this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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Why still using the imperial system? (abananaforscale.com)
submitted 7 months ago by Zerush@lemmy.ml to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[–] frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml -3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

“wait, what is 5/8 + 3/16 + 1 7/64?”

Those are so easily commensurable! It's 1 and 59/64 obv.

It's set up to make this easy.

Let me ask: do you think people have usedit for hundreds of years for no reason?

[–] Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Those are so easily commensurable! It's 1 and 59/64 obv.

I legit can't tell if this is sarcasm.

[–] frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

“wait, what is 5/8 + 3/16 + 1 7/64?”

In binary it's 0.101 + 0.0011 + 1.000111, or laid out vertically:

0.101
0.0011
1.000111
=
1.111011

Halving numbers is no harder than decimating them, probably easier for most of us. Even computer scientists don't think of base-10 as The Way The Truth and The Light; they use base-2 or base-16 for various things.

Decimal/base-ten is fine as a convention, but insisting that One Convention is perfect and others are heretical is stupid.

[–] Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You do you, but if you're reverting to binary to explain how simple it is to add values together, I think you've made a wrong turn somewhere.

[–] frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

halving is a really easy mental operation; we do it all the time mentally and with physical things like bits of food or drink or folding a piece of paper

[–] Palacegalleryratio@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago

Let me also ask, do you think the rest of the world moved away from it for no reason?