Do you say "Turn right in 5,604 feet?"

[Xist]

"How many kids do you have?"
"Four-fourths."
"What is wrong with you?!"

My point is that if something is a mile away, you say a mile. If it is a kilometer away, you say a kilometer. If something is a meter long, why would you call it 10 decimeters or 0.1 decameters? (Or 100 cm or 0.001 km?)

Years ago a beautiful young lady told me that I was funny when I was not trying to be.

I lie awake at night hoping that she is happy.

[jakobnev]

Multiply your velocity by in 32404 attoparsecs.

[markweatherill]

'YOU SHOULD HAVE TURNED RIGHT THERE'

But surely the truly perverse navigator would translate everything into paces.

[Fat Charlie]

Furlongs.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by markweatherill

'YOU SHOULD HAVE TURNED RIGHT THERE'

But surely the truly perverse navigator would translate everything into paces.

The fun thing about being navigator with me is that I still make those turns, tires howling.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by markweatherill

But surely the truly perverse navigator would translate everything into paces.

And there you have a good example of the practical utility of most imperial units, versus the absolute impracticality of metric. A mile is a thousand (standard Roman) paces, so if you want to go a mile (or reasonable fraction thereof), you just count paces. If you want to go a kilometer, you have to start by somehow measuring the distance from the pole to the equator - and along the Paris meridian, too.

[Xist]

Any Soldier that has done land navigation can tell you that everyone's pace is different. If you had everyone marching in formation it would be different.

My eighth-grade chemistry teacher said that he did not know how long a yard was, but he held up a meter stick, and said that he knew how long a meter was.

After class I asked how that argument made sense. He laughed and said it didn't.

[RedDevil]

Metric units are not derived from practical everyday household measures - for a reason, because everyone's logic is different.

If miles feel natural it is because you are used to them. Growing up using the metric system, I can attest that feels natural and logical to me and any other measure is weird and complex. It is just what you are used to.

When the French devised the meter, they did not use some pedantic local unit or the distance from Paris to whatever. They took the one thing that unites us all - the planet we live on.
And the planet accepted the standard almost completely, just 3 countries did not.

[Xist]

Proving once again that peer pressure works on the weak-minded!

[seifrob]

The practicality of metric system lies, I believe, in the fact it is a system. Maybe not as intuitive for everyday life, but ideally suited for science. There are no funny constants to incorporate when you do unit conversion. How many BTU is equivalent to rise a concrete block to some height? You need to convert fathoms and pounds and whatever else to get answer that is simple in metric system.
No wonder science textbooks are in SI, even in the USA.

(once I needed a liter in volume having no bottle. I took cardboard, cut squares 10x10 cm and built a cube, put microtene bag in, having exactly one liter of water. I have no idea what would I do should I provide a gallon.