• Flamekebab@piefed.social
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    7 hours ago

    I wish we had a metric inch because the fuzziness can be useful.
    “How small do you need these veggies diced?”
    “2.5cm ish” vs. “about an inch”

    I feel like the implied margin of error is much larger for inches, which make them useful for many things where precision isn’t necessarily desirable (hemming, wargaming, moving furniture, etc…). If I’m wargaming having a limit on rounding is useful (half an inch - either round up or down), assuming I’m playing at a scale that uses inches.

    Feet I have no use for, with one exception - adult human height between 5’ 2" and 6’ 2". There I find metric too precise (whereas to the nearest inch accounts for variance in sole thickness, hair volume, etc.).

    I wasn’t raised on imperial (and I’m baffled that people younger than me in the UK still talk about stones. Sixteen stone is fat, sure, but I’ve no idea how fat if not told in kilos) but I find inches to have their uses.

    Also miles for cars - because common speeds are ~60 and ~30 mph so a road sign effectively gives the time to arrival (e.g. 13 miles on a motorway = about 13 minutes). I don’t use them for actually measuring distance on a map but they’re handy when driving.

    • colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz
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      7 hours ago

      Why not say ‘2-3 cm’ for the first one? Or ‘a couple centimeters’? It doesn’t feel too different from saying ‘about an inch’ to me

    • deltapi@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      We kind of do have metric inches, insofar as machinists work in 'thou’s (thousands of an inch) But that’s kind of specialist

      • antler@feddit.online
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        2 hours ago

        Thousandths of an inch are also used in some engineering applications and are called “mils.” Not to be confused with millimeters.