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[Criptfeind]

Everything from the feminism standpoint this forum has been imprinting me with to that not being a real word.

[Heron TSG]

Also, it's rude to insult an entire population like that. I mean, am I an 'Americunt' just for living here?

Anyway, does someone have a good comparison for weight? (No, saying that one liter of water weighs one kilogram does not help.) I mean, I can safely say that an average apple weighs 6-10 ounces, but have no parallel metric (ha!) for the metric system.

[Criptfeind]

Here is my mental trick for going between weights:

A chicken weighs about five and a half pounds, a chicken also weighs about two and a half kilograms.

So just think about everything in terms of chickens and switching between the two is easy.

[Blargityblarg]

Also, it's rude to insult an entire population like that. I mean, am I an 'Americunt' just for living here?

Anyway, does someone have a good comparison for weight? (No, saying that one liter of water weighs one kilogram does not help.) I mean, I can safely say that an average apple weighs 6-10 ounces, but have no parallel metric (ha!) for the metric system.

200-300g.

[olemars]

Also, it's rude to insult an entire population like that. I mean, am I an 'Americunt' just for living here?

Anyway, does someone have a good comparison for weight? (No, saying that one liter of water weighs one kilogram does not help.) I mean, I can safely say that an average apple weighs 6-10 ounces, but have no parallel metric (ha!) for the metric system.

1 kg ~ 2 pounds (2.2 actually, but for quick approximations it works ok with 1:2).

[rhesusmacabre]

Yeah, the UK has never fully embraced metric. Many products (jam, sausages, etc.) are still sold in jars/packs of 1lb or a ratio thereof, but on the packaging will it say 454g or whatever instead, with no mention of imperial units.

[Muz]

Before we lose the imperial system, I'd just like to say that I'll miss measuring things in feet and inches, just because (centi)meters are kinda unwieldy for measuring things like bodyparts. Everything else works great, though.

[Starver]

Yeah, the UK has never fully embraced metric. Many products (jam, sausages, etc.) are still sold in jars/packs of 1lb or a ratio thereof, but on the packaging will it say 454g or whatever instead, with no mention of imperial units.

Supermarket milk, OTOH, often comes in 1L, 2L, 4L cartons with the decimal pint value clearly emblazoned at equal (if not more) prominence.

All of this is really because we're legislatively tied to metric (mile-scale road distances and pints of milk/beer in pubs/on doorsteps being prime exceptions), and greengrocers/butchers aren't allowed to sell "by the lb", and over-exuberant Jobsworths have sometimes attempted to fine those that give both imperial- and metric-base prices.  But, socially and mentally, a lot of people are still tied to the old imperial measures.  I'm not quite old enough to have used pre-decimal currency, but its transposed values were still in colloquial use for many years (bob, tanners, etc), and 12-times tables were prominent in that era of school, on top of the 2-10 ones.

I've not actually seen any "It is 10lbs, but we'll call it <mumbledymumbledy> kilogrammes instead" examples, but then as sausages (in particular) are variable in size ('Eurosausages', excepted? ) I never really expect to see a decimally-exact total weight that happens to be on a round value.  Could just be that "a handful of links" is conveniently very close to a handy value of lbs, or similar.  Which I suppose gives support for the idea that Imperial Measure is more useful.  But it can't be true of every product, so whether you get very simple units or have to use Avagadros number to get a more realistic (and easier to count the thousands separators) amount I'm not sure it's totally relevent.

[Loud Whispers]

British, tending to be the ones who embrace changes the slowest of all european countries, it seems from my perspective.
(metric system, the gregorian calendar...)

I'm sure we all still walk around with bowler hats and monocles.... MMMMYYYEAAAASSS _[/sarcasm]

[Reudh]

Rather, jolly good show, hmm what?


(I'm 40% English so I can make fun of England. )

[Loud Whispers]

(I'm 40% English so I can make fun of England. )

Wutha... XD

[Agdune]

Personally, I want to know how to convert my sensible metric into your insane Imperial systems. Any system that was founded on 'all our measurments are based on whatever happened to be nearby" is one that should ever have lasted beyond 1700. What the hell sort of standardised unit is a "stone"?! Was it conceptualised in some sort of stone-deficient town where they only had one rock, and assumed that all the rocks in the world must be roughly similar in weight or something?

[Haspen]

Well, I learned three principles that allow me to survive with both systems

1 kg = 2.1 pounds
1 inch = 2.54 centimetres
1 foot =~ 30 centimetres

(And for human size calculations: 5 feet =~ 1.5 metre )

Still unable to grasp the Fahrenheit <-> Celsius conversion. Them fractions...

But fortunately I use this for few years now And it has BOTH conversion tables AND a converter at ready !

[malloc]

Having lived with the SI system all my life I never had any problem with using it.

but the easiest way would probably to get a good idea of what a meter, a centimeter and a kilo is.

There is no easy way to do so other than to see what each of these units are, then multiplying each unit by powers of ten to get other units.

kilometer = 1000 meters.
Centimeter = 1/100 meters.
Milimeter = 1/1000 meter.
Ton = 1000 kilos.
Gram = 1/1000 kilo.

Example:
I know what a meter is, so a kilometer must be 1000 times bigger.

The best thing of the SI system is that most values are defined from natural constants, only the kilo is not defined from natural constants, but rather because it's a handy amount of weight. Length is about 1/300,000,000/s the speed of light, and 1/40,000 the length of the circumference of the earth.

[Montague]

I'd like to point out that metric is based off completely arbitrary benchmarks as well.

All metric distance measurements are based off the meter, which is based off a flawed measurement of the earth's diameter from the French Revolution period (was supposed to be 40,000 km for the diameter of the earth when in reality it's 40,075.017 km) . Then in 1983, they decided a meter is the distance light travels in vacuum in 1 ⁄ 299,792,458th of a second, which is a pretty damn illogical and arbitrary number, I think, especially since time measurements are based off an inaccurate measurement of solar and lunar cycles.

The gram is based off the meter, so the whole metric weight system is based off an arbitrary value as well.

Celcius is based on the freezing point of pure water at sea level, which makes less sense the Farheinheit which is based on the average range of tempeture range of Europe for describing weather and less sense then Kelvin for scientific use. So with celcius, you have a smaller whole number range to describe the weather and it tends to use a lot of negative numbers and fractions as a result. A more logical and scientific measurement system would be Kelvin, which is based on the temperature of absolute zero. No negative values with that system.

Anyways, a quick way to roughly convert Celcius to Farheinheit in your head is to double the number and add 30, So 20C is 70F, 10C is 50F, ect its gets you pretty close if you have to decipher weather forecasts in Europe or whatever (and isn't a negative number).