Comment on Banana for scale

• surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Metric is just as great for everyday life as imperial units.

  This is what the metricians say to feel better about themselves, but they never mean it.

  “Oh yes, I’ll have a 236.588 milliliters of tea, thank you for offering”

  “The kids are out playing in the back 0.914 meters”

  “Doctor, I think I broke my left 30.48 centimeters”

  Do you see how silly you would sound if you didn’t use imperial?

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  • TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I was co confused until I got the joke lol

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• aMockTie@piefed.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  1 1/8 inches + 5 27/32 inches + 7 3/16 inches

  1/8 = 4/32 3/16 = 6/32 4 + 6 + 27 = 37 37/32 = 1 5/32 1 + 5 + 7 + 1 = 14 Total: 14 5/32

  I wouldn’t call it chaos, it’s a straightforward algorithm:

  1. Identify the largest denominator
  2. Multiply each other fraction by [largest denominator divided by current fraction’s denominator]
  3. Determine the sum of every numerator
  4. Divide and simplify the number if necessary
  5. Determine the sum of the integers, including any integers added in the previous step

  This works for every measurement because the denominator is always a power of 2.

  With that said I absolutely prefer metric.

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  • tempest@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    In practice you would just use decimal inches. Doesn’t really make it better but you can machine something without ever seeing a fraction if you want to since everything will be in thousandths of an inch.

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    • aMockTie@piefed.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Maybe in your particular industry, but I reckon most people using imperial units aren’t using measuring devices with decimal inches or needing the precision of .0001”

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• JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Having done my share of automotive and carpentry work, I’ve never in my life had to go down to 64ths. 32nds is the smallest fraction I’ve ever had to use and the amount of times I’ve had to get that small could probably be counted on one hand.

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  • mkwt@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    In US machine shops if they’re getting down to that level of measurement, they’ll switch over to milli-inches.

    Yes, milli-inches are an actual unit in use.

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  • lauha@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Are you saying adding 8ths, 16ths and 32nds is trivial and having 64th in my example made it unrealistic?

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    • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’m saying that if you knew what you were talking about you wouldn’t be working in 64ths in the first place. You picked 64ths because “hurr sure Americans dumb” and you know it.

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      • lauha@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I picked 64 because I don’t use imperial and I have no sense of scalw what makes sense as a fraction unit. A bit paranoid, aren’t you?

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• JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  If someone were adding those figures they would switch to decimal. I built furniture for 2 years, 64ths are almost never used over thousands of an inch. If you need to be finer than 32nds you use thou. And that pretty much only for wood. Machine shop I worked in used thou exclusively.

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  • starik@lemmy.today ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    thousands of an inch

    Which is called a “mil”, a name that has never caused confusion

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  • lauha@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    While in theory it is like that, I as a non english speaker have come across people trying to add up inch fractions more time than I remember.

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• taiyang@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Wheeeeeeee fractions!

  But after multiplying, 8 + 54 + 3 over 64 is just clean fun, you end up with 14 1/64 inches and wanna die because you accidentally cut the material at 14 inches and now your whole day is ruined.

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