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Comment by timc3 | Hacker News Reader

Then you just use meters, and learn to stride a meter. My Dad used to be a farmer in the UK, born in the 50s so knows the imperial system very well. He could fairly accurately measure a field in meters by walking up it. Could also do it by sight.

Walking one foot in front of the other as so much slower than taking a stride.

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When I was in school I could do 50 m within one meter. Haven't tried for a while now but I do use steps now and then to measure things if the exactness isn't important.

Archers learn to measure by sight though, they have a few tricks since they aren't allowed any sort of help.

Measuring distance by walking is pretty common, but I don't think making strides of 1 m is common, lol. Usual stride is about 0.7-0.8 m, 1 m is pretty huge and uncomfortable unless you are really tall with long legs. You just know what is your average stride and do the calculations. I've never seen any country folks do distance measurement by placing their feet one in front of the other. So, yeah, I guess only people who do that must be huge fans of imperial system with (quite uncommon) foot length of 1 imperial foot.

hill walkers and mountaineers are taught to measure distances with strides. Once you know how many steps / strides a distance is, you can measure quite accurately. Others can also start measuring distances once there is a known distance marked.

In addition, Nainsmith's rule (dating from 1892) is still used to this day - to estimate time to travel certain distances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naismith%27s_rule

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