I’ve said it on this platform before: I will build furniture in inches until my hands can’t hold a chisel anymore. The inch system arose around the needs of carpentry and woodworking, it works in base 12, which is outright superior to base 10, especially when you divide by 3 and 4 more often than by 5.
Also, the closest tape measure I have to hand is my 5m metric tape. I build things in metric, just…not furniture.
A dozenal metric system would work as well as the decimal metric system, as long as everything else was base-12:
in base 12 in base 10 1m’m = 10⁻³m = 0.001m 1m’m = 12⁻³m = 1/1728m 1c’m = 10⁻²m = 0.01m 1c’m = 12⁻²m = 1/144m 1m = 1m 1m = 1m 1k’m = 10³m = 1000m 1k’m = 12³m = 1728m Since we’re at this might as well say the day has 10₁₂k’s = 20736₁₀s. Each k’s is exactly two of our current hours, and each “new second” is roughly
twofour of our current seconds. Enough of this Sumerian mixed base already!Wow, base 12, I never thought of thas! You halve it, quarter it, and third it, and still end up with clean integers.
Yeah; you’ll often find boards in America milled to 3/4" or 1 1/2". Those are 1/16th or 1/8th of a foot. A lot of boards used in furniture are 3/4" thick. Half of 3/4 is 3/8, a third of 3/4 is 1/4. It solves the problems we need to solve, and the metric woodworkers start sounding how teaspoon/cup/quart cooks do.
What do you do when a piece you’re cutting isnt exactly a foot, say, 11 or 13 inches? I know nothing about woodworking, but I’m assuming there isnt a unified standard to make everything match to the nearest whole foot, so then this whole base 12 thing goes out the window, or am I missing something here?
At least the US temperature scale is safe from ridicule, as Lord Fahrenheit was German/Polish.
And yet the cowards refuse to use megagrams. If SI prefixes are so great use them consistently rather than stealing other unit names and giving them another definition.
Also metric byte sizes deserve the fires of hell. Powers of 2 or get out.
We don’t use mega grams because kilo is the SI unit. And there’s no such thing as metric byte. That’s the sales department finding out that 104 MB is a larger number than 100 MiB.
one thing i enjoy way more than i should is use units that are technically correct, but no one uses them like ever.
like megagrams instead of metric tonnes.
or 1 dekameter instead of 10 meters.
I only use metric when it’s in forms nobody else uses or recognizes at a glance because I need to be difficult. Decimeter is perfect for like, height of a person, for example. Why do they use CM?
decimeters is perfectly fine. basically all volume calculations boil down to dm³ as 1 dm³ = 1L
Why do they use CM?
Precision. “17dm” can be anything between 16.5dm or 17.5dm.
You could of course say “I’m 17.5dm tall”, but at this point “I’m 175cm tall” is shorter (no dot).
That said I’ve seen plenty people measuring height in metres and then centimetres. Usually something like “I’m one [metre] and 75 [centimetres] tall”.
I measure battery capacity and electricity consumption in J/kJ/MJ, as intended. None of that kWh bullshit.
It also makes for fun comparison with energy value of foods.
Energy is energy, after all.
im a fan of giving energy in: kg • m² ÷ s²
What, you still multiply by an arbitrary constant? I remember back before I switched to: kg • c²
We all know it’s a much better system. Reagan killed our attempt at switching. No one has tried since.
Personally, I use metric for 3D printing, and I use imperial for wood working. Until standardized material sizes change, it doesn’t make sense to use metric for wood working. That change needs to come from the top, from government regulation.
And 1 ml of water weighs 1 gram and has a volume of 1 cubic mm
You’ve been hit by…
You’ve been struck by…
A smooth metric system
Annie, are you Oakley? Are you Oakley, Annie?
It’s obvious that there’s 1760 yards in a mile.
There’s 22 yards in a chain, which we can all remember because of the 22 yard line in rugby.
There are 10 chains in a furlong, which fans of metric can’t complain about.
There are 8 furlongs in a mile, just like there are 8 pints in a gallon.
And 22x10x8 = 11x10x16 and 11 is easy to multiply by in your head, so it’s really very simple to get to 1760.
/s
this but unironically.
22 yds to a chain, 10 chains to a furlong, 8 furlongs to a mile.
Rods damnit you forgot rods
4 rods to a chain
Uh, no.
10 feet = 1 decafoot
100 centiyards = 1 yard
1x10^18 attoacres = 1 acre
333.3 yards = 1 kilofeeter
This guy gets it
I’m gonna start estimating distances in millimiles.
1 millimile ~ 5 feet, 3 and 23/64 inches.
makes perfect sense.
This would be acceptable
I kinda want a hexadecimal version of the metric system.
In hex:
10 mm = 1cm
100cm = 1m
1000m = 1km
1km - 1m = FFFm = 0.FFFkmStill works fine.
Wouldn’t it be
- 0xA mm = 0x1 cm
- 0x64 cm = 0x1 m
- 0x3E8 m = 0x1 km
- 0x1 km - 0x1 m = 0x3E7 m = 0x3E7/0x3E8 km = 0x0.FFBE76C8B4395810624D… km
Edit: nvm I see what you mean, but then we should change the units too, to something like xmm, xcm etc.
Yeah, we’d need to change the names and abbreviations of the units too, to show that “km” isn’t 10³ m but rather 16³m = 0x10³m.
Measurement system doesn’t have anything to do with numerical base. You can use any base with any system.
16m = Fm
which is pretty ass if you ask me
Sir, this is a Wendy’s, we measure in common units around here…
I prefer absolute units and natural units.
Natural units? You mean like cup sizes? A/B/C/D/DD… ?
shopping for a new mailbox today, they used number of baseballs it can fit as the units and/or basketball for the big ones
Americans choose to meassure thier dicks with the thumb of a british king instead of using meters… or GIGAmeters… there are no correct awnsers, right?
0.0000000003448 GIGAmeters just doesn’t sound that impressive…
3,5 10-10 Gm
Also, notice that ypu can round it up a bit…
And, who meassures his dick… you just need an honest aproximation.
Exemple: “my dick? You mean from the root? I think it’s just a fraction of a gigameter…” which is a 100% honest and humble response.
Edit: one can also use astronomic units… 1 AU =~ 150 Gm
Meanwhile the UK naming their currency after a sex act.
