Measurement and number

[w/robe]

When you buy fabric it is all sold by the metre but the widths are in inches so you have 3m x 60".

A few shops quote the widths in metric so you get very odd numbers as all the looms are still weaving in imperial.

[Glyn Edwards]

And don't touch pints, a pint of Guinness in any other unit would be an insult.

Except possibly gallons!!!!

[J Pearce]

Or quarts, or yards.

[Bix]

And don't touch pints, a pint of Guinness in any other unit would be an insult.

"Alright mate, can I have 0.568261485 liters of Guiness, ta"

[Seano]

I wouldn't be too offended if someone rounds up my pint of Guinness and buys me a litre instead. :D

 

Going back to the original gripe, which was about bogus precision in guestimated numbers, more than it was about metric/imperial:

This is pretty common in our industry anyway, you see it all the time on rigging plots for example.

 

A conversation that goes: "Straight truss here, 20 feet long, lets have two points um... 16 feet apart." Ends up on a rigging plot as two points, 2439mm either side of centre.

 

There's an interesting effect here, people think numbers are more reliable if they sound more precise. (Hence Vic Reeves' "88.2% of statistics are made up on the spot" I guess.)

 

I have a pal who does householdy buildy stuff, and tells me that there's a certain kind of client who will always query an invoice if he thinks its just been made up - those kind of clients never get a bill for "lets call it 50 quid", they seem genuinely happier with a bit of calculator tapping and a bill for £53.12 (I'm pretty sure he never rounds* the bill down by a small random amount.)

 

* Actually, this isn't 'rounding' the bill up or down is it, its the opposite. 'Squares' the bill? 'Roughens' the bill?

[Modge]

A large landscaping company I used used to geek for have been known to very accurately estimate the cost of a job, realise it looks to much like a round number and add 87.32 to it to make it look more thought about....

 

I think mm lead to bogus precision in there own right - I think people have a desire to use everything to the left of a decimal place.

[lightsource]

Perhaps this should be in Pet Hates

 

 

Probably the most reasonable comment so far, lets face it, we've had dual standards in the UK for decades. Our car speedo's have the big numbers in MPH, but the little ones actually read KPH, bearing in mind ( as Paul commented with his kids), we look at our speedo's constantly while driving, so really anyone who's been paying attention should know the answer, but when not in the car, how many could say what 100KPH was in Mph?

 

But, there's also the inaccuracies within units of measure (due to lack of knowledge by a lot of people), think of the watt, for example, unless the quoted figure is stated as RMS, Peak, PMPO etc, then what is the accuracy of " it's 100w per channel mate". It has practically no meaning whatsoever.

 

Or SPL dB, without the distance stated for the measuring point.

 

But with Ekij's point on accuracy, I do find that wood thickness is 'rounded' between inches and centimetres, so, a 0.5" of wood, tends to be 12mm, rather than 12.7mm. And that can be annoying.

 

Also, on a humorous note, how many of us actually own gaffa tape that is 50m x2in. Think about it!

 

Edited because I hadn'd finished before I accidentally posted :P

[Ike]

Oh, and I hate cm.

Or for the utmost in ridiculous units: Deca Newtons (daN). It's like asking someone for two deca-pence for the payphone, it's an extra character as well so it isn't even like you're saving space.

 

My way of thinking is now almost fully metric, the only real exception is when I'm dealing with imperial sheet materials and need to be accurate.

[StevieR]

When the government caused that huge debarcle over weights in shops a few years back, I always thought, well, if you're your going to get all sticky about that then you better sort out all the other imperial measurement systems too. So, apart from the phenomenal cost, why don't we change all the speedos to kph, all the road signs and speed limits to km and ban feet and inches from all rulers and measuring devices!

 

For goodness sake britain - make up your mind up one way or the other!!!!!!!

 

And finally, just for a bit of fun, next time someone gives you a measurement in feet/inches, ask them what that is in litres!

 

Steve

[Pete]

I'm sure Freddie will be along in a minute!

 

Here's my tuppence.

 

I work in both,I think we all do.

 

Anyone been to Spain recently they seem to (still) be comparing the value of things in euros to the value of thing in Pesetas.Surely that must be even worse? I'm so so very happy that we kept the £.

 

Just as a side note didn't the EU have a proposal to decimalise time?Or was that something I read in a less than genuine email?

 

Pete

[MarkPAman]

I think that one is a hoax. Time seems to be one of the units all the world agrees on.

 

Though somebody :blink: will probably now tell me I'm wrong. :)

[Modge]

I think some one has been reading this thread! TV yesterday someone said "it took 8 weeks to advance about 100m, that's about 100 yards".

Some random documentary on the Vietnam war, owing to a complete lack of anything worth watching.

[BungalowJumper]

Decimal Time Linky

 

is your friend

[djw1981]

That would have been the 20th century battlefields series with Peter Snow (swingometer man) and his son Dan.

 

Peter snow was always very specific when converting votes to swings at elections - lots of about and roughly involved there.

[Freddie]

I'm sure Freddie will be along in a minute!

 

Will I? Erm, why?

 

EDIT: Oooooooooh! My Signature! Forgot I had that there.

 

Yes, I am fully in favour of full metrication, and as soon as possible. As I understand it, we were originally going to metricate in the 1970s, but its been put off and put off for "political reasons". So, we have the farcical situation that everyone almost everyone educated in the last 20yrs or so has been taught EXCLUSIVELY in metric, yet out in the big wide world, its all in miles and (to a lesser extent), pints and pounds!

 

I mean, what's with miles per gallon? If petrol was sold in gallons, I could understand, but surely it should be [DISTANCE UNIT]/100l! I could show you 1km, 1m, 10cm, 1cm or 1mm, I very much doubt that I could do the same in imperial measures.

 

Freddie