I’ve said it on this platform before: I will build furniture in inches until my hands can’t hold a chisel anymore. The inch system arose around the needs of carpentry and woodworking, it works in base 12, which is outright superior to base 10, especially when you divide by 3 and 4 more often than by 5.
Also, the closest tape measure I have to hand is my 5m metric tape. I build things in metric, just…not furniture.
A dozenal metric system would work as well as the decimal metric system, as long as everything else was base-12:
in base 12 in base 10 1m’m = 10⁻³m = 0.001m 1m’m = 12⁻³m = 1/1728m 1c’m = 10⁻²m = 0.01m 1c’m = 12⁻²m = 1/144m 1m = 1m 1m = 1m 1k’m = 10³m = 1000m 1k’m = 12³m = 1728m Since we’re at this might as well say the day has 10₁₂k’s = 20736₁₀s. Each k’s is exactly two of our current hours, and each “new second” is roughly
twofour of our current seconds. Enough of this Sumerian mixed base already!Wow, base 12, I never thought of thas! You halve it, quarter it, and third it, and still end up with clean integers.
Yeah; you’ll often find boards in America milled to 3/4" or 1 1/2". Those are 1/16th or 1/8th of a foot. A lot of boards used in furniture are 3/4" thick. Half of 3/4 is 3/8, a third of 3/4 is 1/4. It solves the problems we need to solve, and the metric woodworkers start sounding how teaspoon/cup/quart cooks do.
What do you do when a piece you’re cutting isnt exactly a foot, say, 11 or 13 inches? I know nothing about woodworking, but I’m assuming there isnt a unified standard to make everything match to the nearest whole foot, so then this whole base 12 thing goes out the window, or am I missing something here?
Whats funny is the oil and gas industry has orders of magnitude worse units. So much so, I would say the imperial system is scared of it.
At least the US temperature scale is safe from ridicule, as Lord Fahrenheit was German/Polish.
one thing i enjoy way more than i should is use units that are technically correct, but no one uses them like ever.
like megagrams instead of metric tonnes.
or 1 dekameter instead of 10 meters.
I only use metric when it’s in forms nobody else uses or recognizes at a glance because I need to be difficult. Decimeter is perfect for like, height of a person, for example. Why do they use CM?
decimeters is perfectly fine. basically all volume calculations boil down to dm³ as 1 dm³ = 1L
Why do they use CM?
Precision. “17dm” can be anything between 16.5dm or 17.5dm.
You could of course say “I’m 17.5dm tall”, but at this point “I’m 175cm tall” is shorter (no dot).
That said I’ve seen plenty people measuring height in metres and then centimetres. Usually something like “I’m one [metre] and 75 [centimetres] tall”.
I measure battery capacity and electricity consumption in J/kJ/MJ, as intended. None of that kWh bullshit.
It also makes for fun comparison with energy value of foods.
Energy is energy, after all.
im a fan of giving energy in: kg • m² ÷ s²
What, you still multiply by an arbitrary constant? I remember back before I switched to: kg • c²
And yet the cowards refuse to use megagrams. If SI prefixes are so great use them consistently rather than stealing other unit names and giving them another definition.
Also metric byte sizes deserve the fires of hell. Powers of 2 or get out.
Ah yes, I need a hard drive containing 4 times 2 to the power of 40 bytes
- statements dreamt up by the utterly deranged
We don’t use mega grams because kilo is the SI unit. And there’s no such thing as metric byte. That’s the sales department finding out that 104 MB is a larger number than 100 MiB.
The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its radius is now 10
We all know it’s a much better system. Reagan killed our attempt at switching. No one has tried since.
Personally, I use metric for 3D printing, and I use imperial for wood working. Until standardized material sizes change, it doesn’t make sense to use metric for wood working. That change needs to come from the top, from government regulation.
Do americans actually do math with imperial system at school? That must be a nightmare and have conversion errors between units.
This is a common misconception. Americans can’t do math and don’t learn anything at school
and don’t learn anything at school
That’s not true! They learn how to hide under desks
There’s almost never a need to involve units outside of science which typically is metric anyway. Also most of these units aren’t really ever converted between, no one gives a measurement as 1 mile 300 yards 2 feet 6 inches.
Kinda… The classes “teach” imperial but guns/bullets are metric
So the most American things in America are using the least American measurement system?
some of the popular ones are measured in metric, but there’s plenty that are not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliber#Metric_and_US_customary
Huh?
And 1 ml of water weighs 1 gram and has a volume of 1 cubic mm
It’s obvious that there’s 1760 yards in a mile.
There’s 22 yards in a chain, which we can all remember because of the 22 yard line in rugby.
There are 10 chains in a furlong, which fans of metric can’t complain about.
There are 8 furlongs in a mile, just like there are 8 pints in a gallon.
And 22x10x8 = 11x10x16 and 11 is easy to multiply by in your head, so it’s really very simple to get to 1760.
/s
this but unironically.
You’ve been hit by…
You’ve been struck by…
A smooth metric system
Annie, are you Oakley? Are you Oakley, Annie?
It only seems ridiculous because you forgot some intermediates: 5.5 yards = 1 rod, 4 rods = 1 chain, 10 chain = 1 furlong, and 8 furlong = 1 mile. So just gotta remember 12, 3, 5.5, 4, 10, 8. Super simple.
Rod? Chain? What is this bdsm?
Worse, its the imperial units “system”
No safeword, no lube
No, it’s not “Imperial units” and hasn’t been for a long time. It’s US Customary units. There are differences between the two systems. If your going to troll, get it right.
If you can’t, go back to your troll cave and cuddle your delicious stinky cheeses!
This explanation is fucking gold
It explains nothing since he got it wrong…
You mean US Customary
Who cares, it is just some funny and crazy inconsisten conversion to SI units. The whole system is defined by SI units at its base and the fedaral government is largely metric.
Don’t make me math
Links and chains brings me back to my old drafting days. 10 square chains are 1 acre. 80 chains is a mile.
22 yds to a chain, 10 chains to a furlong, 8 furlongs to a mile.
Rods damnit you forgot rods
4 rods to a chain
Uh, no.
10 feet = 1 decafoot
100 centiyards = 1 yard
1x10^18 attoacres = 1 acre
333.3 yards = 1 kilofeeter
This guy gets it
I’m gonna start estimating distances in millimiles.
1 millimile ~ 5 feet, 3 and 23/64 inches.
makes perfect sense.
This would be acceptable
