British ~4.5 litres.

It's stupid post-WW2 era Tory boomer politics to be honest. I'll keep miles per gallon and pints of beer, the rest belongs in the dark ages. If I find stores swapping back to a system of measurement I don't understand (and I'm 40+) then I'll take my custom elsewhere. The ***kng Tories went to teaching metric in school in the 1980s FFS. 99% of the people that support bringing back the nonsensical dead imperial measures will be dead or senile within 20 years.

I don't ever want mph signs to be replaced. Route planning etc only makes sense in miles. Person's height and weight is better in imperial. Measuring length in anything other than metric is just wrong. Food I can see having both imperial and metric displayed is not a bad thing as many have cook books or recipes that are imperial.

 

[sdavlaws]

Person's height and weight is better in imperial.

How is it to get any level of accuracy you need to use two units with different bases.

 

[thenewoc]

How is it to get any level of accuracy you need to use two units with different bases.

I mean it's more meaningful to some people. The metric equivalent is no doubt more accurate but if people don't relate to it to gain meaning from it then it's not as good.

 

[Puzzled]

I mean it's more meaningful to some people. The metric equivalent is no doubt more accurate but if people don't relate to it to gain meaning from it then it's not as good.

You relate to what you use though, in schools we teach metric so they get to know what a kilogram is. I can relate to stones because I have weighed myself but I also know my weight in kilograms but when cooking I can't really visualise imperial measurements as I grew up using metric.

Really we should be progressing towards universal measurement units with metric as the base, keep it simple.

 

[bobuk]

Right, I bet everyone in this thread gives their height in feet and inches.

It's a complete non-story, metric will continue to be used for anything remotely important and imperial for things that aren't.

181 cms

 

[MagicBoy]

Right, I bet everyone in this thread gives their height in feet and inches.

Nope, 180cm. Weight in kilograms.

Does smack of Daily Mail readers rose tinted era politics though.

I don't ever want mph signs to be replaced. Route planning etc only makes sense in miles.

Distances being in miles is basically why we still think about fuel economy in miles per gallon. The metric equivalent is l per 100km or something. Wouldn't make sense for only the UK to have say l per 100 miles or something.

Not too difficult to convert imperial measure from old recipes (Looks at Mum's old dairy cookbook from the 1970s...), plus most electronic scales measure both, so you can match up the WW2 era numbers even if you've no idea what they mean.

 

[KompuKare]

I suspect it's a reference to the Mars Climate Orbiter. Where there was a mismatch between the information from NASA which was supplied in metric and the units expected by lander which had software requiring imperial.

The Lander software was supplied by Lockheed Martin to a spec which was meant to have been metric:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure
Since Lockheed Martin are very much a military contractor, NASA took all the blame into themselves. Best not to annoy any company with the ears of a General or senior politician!

 

[Werewolf]

I suspect it's a reference to the Mars Climate Orbiter. Where there was a mismatch between the information from NASA which was supplied in metric and the units expected by lander which had software requiring imperial.

There have also been a number of aircraft incidents due to things like the fact that the "gallon" is a silly measure and unless you specify which version of the gallon you're talking about you run into really serious issues when moving between countries, as erm aircraft are want to do.

IIRC Gimli's glider was caused by such an issue where the flight computer that did the automatic work wasn't operating properly or something so when the crew refilled they had to manually work out how much fuel was needed and instructed the ground crew who IIRC assumed they were talking pounds of fuel rather than kilos or something and it ran out at about 40% of the way to it's destination.

 

[MagicBoy]

There have also been a number of aircraft incidents due to things like the fact that the "gallon" is a silly measure and unless you specify which version of the gallon you're talking about you run into really serious issues when moving between countries, as erm aircraft are want to do.

IIRC Gimli's glider was caused by such an issue where the flight computer that did the automatic work wasn't operating properly or something so when the crew refilled they had to manually work out how much fuel was needed and instructed the ground crew who IIRC assumed they were talking pounds of fuel rather than kilos or something and it ran out at about 40% of the way to it's destination.

The ground crew used pounds per litre rather than kilograms for the manual calculation, then input the number as kilograms on the plane ... so it had less than half the required fuel. Had the computer being working ... wouldn't have happened.

 

[Werewolf]

The ground crew used pounds per litre rather than kilograms for the manual calculation, then input the number as kilograms on the plane ... so it had less than half the required fuel. Had the computer being working ... wouldn't have happened.

Aye but it also shows why having different units in use is not a great idea if you're doing anything that requires moving from one country to another.

I think it was described as swiss cheese failure, as it required several things to go wrong at once for the failure to get through the safety nets.

 

[CD32]

Never understood why Imperial soap never had to change the name to Metric soap.

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

If you want to know why they've done this, look at how much attention it's getting in the media.

It's a distraction from National Insurance increases, further NHS privatisation and the removal of the Universal Credit uplift and God knows what else they've been up to.

 

[SPG]

More Tory bygone stupidity.

Pretty much the only time i use imperial is in the car and driving, when i rule the world this will be switched to KM as well, you don`t buy fuel in gallons anymore so why on earth is distance still MPG, Boils my ***** it does...

Viva El Prezidenti SPG !!

 

[SonicSW20]

I think we're a bit of a mixed bag with this...

pint of lager/beer not litre
litres of petrol though rather than gallons
mm, cm, m for length rather than feet and inches
feet and inches for height though
miles rather than kilometres
stones and pounds for human weight rather than kilograms
food produce, grams & kilograms

For most of these we officially use metric. We still use MPG for marketing as we're conditioned to understand what that measurement means but officially fuel economy is measured in L/100km. Feet and inches for height is primarily a cultural hangover, for anything "official" like medical it is recorded in metric measurements. Same with weight.

Miles for road distances and pints for beer, cider, and milk are the only actual odd ones out.