Phil is right - Torx doesn't deserve the comparison.
All choices are arbitrary, but it makes more sense to base them on distances that are common to the human experience. 1/10,000,000th of half the distance around the equator is too big for my head. My foot, however, is a distance I can reference and estimate quite easily. When someone says, "Grab a foot of rope", I just look at my foot (or forearm) and say, "About that much". When someone asks for "A meter of rope", should I look at the equator, cut it in half and divide by 10,000,000?
I get the definition of kilogram and gram from wikipedia. But if you think 'the weight of 1 gram of water at 4 deg. C' is intuitive and natural...
I can't defend Fahrenheit, that one is pretty dumb. Celsius isn't a lot better, but it's probably the best measure of temperature.
Base 10 is better - precisely because it relates to something common to the human experience (having 10 fingers). But that's probably the only way that metric is better.
And Canada is a great place, I've only been once, but I had a lot of fun.
As for feet being intuitive my arm length is about 2m.
The fish was *this* big! I hope that's your extended arms from fingertip to fingertip. Either that or you get gravel rash on your knuckles!
Personally (for what it's worth) I find the convention of Litres & Kilograms to be *very* handy when stuffing around with either volume or weight. Want to know what a litre is without having a measure? Pop the vessel on the scales and weigh it, and vice versa.
I can pretty predictably pace a metre these days, but I find estimating feet somewhat more difficult. My elbow is calibrated in Newton Metres (I can tell just when it's about to click - unfortunately sometimes the fasteners click first).
The worst I've seen has been in vehicle manuals in the Middle East. Fuel consumption figures in kilometers per gallon (without specifying Imperial or US gallons). Worse still, some cars specified their tank capacity in Imperial gallons, but the bowsers measured US.
"My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the ways I likes it"
I guess the world would be a very boring place if we were all the same.
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You only ever need two tools in life. If it moves and it shouldn't use Duct Tape. If it does not move and it should use WD40.
Comments
All choices are arbitrary, but it makes more sense to base them on distances that are common to the human experience. 1/10,000,000th of half the distance around the equator is too big for my head. My foot, however, is a distance I can reference and estimate quite easily. When someone says, "Grab a foot of rope", I just look at my foot (or forearm) and say, "About that much". When someone asks for "A meter of rope", should I look at the equator, cut it in half and divide by 10,000,000?
I get the definition of kilogram and gram from wikipedia. But if you think 'the weight of 1 gram of water at 4 deg. C' is intuitive and natural...
I can't defend Fahrenheit, that one is pretty dumb. Celsius isn't a lot better, but it's probably the best measure of temperature.
Base 10 is better - precisely because it relates to something common to the human experience (having 10 fingers). But that's probably the only way that metric is better.
And Canada is a great place, I've only been once, but I had a lot of fun.
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As for feet being intuitive my arm length is about 2m.
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24 bit LCD Breakout Board now in. $24.99 has backlight driver and touch sensitive decoder.
If you have not already. Add yourself to the prophead map
As for feet being intuitive my arm length is about 2m.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
24 bit LCD Breakout Board now in. $24.99 has backlight driver and touch sensitive decoder.
If you have not already. Add yourself to the prophead map
The fish was *this* big! I hope that's your extended arms from fingertip to fingertip. Either that or you get gravel rash on your knuckles!
Personally (for what it's worth) I find the convention of Litres & Kilograms to be *very* handy when stuffing around with either volume or weight. Want to know what a litre is without having a measure? Pop the vessel on the scales and weigh it, and vice versa.
I can pretty predictably pace a metre these days, but I find estimating feet somewhat more difficult. My elbow is calibrated in Newton Metres (I can tell just when it's about to click - unfortunately sometimes the fasteners click first).
The worst I've seen has been in vehicle manuals in the Middle East. Fuel consumption figures in kilometers per gallon (without specifying Imperial or US gallons). Worse still, some cars specified their tank capacity in Imperial gallons, but the bowsers measured US.
"My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the ways I likes it"
I guess the world would be a very boring place if we were all the same.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
You only ever need two tools in life. If it moves and it shouldn't use Duct Tape. If it does not move and it should use WD40.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
24 bit LCD Breakout Board now in. $24.99 has backlight driver and touch sensitive decoder.
If you have not already. Add yourself to the prophead map