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Why do we condone the use of Imperial measurements when we are so "concerned" about mass?

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I'm relatively new to the "ultralight" community coming from the Weight Weenie community of cycling, and what continually mystifies me is how the "ultralight" community seems to be anything but ultralight. Minimalist, sure, but when weights are continually conveyed using an imprecise unit, then is it actually ultralight or just vaguely "light" ? Why do we continually condone manufacturers and members of this niche use 'oz' and 'lbs' as a default? Metric measurements are far more precise and translatable by comparison
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ErickL
1
Aug 23, 2018
My base weight is 9.8 pounds. Is that 9 pounds and 8 ounces or 9 pounds and 8/10 of a pound?
WIT-404
75
Aug 2, 2018
I swear I've had this same exact discussion with you before. For the last time... the system itself is not imprecise. Imprecision comes into play when the person doing the measurement taking doesn't do it exactly correct... which will be every time with any system of measurement.
The system is not the problem. It's the attempt to measure the real world and put it into numbers. Always has been, always will be... until we start measuring things by planck's constant, I guess.
quit trying to belittle a community that has nothing to do with the issue you're bitching at them for and go to the manufacturers (who are the ones that do the measurements, numbskull)
Heefty
1387
Jul 30, 2018
There are 2 types of countries in this world. Ones that use the metric system and ones that have been to the moon.
Which type are you from?
Minos
18
Aug 11, 2018
HeeftyIndeed. Burma and Liberia both use imperial units and have never sent anything yet into space. Russia, Japan, China and Europe, which all use metric units, have all sent probes to the moon and explored it.
BlindJustice
18
Aug 11, 2018
Minoslist of moonwalkers is really short
TXJason
11
Jul 30, 2018
Because the United States won the Revolutionary war. We could start a measurement unit that used sea shells and you would have to love it. And if any measurement is less exact it's Celsius vs Fahrenheit. It takes several decimals to explain the exact temperature in Celsius vs Fahrenheit
Greg2
86
Jul 27, 2018
Growing Up in Canada I’m fluent in both and still use both in industry. The mixed metric system is the best. You call things by their imperial names but when you build or design anything you use pure metric. So you have a 2” pipe that you cut 3500mm long.
This works because imperial is a much more conversational system. 100F is hot outside 0F is cold. A foot is a good approximate distance for measuirng human sized thing and an inch is a good approximate distance for measuring hand sized things.
Metric is only better for calculation and since outside of stove efficiency all you are doing is summing weights in a spreadsheet conversational units are more important than calculated units.
A good example of this is liters vs cubic inches for backpacks. It’s much easier to under stand the difference between 20 and 40L than 1200 to 2400 cubic inches. The litres are the more human sized unit.
So for weight ounces makes sense as it’s the smallest unit that is meaningful. Shaving a gram is meaningless, most kitchen scales are only accurate to +/- 3g anyways.
In conclusion intermixing both systems of units to have the best conversational set units that are suited to the human scale makes the most sense.
liters, inches, feet, ounces, lbs, kilowatts,
Ermengrabby
10
Jul 26, 2018
My father was raised in France and was a physicist by profession, so obviously used metric system exclusively at work.
But in personal life he was an advocate of the Imperial system. He felt the units were designed to human scale and we more naturally learned to estimate distances like 3 inches or weights like 4 ozs. It was a better system for non-scientific design.
Ermengrabby
10
Jul 26, 2018
Metric weights are not more precise than English weights. Precision is a function of your measuring device, not your unit of measure. Precision is expressed in terms of significant digits. Recording digits beyond the precision of your device for determining mass is meaningless.
Lachman
6
Jul 14, 2018
You can just type "20oz to g" for example in chrome and it does the conversion for you in the suggested links that drop down without actually having to go to another tab or website. A bit of a pain but really not that hard to do.
It's an american website and I expect imperial measurements
WIT-404
75
Jul 15, 2018
Ah, coherence in reference to a coherent system of units, yes. You see, because you gave no context, I assumed the generally accepted default definition of coherent. You also called the Imperial system imprecise without giving any accreditations to affirm such a bold claim. These things taken into consideration, I dare say a valid argument relies on having little miscommunication, yes?
tl;dr: If you expect everyone to understand you 1:1 exactly as you thought it, without giving appropriate context, you're gonna have a bad time.
WIT-404
75
Jul 15, 2018
WIT-404and while coherent units makes it easier to use your fingers to maths, popping off about how garbage imperial units are is asinine in the long run
its a system of units until the manufacturers quit using them, your stuck with them so quit bemoaning the reality of life here, and start writing letters to china
Skoshi
8
Jul 13, 2018
Well... I haven't seen a bladder using gallons or pints or a backpack talking about cubic inches of storage space for quite some time.
Some of my gear on their websites are in lbs and oz and some are in grams... it is changing.
Unfortunately the fact it is changing pisses us all off also. because you end up needing to convert grams to lbs and then decimal lbs to lbs and oz to line it up with everything else.
Give us time... it's slowly correcting... our great great grand kids will have it.
JerkyKen
136
Jul 8, 2018
‘Merica. Would 100th of an ounce help?
prendrefeu
14
Jul 8, 2018
JerkyKenSure? Maybe? But probably not when oz can be either fluid or solid, and conversion is not coherent. Metric is a coherent system, meaning that its units do not introduce conversion factors not already present in equations relating quantities.
So if a public starts requesting all of their products are quoted in metric, the producers/brands/manufacturers follow suit. Over time the use of a more precise unit of measurement becomes the in-use standard, and eventually 'official' standards catch up because that is what the majority uses.
It all starts with the consumer, and I find it frustrating when consumers so particular about mass - to the point that they are touting it on many different avenues, coming up with interesting methods and inventions to reduce mass - still make no attempts are shaping the very industry itself, instead just defaulting lazily to what they are given.
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