[kylemuir]

> A furlong is the distance one can sprint before running out of breath

That doesn't seem very logical at all, that's entirely subjective. I'm fairly certain a top sprinter would easily be able to sprint much further than my (admittedly) unfit self before running out of breath.

[Spivak]

One, furlong actually comes from "furrow length" which how long an ox could plow before tiring.

The point isn't that the measurement is precise, the point is that it's useful. The unit has an intuitive and tangible meaning in the real world that let's people ballpark. This doesn't mean we should start doing precision work in furlongs but demanding that everyone switch away from measures that are still useful is silly. As long as the measurements are standardized using metric units who cares that you have a funny name for 201.168m?

[thinkloop]

If there is one thing that people know deep in their guts today, its how long an ox could plow before tiring.

[Spivak]

Which is why nobody really uses furlongs anymore but there are plenty of other units that are still in use. One example I think we're all familiar is the 'Rack Unit' for servers (i.e 1U, 2U) where 1U is 44.45mm. I don't think there would be any additional clarity gained by saying, "I bought a few 88.9mm servers".

[ric2b]

But that's a context specific unit, not intended for general use.

Metric is great for general use simply because of it's multipliers: (...) 1G = 1,000M = 1,000,000K = 1,000,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000m (...)

And also the simple way many units are related as well, like 1L of water having 1kg of mass (yes, with a certain temperature, pressure, yada yada yada)

[TeMPOraL]

I think the best situation is when you use sensible units for general situations, and when the funny units remain domain-specific.

Another example of a funny name is two-by-four, which - for some typically American reason - is understood not to actually be two inches by four inches...

[vog]

> who cares that you have a funny name for 201.168m

You do care if you frequently have to convert between all those funny units.