Not listing alternate units second, not converted on screen, not called “freedom units” and not hiding behind the excuse of “most our audience is in the US”

Mostly thinking YT channels like Wendover, Bluejay, sometimes Practical Engineering and even some European ones like TLDR News

The difference between a meter and yard is less than that of a measured vs “eyeballed” yard and everybody knows what 0 C and 100 C are so the learning curve is also massively (by at least 50 kg) exaggerated

  • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
    10·
    11 months ago

    I’m not sure I understand your first paragraph. The annoying thing about imperial units is the non-standard conversion factors between different unit sizes, e.g. miles to yards. In metric they are much easier to learn and work with, and they don’t rely on “distilled water at standard pressures and temperatures”. Could you try to explain?

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
      32·
      11 months ago

      Converting between mass and volume measures only gives 1:1 ratios when you’re working with distilled water at standard temperatures. 1 cubic centimeter of distilled water is one gram.

      Doesn’t work for jet fuel or milk or depleted uranium or any other substance you might be working with.

      For the miles/yards thing: the circumstances where you need the length of a mile, you rarely need the accuracy of a yard, and vice versa. You just use the unit whose accuracy you need. For example, a builder wouldn’t measure 3 yards 1 foot 2 inches. They’d just use 122 inches.

      • kugel7c@feddit.de
        31·
        11 months ago

        I think some of this might be right but I expect much more people to calculate/estimate more regularly than they are measuring. And if you are working fully in numbers metric seems much more reasonable. You can easily calculate without converting and even if you have mixed units you can just throw in 10^-+N very simply.

      • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
        1·
        11 months ago

        You are talking about inter-unit conversions. This is not what people complain about with imperial - they complain about intra-unit conversions. And rightfully so: why use a unit system that adds extra complexity on top of the existing complexity? Why use a system that adds unnecessary complexity on top of necessary complexity?

        For the miles/yards thing: the circumstances where you need the length of a mile, you rarely need the accuracy of a yard, and vice versa. You just use the unit whose accuracy you need. For example, a builder wouldn’t measure 3 yards 1 foot 2 inches. They’d just use 122 inches.

        But why use a system that is harder for rare cases, than one that’s not harder for any cases?