I have seen a finger counting method for base-12. Use your thumb as a pointer and point to one of the individual long bones of your fingers, there are 12 of them (1 more than you really need). WIth both hands you can get to 144 by using one as the dozens place and the other as the...
Yep yep, I's heard of this counting system, but it IS more complicated than base-1 on the fingers, even if just a lil bit.
We could convert to base 8 or base 9 a lot easier. We wouldn't need to add any new symbols to the ASCII table, and it's a lot easier to reduce the number of fingers someone has than to add new ones.
Umm nuuu I like my extra fingers. How about if I promise just to not use them? Please?
Anyways I've been all focused on fingery counting because the doctors are trying to teach me ASL (American Sign Language) and .. um, it's not going well. One of the stumbling blocks is that I'm getting older but also.. three is the two fingers closest to the thumb, and the thumb.
I always hold up three fingers to say three, and I almost always miss the thumb if someone shows me the ASL three.
Base 2 finger counting is pretty easy, provided people are aware of what you're doing during 4, 128, and 132. Possibly more, if they miss the thumbs.
Um, yes. That could definitely be misinterpreted ^.^;;
Base 2 isn't super hard but it's still not as easy as base 1 though.
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It has nothing to do with going down to the centimeter, but if you have literally 0 concept of what 20 feet means, that adult dragon may as well be the same size as your dog.
IMHO if cm accuracy doesn't matter, then it's easy enough to say 1m ≈ 1 yard or 3 feet. So when they talk about feet measurements, just imagine they are talking about "1/3 m". Above meter size, using slightly less accurate 1.5m = 5 feet (or 3m = 10 feet) is simple and convenient (and official conversion in translated versions, as people here posted).
Imperial units are absolute train wreck when converting units, because numeric relationship is not obvious or intuitive, and in fact most "native" Imperial unit users CAN'T DO BASIC CONVERSIONS of many units for this reason (too many unit ratios to remember unless one deals with that conversion on regular basis). This cannot be emphasized enough when people try to defend Imperial's efficacy, it's own "fluent" population is functionally illiterate in it's application.
But. Oh. Penises and extreme cold.
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Penises and extreme cold.
don't go well together at all
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Anyways I've been all focused on fingery counting because the doctors are trying to teach me ASL (American Sign Language) and .. um, it's not going well. One of the stumbling blocks is that I'm getting older but also.. three is the two fingers closest to the thumb, and the thumb.
I always hold up three fingers to say three, and I almost always miss the thumb if someone shows me the ASL three.
So good thing you're not an Allied spy in Germany. You'd get made for a spy like that scene in
]Base 2 finger counting is pretty easy, provided people are aware of what you're doing during 4, 128, and 132. Possibly more, if they miss the thumbs.
They are problematic. 22 is also rather 'shocking.'
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It has nothing to do with going down to the centimeter, but if you have literally 0 concept of what 20 feet means, that adult dragon may as well be the same size as your dog.IMHO if cm accuracy doesn't matter, then it's easy enough to say 1m ≈ 1 yard or 3 feet. So when they talk about feet measurements, just imagine they are talking about "1/3 m". Above meter size, using slightly less accurate 1.5m = 5 feet (or 3m = 10 feet) is simple and convenient (and official conversion in translated versions, as people here posted).
Imperial units are absolute train wreck when converting units, because numeric relationship is not obvious or intuitive, and in fact most "native" Imperial unit users CAN'T DO BASIC CONVERSIONS of many units for this reason (too many unit ratios to remember unless one deals with that conversion on regular basis). This cannot be emphasized enough when people try to defend Imperial's efficacy, it's own "fluent" population is functionally illiterate in it's application.
But. Oh. Penises and extreme cold.
Yeah, I'm still much more familiar with imperial units because I'm an American. But I never remember how many ounces are in a pound. Or how many fluid ounces in a gallon (I do remember that a gallon is four quarts and a quart is four cups). And for some odd reason I remember the number of feet per mile (5280), but only because the first test in an into chem class I took focused a lot on unit conversions in general and how to do it in equations. Conversions to or from metric are a pain. I only have 2.54 centimeters per inch memorized.
But really I think everyone is missing out on the most important unit of measurement. The Smoot. In 1958 A frat at MIT decided to measure the Harvard Bridge with their shortest pledge of the year, a guy named Oliver Smoot. He was 5'7". The bridge came out to 364.4 smoots +/- one ear. Every year since they they repaint the markings for every 10 smoots. The Police even encourage them to do it because they're useful for identifying the locations of accidents on the bridge, and when it was redone in the 80s the sidewalk was done with smoot-length slabs instead of the standard 6 foot ones. Oliver Smoot himself went on to be chairman of ANSI and then President of the OSI. Fitting, considering he was himself a unit of measurement. We should totally have all combat squares be measured in smoots.
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I learned math through RPGs, because math made things awesome.
If they go metric, I guess I'll learn metric, too!
Paizo could totally lead the revolution. Just, you know, quietly. A revolution secretly to be led by all of us geeks in the near future as we take over the world.
Imperial units are absolute train wreck when converting units, because numeric relationship is not obvious or intuitive, and in fact most "native" Imperial unit users CAN'T DO BASIC CONVERSIONS of many units for this reason (too many unit ratios to remember unless one deals with that conversion on regular basis). This cannot be emphasized enough when people try to defend Imperial's efficacy, it's own "fluent" population is functionally illiterate in it's application.
Yah, not many of them would be able to answer how many cubic inches there are in a foot~ Or .. cubic picas in a cubic foot.
On the other hand...there's a million cubic centimeters in a cubic meter (100x100x100)~
Yeah, I'm still much more familiar with imperial units because I'm an American. But I never remember how many ounces are in a pound. Or how many fluid ounces in a gallon (I do remember that a gallon is four quarts and a quart is four cups). And for some odd reason I remember the number of feet per mile (5280), but only because the first test in an into chem class I took focused a lot on unit conversions in general and how to do it in equations. Conversions to or from metric are a pain. I only have 2.54 centimeters per inch memorized..
It's 16 ounces in a pound~ and that's the limit of my American Standard knowledge (including the miles/yards/feets stuffs I mentioned before).
I have no idea how many fluid ounces are in a gallon~ Prolly negative thirty seven and a half.
(Is that even a thing? Does a gallon divide into fluid ounces?)
[(Is that even a thing? Does a gallon divide into fluid ounces?)
Yep, a gallon is 4 quarts.
A quart is 32 ounces, or 2 pints (16 oz each) or 4 cups (8 oz each).
So a gallon is 4*32 or 128 ounces
Paizo could totally lead the revolution. Just, you know, quietly. A revolution secretly to be led by all of us geeks in the near future as we take over the world.
I like this idea!!
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I have always wished Paizo to adopt the metric system. I couldn't understand the fact that while Paizo takes a progressive stance on several issues like homosexuality or racism, surprisingly it maintains a traditionalist stance on the system of measurement and remains a staunch supporter of the imperial system. Sigh. It really frustrates me.
Yep, a gallon is 4 quarts.
A quart is 32 ounces, or 2 pints (16 oz each) or 4 cups (8 oz each).
So a gallon is 4*32 or 128 ounces
Trying.. to memorize.. not ... working.. *hair starts to smoke slightly* Ow!
...I looked up a table, and I'm still a bit confused. But I learned that the difference between the US and UK gallon is because an imperial gill is 5 fluid ounces and a US one is 4 fluid ounces.
Oh! If you keep gills in there, it actually smoothly doubles along teh whole way until you get to fluid ounces, and then does the 5/4 thing.
Beer comes in pints
A gallon is 8 beers. A quart is 2 beers.
Beer comes in pints
A gallon is 8 beers. A quart is 2 beers.
Beer comes in 2 liters, 0,75 liters, 0,5 liters, 0,25 liters and sometimes 0,1 liters, depending what and where you order. so, is a gallon 8x2 liters, 8x0,75 liters, 8x0,5 liters, 8x0,25 liters or 8x0,1 liters?
Roughly, for beer drinking purposes, a gallon is 8 x .5 liters
Precisely, a gallon is 3.78541 liters
A pint is just under half a liter, so I would go with 0.5 as "close enough".
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I'm surprised we got this far without this.
Well the fact paizo chose this way led pretty much every game i play to be rule of the thumb outside grid distance, cause almost nobody cares to convert often.
Same goes to carry capacity... You lift the rock if you are strong, you dont if you are weak sort of thing.
To be honest it isnt so bad, it certanly cuts on the rules to check since some dont matter anymore.
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A pint is just under half a liter, so I would go with 0.5 as "close enough".
Case in point - an Imperial pint is 568 ml, so quite why the US altered that is anyone's business.
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The difference dates back to 1824, when the British Weights and Measures Act standardised various liquid measures throughout the British Empire, while the United States continued to use the earlier English measure.
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Beer comes in 2 liters, 0,75 liters, 0,5 liters, 0,25 liters and sometimes 0,1 liters, depending what and where you order. so, is a gallon 8x2 liters, 8x0,75 liters, 8x0,5 liters, 8x0,25 liters or 8x0,1 liters?Beer comes in pints
A gallon is 8 beers. A quart is 2 beers.
Uhoh there's another thing - you're writing the decimal thingy as a comma.
More troubles!! >.<
Uhoh there's another thing - you're writing the decimal thingy as a comma.More troubles!! >.<
Or how about this. How much is a billion? A thousand millions (10^9), or a million millions(10^12)? Depends on where you are and if the short scale or long scale is the local custom.
That's it, we all need to switch to Planck Units, dozenal numbering and speak Esperanto! Only way to stop the confusion. Also name everyone Bruce.
Speaking of which, why did the U.S. fail to introduce metric properly? I've heard rumors about bin Laden's attack on New York invoking fervent patriotism nationwide having to do with its last straw, but surely that alone can't be the whole story...
Permit to copy>paste from an old post of mine:
Right. It's not like we invented that stuff. We were just more resistant to change because we had no pressing need to integrate our measurements like the disparate European systems of measurement existing in the early nineteenth century did.
As something of a typical American, I do my science in metric and my life in US Customary and have no interest in changing. Any benefit to me would be vanishingly small. Plus, metric measurements will never feel "real" to me. If you tell me a distance in kilometers or a temperature in Celsius, I'm always going to have to convert it back to make sense out of it. Maybe my grandkids will have an intuitive sense of what a kilogram is, but I don't. I can do the math, but that's the point. It will never be the base measurement to me.
Besides, we're still stuck with ancient Babylonian systems of time and geometry (there are 360 degrees in a circle, not 100).
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Also, I insist that all gaming products be printed in English and in Klingon.
there are 360 degrees in a circle, not 100
Does that bother anyone? Problems like 'Convert 24,000 feet into miles' are easier in metric, but I can't think of an equivalent for angles. The only conversion I ever have to do with degrees is into radians, and that's equally difficult in centi-degrees (or whatever they'd be called).
It also means equilateral triangles have 60 degree angles instead of 16.667 degree angles.
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Perhaps the states should use the approach Canada did. Just make metric the default system, stop teaching imperial in schools, then just attrition out. (IE my parents only know imperial, I grew up in the transition so I have to flip between the two, my kid will be 100% metric).
That is how every country in the world did it. Once upon a time in Spain we used arrobas, quintales, leguas, pasos, varas, celemines, fanegadas and cántaras. Nobody knows what those even mean, or what are they used for
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Or how about this. How much is a billion? A thousand millions (10^9), or a million millions(10^12)? Depends on where you are and if the short scale or long scale is the local custom.
OMG I totally forgot about that! Fortunately that doesn't come up in pathfinder too much unless you're talking about the perception DC for seeing the Sun.
That's it, we all need to switch to Planck Units, dozenal numbering and speak Esperanto! Only way to stop the confusion. Also name everyone Bruce.
No! Name everybody Kerri! I don't want to be named 'Bruce'. t.t
(It's not my actual name but I do respond to it~)
That is how every country in the world did it. Once upon a time in Spain we used arrobas, quintales, leguas, pasos, varas, celemines, fanegadas and cántaras. Nobody knows what those even mean, or what are they used for
Is a quintales a fifth of something, or five of something perhaps?
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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there are 360 degrees in a circle, not 100Does that bother anyone? Problems like 'Convert 24,000 feet into miles' are easier in metric, but I can't think of an equivalent for angles. The only conversion I ever have to do with degrees is into radians, and that's equally difficult in centi-degrees (or whatever they'd be called).
It also means equilateral triangles have 60 degree angles instead of 16.667 degree angles.
There exists a 1/400, the gradian, which is only ever used to give calculators a third angle option. Degrees have several divisors which is more relevant to angles than other measurements (look at small-scale imperial. It's awful), and radians, despite not having an intuitive setup at all, is the one that the underlying math actually runs on.
Another point for light-X as distance, I guess.
I've never seen anyone seriously use a gradian. In physics I've used both degrees and radians so much that they are fairly interchangeable in my head and I'm comfortable with both. They both have their uses...I wouldn't dream of attempting carpentry with radians, for example.
"Clean break" would probably be the fastest way to change the US to metric, but it would involve a lot of screaming and hand-wringing, and 70 years from now you'd still find small rural schools teaching the Imperial system and getting all huffy when someone demands they change. It doesn't help that there is a severe science teacher shortage in rural US areas (and some urban areas too) so we end up with librarians teaching middle school science class because their degree says "Library Science." I'm not kidding.
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Honestly, when it comes to one of the most common uses of temperature (weather) Farenheit makes the most sense. It makes little sense to talk about -10°C as to me, compared to 14°F.
No. When you say "makes sense", you really mean "it's what I learned to use". Because using the most common stuff on this planet as the base makes about as much sense as possible. Temperatures dropping below the freezing point of water is literally the biggest change the world the world around us sees (snow instead of rain, ice on the ground, etc.), what doesn't make sense about the temperature scale reflecting that?
But you're asking 300 million people to change all their systems that they've been using for their entire lives.
Yeah, it's a big deal, but it's not impossible to do. For comparison, around the same number of people had to switch their currency to Euro around the turn of the millenium, and somehow that didn't lead to the End of the World As We Know It™. Yeah, old people here still think like "10€, that's 20 DM", and there was a time where both values are used alongside, but it worked out rather well.
I think the only real problem is the "god's own nation/center of the world"-mentality in the minds of many americans.I feel that Pathfinder is fine in the old measures because it gives it an authentic old-timey feeling.
I'm OK with actual historical measurements, but not with random bull shit. "Mile" is from latin for thousand, if a mile isn't thousand X, it's not a proper measurement (roman mile is 1000 paces, with 5 feet to a pace, that should be 1000 squares). Roman foot was really close to imperial foot. Pound is derived from the latin for "balance weight" (libra pondo, hence the "lb" abbreviation), and the a-bit-dunder-500g version was indeed used in high middle age europe, so it's setting appropriate.
Meanwhile, Fahrenheit scale is merely 19 years older than Celcius scale (both are from the 18th century, i.e. neither fits the setting), that's not enough reason to use a scale partially based on the (mismeasured) human body temperature in a setting with many different sapient species.I'm ok with using the historical measurements of foot/mile (with 1:5000 ratio) and pound, but is there any objectively reason why temperatures shouldn't be listed in both Fahrenheit and Celcius? There aren't that many temperature listings in the book, so added word count is irrelevant.
Rough conversion of pound and feet to proper measurements is easy. Fahrenheit to Celcius? That requires adjusting not only the scale but also the low point, not something that's easy to do on the fly.
Uhoh there's another thing - you're writing the decimal thingy as a comma.
Oh god, I hate that. I'd totally be willing to switch to decimal point/thousands-comma if it'd make the world use the same system!
So good thing you're not an Allied spy in Germany. You'd get made for a spy like that scene in Inglorious Basterds.
True scene, by the way. I didn't even know not everyone uses the thump/index/middle to show "three" before watching that movie!
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I'm OK with actual historical measurements, but not with random bull s$~%. "Mile" is from latin for thousand, if a mile isn't thousand X, it's not a proper measurement (roman mile is 1000 paces, with 5 feet to a pace, that should be 1000 squares). Roman foot was really close to imperial foot. Pound is derived from the latin for "balance weight" (libra pondo, hence the "lb" abbreviation), and the a-bit-dunder-500g version was indeed used in high middle age europe, so it's setting appropriate.
Meanwhile, Fahrenheit scale is merely 19 years older than Celcius scale (both are from the 18th century, i.e. neither fits the...
Use dead units of measurements that nobody currently uses? Ugh no. The reason they use the current measurements is simple, their main audience is American so it's familiar. Yeah, we should have gone metric, but we didn't. And it does suck for people in the rest of the world who use metric. But it's better to serve the greatest number of your audience. Going to actual archaic measurements (where they didn't even have a temperature measurement) would just mean that /everyone/ is using unfamiliar measurements, the worst of both worlds. Yeah mile was named after 1000, but it stopped being 1000 paces a long long time ago. Just like how Century meant 100 so the Roman military unit Century was... 80 people except maybe back in the Kingdom period. Using an ancient definition that has been changed many times over would be insane.
Dead measurements are gone for a reason, they're a freaking mess. As much as the Imperial units are a relic and seemingly nonsensical, it's better than the older way. Having 20+ different definitions of 'inch,' 'foot' and 'mile' is kind of nuts. Local town-halls used to have the official units for that town, so you can go and find out what this town uses for a 'rod' and what their 'stone' is, because it's different from town to town, let alone country to country. I don't think anyone is going to have fun converting Chelaxian Miles to Andoran Miles to Absolonian Miles. Just like how the currency is based on abstract universal Gold Pieces and such instead of a hodgepodge of national and subnational currencies which would often change around every few generations as well as get different values through debasement. "Oh, we need to go get our Chelaxin Crowns converted to Druman Guilders. Make sure to separate out the Crowns of Abrogail I and later, because she reduced the gold content. And the coins from Galt are easier to just melt down than try to figure out who was running the place and what the coins were worth that day." "But we've got a bunch of Taldan Drachma too." "Well crap. Start sorting."
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I have a cheat sheet of imperial to metric on my GM screen for this reason.
Plus a list of imperial measurements like feet to miles, ounces to gallons, and feet to yards. Because keeping track of that BS is infuriating.
Having both in the books would be lovely. Or just going to a neutral term like "paces" that could be 5 feet or 1.5 meters depending on where you live.
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Not in Australia.
Go to a butcher, ask for a pound of mince. You'll get a blank look.
Same goes for an American butcher, but it wouldn't be the unit that was causing the problem...
I'm surprised we got this far without this.
No. When you say "makes sense", you really mean "it's what I learned to use". Because using the most common stuff on this planet as the base makes about as much sense as possible. Temperatures dropping below the freezing point of water is literally the biggest change the world the world around us sees (snow instead of rain, ice on the ground, etc.), what doesn't make sense about the temperature scale reflecting that?
I mean, I feel like you're reasoning in this sense is liek you're accusing me of that it's "what you learned" so that's why you're pro that system.
If you really want it, the most useful temperature measurement system for math is Kelvin, but people will get upset if you start telling them it's 293 K outside.
To me Farenheit and Celsius are equally bad, but Farenheit doesn't go negative as soon as Celsius does, and that is an advantage to me. To me, that you set 0 to the phase transition point of water is irrelevant. It's extremely easy to remember it's 32° F. Both are pretty damn arbitrary when it comes time to do math involving temperatures. You're going to have to convert either way.
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Speaking of which, why did the U.S. fail to introduce metric properly? I've heard rumors about bin Laden's attack on New York invoking fervent patriotism nationwide having to do with its last straw, but surely that alone can't be the whole story...
nah its nothing like that, its becasue the majority of us citizens don't want to
hell i used metrics all of the time in the army but still prefer us imperial for most things
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hmmm...since both me and my brother in law are both adult males, let's compare our shoes. his are about 6 or 7 cm shorter than mine. a reference point that variable is just not a godd nough reference point to begin with. 20 of his shoes compared to 20 of mine and the difference is somewhere between 1m20 and 1m40.
that's a freakin huge difference on a short distance like that.
story heights here are between 3m and 5m, depending on how old that building is. sometimes, they are even higher. so a 20 ft dragon could be both 6m or 10m high, again, as a reference point, the diference is way to big.
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No. When you say "makes sense", you really mean "it's what I learned to use". Because using the most common stuff on this planet as the base makes about as much sense as possible. Temperatures dropping below the freezing point of water is literally the biggest change the world the world around us sees (snow instead of rain, ice on the ground, etc.), what doesn't make sense about the temperature scale reflecting that?I mean, I feel like you're reasoning in this sense is liek you're accusing me of that it's "what you learned" so that's why you're pro that system.
If you really want it, the most useful temperature measurement system for math is Kelvin, but people will get upset if you start telling them it's 293 K outside.
To me Farenheit and Celsius are equally bad, but Farenheit doesn't go negative as soon as Celsius does, and that is an advantage to me. To me, that you set 0 to the phase transition point of water is irrelevant. It's extremely easy to remember it's 32° F. Both are pretty damn arbitrary when it comes time to do math involving temperatures. You're going to have to convert either way.
Conversions from K to C are pretty easy, tho. Unlike conversions from K to F, or the other way around
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I was rather disturbed by Starfinder's use of obsolete units.Imperial units are used daily in America. They are assuredly not "obsolete".
Well, the US pint is different to the UK pint and the US hundredweight and ton are different as well. A system used by 5% or less than the world's population shouldn't be used exclusively by the game.
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I was rather disturbed by Starfinder's use of obsolete units.Imperial units are used daily in America. They are assuredly not "obsolete".
7.3 billion people would disagree