Farenheight's zero point is at the freezing point of brine, chosen because it has a stable consistant internat temperature. Wikipedia Article
Ok, I am just going to come right out and say it. The metric system has no soul. Oh sure, it is all very precise and orderly. Powers of 10 and all that. It is inherently coherent and has sensible reference points (like the temperature at which water freezes).
But it is all very clinical, very scientific. But not imperial measurements a foot is a foot because its kind of the length of a persons foot. An inch is the width of a thumb. A yard is somewhere around the average stride. These measurements have histroy, they have style. I cant imagine some midevil farmer sorting out how many meters long a horse was. He had all the tools to measure right there on his body. And sure it wasnt 'accurate', but it was good enough and it meant something to people other then those labcoat wearing scientists and their 'metric system'. You dont need a set of precision tools to sort out feet and miles!
you're not taking into account that other countrys don't use older systems at all.ever. the supermarket is all metric, the road sings are metric, the farmers grow and sell crops in metric, and only metric is taught at schools. its not a matter of needing precision, the presise way is the only way people know.
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you're not taking into account that other countrys don't use older systems at all.ever. the supermarket is all metric, the road sings are metric, the farmers grow and sell crops in metric, and only metric is taught at schools. its not a matter of needing precision, the presise way is the only way people know.Ok, I am just going to come right out and say it. The metric system has no soul. Oh sure, it is all very precise and orderly. Powers of 10 and all that. It is inherently coherent and has sensible reference points (like the temperature at which water freezes).
But it is all very clinical, very scientific. But not imperial measurements a foot is a foot because its kind of the length of a persons foot. An inch is the width of a thumb. A yard is somewhere around the average stride. These measurements have histroy, they have style. I cant imagine some midevil farmer sorting out how many meters long a horse was. He had all the tools to measure right there on his body. And sure it wasnt 'accurate', but it was good enough and it meant something to people other then those labcoat wearing scientists and their 'metric system'. You dont need a set of precision tools to sort out feet and miles!
And in those countries some of the joy of life is gone. You can keep your rulers and your precision tools. I will enjoy 'measuring' with my shoes and a rock.
you're not taking into account that other countrys don't use older systems at all.ever. the supermarket is all metric, the road sings are metric, the farmers grow and sell crops in metric, and only metric is taught at schools. its not a matter of needing precision, the presise way is the only way people know.Ok, I am just going to come right out and say it. The metric system has no soul. Oh sure, it is all very precise and orderly. Powers of 10 and all that. It is inherently coherent and has sensible reference points (like the temperature at which water freezes).
But it is all very clinical, very scientific. But not imperial measurements a foot is a foot because its kind of the length of a persons foot. An inch is the width of a thumb. A yard is somewhere around the average stride. These measurements have histroy, they have style. I cant imagine some midevil farmer sorting out how many meters long a horse was. He had all the tools to measure right there on his body. And sure it wasnt 'accurate', but it was good enough and it meant something to people other then those labcoat wearing scientists and their 'metric system'. You dont need a set of precision tools to sort out feet and miles!
And in those countries some of the joy of life is gone. You can keep
your rulers and your precision tools. I will enjoy 'measuring' with my shoes and a rock.
So the joy of life is gone from almost the whole world?
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And in those countries some of the joy of life is gone. You can keep
your rulers and your precision tools. I will enjoy 'measuring' with my shoes and a rock.So the joy of life is gone from almost the whole world?
I'd buy that.
BTW, the main reason Pathfinder shouldn't be converted to metric is that the audience is largely American, and we don't use the metric system. That being said, most of us understand the metric system, but prefer not to use it.
measuring whit shoes and rocks eh?
what shoe size measurement do you use? European, American or one of the other dozens possibilities?
And rocks ... seriously, if I ask 100 people in town what the size or weight of an average rock is, what do you think will be the range of answers?
The best arguments so far is the one with the soul, I have to admit.
It's true that this modern stuff has no soul, just like modern pistols vs. old flintlocks. I still know which one I would pick in a duel.
BTW, the main reason Pathfinder shouldn't be converted to metric is that the audience is largely American, and we don't use the metric system. That being said, most of us understand the metric system, but prefer not to use it.
I wouldn't say that. The United States is kind of mixed when it comes to units. With notable exceptions, the government is largely SI. Most consumer products are labeled with both Standard and SI units. I'd venture to guess most students learn SI units in school and use it through to college.
All I know is I cringe whenever I work on something mechanical that needs a socket wrench. Is it 13mm or 1/2 inch socket? I kind of wish everything was in SI.
measuring whit shoes and rocks eh?
what shoe size measurement do you use? European, American or one of the other dozens possibilities?And rocks ... seriously, if I ask 100 people in town what the size or weight of an average rock is, what do you think will be the range of answers?
The best arguments so far is the one with the soul, I have to admit.
It's true that this modern stuff has no soul, just like modern pistols vs. old flintlocks. I still know which one I would pick in a duel.
A typical person of european descent wearing footware will have a shoot somewhere around a foot in length. It ofcourse varies but thats the point. Its not perfectly accurate but there is an every day reference point regardless of the time period.
And the comment about rocks I was refering to the weight of a 'Stone' that the English still use in common practice to describe a human's weight. That one is complete nonesense but I love it. Aparently all stones in england weigh around 14-16lbs.
So the joy of life is gone from almost the whole world?
Not ALL of the joy, just the joy that comes from units of measure and arguing over who's land that tree is on with your neighbor. 'The property line is 50 yards from the road'[paces out 50 paces] 'see its my tree! '
'Horse Manuer! You cant walk a straight line to save your life' [Paces out 50 yards of a completely different length] 'See its actually my tree!'
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prefer not to use it.I wouldn't say that. The United States is kind of mixed when it comes to units. With notable exceptions, the government is largely SI. Most consumer products are labeled with both Standard and SI units. I'd venture to guess most students learn SI units in school and use it through to college.
All I know is I cringe whenever I work on something mechanical that needs a socket wrench. Is it 13mm or 1/2 inch socket? I kind of wish everything was in SI.
I isolated the operative phrase in my original post. In the US, we still use English measurements for almost everything in the public sphere. Private industry is the exception. Oil production is measured in barrels, not litres. Property is measured in acres, not hectares. Ore production is measured in short tons, not metric tonnes.
BTW, I agree about the socket size thing, but I just wish it were all in English.
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It's funny because in Canada we have only a partial conversion to Metric (official since the 70s) but in a totally different way from the UK. It is not uncommon for people to state high temperatures in Farenheit but cold temperatures in Celsius. We just go for whichever one sounds worse.
Height and weight are usually stated in feet and pounds but you only buy most goods in grams and kilograms. We measure distance and speed in metric but farms are usually measured in acres.
I don't have a clue what a stone is in weight or how much a quart represents so basically it is equally confusing to be in the UK or the US. I know how to measure an inch with my thumb but have no idea how many feet are in a mile.
It's a mixed up world out there my friends!
In the end, I actually like Pathfinder using feet and pounds. It's a fantasy game set in a medieval-like world. It's supposed to be backwards and obsolete.
Units of measurement in this case are not for "flavour" but rather to help people envision things for story purposes. If you want esoteric units of measurement then they can invent their own to represent 1 square on the combat map, and just have a chart that converts that to known units of measurement.
As someone who deals with people in many different countries, I'm absolutely not afraid to say that the majority americans *really* can't wrap their heads around the fact that the rest of the world doesn't intuitively relate to things that americans do. There are plenty of people who have no idea how much they weigh in pounds, or how tall they are in feet in inches, etc. While one might say that Paizo's audience is primarily american, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when they write only for americans.
But it is all very clinical, very scientific. But not imperial measurements a foot is a foot because its kind of the length of a persons foot. An inch is the width of a thumb. A yard is somewhere around the average stride. These measurements have histroy, they have style.
read: you don't use it so it must not be important. All systems have stories behind them and character because of it. In this case, the WORLD has adopted this system, but the USA failed to do so. It should be noted that they tried.
Maybe you should start counting exclusively in octal, too, since decimal has the same clinical, logical precision that metric does. I'd hate for you to lose the character you feel is inherent in unintuitive systems.
And in those countries some of the joy of life is gone. You can keep your rulers and your precision tools. I will enjoy 'measuring' with my shoes and a rock.
Bad news, mate... when the rest of the world thinks of an american doing something with their shoes and a rock, it's not measuring. "Joie de vivre" and "contentment" are not on the top 10 list of american traits unless you're asking an american.
It's funny because in Canada we have only a partial conversion to Metric (official since the 70s) but in a totally different way from the UK. It is not uncommon for people to state high temperatures in Farenheit but cold temperatures in Celsius. We just go for whichever one sounds worse.
I've never *ever* seen temperature expressed in Fahrenheit anywhere, or by anyone, in any of the places I've lived in Canada. I've never known a canadian that expressed things in Fahrenheit *ever*. The only reason I can convert on the fly is because my wife is american - and while she adopted the celsius scale very quickly, her family in the states goes cross-eyed unless you convert.
Your use of the term "we" for canadians is, I assure you, local to you only. Do you happen to live very close to the US border?
I think we should go back to ells and cubits, personally. Sounds much more interesting.
It's funny because in Canada we have only a partial conversion to Metric (official since the 70s) but in a totally different way from the UK. It is not uncommon for people to state high temperatures in Farenheit but cold temperatures in Celsius. We just go for whichever one sounds worse.
Height and weight are usually stated in feet and pounds but you only buy most goods in grams and kilograms. We measure distance and speed in metric but farms are usually measured in acres.
I don't have a clue what a stone is in weight or how much a quart represents so basically it is equally confusing to be in the UK or the US. I know how to measure an inch with my thumb but have no idea how many feet are in a mile.
It's a mixed up world out there my friends!
Officially, Canada has a total conversion to metric. Not a partial one. Everyone I've ever met except my American wife refers to temperatures in Celsius always. The only exception being the news when showing temperatures for American cities, in which case they are shown in degrees Fahrenheit so Americans watching the channels don't have to pull out a conversion chart. (This also furthers that stupid assumption that the temperature drops like a rock the second you cross the border. "Hey look honey, its 78 in Buffalo, New York, but the second you cross the border into Niagara falls Canada, it drops to 25 degrees!")
Colloquially, height and weight may be measured in feet and inches by the average person, but pull out your official government id and look close. Your weight isn't listed and your height is in cm.
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It's funny because in Canada we have only a partial conversion to Metric (official since the 70s) but in a totally different way from the UK. It is not uncommon for people to state high temperatures in Farenheit but cold temperatures in Celsius. We just go for whichever one sounds worse.
Height and weight are usually stated in feet and pounds but you only buy most goods in grams and kilograms. We measure distance and speed in metric but farms are usually measured in acres.
I don't have a clue what a stone is in weight or how much a quart represents so basically it is equally confusing to be in the UK or the US. I know how to measure an inch with my thumb but have no idea how many feet are in a mile.
It's a mixed up world out there my friends!
This is quite true. Canadians have this hybrid love affair with both systems. Certain measurements are intuitive and continue to be used commercially no matter what it supposedly the "official" measurement.
Recipes still use pounds, teaspoons and tablespoons, so we still measure those things in that amount. Things that aren't used in recipes -- sliced meats, say? We can buy that by the 100 grams and feel comfortable in doing so.
People? People will always measure themselves in feet and in pounds. That's not going away in Canada, ever. In the building trade, feet and inches aren't going away. Ever. Furniture? Feet and inches again.
We are okay using either miles or kms, to measure distance or speed.
Temperature? I think Celsius is winning out on that score. Once you know what it is through personal experience, you "get" it.
But the most successful conversion to metric has been in liquid volume. Because we buy milk and pop and gasoline by the liter, we know how much that volume is. We see it everyday in the products we use. We KNOW how much that is. There was resistance in using these measurements only when it came to buying and consuming alcohol -- and even that is now finally changing over to the liter.
So much so that in Canada, you now have to be older than 50 to have a frikkin CLUE what a quart is, or how many pints go into that, or how many of each might be in a gallon. Basically, pints, quarts and gallons might as well be called slartybarts, representing the volume of liquid your sock will hold on a Wednesday. Nobody uses it - nobody gets that anymore.
Say what you want in defence of metric, but feet and pounds make intuitive sense and are convenient measurements -- but the liter? The liter, as a measurement, ROCKS. We totally get what that means. Quarts? Pints? What alien species are you people?
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you're not taking into account that other countrys don't use older systems at all.ever. the supermarket is all metric, the road sings are metric, the farmers grow and sell crops in metric, and only metric is taught at schools. its not a matter of needing precision, the presise way is the only way people know.Ok, I am just going to come right out and say it. The metric system has no soul. Oh sure, it is all very precise and orderly. Powers of 10 and all that. It is inherently coherent and has sensible reference points (like the temperature at which water freezes).
But it is all very clinical, very scientific. But not imperial measurements a foot is a foot because its kind of the length of a persons foot. An inch is the width of a thumb. A yard is somewhere around the average stride. These measurements have histroy, they have style. I cant imagine some midevil farmer sorting out how many meters long a horse was. He had all the tools to measure right there on his body. And sure it wasnt 'accurate', but it was good enough and it meant something to people other then those labcoat wearing scientists and their 'metric system'. You dont need a set of precision tools to sort out feet and miles!
And in those countries some of the joy of life is gone. You can keep
your rulers and your precision tools. I will enjoy 'measuring' with my shoes and a rock.So the joy of life is gone from almost the whole world?
And Americans always wonder why people call them arrogant! ;-P
I have to agree that the metric system has no soul.
According to some religious leaders, neither has a dog, cat, cow or any other animal.
Why is because of how the length measurement was established. The meter is derived from the kilometer, which is derived from a 10 kilometer stretch of road in France that follows a meridian between the North and South Poles.
Basically, the scale that length was established on was not on a human scale. Humans have no intuitive grasp of 10 kilometers, much less the meridian between the poles. It's outside of common experience and at a level of abstraction that it feels as if it's coming from heaven.
I have no problem at all grasping mm, cm, m and km.
And if a km is something a human can't grasp, neither can be the mile.
I get why a peasant might have problems getting the whole idea behind the modern systems, but they probably call computers demonic. So I'm disinclined to take them seriously. Intelligent - and even moderately intelligent - people can grasp the SI units just fine. I've seen it countless times.
And I don't belief the USA is full of stupid peasants, either, so the grasping thing fails to be a proper argument. It's more a matter of inertia.
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And Americans always wonder why people call them arrogant! ;-P
Oh, no, we don't wonder. When you're #1 and everybody knows it, of course the envious are going to say you're arrogant. :)
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I'm more or less down with feet and miles after all these years, but I'll never comfortable with Fahrenheit. Go Celsius!
The way I remember the difference is a saying I came up with for chem class years ago, "9 to 5 isn't just an old workday"
We know for every 9 degress of fahrenheit from 32 is 5 degrees from zero Celsius.So you tell me,"God its hot its going on 40" I know thats actually 104 likewise when I say its a cool 40 you know thats only 5.
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You know a few years back there were roadsigns that said you were 60 miles or 100 Kilometers from some major city.
As to metric versus standard imperial or which Americans think in the most let me run a few thought examples by you fun folks.
Im pretty sure I've heard the term klicks before.
I'm pretty sure my doctor has asked for CC's of my blood for tests and not ounces. aLthough I did have to give multiple pints for testing before my first transplant.
I remember buiyng ammo in 5.56 and not .223, but i'll agree .308 vs 7.62 a little more 50/50.
Oh and theres always the .45acp versus 9mm debate ask a bunch of gun nuts which is better I dare you.
The SI versus Metric socket wrench conga has already been brought up so I can skip that.
How many yards are in an Aussie Football field? If my math is right and its G-50-G it should be 110 because a meter's 1.1 yards, but I could be wrong
So Id say that most Americans are 50/50 and or at least know how to translate what they need to.
FYI: The OP's request has been fulfilled by the German translation team at Ulisses. They went with 5 ft = 1.5 m = 1 square.
thanks Nullpunkt, but I would not recommend buying an RPG book in any other language than original or english.
The Problem is terminology, if not everyone shares the same language of book, it's gonna be very hard to compare notes and thelike.
Except if you only play with your friends who all buy the same language of book.
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Officially, Canada has a total conversion to metric. Not a partial one. Everyone I've ever met except my American wife refers to temperatures in Celsius always. The only exception being the news when showing temperatures for American cities, in which case they are shown in degrees Fahrenheit so Americans watching the channels don't have to pull out a conversion chart. (This also furthers that stupid assumption that the temperature drops like a rock the second you cross the border. "Hey look honey, its 78 in Buffalo, New York, but the second you cross the border into Niagara falls Canada, it drops to 25 degrees!")Colloquially, height and weight may be measured in feet and inches by the average person, but pull out your official government id and look close. Your weight isn't listed and your height is in cm.
By partial I meant in terms of adoption by the general public. I haven't the foggiest how tall I am in meters or how much I weigh in kgs.
As for the temperature thing, certainly you are correct in urban areas everyone uses Celsius. Growing up in a rural area near Toronto, this was not always the case. No clue if this has changed since I left 20 years ago. It is probably a combination of generation and location.
From what I understand conversion to metric is almost total in French Canada, for example.
Ok, I am just going to come right out and say it. The metric system has no soul. Oh sure, it is all very precise and orderly. Powers of 10 and all that. It is inherently coherent and has sensible reference points (like the temperature at which water freezes).
Actually I do disagree here, even though I am an American. As the meter is based on the ability of light to travel and while the initial experiments were done with candles and cannons the idea that we base our system of measurement of weights and distance off the light of the sun REALLY fits with our old school use of celestial bodies to determine time latitude and longitude, etc. In essence we come full circle with the Metric system. The sun and moon and natural ratios (which granted do occur in the inch, hands, feet, yard set up).
And we already use the SI method of measuring energy (calories, although technically we are using kilo-calories and not saying that on the packaging).
Ohh and while we are at it can we go to the day/month/year date orientation please?
Ohh and while we are at it can we go to the day/month/year date orientation please?
Heck no! That's exactly backwards. The international standard, ISO 8601, is year/month/day.
EDIT: And calories aren't SI, they're cgs. Joules are SI.
EDIT: And calories aren't SI, they're cgs. Joules are SI.
You are right my bad.
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I remember buiyng ammo in 5.56 and not .223
Just a nitpick...
While it is true that .223 and 5.56 are of the same "caliber", 5.56 however is a "hotter" round than .223...
If you have a firearm chambered in .223, it is unwise to use 5.56 because of the higher pressures of that round. But, if you have a firearm that is chambered in 5.56, one can safely use either...
[/end nitpick] :-)
It's kind of a myth that the SI is more precise than the Imperial. They're both numbers. If anything, the Imperial is actually superior for measuring real-world items. It's easy to split a long plank into three or four parts; you might not even need a measuring device. To get successively smaller parts, just split again into 3s or 4s. But if you're faced with splitting something into 10 or 100, at some point you have to estimate what a 5th looks like. And you have to do this several times if you want to get down to millimeters.
It's also silly to say that the metric has more cohesive units. The metric only has one unit for each dimension. They just invented new words for thousands, millions, billion, etc. "Kilometer" = "Thousand meters". I guess it's a better word for a thousand, because it's shorter, but then why do we still use "thousand"? If you really hate (and can't remember) the fact that a mile is 1760 yards, then why not try to use "thousands of yards" as a unit? Or even "kiloyards".
Temperature in Canada
As for certain temperatures in Canada being measured in Fahrenheit, I think part of the reason for this is that our heating and air conditioning systems are manufactured in the USA, and thus they have Fahrenheit on their little dials. When you talk about "turn the temperature up to 69, please" you're literally pushing a dial to that number. But few people turn their air conditioning way down to the negatives, so when we talk and think about the temperature outside in the winter, our reference is the CBC, which uses Celcius.
Duodecimal System
As for me personally, I've been wanting to switch all my campaign worlds over to a duodecimal system of everything. That's base-12. If you're curious about it, there's actually a really good mathematical reason to use base-12 instead of base-10 in the real world. You can Google Duodecimal or Base-12 and find a decent article on Wikipedia. Anyways, I've been hesitant to even bring it up to my players, because I frankly expect a lot of resistance.
5-Foot Squares
And about the 5-foot square, I really started to like it as a measurement around the time when 3.5 came out. I think it was then that they started measuring as many tactical distances as possible in "squares". I like that because it's not feet, and it's not meters. It's a unit of measurement unique to D&D (and other role-playing games). I could care less if pounds were converted to kilograms, but I really hope that the game keeps the 5-foot square, even if it means losing the "5-foot" part and just referring to everything as "squares".
duodecimal system, I'm sorry, but I can't see the use in it.
I mean I study mathematics, I have seen base shifts, but it's still nothing I would consider sane in everyday use, no offense. Could you please shortly give reasons why to take it, and how you calculate in it? (I doubt you can do it all in your head)
While talking of base shifts:
There are only 10 kinds of people, those who know binary and those who don't :)
Ohh and while we are at it can we go to the day/month/year date orientation please?Heck no! That's exactly backwards. The international standard, ISO 8601, is year/month/day.
Use whichever you want, just get rid of that month/day/year orientation. Or at least keep it to yourselves and never-ever use in products that you export beyond your borders, be they books or software...
On the other hand, what can be expected from barbarians that think that pound equals ~453 grams instead of ~327 grams like any civilized people ;)And when it comes to in-game measurements I prefer GURPS 1-yard hexes - maybe with the exception of rooms where hex grid is harder to place without problems.
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While one might say that Paizo's audience is primarily american, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when they write only for americans.
Firstly, most of the quotes you cited were clearly tongue-in-cheek, you're taking them a bit too seriously.
Secondly, Paizo (and D&D before it) designed it's product for their main audience in mind. Really, it makes no sense to alienate Paizo's core market to appeal to a small foreign market. I'm sure those who want metric measurements make up a VERY small fraction of their target market.
BTW, since you're so worldly, can you please capitalize America/American?
It's funny because in Canada we have only a partial conversion to Metric (official since the 70s) but in a totally different way from the UK. It is not uncommon for people to state high temperatures in Farenheit but cold temperatures in Celsius. We just go for whichever one sounds worse.
Height and weight are usually stated in feet and pounds but you only buy most goods in grams and kilograms. We measure distance and speed in metric but farms are usually measured in acres.
It's a mixed up world out there my friends!
So true!
I'll add that measurements are usually expressed in feet up to about 300 feet or so. Anything above that is expressed in meters (and km).
A for myself, I wish the base distance unit in fantasy games was expressed in yards. It makes a good base unit, has a certain archaic feel to it and cross references in both imperial and metric is easily enough (as far as rules go, 1 yard is close enough to 1 meter).
I'm also a sucker for furlongs and leagues (editors can then translate in imperial or metric in parenthesis depending on market).
'findel
Ohh and while we are at it can we go to the day/month/year date orientation please?Heck no! That's exactly backwards. The international standard, ISO 8601, is year/month/day.
I have always used the day/month/year as it was the version the American military used while I was a member. That version *used* to be the easiest way to tell if someone was or had been in any branch of the American military. Everyone else did the month/day/year thing. Now that I'm filing for my military pension, I find they've gone to the year/month/day thing and I'm having trouble adapting.
And on the metric vs customary, I do wish the US would pick one. while I do still think in customary, I do agree that the metric is easier to use and calculate. I'd be happy with going with that. I do agree with the poster up-thread who said the SI needs a 'foot' equivalent, though.
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I get why a peasant might have problems getting the whole idea behind the modern systems, but they probably call computers demonic. So I'm disinclined to take them seriously. Intelligent - and even moderately intelligent - people can grasp the SI units just fine. I've seen it countless times.
And I don't belief the USA is full of stupid peasants, either, so the grasping thing fails to be a proper argument. It's more a matter of inertia.
Are trying to say that the Internet *hasn't* stolen my soul?
I get why a peasant might have problems getting the whole idea behind the modern systems, but they probably call computers demonic. So I'm disinclined to take them seriously. Intelligent - and even moderately intelligent - people can grasp the SI units just fine. I've seen it countless times.
And I don't belief the USA is full of stupid peasants, either, so the grasping thing fails to be a proper argument. It's more a matter of inertia.
Are trying to say that the Internet *hasn't* stolen my soul?
Personally, I think Metric works better for science fiction and Imperial works better for fantasy, but we're also dealing with a holdover of Gygax's preferences from years ago, which was basically just a reskinning of the US system over to fantasy, so the currency is in modern Metric denominations rather than fun old varieties like sixpence and groschen.
That all said, it's easy enough to run a conversion for all the measurements if you can't wrap your head around the other system.
Ohh and while we are at it can we go to the day/month/year date orientation please?Heck no! That's exactly backwards. The international standard, ISO 8601, is year/month/day.
YMD makes most sense especially in this day and age with computer files and their file names. Have something like "Backup D-Drive 20110829" and it will be properly sorted among all the other Backups of D:.
DMY is less useful in that regard, but at least it doesn't mess up the order.
While one might say that Paizo's audience is primarily american, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when they write only for americans.Firstly, most of the quotes you cited were clearly tongue-in-cheek, you're taking them a bit too seriously.
Secondly, Paizo (and D&D before it) designed it's product for their main audience in mind. Really, it makes no sense to alienate Paizo's core market to appeal to a small foreign market. I'm sure those who want metric measurements make up a VERY small fraction of their target market.
BTW, since you're so worldly, can you please capitalize America/American?
BTW, since you're correcting others, can you please use "it's" only as a short for "it is", not instead of "its"? I know it's (<-- that's correct) hard to remember that "-s" is for plural and "-'s" is for the Genitive case when you call the owner by name, but then it's "its" for Genitive using a pronoun, while "it's" is something completely different, but even foreigners manage to get it right, and correcting someone and messing up something yourself just looks bad! :P
I'm sure he made an honest mistake and didn't mean to show his disrespect towards Americans. ;-)
I get why a peasant might have problems getting the whole idea behind the modern systems, but they probably call computers demonic. So I'm disinclined to take them seriously. Intelligent - and even moderately intelligent - people can grasp the SI units just fine. I've seen it countless times.
And I don't belief the USA is full of stupid peasants, either, so the grasping thing fails to be a proper argument. It's more a matter of inertia.
Are trying to say that the Internet *hasn't* stolen my soul?
Of course it hasn't. I have. :P
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What I find odd is that while using Metrics in D&D feels wierd and awkward, I'm a scientist and I use that system exclusively at work. But despite that comfort there, it still feels bizarre to use it in D&D. For no meaningful reason whatsoever, but it does. :/
Chief Technical Officer
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The diffrences in temprature between 76 and 78 degrees are distinct and easily felt by the human body.Only if your pretty good at telling what the humidity and wind is. 'Chill factor' pretty commonly has a range larger than 2°F.
Even if I accept your statement (2°F is easily felt) then wouldn't Celsius still be better, where 1°C is roughly the same change and be a more convenient threshold.
I'll tell you this much: there are times when setting the digital thermostat to 68° feels too cold, 70° feels too hot, and 69° is just right. But that's probably all 20° to you.
I also personally use the Fahrenheit scale as a key indicator in assessing the livability of a city: The outside temperature in degrees Fahrenheit should be exactly two digits—no more, no less—as much as possible. If it regularly goes outside that range, it's time to move.
The metric system is better in many, many ways, but Fahrenheit is much better for ambient temperature.
Ohh and while we are at it can we go to the day/month/year date orientation please?Heck no! That's exactly backwards. The international standard, ISO 8601, is year/month/day.
YMD makes most sense especially in this day and age with computer files and their file names. Have something like "Backup D-Drive 20110829" and it will be properly sorted among all the other Backups of D:.
DMY is less useful in that regard, but at least it doesn't mess up the order.
I do agree the order is the important component.
65% of my residents at the university apartments I work are internationals they generally use DMY so I made a bad assumption on the standard.
As long as it is in order it's all gravy, baby.
What I find funny is that Americans who are supposedly the proud guardians of their anachronistic measurement system, actually can´t do basic conversions, much less complicated conversions between units, much less hybrid units (e.g. ft-lbs). While a good number of the base measurement units obviously do feel ´comfortable´ within the range of things we are used to using them for, there seems to be a very general lack of ability to relate how these units compare to other units, beyond the most basic (feet and inch).
I would hazard that most Americans would have to do some ´back of mental napkin´ math to tell you how many inches are in a yard... And that´s an easy one. Coming back to the example of Homer Simpsons car whose economy is in Hog´s Head and Bars, the inability to do conversions, which is compounded in ´hybrid units´ (x per y types of units), prevents one from competently being able to evaluate more complex situations and values. I doubt most people have any idea what a mile is (besides ´it´s a mile!´) or an acre, and I honestly have trouble with the exact relation between cup, pint, quart, etc.
Obviously, anybody who needs to routinely work with specific unit conversions for their work or hobby will be familiar with them, but many professions also are familiar with Metric units (within the US). I honestly think that moving more towards a metric base, retaining customary units only as ´convenience units´ (e.g. for popular packaging sizes, traditional running race lengths, etc) is the way to go. Also, it always seems funny when you get close to the borders with Mexico (and Canada I think), that the road signs suddenly have BOTH metric and mile measurements.
I agree the DMY thing makes much more sense than MDY that is customary in the US.
I think MDY -does- have it´s own logical basis though... It´s more looking at things from the perspective of days being ´decimals´ of the month, i.e. February.1st, February.15th, February.30th, and then it ticks over to March. So MDY is more like M.D,Y. But logically, that should also just be Y.D.M. D.M.Y. works good and is used almost everywhere though, so Americans should just suck it up and bow down to their one-world-government masters :-)