I want to prefer imperial, but using fractions for tools is super fucking annoying when millimeters are easy, and then stores giving me price per ounce in the store, other products price per pound making me do the fucking Mental Math multiplying times 16 pisses me off.
Fractions are a stupid way to measure small distances, and ounces are a stupid way to measure it small amounts of weight.
But at the same time, fractions are actually a better way to measure precisely. If you need to record a precision that’s greater than a whole unit without being 10x as precise, decimal kinda sucks. If your precision is 1/8 a cm, you either have to round up or imply that the precision is accurate to 0.001 cm.
You can always play with a denominator to show greater precision with fractional measurements (1/8 vs 2/16 vs 8/64), but you can’t easily imply lower precision with decimal.
I do not agreed that fractions are a better way of measuring small distances. Decimals can be broken down infinitesimally. I don’t see anything hard to understand about it, meanwhile fractions you have to like compare and contrast the denominators to find the values or break out some long division or a calculator. Fuck that.
How do you describe a measurement of 1 and a quarter of a centimeter precise to 1/4cm without either over-stating or under-stating precision of the measurement?
Decimal only allows you to increase or decrease precision by a factor of 10.
I want to prefer imperial, but using fractions for tools is super fucking annoying when millimeters are easy, and then stores giving me price per ounce in the store, other products price per pound making me do the fucking Mental Math multiplying times 16 pisses me off.
Fractions are a stupid way to measure small distances, and ounces are a stupid way to measure it small amounts of weight.
It’s just a binary search
I could honestly care if Imperial wants to fuck men or women or both, I just don’t want it to be fucking annoying when I’m trying to do work.
But at the same time, fractions are actually a better way to measure precisely. If you need to record a precision that’s greater than a whole unit without being 10x as precise, decimal kinda sucks. If your precision is 1/8 a cm, you either have to round up or imply that the precision is accurate to 0.001 cm.
You can always play with a denominator to show greater precision with fractional measurements (1/8 vs 2/16 vs 8/64), but you can’t easily imply lower precision with decimal.
I do not agreed that fractions are a better way of measuring small distances. Decimals can be broken down infinitesimally. I don’t see anything hard to understand about it, meanwhile fractions you have to like compare and contrast the denominators to find the values or break out some long division or a calculator. Fuck that.
Okay.
How do you describe a measurement of 1 and a quarter of a centimeter precise to 1/4cm without either over-stating or under-stating precision of the measurement?
Decimal only allows you to increase or decrease precision by a factor of 10.
If the Precision is necessary you just break up two decimal points, or however many to get it to where it has to be.
You don’t need to use significant figures to convey precision. You can also explicitly state the uncertainty, like 1.25 ± 0.25 cm.
But even you don’t know how that works.
Because 1/4cm precision would be ± 0.125cm