"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
I'm just as guilty as the next person when I post numbers. Occasionally, I'll also show metric. However, as an old(er) dog, my first instinct is to use feet, miles, etc.
Perhaps we should agree to use only the metric system on HN?
As a younger person who predominantly uses metric - as long as there's a conversion I don't see the issue. Just list both. I'm not sure why the sight of imperial units makes some people irrationally angry.
It's a mistake that sometimes even Americans do, but the USA uses the US customary units system, which is closely related, but slightly different to the British imperial system.
Tucker Carlson:
God bless you, and that's exactly what it is. Esperanto died, but the metric system continues, this weird, utopian, inelegant creepy system that we alone have resisted.
I think us Brits are the worst of the worst when it comes to mixing units. Fuel is sold in litres but consumption measured in miles per gallon. Milk is sold in 1 pint or 2/4/6 litre bottles. Road signs to towns are in miles but in roadworks are in metres. And so on.
I went all metric when we started the new millennium. I try to do all my personal measurements in metric. It has been my own personal battle to make progress, every little bit helps..
It's funny how life fights with you though. My wife and I share a scale in the bathroom, it's a fitbit wifi thing and she finally laid down the law, it uses pounds now. Chasing 130lbs is somehow more satisfying than 58.9 or 59Kg. Our electronic outdoor thermometer is in Fahrenheit now too; this one sort of pisses me off, metric is simple, below 10 you need a coat, 10 to 20 probably want a light jacket, 30+ is shorts because it's hot. Mind you, she is an actual scientist, a real deal scientist that works on viruses and immunology, which is somewhat frustrating. You wouldn't believe the fit she had when our electronic human thermometer was found to be metric... When you call the doctor because your child has a fever, it is better to use whatever units the doctor uses.
I suspect that major new papers could probably start using metric units with translation in parens and only the wingnuts that think the papers already harbor a liberal bias would say anything about it. Other than temperature and like human height, you can toss out metric measurements to most folks when they ask something and they seem to absorb it well; from time to time you get a question or push-back, rarely I'll translate the unit for them. We're at the point where people just need to see it more. It would be an interesting experiment if some media organizations started to make metric more prominent. Hell the US military uses it, mostly for NATO reasons... we could probably somehow put a patriotic spin on it.
> Chasing 130lbs is somehow more satisfying than 58.9 or 59Kg.
I mean, chasing 60kg is more satisfying than 132.2lbs. There's nothing intrinsically important about 130lbs except that it's a round number in base 10. In metric you just pick a different round number to chase.
dang|6 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
melling|6 years ago
https://www.space.com/3332-nasa-finally-metric.html
I'm just as guilty as the next person when I post numbers. Occasionally, I'll also show metric. However, as an old(er) dog, my first instinct is to use feet, miles, etc.
Perhaps we should agree to use only the metric system on HN?
SmellyGeekBoy|6 years ago
ahoka|6 years ago
ravroid|6 years ago
Bjartr|6 years ago
cwilkes|6 years ago
Tucker Carlson: God bless you, and that's exactly what it is. Esperanto died, but the metric system continues, this weird, utopian, inelegant creepy system that we alone have resisted.
ldite|6 years ago
PopeDotNinja|6 years ago
Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft grabs close-up 1/10th of an American football field above asteroid
adrianN|6 years ago
maxxxxx|6 years ago
jhayward|6 years ago
b_tterc_p|6 years ago
magduf|6 years ago
It's only Americans who still use feet and other imperial units, which is why they lost a Mars probe.
SmellyGeekBoy|6 years ago
I think us Brits are the worst of the worst when it comes to mixing units. Fuel is sold in litres but consumption measured in miles per gallon. Milk is sold in 1 pint or 2/4/6 litre bottles. Road signs to towns are in miles but in roadworks are in metres. And so on.
azernik|6 years ago
(Part of the Mars orbiter fiasco was that it was being developed during the transition.)
MisterTea|6 years ago
Nelson69|6 years ago
It's funny how life fights with you though. My wife and I share a scale in the bathroom, it's a fitbit wifi thing and she finally laid down the law, it uses pounds now. Chasing 130lbs is somehow more satisfying than 58.9 or 59Kg. Our electronic outdoor thermometer is in Fahrenheit now too; this one sort of pisses me off, metric is simple, below 10 you need a coat, 10 to 20 probably want a light jacket, 30+ is shorts because it's hot. Mind you, she is an actual scientist, a real deal scientist that works on viruses and immunology, which is somewhat frustrating. You wouldn't believe the fit she had when our electronic human thermometer was found to be metric... When you call the doctor because your child has a fever, it is better to use whatever units the doctor uses.
I suspect that major new papers could probably start using metric units with translation in parens and only the wingnuts that think the papers already harbor a liberal bias would say anything about it. Other than temperature and like human height, you can toss out metric measurements to most folks when they ask something and they seem to absorb it well; from time to time you get a question or push-back, rarely I'll translate the unit for them. We're at the point where people just need to see it more. It would be an interesting experiment if some media organizations started to make metric more prominent. Hell the US military uses it, mostly for NATO reasons... we could probably somehow put a patriotic spin on it.
Sharlin|6 years ago
I mean, chasing 60kg is more satisfying than 132.2lbs. There's nothing intrinsically important about 130lbs except that it's a round number in base 10. In metric you just pick a different round number to chase.