<story><title>Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/books/2014/08/john_marciano_s_whatever_happened_to_the_metric_system_reviewed.single.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jwecker</author><text>I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a limited use-case of) the imperial system is usually glossed over: the fact that in many crafts (especially historically), using base-12 makes certain things much easier. It divides into 3rds far more easily, divides into 4ths slightly more easily, and still divides into 5ths with only one digit after the decimal.&lt;p&gt;Just like computer programmers have no problem immediately recognizing that 256 is 2^8, it became intuitive when working with the Imperial system (at limited scales) that 48 inches is the same as 4-feet but that it is also 3-stud-distances long (studs in walls are often placed 16 inches apart).&lt;p&gt;Even if you don&amp;#x27;t work in crafts where dividing things by 3 is more frequent than dividing by 5 it is easy to imagine how certain things might be more difficult if we used base-10 for time (as, it has been pointed out, has been attempted)- and thereby using the ability to easily divide an hour into 3 parts (for example).&lt;p&gt;Consistent base-10 and international standardization has advantages that far outweigh these minor things- but I think it&amp;#x27;s important to recognize that there is, surprise, a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units- it&amp;#x27;s not purely tradition or politics or their &amp;quot;organic-ness&amp;quot; (anymore).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anigbrowl</author><text>My house is 100 years old, and having some construction experience myself I take care of small maintenance issues. I&amp;#x27;m European but I grew up with both imperial and metric systems side-by-side, so it was easy for me to pick up American standards on things like stud distances and so on. It is convenient to have some things like that standardized, although the particular standardized measures themselves are highly arbitrary.&lt;p&gt;However, because my house is old nothing is perfectly standard any more - all the angles are off by a degree or two, different parts of the house have slightly stretched or compressed over the course of a century, and so on. So whenever I measure something I end up noting both metric and imperial - imperial because I am going to be forced to deal with it at the store&amp;#x2F;supply depot, metric because I want to get the numbers right and I would way rather work in base 10  that mirrors my 10 fingers than juggling fractions of an inch (a unit which is divided into 16ths instead of 12ths because...er...um...).&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I don&amp;#x27;t expect this change any time soon.</text></comment>
<story><title>Death by Inches: The battle over the metric system in America</title><url>http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/books/2014/08/john_marciano_s_whatever_happened_to_the_metric_system_reviewed.single.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jwecker</author><text>I am not anti-metric by any means, but having done carpentry a lot in the past it always strikes me when this comes up that one of the central arguments for (a limited use-case of) the imperial system is usually glossed over: the fact that in many crafts (especially historically), using base-12 makes certain things much easier. It divides into 3rds far more easily, divides into 4ths slightly more easily, and still divides into 5ths with only one digit after the decimal.&lt;p&gt;Just like computer programmers have no problem immediately recognizing that 256 is 2^8, it became intuitive when working with the Imperial system (at limited scales) that 48 inches is the same as 4-feet but that it is also 3-stud-distances long (studs in walls are often placed 16 inches apart).&lt;p&gt;Even if you don&amp;#x27;t work in crafts where dividing things by 3 is more frequent than dividing by 5 it is easy to imagine how certain things might be more difficult if we used base-10 for time (as, it has been pointed out, has been attempted)- and thereby using the ability to easily divide an hour into 3 parts (for example).&lt;p&gt;Consistent base-10 and international standardization has advantages that far outweigh these minor things- but I think it&amp;#x27;s important to recognize that there is, surprise, a rational practical reason for sticking in some cases to Imperial units- it&amp;#x27;s not purely tradition or politics or their &amp;quot;organic-ness&amp;quot; (anymore).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sb057</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a page featuring more examples like you mentioned.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/metrix/pontius&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dozenalsociety.org.uk&amp;#x2F;metrix&amp;#x2F;pontius&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>