Darren New wrote:
> scott wrote:
>> Like what? mm, cm, m and km pretty much cover most things in terms of 
>> distance.
> 
> A cm is about right. You need something about a foot, tho. Otherwise you 
> get things like "he was 197 cm tall". 

Yesss? your point being? FYI I do say that and find 6 feet 2 a 
completely ridiculous way of measuring. There is a difference between 
convenience and convention, I guess.

> Note that people really rarely use 
> "yards" as a measure here. It's feet and miles, unless you're measuring 
> something that's particularly sold by the yard, like cloth.
> 
> Kilograms are too heavy and grams are too light. 
Indeed and why have a basic unit and define 1000 times that as a standard?

> Liters are too big and 
> centiliters are too small. Basically, the factor of 1000 in common units 
> is the problem. :-)
> 
>> And having numbers that often go over 100 for everyday temperatures 
>> doesn't seem too convenient.
never had that, thank goodness.
> 
> Having numbers that go below zero for everyday temperatures seems less 
> convenient.
Also because it feels very different, i.e. cold.

> 
>>> and because 10 isn't really divisible by many numbers.
>> But everyone knows how to divide by 10, which I think is more useful.
> 
> Not if you're constructing something. Then you want to be able to take a 
> third of it, for example. Using a duodecimal number system probably 
> would have been a better idea.
> 
> And powers of 10 work almost as poorly as powers of 12 for computers. ;-)
> 
>> It also makes physics equations easier, with no ugly scale factors.  
> 
> No question it works better in science than everyday life. 
Theoretical physics being even better with c=1 and epsilon and mu also.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> A cm is about right. You need something about a foot, tho. Otherwise you 
> get things like "he was 197 cm tall".

  As andrel pointed out, measuring those ranges is less intuitive using
feet and inches because a foot is not a handy multiple of an inch.

  With metric it's at least easy to use either measure with ease: 1.97
meters or 197 centimeters. No crazy factors.

  Colloquially, at least in Finnish, it's usual to say, literally translated,
"meter ninentyseven" (possibly adding "cents" at the end) when eg. talking
about people's height.

> It's feet and miles

  That would be ok if a mile was an easy multiple of a foot.

> Kilograms are too heavy and grams are too light.

  Too heavy and light for what? It's very common to buy eg. "400 grams of
meat", etc.

> Liters are too big and centiliters are too small.

  For what? And in cooking a deciliter is a very common measure.

> Basically, the factor of 1000 in common units 
> is the problem. :-)

  There are 10 millimeters in a centimeter, and 100 centimeter in a meter,
and 10 deciliters in a liter. What 1000?

> > And having numbers that often go over 100 for everyday 
> > temperatures doesn't seem too convenient.

> Having numbers that go below zero for everyday temperatures seems less 
> convenient.

  I think you are artificially stretching here. Negative Celsius
temperatures are an extremely intuitive and easy to understand measurement.
Heck, usually just knowing the sign of the temperature is enough to know
what you should wear (at least in context), even if that's the only thing
you get to know.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   As andrel pointed out, measuring those ranges is less intuitive using
> feet and inches because a foot is not a handy multiple of an inch.

Actually, it's a *handy* multiple, arguably moreso than decimal. Just 
not trivial to translate between because it's not decimal. :-)

>   With metric it's at least easy to use either measure with ease: 1.97
> meters or 197 centimeters. No crazy factors.

True. Of course, everyone using imperial measures already knows how many 
inches are in 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 feet, just like we both know how 
many seconds are in an hour without sitting to calculate it out. :-)

>   Colloquially, at least in Finnish, it's usual to say, literally translated,
> "meter ninentyseven" (possibly adding "cents" at the end) when eg. talking
> about people's height.

I guess if you use abbreviations like this it becomes easier.

>> It's feet and miles
>   That would be ok if a mile was an easy multiple of a foot.

But you almost never mix feet and miles in a description, so the number 
of times you convert is small. You're either working in miles (or 
fractions thereof, like "go half a mile and turn left"), or in feet 
(like "give me seven feet of rope").

(Altho I'm often amused that odometers measure in tenths of a mile, 
constructions signs say "Lane closed 1000 feet ahead", and exit signs 
say "Exit 23 in 1/2 mile". They really should make up their minds.)

>> Kilograms are too heavy and grams are too light.
>   Too heavy and light for what? It's very common to buy eg. "400 grams of
> meat", etc.

I guess if you're used to that, it doesn't seem inconvenient. I'd rather 
specify four of something than 400.

Or, to phrase it a different way... You have too many significant 
figures there. :-)

>> Liters are too big and centiliters are too small.
>   For what? And in cooking a deciliter is a very common measure.

But it's four syllables long. :-)

>> Basically, the factor of 1000 in common units 
>> is the problem. :-)
> 
>   There are 10 millimeters in a centimeter, and 100 centimeter in a meter,
> and 10 deciliters in a liter. What 1000?

Grams to kilograms, for example.

Hey, I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying *I* find it inconvenient 
most of the time I'm in places that use metric. I'm just trying to 
explain stuff that might make someone resist using metric, as someone 
raised on imperial measurements who has spent months in countries where 
they use metric, is all.

>>> And having numbers that often go over 100 for everyday 
>>> temperatures doesn't seem too convenient.
> 
>> Having numbers that go below zero for everyday temperatures seems less 
>> convenient.
> 
>   I think you are artificially stretching here.

I was trying to make the point that I think complaining that 
temperatures go over 100 is kind of as artificial as complaining that 
they go below zero. :-)

> Negative Celsius
> temperatures are an extremely intuitive and easy to understand measurement.

I guess it's what you're used to. People used to metric find converting 
between units is annoying. People used to imperial measurements find 
having insufficient different measures annoying. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Darren New wrote:
> scott wrote:
>> Like what? mm, cm, m and km pretty much cover most things in terms of 
>> distance.
> 
> A cm is about right. You need something about a foot, tho. Otherwise you 
> get things like "he was 197 cm tall". Note that people really rarely use 
> "yards" as a measure here. It's feet and miles, unless you're measuring 
> something that's particularly sold by the yard, like cloth.

I think this is an opinion-question, but IMO cm/m is pretty easy and 
logical measurement for people. 197cm tells you that he's 3cm shorter 
than a normal door, so he won't hit his head.

> Kilograms are too heavy and grams are too light. Liters are too big and 
> centiliters are too small. Basically, the factor of 1000 in common units 
> is the problem. :-)

One packet of sugar weights one kg. One liter of milk weight nearly one 
kg. 1-10 kg's are pretty normal weights in everyday life, so how is it 
too heavy? It also tells you immediality that a car weights ie. the same 
that 1510 packets of sugar (no wonder it needs some energy to get the 
darn thing moving).

> Having numbers that go below zero for everyday temperatures seems less 
> convenient.

In below zero (C) temperatures air is dry and most of the normally-wet 
places are freaking slippery. Practically I find it very useful 
information in everyday life (the most important thing about outside 
temparature is that is it + or - in certain times of year).

> And powers of 10 work almost as poorly as powers of 12 for computers. ;-)

Well that's true :).

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> Liters are too big and centiliters are too small.
> >   For what? And in cooking a deciliter is a very common measure.

> But it's four syllables long. :-)

  In Finnish it's commonly abbreviated to "desi" in colloquial speech.

> >> Basically, the factor of 1000 in common units 
> >> is the problem. :-)
> > 
> >   There are 10 millimeters in a centimeter, and 100 centimeter in a meter,
> > and 10 deciliters in a liter. What 1000?

> Grams to kilograms, for example.

  One example. More examples?

> Hey, I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying *I* find it inconvenient 
> most of the time I'm in places that use metric. I'm just trying to 
> explain stuff that might make someone resist using metric, as someone 
> raised on imperial measurements who has spent months in countries where 
> they use metric, is all.

  Resistance to change, that's what it is. ;)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> A cm is about right. You need something about a foot, tho. Otherwise you 
> get things like "he was 197 cm tall". Note that people really rarely use 
> "yards" as a measure here. It's feet and miles, unless you're measuring 
> something that's particularly sold by the yard, like cloth.

But as soon as you need to do anything with those numbers (eg adding, 
dividing etc) it's much easier to use 197 cm than 6 foot 5 (or whatever).

> Having numbers that go below zero for everyday temperatures seems less 
> convenient.

No, it's obvious that 0 is "freezing", below that is where stuff is frozen 
and outside looks white, above that stuff melts.  In normal life "stuff" is 
water, so having 0 as the freezing point of water seems to make perfect 
sense.

> Not if you're constructing something. Then you want to be able to take a 
> third of it, for example.

And what if you need more accuracy than 1 inch (which is required in most 
household items), do you say 5 foot 10 point 7 or what?  What if you need 5 
foot 3 point 85 divided into 2?  Dividing 158.3 cm into 2 is much easier.

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> And what if you need more accuracy than 1 inch (which is required in most 
> household items)

  I have been thinking about that myself. It's not uncommon at all to
measure things in millimeters. A millimeter is a measure which can still
be easily measured with a ruler and it can be very useful in everyday life.
For example if something has to be 7mm apart from something else, you can
easily express and measure that.

  However, what are inches divided into? How would you express 7mm in
inches?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Fri, 23 May 2008 23:45:29 +0200, andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom>
wrote:

>
>We don't have that distinction. That is one of the reasons that I try to 
>convince people that the scales they use to measure their weight should 
>be called kilometers. Up till now with very minor success.

I'm not surprised using length to measure mass, or am I missing
something?
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Stephen wrote:
> On Fri, 23 May 2008 23:45:29 +0200, andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom>
> wrote:
> 
>> We don't have that distinction. That is one of the reasons that I try to 
>> convince people that the scales they use to measure their weight should 
>> be called kilometers. Up till now with very minor success.
> 
> I'm not surprised using length to measure mass, or am I missing
> something?
You might. Probably my mistake, I should also have mentioned that we 
almost always abbreviate kilogram to kilo.

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On Sat, 24 May 2008 16:36:07 +0200, andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom>
wrote:

>You might. Probably my mistake, I should also have mentioned that we 
>almost always abbreviate kilogram to kilo.

As do we in the UK
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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