Comment by short_sells_poo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by short_sells_poo | Hacker News Reader

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short_sells_poo

> Celsius, the triple point of water zero is a great reference for lab work, it doesn’t have any particular relevance to deciding what to wear.

Uh let me do some primary school math for you:

>30 Degrees Celsius: hot/summer weather. 20 Degrees Celsius: warm spring, t-shirt weather. 10 Degrees Celsius: light jacket. 0 Degrees Celsius: literally freezing. Winter clothing. -15 Degrees Celsius: requires heavy & layered clothing to avoid hypothermia and/or frostbite. -30 Degrees Celsius: arctic gear.

Look, the turning point between light clothing and winter clothing is literally built into the system: 0 degrees is the triple point of water as you said so yourself. There are many arguments why the US hasn't seen a wide-scale adoption of metric temperature, but I'd posit that "objective ease of use" isn't it. You lot are just used to a legacy system with all it's warts and it's more convenient to go with the joneses than try to force change. I think trying to advance arguments how it's more convenient is a fools errand because it's literally just force of habit.

I can promise you that the various feet, inches, fluid ounces and other shenanigans are mind-bogglingly confusing for anyone who is used to metric. Doubly so given the very annoying ratios that emerge with square/cubic/volume units.

I think you’ve missed the point of the post you’re responding to, and even remade it... the imperial system is exactly legacy, and its idiosyncrasies aren’t warts per se—for someone who’s able to use it (ie not an outsider looking in without familiarity//triggered to the point of “primary school” incivility), it has some convenient properties, and we’re quite pleased to keep using it day-to-day, thanks.

(Sidebar: the turning point between very warm and hot is literally built into the system at 100F. If you think 30C is hot, you’ve clearly not spent much time here in the summer... and it doesn’t feel really cold until you’re down around 0F anyway.)

> various feet, inches, fluid ounces and other shenanigans are mind-bogglingly confusing for anyone who is used to metric

This isn’t relevant—no one is asking you lot to change from metric, and it isn’t confusing to our lot. We manage quite easily not to get our minds getting boggled... we’re even able to switch between multiple units, no problem, it’s not as confusing or challenging as you make it sound.

Apologies I was perhaps too much tongue in cheek, there was no offence meant.

On the other hand, you too are arguing against points I haven't made. I'm not saying the imperial system is bad on it's own. I have no opinion on this. Anyone who is used to it will find it intuitive. However, saying that it's somehow objectively more geared for humans is also incorrect, because as I wrote it is exactly as convenient to use for people used to metric as metric is for people used to imperial.

> the turning point between very warm and hot is literally built into the system at 100F. If you think 30C is hot, you’ve clearly not spent much time here in the summer... and it doesn’t feel really cold until you’re down around 0F anyway

Again, this is subjective. 30C is hot for many people in the Nordics, and business as usual for someone in the tropics. The same will apply whether we use the imperial system or not. But I personally have no intuition how 0F or 100F feels like. It's all subjective (how it feels like).

I was merely arguing that trying to lean on subjective/intuitive feel for the units to make a general case of them being useful for daily life is still just subjective. Imperial is intuitive for people who are used to it and highly unintuitive for anyone who isn't. Conversely, metric is intuitive for people who are used to it - even for daily life and imperial is not.

:) and my apologies, too—I didn't mean to be too snarky and irascible.

maybe we can agree that both Celsius and Fahrenheit are subjectively easier to relate to everyday life than Kelvin...

During Canada's transition to metric in the 1970's a lady called into the local radio station's call in program. She issued a challenge to anyone who supported the English system to call with the answer to this question:

What is 5/8ths of 2 ounces, 4 drams and 5 grains? :-)

She was an immigrant from Czechia and had to learn the British Apothecary system when she arrived in the 1950s. To her credit she had mastered it but it was lunacy.

1 1/4ths ounce, 2 1/2 drams and 3 1/8th grains is what I came up with off the top of my head. Is some additional normalization expected? US customary isn’t as complex in practical use we just use fractions of our units.

Of course there are fun questions like “which ounce?” Not knowing that I don’t think I can do better.

At minimum, 1¼ oz was probably expected to be expressed as 1 oz 2 dr, and so on for the others.

But I understood "2 ounces, 4 drams and 5 grains" to be a single measurement.

An apothecary dram (ʒ) is 60 grains, and an apothecary ounce (℥) is 480 grains, so we have 1205 grains. ⅝ of that is 753⅛ gr, which is 1 ℥ 4 ʒ 33⅛ gr.

I think these measurements would have been in common use by pharmacists ... although [1] says they're still in use some times in the USA, or have only recently fallen out of use.

It's also interesting to see the mixtures of units in common use there. The UK has Imperial units for several daily things (body height and weight, road distance and speed) yet the medical profession actively avoids use of the system -- equipment is only metric. This is to avoid any errors made during conversion, and ensure day-to-day familiarity with the units.

[1] https://nursekey.com/u-s-customary-units-and-the-apothecary-...

But I understood "2 ounces, 4 drams and 5 grains" to be a single measurement.

Correct. Three columns required, similar to the old British money system of Pounds, Shillings and Pence.

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