Tbf as someone who grew up with the imperial system due to being raised by a British boomer its fairly easy if you’re familiar with it, I still often cook in imperial due to a load of old cook books I have.
Having said that anyone who wants the imperial system in the modern day is a absolute idiot, metric is objectively superior.
A brit once told me that the imperial system makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of a peasant at the market - units of 12 was a lot easier to work with in the olden days because it’s easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.
I guess it makes sense from a historical viewpoint.
Its basically entirely this, its not for no reason much of the world wound up using something akin to it. Honestly for small scale stuff such as cooking I do genuinely quite like using it but especially in the digital age its simply become obsolete I can’t imagine having to code something which requires employing imperial measurements.
I just wish it was always 12 instead of 3, 12, 1760 and whatever the eff they come up with.
Farenheit on the other hand does not make sense at all
The one thing that bothers me about the metric system is how much of it is never actually used. No one says “1 megameter”, for example. They say “1,000 kilometers”. When you think about it, most metric prefixes are never used with most metric units.
I’ve thought that was weird too. Decimeter’s seems like a good unit for measuring a person’s height, for instance.
Calling the boiling point of water simply “warm” is a bit sus.
It’s a warm sauna.
F and C are both made up points, not absolute values. C is great, if what you care about is what water is doing. F is great, if you care about how something feels to a human (not saying you can’t memorize new numbers, but 0 and 100 being dangerous is simple).
If you want an actual “best” temperature scale, use Kelvin. 0 is no energy. It actually has a fundamental base. If you argue that temperatures that are useful to humans are too hard to memorize, then you’re making the argument against C too (or F when dealing with water).
They are both made up but what is the fahrenheit? Where does the scale start? How much does it increment by? How does it relate to other units?
Celcius starts at the melting point of water at sea level and each increment is 1% of the required change to turn water from frozen to boiling. This is arbitrary yes, but the importance is not if it’s arbitrary but that it is a description of a physical property in our world that can be experimentally repeated, tested and verified. No authority can arbitrarily decide that a degree Celcius is actually different from what it was last year.
There’s a reason that all imperial units are scientifically described by their relation to their metric counterpart and it’s because metric units are based on physical properties of the universe around us and so we can measure them as opposed to just define them.
If you think Imperial is a better system, you’re the perfect example of the American education system at work.
In case those were too many words…
You stupid.
I don’t think that freedom units are better, I think they’re more fun, and I like having a bit of whimsy in these trying times.
A mile is 8 furlongs.
Never got this. I saw one fucking dumb american actually defend the rrtarded system by saying “It’s actually more precise” - what a fucking stupid thing to say, when you don’t even have a smaller unit than freaking Inches. Atleast we have mm. You guys use 1\4 Inch. Wtf is that??
It’s a fraction. So like if you had one apple to split between four people then we would all get one quarter of a whole apple.
1 apple per 4 people = 1 per 4 = 1/4 = 0.25
I don’t know that I would say that fractions are more or less precise than decimal.
So that guy was an idiot, but you’re wrong about the smaller units.
Fractionals commonly go all the way down to the 32nd. If you need to be even more precise than that we have the thou, which is defined as 1/1000 of an inch or 0.0254mm.
Fractions are pretty good for quick ratios, which is why it’s popular in carpentry, but I’d never call it “more precise” than decimal numbers. Anything that needs tighter tolerances than 1/16" is probably going to use metric measurements.
I will say that for most people it doesn’t impact their life either way. If the Imperial system (or the modern American system based on it) were truly inferior they would have been replaced but it’s mostly an issue in laboratories and engineering.
They’ll use 1/1000th of an inch, a “thou”. But at that point it’s basically metric but worse.
I fully forgot about thousandths even though I see them all the time as “mils”. Definitely metric but worse.
The only argument they have is for temperature, because they’re afraid of decimal points.
We have even less than mm
through the power of the decimal separator!
in this thread: USAians consooming epic amounts of copium.
While I get this is a meme, I do think the imperial measurement system deserves some credit. More the vast majority of humanity’s existence it has been an incredibly capable and powerful system. It’s only in more modern times where a system like metric is an upgrade. This is also ignoring the few ways where imperial still eke out a win, but that is besides the point.
Imperial’s weird gaps between units are pieces that come from a variety of different systems that got layered together over the centuries it lasted. 5280 feet in a mile? Based on the Roman mile which was 5000 paces from a soldier. 12 inches in a foot? From a different way people counted on their hands.
Length of an inch and length of a foot? From different parts of the body. Weird? Certainly. Practical? Amazing so. They were easier for day to day tasks and for measuring on the small, human scale. Metric is easier to calculate between different units and that is an amazing innovation.
Fahrenheit is weird today, but was more practical when it was first established. Even then it has value in how it is more granular without the necessity of decimals. Celsius is still the better unit, 0° being freezing and 100° being boiling for water is very useful. It gives you two easy to remember extremes.
Imperial had to walk, so metric could run in a way. Both systems are great in their own ways and in their own times. Imperial isn’t needed anymore, but deserves recognition for being good for its time and for being more practical historically.
The only dud metric really has is metric time, and that is because everything we have ever done has been based on the older time keeping system. Cultures have laid claim to certain dates and times of day within the old system that just have constrained us to it.
I definitely prefer metric overall, but I genuinely believe that imperial deserves more credit for getting us to the point where metric makes sense to swap to.
The imperial system was defined in 1824 (befoee that a mile was very different depending in the Region you came Form) The metric system was first defined in 1793… Imperial was never ‘good for its time’ cause it is actually younger than metric .
Yes it dies habe Mord historical baggage (Roman and stuff) but that doesnt mean the system itself is old. The old meassurements eere just local customs and not a system - what a ‘foot’ was actually differed depending in where you Where which is amazingly Bad for a meassurement .
Fahrenheit is actually a hilariously Bad design : first the original meassurements cant be reproduced (or rather: Fahrenheits meassurements were imprecice) Second : it has three points defined - you only need two - three Pointe just makes everything More momplicated Only one positiv thing here: dude was the first to create a halfway decent temperature unit
A foot doesn’t need to be standard, just an easy way to measure, just as a hand is.
Far as I have come across only horses are measured by hand.
Metric time ❤️
Please also lets use the International fixed calendar where every month has exactly 28 days/4 weeks and the year has 13 months. Every 1st of the month is a sunday, every 2nd is a monday and so on, so you will always know which day it is by the number.
The leftover day is a dedicated new years day.
12 Month are better for dividing a year, which is often needed. I know it will never change, but I propose 12 30-day month and 5,25 extra days at the end of a year. Also 5-day weeks or 10 day weeks and every year starts with the same day.
“Sol” is a terrible month name, but the general idea is cool.
How do you write the date for the “leftover” day? Like, thinking about dates in Excel.
Sounds fun, now update every computer system simultaneously to a new date format.
time is stored as seconds since epoch anyways, the computer systems can easily survive by just converting to metric time when displaying. It’s the systems that cares about week/month that hates it
Every other full spin it stops for 4h. There. We also get rid of DST because who can tell the time anymore?
100 warm
Yeah, I suppose that’s one way to describe 100°C
“It’s a bit warm today.”
On a cosmic scale 100C is practically freezing.
Boiling warm is still warm
That’s how I like my showers
I didn’t know my wife had an account on here! Hey, babe!
Heyyyy. it’s not cheating if you think I’m your wife.
That’s how I like my
showerssaunaYou need more wood
As a European living in the US now for many years the temperature scale is the least of my annoyances. It’s easy enough to memorize be ranges for what to wear. Fahrenheit is more granular, which is nice sometimes but really doesn’t matter.
No, let’s convert all the ridiculous weight/volume measures first. Having two kinds of ounces makes no sense. Measuring solids by volume (mostly) doesn’t make sense. Having different units for different magnitudes doesn’t make sense.
Fortunately things are often labeled in both metric and customary units so I can convert way easier.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to have my 12 fluid ounces of coffee and a 1/3 cup of oatmeal.
Measuring solids by volume (mostly) doesn’t make sense.
This could be apocryphal, but I seem to recall hearing that a lot of American recipes got established during times of westward expansion, and that it made more sense for people moving out to the frontier to carry a measuring cup and a set of spoons that it did for them to carry a carefully-calibrated scale.
Yeah that makes sense. And in a pinch (no pun intended), measuring your solids by volume or even just eyeballing it is good enough for a lot of cooking (baking is a different matter).
But let’s not forget that Europe was not always metric, either. They went through the same process. They had the same units (or similar units) as US has now, with a lot of the same quirks. That was the entire point of the metric system: have one consistent set of units. United States was onboard early for metrication, but backed out before it completed it, so here we are.
I know it’s all based on what’s familiar, but I imagine I’d have a hard time converting to Celsius for a weather report. I’ve lived in tropical climates in the US for over half my life so when people say things like “it’s a hot 30 degrees out there!” it just short-circuits my brain.
If accuracy is not critical you can use some simple tricks to convert between them.
30C is roughly…2 x 30 + 32 = 92F which is only 6 degrees off the actual value which is 86F.
I very much prefer to cook/bake/prep in metric grams.
2c white flour, sifted.
1c brown sugar, packed.
1c room temperature water.
2tsp active dry yeast.
2tbsp vegetable oil.
1/2tsp baking powder.
2 egg yolks.
5 egg whites.
Pinch of cinnamon.Fuck you. Tell me how many grams that is. I don’t need five different tools to measure out my ingredients. I need a wet bowl, a dry bowl, and a scale.
Also this isn’t a real recipe I just started naming shit at random.
You made cake btw.
I’ve had to translate recipes from Norwegian to American and this struggle is real. Never thought I’d need to look up material density tables for cooking.
“To American” … what?
We have kitchen scales, we know how to weigh ingredients.
Old recipes in English often use volume measurements, across the pond too.
Modern recipes use weights when possible.
Idk why you’d convert to
ye olde style.I accidentally a word. Converting recipes from Norwegian and metric to American and US customary units.
I’m aware. I have a scale, too. But most people didn’t weigh dry ingredients. So when I translate for someone else I have to use the “normal” measures they’re used to. For myself, I speak the language and just use metric, my scale, and a measuring cup with both markings.
If they’d just standardized on one unit per measurement and apply si prefixes it’s still an imperial unit but easier to work with. Say a quart for volume, and a yard for distance, because they’re close to liter and meter. But I guess a kiloyard and a deciquart is taking it too far.
Yeah I think at that point it would be easier to just go metric.
Most Americans actually seem to be five with metric and probably would not mind it too much if we just switched. The objections are basically: 1) it’s too expensive to switch now (okay), or 2) it’s part of our identity (doubt). I swear to God everything is a culture war with some people.
More rational people, especially in STEM where it’s already the standard, prefer it.
In general though, I would argue that Americans know metric better then Europeans know US customary, for what that’s worth
It’s mostly about what you’re used to. Americans buy soda in liters, run 5km and do drugs by the gram. But we buy gasoline and milk in gallons and our recipes call for flour by volume. It’s mostly inertia. At the end of the day you have to communicate with people around you so you use units they understand.
But you don’t switch in one go, so costs can be spread out over years. First you would do double labeling, roll that out slowly, and with time the customary units slowly fades out.
Sure, I get that, and we already have dual labeling on a lot of stuff, maybe even most of the stuff. The problem there is that nobody actually reads the other labeling, so they are also not learning.
They need to go back to what they were doing before: First decide that we’re moving over so that mandates can be enforced.
Second, do what you were saying, and do dual labeling during the transition–but make metric most the prominent.
Third, educate kids in schools to use it (this already happens to a degree).
Fourth, launch massive informational campaigns to teach people how and why to use metric.
Fifth, step down the dual labeling gradually as more people are comfortable with the new units.
I expect there to be a long tail of non-metric units in use (see UK), but if we can switch more things over that is still an improvement. Heck, I’ll even take them just decimalizing and removing some smaller units (like lbs/oz).
The history of metrication in the US is as frustrating as it is an interesting read. It can certainly be done and many countries have shown it can be done, but it takes commitment and support from the highest levels.
Saying its too expensive to change is bullshit. Metric is common enough that most people who care about units at all end up having one set of tools for each system so they can use both as needed. This includes industry and machinists. It wouldn’t actually cost anything to change at this point we could just stop designing new things in imperial units and in a couple decades we would barely need imperial tools anymore, except to work on old stuff. Some engineers are just as pig headed as anyone though, so they just keep using imperial even though they know both, use both, and still run into problems with imperial.
Having the more granular temperature seems more practical. I often find myself adjusting my thermostat by just a single degree F. Do heating/ac thermostats in Europe use half degrees as increments? Even then I don’t think it’s as granular. But just integer values would be super annoying.
The ones in the UK go by half a degree.
Half a C is actually quite close to a whole F in delta. I don’t have a thermostat though.
I have not seen any thermostats in Europe with decimal degrees. But I also don’t think a thermostat is necessarily accurate to that level anyway.
lol you don’t think it’s accurate to a degree Fahrenheit? Why wouldn’t it be?
Because it’s mass produced consumer goods operating on a “below x temperature turn on heat/turn off AC” and “above y temperature turn off heat/turn on AC”. Old ones are just bimetallic strips where you change the trigger position with a slider, and modern ones use commodity grade temperature sensors, and neither is guaranteed to be placed particularly far from the vent.
The sensor is typically on the thermostat. Not at the vents. You would typically place the sensor in a central location in the house. A high quality multi speed motor AC is designed to keep a decently consistent temperature which is a bit more complex than just turn on / turn off. If you’re dropping $15k to $30k on central AC, they aren’t going to cheap out on a poor quality temp sensor.
It’s just not that fine tuned of an instrument. The furnace also runs on intervals so it’s just going to naturally fluctuate a bit. Like with anything “it depends”, but I doubt it’s possible to keep the room within a tenth of a centigrade just with a consumer level thermostat. Maybe in a small room with resistive heating? I’d love to see actual measurements of this.
Thermostats are not exactly calibrated machines unless you spend for a high end model. Put a few next to each other and they might differ 1°C, 2°F. Worse if you take the really cheap stuff.
It’s funny because all of the imperial units are mathematically based on metric anyway.
I’m an American, so I started with imperial units, but I am making the very slow progression of converting to metric. I already use metric for work, and it’s already the scientific standard here and has been since the 70s. It’s just turbo annoying to try and get used to a new measuring system that I use reflexively especially when surrounded by imperial units. Makes it too easy to trip up and fall back.
different units for different magnitudes
I’m not sure I get what you mean? Are you saying how we use ounces for tiny weights, pounds for “human”-ish weights, and tons for huge weights?
I think they mean ounces, cups, quarts, gallons, with no intuitive sense of conversion between them. I personally use ounces for almost everything (cocktail recipes are in 0.25 ounce increments, big cups are 40 ounces, big ol buckets can be 256 ounces). I might mess with gallons for very large amounts, but anything that can be expressed in cups or pints I’m usually just talking ounces anyway.
Your assumption is correct. I meant using cups, ounces, etc separately or in combination. Especially annoying when trying to figure out portions. Serving size: 8oz, package size: 1lb 4 oz. You have to do math every time.
Yeah, 100°C is pretty warm
0°C = outside the sauna
100°C = inside the sauna
100 degrees is uncomfortably hot for a sauna. Somewhere around 80 is good.
I feel like 90°C is like the sweet spot (or 85°C)
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Being surrounded by hot air does a lot less than getting dumped into hot water, so the egg shouldn’t get hard unless it sat there for a really long time.
I replied to you by accident, that’s why I deleted it.
Preferrable way less outside of the sauna.
yup, i take baths in 100C regularly bc its warm :3
Well if sauna is considered a bath then yes
The sauna you’re in is 100°C? 212°F? I think you might be dead bro.
“Dry” sauna rather than steam sauna. 100C at 100% humidity would very quickly be dangerous.
Sauna temperature is usually around 80-100°C, depending on your preference.
World Sauna Championship starting temperature was 110°C
Fascinating. And now I really wonder what “small things” the prizes were.
EDIT: Also fascinating how Kaukonen and Pusa duked it out for 9 years in the men’s competition.The last competition hosted had Harvia stove for sauna as the price
If you told me this was a satirical Wikipedia article I would have believed you
We have also wife carrying competition and swamp football in Finland
Incredible. What a magical place
Lmao bless your heart
That’s hard-boiled (for eggs)
came to.comment this. lol
The cold/warm at the bottom doesn’t make sense unless you’re water.
Fahrenheit is like asking a person how it feels, Celsius is like asking water how it feels.
Also everyone loves metric until you have to ask for a third of something…
I’m not sure if you noticed, but we are literally mostly made out of water, the stuff we eat is mostly water, we drink water, we cook water, we freeze water, we shower in water, we piss water and even our shit contains water.
Also, guessing temperature in fahrenheit is only simpler to americans because they are used to fahrenheit. For everyone using celcius when they grow up, its perfectly normal to think “Oh it feels like 13 degrees celcius outside.”. For us its weird to guess Fahrenheit because we are not used to it.
And wheres the problem in asking for a third of something?
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Yes… Thank you British Empire, French Empire, and Spanish Empire for your contributions to the system.
-British: Mile, Foot, Inch, Yard
-Spanish: Dollar, from the Spanish Pieces of 8
-French: You know what you did
