[threemux]

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one.

Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally experience 5 degrees F - 100 degrees F at different points of the year. That's 95 degrees of precision with no decimal. In C, that's -15 to 37.8, a mere 52.8 degrees. The difference between 75 (usually a beautiful day) and 85 (hot) is 23.8C to 29.4C. Everything packed into this tight range.

Inches/feet being base 12 divides better into thirds and fourths, which is very useful in construction.

For science, sure, I'll use metric.

[modo_mario]

>Everything packed into this tight range.

AS someone that grew up with metric that feels fairly natural and not tight at all?

>Inches/feet being base 12 divides better into thirds and fourths, which is very useful in construction.

I used ruler tapes with both metric and imperial on either side and i always wondered how one could use the inches since they're so big and didn't always have the same minute subdivisions. Also doing my math in decimals seemed easier than calculating with quarter or 1/8th inches or smaller.

>For science, sure, I'll use metric.

Surely it would feel more natural to use the same for everything and all measurements.

I want to know how much rainwater my IBC roughly holds. I take out my measuring tape real quick. I'm not even sure how I'd get started in imperial without some strong intuition build up over years?

[svara]

> (...) grew up with (...) feels fairly natural (...)

Really all there is to that discussion.

[modo_mario]

Mostly yeah at which point the only relevant arguments are being able to tie in with the rest of the world and being able to easily tie measurements togheter/do math.

[threemux]

I mean it's mathematically a tighter range. I think part of this comes down to the more mild and less variable European climate. There is just less emphasis on air temperature so you don't see the drawbacks.

Your tape measure didn't have 1/3, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 subdivisions? Sounds like a bad tape measure (or really just one where US Customary was an afterthought).

As for science, well, most people don't do it. Those that do can use different things in different contexts, it's not that hard.

[modo_mario]

>Your tape measure didn't have 1/3, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 subdivisions?

I think one of em did and the other didn't. Either way it seems far more difficult to do some math with.

[nayuki]

I would be highly concerned if I saw a 1/3 division of an inch instead of 1/2.

[TheCoelacanth]

The extra precision is fake.

They might have measured precisely at the weather station, but local variation in temperature makes that extra precision meaningless unless you are located exactly where the measurement happened.

Even in a climate controlled room, there will be a degree or two of variation between different parts of the room.

[evil-olive]

for another example of this: a lot of people "know" that the average human body temperature is 98.6 degF.

that extra decimal point gives people false confidence about the measurement being more precise than it is.

because so much science (even in the US) happens using the metric system, the actual measured average [0] is 37 degC, and 37.0 degC == 98.6 degF. the nuance of the average being more of a confidence interval (37 +/- 0.5 degC, possibly larger) gets lost as well.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_temperature

[Kim_Bruning]

An eyeballed yard is roughly the same as an eyeballed meter. An eyeballed foot is 1/3 of that. You can stick 4 inches in 10 cm roughly.

And I just poke my nose out the window and look outside to see what the temperature is

  Freezing.... ~30°F.... ~0°C

  Need coat... ~50°F... ~10°C

  T-shirt..... ~70°F... ~20°C

  Melting..... ~90°F... ~30°C

Rules of thumb can be learned either direction!

ps HN tables are not really a thing, are they?

pps Suspiciously many experiments are conducted at 293K

[cucumber3732842]

What you're ignoring is that a hundred plus or minus is a good range for average humans to grapple with and Fahrenheit splits the temperature swings in a given region across an approximately 100deg range.

So using Fahrenheit results in a pretty decent "as high as it can be without being clumsy" measurement system that covers just about all earthly temperatures.

If we only cared about increments of five or so degrees you could go higher resolution and it'd be fine because rounding would occur like we do with vehicle speeds. Or we could go lower resolution and just make the degrees bigger, which is basically what celsius is.

[Kim_Bruning]

Eh, all the degrees (Celsius, Fahrenheit, Réaumur, etc) are all about equally bad. Nicest thing that can be said about Celsius is that it's decimal, connected to water (0=freezing, 100=boiling) so it plays well with the rest of metric.

Kelvin is actually the most practical of the lot, FSVO [1]. It's not a 'degree', because it's anchored at absolute zero. It's just a bit unwieldy for our day-to-day, with room temperature at 293K. But I can imagine if people were to grow up with it, it wouldn't be too bad even then.

[1] eg. "Why can an aircon still heat the house at ten degrees below zero?"- "Well akshually, you still have 263K of heat energy to pump, not an actual problem"

[samus]

Right, we are just arguing which is the most practical range. It's like choosing a calendar: we could define one using entirely metric time units, but nobody would want to use it as long as human civilization is anchored on Planet Earth.

[samus]

The difference between a yard and a meter adds up quickly. Already a 25 yard swimming pool yields significantly different times to cross it than a 25 meter one.

[flohofwoe]

> They're both more convenient for daily use.

That's really just because you're used to it. The rest is rationalization...

OTH of course the rest of the world can hardly complain since we didn't switch time or (angle-)degrees to decimal either ;)

[qingcharles]

Right. It's like when countries switched to the Euro or decimalized. There's a period when everything feels really janky and everyone complains and then a couple of years later everything is just fine and they forget what the old system was even like.

[samus]

I know a lot of people who still think in the old currencies. Similar phenomena happen for people in countries that redenominated their currency, like Romania, where people still use the old amounts in spoken language.

[etiennebausson]

Not switching to metric for time is reasonable, because there are already two existing 'natural' units for time (the day and the year), and they don't align on each other in metric (a year of exactly 1000 days would be so much easier, but we'll have to deal with reality as it is... or accelerate the rotation speed of the planet I suppose).

So long as we live on earth, metric time won't make much sense.

[amanaplanacanal]

A year and a day don't line up at all, so we get weird leap days.

[sowbug]

Is there any reason they should? Unless the Earth were tidally locked to the Sun, I'm not aware of any reason a day would have any relationship to a year.

[samus]

It would be convenient to not having to deal with leap days and other such constructs. Of course, we cannot choose how these things behave, and therefore using a calendar not aligned to the natural cycles of our planet would be even less convenient, and would only start making sense when humanity develops into an interplanetary civilization.

[IAmBroom]

The US isn't on a 365.24-based system, either. Days don't fit neatly into years, anyway.

That would have no impact on decimalizing sub-day units: 10 decidays in a day, 2 millidays to cook an egg... But no country did it, which speaks to the power our time traditions really hold in our psyche.

[johnnyanmac]

>That would have no impact on decimalizing sub-day units:

part of it is natural. We roughly divide day and night into 2 parts, so we already need to have considerations for halves.

It seems like base 12 was chosen simply due to religion. the zodiac defined the hours at night for ancient egypt, and the Goddesses of Seasons for Greece later on.

Minutes and seconds came because we let astronomers define them based on hours and movements of the sun along a dial. The time it'd take for a dial to traverse a literal arcminute and arcsecond (which is still a thing today). Though these times are very different from today's minutes and seconds. So we have math to thank for the base 60 measurements.

[yencabulator]

> part of it is natural. We roughly divide day and night into 2 parts, so we already need to have considerations for halves.

I forget which country did it but their historical time system counts hours as two halves from sunrise and then from sunset... That sounds a lot better than noon and midnight, to me. We could totally do

  sunrise = 0.00
  sunset = 9.99 -> 10.00
  sunrise = 19.99 -> 0.00

(For some standardized values of "sunrise" and "sunset" that don't slide around over the span of a year.)

[insane_dreamer]

The French did try to switch time to decimal after the Revolution. It was probably the most hated change they made by the local population, and didn't last long.

The problem was that it messed with the week, having a "day of worship / rest" every 7 days, which was then every 10 days

[jlongman]

That’s funny because when I work with Fahrenheit I just work with 5°F ranges to compensate for the approximate mental math required. Eg very quick mentally, 100°F = 37.778 °C (thanks autocorrect) = (100-32)/2 = 34.

But if it was closer to freezing say 42°F =5.556 °C (again) so 5°C. So arbitrarily we could say 57°F was 12°C =53.6 °F actually.

But a true Canuck knows knowing the temp is barely half the battle, what’s the wind speed and humidity? 29°C can be a lovely day if it’s dry or completely unbearable if it’s humid.

We hardly ever use decimals for weather-related measurements, the other factors above being more relevant.

Contrast that with measurements where I would say if you need to know a precise one you should be using decimal; ie what do you do if it doesn’t precisely third or fourth? If you’re talking about tool sizes then any system works as long as your froodle matches the grommlet.

[candiddevmike]

(F - 30) / 2 = ~C

C * 2 + 30 = ~F

[SECProto]

No need to simplify this.

(F - 32) / 1.8 = C

C * 1.8 + 32 = F

I personally find the math just as easy to do accurately. For example, 87F -32/1.8 = 55/1.8 =~30.5C. Compare that to your approximate method, which would give 28.5C, which is just wrong

(Maybe I just got really good at this when working a public facing job with a lot of American tourists - they would ask what our celsius temperatures were "in real units", so I got quite comfortable converting the air and water temps. Fahrenheit never once became intuitive to me, though.)

[tzs]

For C to F you can often simplify the mental math by doing the multiply by doubling then taking off 10%.

E.g., to convert 31℃ to ℉: 31 x 2 = 62. Subtract 6.2 = 55.8. Add 32 = 87.8℉.

If you want to round the result to the nearest integer the subtract 10% step is a convenient place: 31 x 2 = 62. Subtract 6 (rounded 6.2) = 56. Add 32 = 88℉.

[SECProto]

Yes, doubling then subtracting 10% of the resultant works because that is the same as multiplying by 1.8 :)

When going the other way and dividing, I similarly find it mentally easier to multiply by 10/18 (rather than just divide by 1.8)

[bsder]

(F + 40) * 5/9 - 40 = C

(C + 40) * 9/5 - 40 = F

Takes advantage of the fact that -40 F and -40 C are the same.

Remember it as (move origin -- convert -- move origin back).

I find it easier as a I don't have to remember precedence rules and the multiplication is obvious.

[humodz]

> The difference between 75 (usually a beautiful day) and 85 (hot) is 23.8C to 29.4C.

If you convert a nice, round number from one system to the other, you'll end up with a more precise, less nice number, which will give the impression that Celsius is harder to use.

In reality, people from metric countries just think in 5-degree increments: 25 is a beautiful day, 30 is hot. It doesn't feel any harder to read than Fahrenheit.

I wonder if there are people that moved to the U.S., switched to Fahrenheit and now find it more intuitive than Celsius. If one is easier than the other, I assume it still doesn't make up for the hurdle of learning a new system.

[rkomorn]

> I wonder if there are people that moved to the U.S., switched to Fahrenheit and now find it more intuitive than Celsius.

I've done the move twice in each direction. Neither is more intuitive.

When I moved back to C after 22 years in F, I had to adjust again. It took a few months. The other times were after fewer years, but still took (re)adjusting.

[AlotOfReading]

Even in construction, feet/inches/yards kinda sucks. 1:10 scale drawings are painful to do manually, division by 2 is a bit erratic, and bolt sizing is a horrible mess. Metric bolts are nice and consistent.

With you on temperature though.

[briffle]

My wife was a surveyor in a past carreer. We have a tape measure in the garage that measures to the nearest hundredth of a foot. It is just so weird to see. Forcing decimal on a measurement that does not normally have it just makes me uncomfortable.

https://surveysupplyinc.com/lufkin-12-foot-hi-viz-engineers-...

[nayuki]

The tension that you experienced is common in imperial and traditional systems of units. Here's another example for you: Carpenters working with wood use mixed feet, inches, and fractional inches (like 2' 5 3/8"), but machinists working with metal use exclusively decimal inches (like 29.375"). Both hold steadfast to their traditions and won't consider adopting the other system.

If you take a look at American grocery stores, you'll see things like: “40 × 16.9 FL OZ (1.05 PT) 500 mL BOTTLES / NET 676 FL OZ (5.28 GAL) 20 L” https://www.instacart.com/assets/domains/product-image/file/...

To dissect that product: It's a pack of 40× 500 mL of bottled water. I have zero problems with the metric labeling. But for the US customary units, you can see a jumble: decimal fluid ounces, decimal pints, a large number of fluid ounces, and decimal gallons. Note that the gallons can be broken down into mixed units (and some packaging does that); 676 fl oz = 5 gal 1 qt (0 pt) (0 cup) 4 fl oz exactly. The US units are basically "whatever I feel like using" (don't forget tsp and tbsp, which aren't used in the current example). The metric units for liquid consumer products are always mL and L, which greatly simplifies learning and comparison for the consumer.

[kurthr]

Note that ft/100 is almost exactly 1/8", which is also the most standard resolution used in construction. I love decimal feet (it's worth noting that there used to be a survey foot, but it has been deprecated).

[AlotOfReading]

I was an archaeologist, but use a similar tape measure. It's fantastic. It also works very well with GIS systems, since decimal degrees almost perfectly correspond to metric powers of 10 at tropical latitudes.

[zokier]

> My wife was a surveyor in a past carreer. We have a tape measure in the garage that measures to the nearest hundredth of a foot

Survey foot or international foot?

[gordonhart]

Miles didn't click for me until I learned that it's defined by how far you'll travel in 1,000 paces (where a pace is an L+R step). Now I find it very useful to convert steps<>distance traveled, which is actually quite useful if you walk a lot!

[zzzoom]

You'd have to be quite tall to average an ~80cm step. 193cm (6'4") according to a quick search.

[gordonhart]

The original unit was the [slightly smaller] Roman mile which was standardized with the military in mind, i.e. able-bodied men in their prime. Seems like the average for men today is 2.5 feet or so which is more or less still on the money for 2k steps/1k paces to a mile.

[insane_dreamer]

> inches/feet/yards ... more convenient for daily use

only because that is what you are accustomed to

because I grew up with metric, m/cm are much more convenient for daily use

I will allow that a "foot" is useful as an approximate intermediary unit between m and cm

> Inches/feet being base 12 divides better into thirds and fourths, which is very useful in construction.

again only because the US construction industry grew up using fractions instead of decimals

[evil-olive]

> Inches/feet being base 12 divides better into thirds and fourths, which is very useful in construction.

all of the math normal people use in everyday life happens in base 10.

"it's easy because it's base 12" is an absolutely ludicrous idea.

what's 7'5" divided by 3? divided by 4?

what happens if you need to divide by 5?

and sure, there are various mental math tricks you can learn to make this easier...or you could just use the metric system.

7'5" is 226cm. that's a normal, boring, everyday, base 10 integer.

you don't need to learn a special set of "mental math for base 12" tricks. instead you can re-use the same mental math tricks you use for every other base 10 number.

[gonzalohm]

Interesting. As an European living in the US. The only US units that I find useful are cups, teaspoons and tablespoons. And that's only for cooking. It's way faster to measure volume than weight (although less accurate)

[ddellacosta]

As a pretty experienced American home baker I don't understand how you can assert that it's faster to measure volume with cups or etc. than to put a bowl on a scale and simply pour stuff in, measuring everything in grams. It's not even close in terms of speed, convenience, _and_ accuracy.

[bigstrat2003]

It is indeed not even close, but not in the way you are asserting. It takes a second to dip a measuring cup into the flour and level it off. So if I need 4c of flour, it takes me about 4 seconds. Meanwhile, to measure with a scale I have to slowly, carefully pour into the bowl so that I don't overshoot the amount I'm going for (and then then sometimes I overshoot and have to try to scoop the ingredient out a bit). Volume measurements are damn near an order of magnitude faster than weight measurements. And it's not like the extra accuracy from weight measurements is actually that important 95% of the time. Baking is not that precise, contrary to popular belief.

[ddellacosta]

Welp not much I can say to that or to RandallBrown's response, seems obvious our experience and way of thinking is pretty different on this matter.

(EDIT: Also fwiw I often use a spoon or whatever to scoop things into the bowl, vs. pouring, which means I have more control but can still offload the measuring part to the scale...)

Whatever gets the delicious baked goods in your mouth I guess

[RandallBrown]

Maybe it's my skill with a scale, but it's much faster for me to scoop a measuring cup or spoon into a container and scrape off the top than it is to go back and forth adding/removing stuff on a scale.

[samus]

So one just needs a conveniently sized measurement cup then.

[consp]

It used to be based on relative size, so if you have a set of spoons and cups and use the same for all measurements they are ballpark right for your recipe (and some minor difference accounting for user error). These day's it's defined anyway in both metric and imperial. As soon as you start weighing something from the recipe it goes out of the window as that defines the rest of the relative measurements. For that reason I really dislike the recipes telling you to measure teaspoons of spices but grams or ounces of flour. I don't have two sets of measurement cups available. These days most cooking sites mention both though.

On a sidenote: an ounce is 100g here and a pound 500g. Mainly by being in common usage and translated to common used weights. "An ounce more okay?" is an easy way to sell more without mentioning how much it actually is in numbers.

[samus]

The validity of relative measurements in recipes starts to break down as soon as eggs are in play, which are not easily subdivided. On the other hand, that rarely matters and most recipes are fine with up to one more or less egg.

[Symbiote]

In some European countries, it's common for rough recipes to use decilitres, e.g. 2dL of flour.

1 US cup is 2.37dL.

Otherwise, a metric tablespoon is 15mL and a teaspoon is 5mL.

[kakacik]

Those are not US measures, we use them in Europe as well

[rkomorn]

I've not seen them used as precise measurements in France or Portugal.

In the US, you buy measuring spoons that have specific sizes (1tbsp is 1/2oz, and 1tsp is 1/3tbsp).

[justincormack]

They are different sizes to the American ones.

[gonzalohm]

Really? I have never seen them in use in Spain

[childintime]

Nobody I know speaks of temperatures in decimals of Celsius, like no one.

[jeppester]

I like this!

I wonder if there's a place on the internet where I can find more of this sort of seemingly strong and well-thought out arguments for something that is so clearly subjective (if not just inferior).

[cucumber3732842]

>seemingly strong and well-thought out arguments for something that is so clearly subjective

Any platform where snooty articulate people congregate will have such arguments by the bushel.

[hencq]

> by the bushel

Well played

[nayuki]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Metric/

[bigger_cheese]

I've lived with deg C my whole life it is what I'm used to, the way I experience weather is in 5 degree increments - I live on East Coast of Australia. My Internal rule of thumb is:

Below 10 deg C - it is cold, Heavy jacket weather

10-15 Typical winter weather (at least where I live) light jacket

15-20 Spring/Autumn weather long sleeves no jacket required

20-25 Pleasant day T-shirt weather

25-30 Getting hot, ceiling fans/AC time

30-35 Hot

35+ very Hot

[relaxing]

You don’t need to worry about taking up room for a decimal place when your outdoor temperature is only ever 2 digits at most.

[johnnyanmac]

>Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals

Meanwhile, I'm fine at 98.6 degrees, but everyone freaks out over 100 degrees. it's a more precise unit, right?

feet/inches make more sense to be attached to. they are based on your body parts (roughly), and we spend a lot of time looking at humans. inches divide our fingers, feet are... well, feet. And yards are steps. We intuitively know what all those feel like through everyday life compared to the scientific way we derive a centimeter. inches and feet being base 12 is more a coincidence than anything else (or maybe not. Maybe there's some golden ratio shenanigans at play).

[vablings]

The UK uses miles and miles per (UK) gallon. We talk in feet, inchs lbs and stone for weight. But when it comes to engineering works it is ALL now in metric aside from the older builder, all of my schoolwork was in metric, and we never dealt with the hellish conversions it was all SI units, and we just had to know maybe one or two magic constants in physics and chemistry (molar and something else to do with joules in bond enthalpy)

I worked as an engineer and the only drawings specified in imperial were pre 1970s and all the CNC controls are programed in mm feed rates in mm/rev or mm/min

[Tor3]

What's the problem with decimals? They're all numbers. -4.5 degrees C is fine, isn't it? (The actual temperature right here right now). Where's the problem?

[sfn42]

You don't even need decimals. Nobody who uses celsius gives a shit about the decimals. It's -4 or it's -5 and even that distinction is irrelevant.

Unless you're doing some kind of scientific calculaton there's no need to think about decimals of celsius at all. Just like Fahrenheit users surely don't care whether it's 50 or 53 or whatever. It's around 50, that's all you need to know.

[Ekaros]

Only place I could imagine something is cooking and even there I probably would not be able to differentiate steak at 56C, 57C and 58C...

[ginko]

It might make a difference for mashing when brewing beer but even that’s a crapshoot.

[Kim_Bruning]

Yes, but then you might conceivably still measure temperature in degrees Réaumur, if it's a rather traditional brewer. Or so I was told by a Reliable Source(tm).

[ghaff]

For sous vide, I will differentiate by 1 or 2 Fahrenheit degrees but I take your basic point.

[gonzalohm]

You don't even need decimals. 45x10^-1. There, fixed

[rickydroll]

If you want to get even more divisive, try converting people to metric baking measurements. Baking bread and cakes is much more repeatable if you use mass rather than volume to measure ingredients.

The results from this recipe were never consistent when I used volume measurements. I converted to mass in metric and now I get consistent results.

adapted from: [https://www.justsotasty.com/wprm_print/11594](https://www.justsotasty.com/wprm_print/11594)

Banana Brownies

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 35 minutes mins

Total Time: 50 minutes mins

### Equipment

- 9x13 inch (23 x 33 cm) baking pan*

### Ingredients

- 227 g unsalted butter (2 US sticks) unsalted butter (The better the butter, the better the results. In the U.S. market, Kerrygold yields the best results, followed by Cabot, and "well, it's still brownies" Market Basket house brand.) - 400 g dark brown sugar - 2 large eggs - 5-10 ml vanilla extract - 150 g mashed bananas (about 2-3 large, brown bananas) - 156 g all-purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur All Purpose Unbleached Flour) - 60-70 g cocoa powder - 2-3g teaspoon salt - 280(ish) g chocolate chips (I prefer Ghirardelli Bittersweet 60% Cacao Baking Chips, use 1 bag) )

### Instructions

- Preheat the oven to 350F degrees (180C or 170C fan forced). Line a 9x13 inch (23x33 cm) pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil leaving an overhang around the sides. Alternatively, lightly grease the pan. - Melt the butter in a double boiler. Add in the brown sugar, stir, and let it sit in the double boiler, stirring occasionally until the mixture has a nice caramelly flavor. - While the butter-sugar mixture is cooking in the double boiler, combine the dry ingredients. - Sometimes cocoa powder is lumpy, and you may need to sift it. The alternative I use is combined flour, cocoa powder, and salt, and use a whisk to mix it all together and break up any lumps if there are any. - Take the brown sugar butter mixture off of the double boiler and mix in the mashed bananas and vanilla. - The bananas usually cool the mixture enough that the eggs won't cook when you put them in, but if the mixture is hot, add some flour, add some of the dry ingredients, and that will cool it down enough to add the eggs safely. - Stir in the chocolate chips. - Pour/spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 35 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with a few damp crumbs. - Cool fully (about 4 hours), then slice. Store brownies in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. (Never last that long in my house)

[bigstrat2003]

I use volume measurements for baking and I get consistent results all the time. Perhaps your recipe is especially gnarly, but that isn't true of all recipes.

[adrian_b]

Volume measurements work acceptably in cooking only when you use some volumetric spoons for quantities corresponding to a completely filled spoon.

Otherwise, if you use a vessel with markings for various volumes, you waste a lot of time to ensure that the quantity in the vessel lines precisely to a marking and its surface is perfectly level, in comparison with weighing the same ingredient. Moreover, you have one more vessel to wash.

I eat only food that I cook myself and I use only 2 kinds of volume measurements. I use a set of volumetric spoons for measuring various kinds of powders used in small quantities, e.g. salt and spices. I also use a graded beaker for water. For any other ingredients, it is much faster to put the vessel in which they will be cooked on digital weighing scales, and pour there each ingredient until the right weight is reached. Besides being faster, this also avoids the need to use additional vessels, which would need washing. The graded beaker is better for water only because it must be taken from the tap, where I cannot put the weighing scales.

For example, this includes making bread, when I pour water in a bowl that will be used for kneading with a graded beaker, then I pour the flour while weighing until the desired weight is reached, then salt is added with a small volumetric spoon.

[rickydroll]

Regular results from volumetric measurements are due to the process. For example, sifting the flour every time gives you a degree of consistency approaching that of a mass-based measurement. Mass-based measurements make it easier to have that precision in the baking process.

[edit: speech recognition error correction.]

[d--b]

Can you at least switch to 1/10th of inches? The 1/4th, 1/8th, 1/16th is very annoying

[convolvatron]

we do. being a machinist in the US means being able to convert between decimal inches, mm, fractional inches, and things like feet all the time. not to mention other completely arbitrary units like sheet gauge, fastener number and inverse thread spacing. there are also decimal feet for carpenters.

this for me is the real appeal of metric, not that somehow a meter is magical, but at least there is one system, with a consistent set of rules, that allows us to do some magic things like tell the approximate volume of water given a weight.

edit: omg I forgot about nominal wood sizes. the underlying system actually has different units based on the material and the usage. copper gauge is not the same as steel gauge. thats pretty hopeless. for precious metals we also have the pennyweight

[AngryData]

That would be negating 90% of the usefulness of using a fractional system though. It is barely a step up from using a prime number like 7 or 11 as a number base or divisor.

[eddyg]

Fahrenheit forever!

    0°C.................100°C
    Cold                 Dead

    0°F.................100°F
    Really Cold    Really Hot

[evil-olive]

I see this argument repeated every single time someone tries to defend Fahrenheit.

if "room temperature" was smack in the middle, at 50 degF, you might have a point.

but no, it's pure post-hoc rationalization.

being naked at 0 degF will kill you. being naked at 100 degF will (usually) not. they're not remotely equivalent.

instead, think of it this way - human beings are mostly water, and 0 to 100 degC is "percentage of the way from water's freezing point to boiling point".

room temperature is "about 20% of the way to boiling". 40% or higher starts to cause our bodies to overheat. a typical sauna will be somewhere between 50 and 70% of the way.

[btbuilder]

0C = Frozen!

[ghkbrew]

Only if you're made of pure water at standard pressure. Which I'm not.

[Kim_Bruning]

Close enough for government work, actually. And it's not just flesh. Lots of things behave approximately like water, which is handy for all sorts of back-of-envelope estimates.

[samus]

You better take precautions against frostbite below that temperature though. And a lot of things need to be watched as they could be frozen then.

[Polizeiposaune]

Don't forget:

  0K..................100K
  Dead          Still Dead