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williamdcltyesterday at 1:59 PM3 repliesview on HN

still isn't for most purposes, and most people are still more comfortable with yards than meters for day-to-day stuff (friends are often looking at me blankly when I give a distance in meters)


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RugnirVikingyesterday at 2:13 PM

> most people are still more comfortable with yards than meters

I feel this is highly context dependant, too. Hanging out with a rural group of people born in the 80s? yards. Anyone in a city and/or born after 1990 is probably more comfortable with meters

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mrguyoramayesterday at 2:39 PM

IMO metric is missing a critical measurement that is roughly the size of "a foot".

Most measurements in one measuring system have very similar equivalents in other measuring systems or useful approximations, like a pound being 1/2 a kilo, a liter being about a quart, or a meter being about a yard. Even various ancient chinese measurements can be similar like this.

Except the metric system seems to have eschewn the common measurement of "About the length of a human foot". It confuses me.

What do you call a footlong submarine sandwich in the metric system? A third-meter-long? A decimeter-long? It wouldn't fit into the power-of-ten based system.

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