Inches vs Centimeters

[speedog]

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speedo's influence game strong lol

Basic arithmetic? Fuck, I can do amazing calculations without a calculator, drives my wife nuts but when it comes to names, I'm screwed.

[jwslam]

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i need something thats 8 inches long, 3kg, and fits in a 2 cu/ft box, and it needs to be 32*C

Is that solid state or flimsy state? Also 32deg is abnormally cold

[SKR]

I can use either. Gallons can be tricky if you don't know whether they mean US or Imperial.

The only real mindbender I've ever had was down in the states for work training, having to figure out hole volume with diameter in inches, depth in feet and volume in barrels. It was quicker to convert everything to metric, and then convert cubic meters back to barrels.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I prefer metric for weight and length, but it's pretty easy to use both. In conversation I use feet/inches because that seems to be most widely known - you rarely hear anyone say they weight X KG or are X cm tall.

For sockets and the like, metric is a million times better than "7/16" or whatever, at least IMO.

Volume measurements mess me right up though, like gallons (of which there are 2 kinds) and ounces - much prefer liters and ml and find it way easier to visualize.

[Sugarphreak]

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[J-hop]

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I prefer metric, but I used both fluidly and have all the conversions memorized

With that said, I have a bit of a pet peeve here. I am a bit of a dimensional elitist and hate that people use cm as a unit of measurement... here is why:

Standard units of measurements for metric are as follows*

nm - Nano Meter
μm - Micro Meter
mm -Millimeter
m - Meter
Km - Kilometer
Mm - Megameter
Gm - Gigameter

*They go higher and lower of course, but nothing in between

Notice that cm isn't in there?

The reason is that it is idiotic to try and memorize a name for a measurement every-time it goes up one ten to the power. So in the world where people actually use the metric system professionally, they use a 10 to the power of 3 base system that looks like this:

nm - 1 X 10^-9
μm - 1 X 10^-6
mm -1 X 10^-3
m - 1 X 10^0
Km - 1 X 10^3
Mm - 1 X 10^6
Gm - 1 X 10^9

See? Easy to use... use 1000 as your multiple and you are good to go.

But Noooooooo... some mother fucking ass-hat that couldn't figure out how to relate it to inches decided they wanted to use cm.... 10 times a mm, and 100 in a meter. It fucks with what was a perfect system. What the fuck!?

Do you hear people talk in terms of other obscure metric units like decameter, decimeter, and hectometers... no, because they are stupid. So are centimeters. People that use centimeters can go fuck themselves, you are contributing to social decline.... cut it out.

As such Speedog, I can't vote... I want to vote for metric, but you have an obscure bastardized unit of measurement of it representing that entire system. (Why not just put imperial VS metric as the options!?)

Not really though. I get what you’re saying in terms of common use but in reality the meter is the only standard measurement in metric. You don’t have to memorize a new name. You just have to know a basic list of prefixes that denote what factor of a meter you’re working with as you obviously know.

In fact I bet you actually work with centimeters all the time and don’t realize it. What you call intermediate bastardizations are really important when it comes to discussing precision. If you do a calculation in meters and only keep 2 decimal places you can’t claim mm precision, you have cm precision.

In general it makes a lot of sense to work in powers of 3. I agree with you there. But it’s not some ‘bastardization’ of the system. It is the system! Everything is based on a meter, period. That’s the great thing about metric, all you do is move the decimal place no need to do any arithmetic or remember any constant factors.

No need to remember 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yards in a mile


Not sure why people are saying “ I can work in both?” Anyone can work a calculator or excel haha and no ones doing pressure, volume etc calculations in their head.

[jwslam]

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no ones doing pressure, volume etc calculations in their head.

I do psi to "capes" all the time. Seriously though, who decided to pronounce "kPa" as "capes"?
I haven't figured out scf to decs in my head though.

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See? Easy to use... use 1000 as your multiple and you are good to go.

But Noooooooo... some mother fucking ass-hat that couldn't figure out how to relate it to inches decided they wanted to use cm.... 10 times a mm, and 100 in a meter. It fucks with what was a perfect system. What the fuck!?

Do you hear people talk in terms of other obscure metric units like decameter, decimeter, and hectometers... no, because they are stupid. So are centimeters. People that use centimeters can go fuck themselves, you are contributing to social decline.... cut it out.

As such Speedog, I can't vote... I want to vote for metric, but you have an obscure bastardized unit of measurement of it representing that entire system. (Why not just put imperial VS metric as the options!?)

I agree that OP is whack. Refer to the original post that sparked this, and to my post here.
https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/406...63#post4710763

[J-hop]

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I do psi to "capes" all the time. Seriously though, who decided to pronounce "kPa" as "capes"?
I haven't figured out scf to decs in my head though.


I agree that OP is whack. Refer to the original post that sparked this, and to my post here.
https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/406...63#post4710763

What I meant was no one is calculating the volume of a cylinder in metric or imperial in their head or doing ideal gas law pressure calculations in their head. Knowing to divide kPa by ~7 to get psi isn’t really ‘working with both’


And yea anyone that says ‘capes’ sounds like an idiot hahaha

[ExtraSlow]

Been working with pressure calculations for twenty years and have never said 'capes' for kPa. Wtf?

[firebane]

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I do psi to "capes" all the time. Seriously though, who decided to pronounce "kPa" as "capes"?
I haven't figured out scf to decs in my head though.


I agree that OP is whack. Refer to the original post that sparked this, and to my post here.
https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/406...63#post4710763

Why am I whack? Because I never understood measurements. Never been in a situation to really use anything other than inches and gallons? Anything else generally requires a google search. I can use a tape measure and know how to read them but converting is not my forte.

[jwslam]

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Why am I whack? Because I never understood measurements. Never been in a situation to really use anything other than inches and gallons? Anything else generally requires a google search. I can use a tape measure and know how to read them but converting is not my forte.

Refer to my linked post.

Your exact words were "I don't build walls using centimeters"
Which is true, because nobody does. Countries that build in metric use mm. Hence when you ask cm vs in, the question is whack.

[speedog]

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Refer to my linked post.

Your exact words were "I don't build walls using centimeters"
Which is true, because nobody does. Countries that build in metric use mm. Hence when you ask cm vs in, the question is whack.

To add to this, in construction Imperial is still the defacto standard here in Canada but much of the hardware I mount on cabinets is using metric measurements and for some measurements I make for doing a cut on my tablesaw I'll use either system even though my table saw is strictly Imperial. My handle jig, strictly metric. Hole saws - strictly Imperial. Two drawer fronts I have to take back to the shop for resizing tomorrow - I did the measurements in metric because it's just a bit more precise in that case. My tape measure, double sided Imperial. My rulers, two are Imperial only, two are metric and Imperial and I do not use cm - in fact I find the cm markings on my rulers just create confusion. Drill bits - all Imperial and even though there are calls for metric bits, almost every carpenter I know will use the closest equivalent Imperial sized but because metric bits are pain in the ass to easily find. My Forstner bits, strictly metric because of the hardware I need to drill for.

Thus I can not make the call of inch vs cm but cm is pointless to me.

[tirebob]

Metric or imperial are fine by me. I can use either one and can move back and forth between them for the most part. It isn't difficult but most people are pretty stubborn about one or the other and don't make the effort. Really, simply memorize a few things like we learned to memorize times tables etc and it is cake.

[speedog]

Tire industry, a mix of both.

[Sugarphreak]

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[J-hop]

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_precision


What I mean is If you report something as 1.52 meters you can not use mm in any description of the value as you suggest a level of numerical precision that isn’t there.

I take it you don’t code? You start to see why these “intermediate bastardizations” become important when you start working with systems that can only handle maximum number of decimal places or no decimal places at all and you want to retain precision throughout a series of calculations.

But again the only true standard unit in metric is a meter. Arguing certain factors of a meter are appropriate and other aren’t simply because you don’t often use them seems a bit silly to me. But that’s just my opinion. I work in decimetres all the time haha

[Sugarphreak]

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[J-hop]

Agreed, yea I was on a different wavelength with precision.

Yea decimetres haha, it’s a seriously shit system I have to work with. But not the first I’ve had to deal with with similar shortcomings

[Sugarphreak]

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[taemo]

people who complains of both metric are just lazy, growing up in europe i was used with metric system and used mm, cm, m and km quite a bit.
moving here, i didnt shut down my mind to imperial and just used either depending on my need.

i use cm for measuring furnitures and stuff

think of Byte as Meter, KiloByte is Kilometer.
so theres no space for centibyte as it would be smaller than a Byte, same reason thers no millibyte