Wait, that XKCD conversion chart has length and volume for Summer Glau, but not mass?
No, but it does give a close enough approximation, as it gives her volume.
If you completely submerged a 55 liter person in a tub of water, it would displace 55 liters. And 1 liter of water (the human body is mostly water) has a mass of (conveniently) 1 kilogram. So a 55 liter person would weigh roughly 55 kilograms.
And remembering that most people float in water, and are therefore less dense then the water they are displacing, and so an equal volume having less mass then water, means that 55kg is an upper limit on her mass. She would have a mass somewhat less then that.
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Agred.
But there's nothing common sense about Farenheight (and Googling is a pain because then you need to figure how to spell "Farenheight").
I'd LOVE for the temperates to include a reference to Celsius. "... roughly 98 degrees F (32 C)".
Actually, you can just type in '34 F in Celsius', so spelling isn't an issue.
No matter what system of measurements you use, someone isn't going to be happy with the decision. For instance, instead of measuring in feet, you could just measure in squares (like 4e did). The just place a not somewhere in the book that say "1 square is equal to 5 feet or 1.5 meters". But then you make the people who don't use a battle grid mad, as well as those that just want actual distances listed (in either feet or meters).
In the end, you either have to include multiple systems of measurement, or you just write the rules for you largest player base. And as Pathfinders largest player base uses feet, inches, and Fahrenheit, thats what the rules use. Never mind that the majority of the world uses the metric system, and ignoring that the metric system is actually a whole lot more intuitive then the other*, thats what the rules use.
*(Come on, the metric system is all based on multiples of 10. Its easy to convert between different units of metric measurement. 1000 meters in a kilometer (kilo=thousand. So kilometer = 1000 meters, kilogram = 1000 grams, etc.), 100 centimeters in a meter. None of this "12 inches per foot, 3 feet per yard, 5280 feet/1760 yard in a mile; 16 ounces to a pound" stuff. 2000 pounds in a ton, or 1000 kilograms in a metric ton.)
Its 5280 feet to a mile.
See there, proves my point. Even someone who has used they system for almost 3 decades can't even remember how many feet to a mile. (OK, was actually a typo, but still. I just hit the wrong button.)
As a former physics student, I honestly don't get the confusion or difficulty here.Dear Paizo,
Please ensure that all future publications are completely understandable to former physics students...
Precisely. I demand that all measurements are given in fundamental units: Planck Lengths not feet, Planck Times not rounds and Boltzmanns not Fahrenheit. And so on.
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Wait, that XKCD conversion chart has length and volume for Summer Glau, but not mass?
No, but it does give a close enough approximation, as it gives her volume.
If you completely submerged a 55 liter person in a tub of water, it would displace 55 liters. And 1 liter of water (the human body is mostly water) has a mass of (conveniently) 1 kilogram. So a 55 liter person would weigh roughly 55 kilograms.
And remembering that most people float in water, and are therefore less dense then the water they are displacing, and so an equal volume having less mass then water, means that 55kg is an upper limit on her mass. She would have a mass somewhat less then that.
If Summer Glau weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood...and therefore...a witch!
Actually, you can just type in '34 F in Celsius', so spelling isn't an issue.Agred.
But there's nothing common sense about Farenheight (and Googling is a pain because then you need to figure how to spell "Farenheight").
I'd LOVE for the temperates to include a reference to Celsius. "... roughly 98 degrees F (32 C)".
Will it convert Centigrade to Celsius?
Will it convert Centigrade to Celsius?
I just hope you're not serious. :)
Generally, if I'm going to end up doing math, I prefer SI units, but if I want a good sense of scale or have to measure something myself, then I prefer Imperial units. The only exceptions are distances on the nanometer scale, and pressure, which I prefer in psi.
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*(Come on, the metric system is all based on multiples of 10.
Well, yes, if you use the parochial, human-centered base ten number system instead of the far more fundamental and basic binary system seen in, for example, nearly ever computer ever made.
If you use the binary system, the only measurement units that even approaches easy usability are US units, which at least has a sensible system of fluid volume. In binary, 1 gallon = 100 quarts = 1,000 pints = 10,000 cups = 100,000 gills = 10,000,000 ounces = 100,000,000 tablespoons = 10,000,000,000 drams.
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Wait, that XKCD conversion chart has length and volume for Summer Glau, but not mass?If Summer Glau weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood...and therefore...a witch!No, but it does give a close enough approximation, as it gives her volume.
If you completely submerged a 55 liter person in a tub of water, it would displace 55 liters. And 1 liter of water (the human body is mostly water) has a mass of (conveniently) 1 kilogram. So a 55 liter person would weigh roughly 55 kilograms.
And remembering that most people float in water, and are therefore less dense then the water they are displacing, and so an equal volume having less mass then water, means that 55kg is an upper limit on her mass. She would have a mass somewhat less then that.
Well, that would explain why she keeps playing characters with superpowers (Firefly, Terminator).
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It is really all in what system you are used to for the most part. Paizo is an American company with most its player based in America. So they are gonna use what most of the player base uses.
For me, I can guestimate some of the metric
* A meter is roughly 3 feet
* A KG is roughly 2 pounds
* A Km is roughly 1/2 a mile
* Mm and C are some unguessable and arcane metrics which make not a damned bit of sense :)
eh...if you say so..it will always be arcane and hard to comprehend for me.
I can do the same thing with F.
32 F = Water Freezes
212 F = Water Boils
Other useful ranges
65-7 0F = Indoor temperature on your thermostat
90 F = Hot day
98.6 F = Average human body temperature
100 F = extremely hot day
See simple and easy :)
eh...if you say so..it will always be arcane and hard to comprehend for me.
I can do the same thing with F.
32 F = Water Freezes
212 F = Water BoilsOther useful ranges
65-7 0F = Indoor temperature on your thermostat
90 F = Hot day
98.6 F = Average human body temperature
100 F = extremely hot daySee simple and easy :)
Now in the Newton scale.
0°N = Water Freezes
33°N = Water Boils
Other useful ranges
6-7°N = Indoor temperature on your thermostat
10°N = Hot day
12°N = Average human body temperature
13°N = extremely hot day
-7°N = Running in this weather starts to have a chance of frosting your lungs
-13.2°N = -40°F
-15°N = steel becomes much more brittle
Ok, Now someone needs to do one in Kelvins
Ok, Now someone needs to do one in Kelvins
That is quite easy, as you just take Celsius, and add 273.15.
273°K = Water Freezes
373°K = Water Boils
Other useful ranges
291-293°K = Indoor temperature on your thermostat
303°K = Hot day
310.65°K = Average human body temperature
313°K = extremely hot day
253°K = Running in this weather starts to have a chance of frosting your lungs
233°K = -40°F
228°K = steel becomes much more brittle
As you can see, I've rounded the numbers. Because the temperature of freezing/boiling water depends heavily on which pressure it is under, and the others are a bit arbitrary, just like the imperial scale is.
* A Km is roughly 1/2 a mile
That's not really close, a mile is about 1.6 km. So a better conversion would be "3 km is roughly 2 miles".
It is really all in what system you are used to for the most part. Paizo is an American company with most its player based in America. So they are gonna use what most of the player base uses.
For me, I can guestimate some of the metric
* A meter is roughly 3 feet
* A KG is roughly 2 pounds
* A Km is roughly 1/2 a mile
* Mm and C are some unguessable and arcane metrics which make not a damned bit of sense :)
mm is about the thickness of a dime. C is the speed of light, aprox 3x10^8 M/sec :-)
When someone tells me liters of water, I can picture soda bottles on shelves. When someone tells me "0.5 acre-feet," that really doesn't mean much, visually-speaking.There's an XKCD for that.
Am I the only one that noticed that XKCD says 3L is equivalent to a 2 liter bottle? Uh... I'm pretty sure 2L is equivalent to a 2 liter bottle, right? L is for liter.
The only really good metric I have for the metric system here in the US is liters since soft drinks are sold in 2-liter bottles, and more recently 0.5 liter bottles as well. Most of the bottles also have the US measure in fluid ounces on them too, but it's like 33.8 fluid ounces a liter or something.
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Don't get me started on dates, though. MM/DD/YY? Who came up with that?The entire English-speaking world.
It's not in alphabetical order, nor in temporal order, nor any other kind of order I can detect except "random order."It's in linguistic order. Specifically, if you want to talk about tomorrow's date, the usual phrase is "June ninth, 2013" or "the ninth of June, 2013." Not just "ninth June."
Check out Google n-grams if you want numeric proof.
Except Britain, where we use DD/MM/YY. So, apparently, the "entire Englsh-speaking world" doesn't include the English. Which shows the sad decline in standards in the Colonies. My strongly worded letter to the Times is already being drafted.
Pip pip.
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Don't get me started on dates, though. MM/DD/YY? Who came up with that?The entire English-speaking world.
I don't know who came up with it, but I have never seen it used at all in the UK, here its always dd/mm/yyyy and I tend to refer to dates as 4th of July, 5th of November (as in "Remember, remember the 5th of November, Gunpoweder, Treason and Plot").
But farenheit is rarely used here and I am completely unfamiliar with it. If someone tells me that it is 50 degrees farenheit... I don't even know if that is hot or cold!And all because you Americans can't stop sucking up to Belize.
50F is a crisp early spring/late autumn afternoon. You probably want a jacket, but not a coat.
Also, Belize is one of the 3 foreign countries I've been to (if you don't count Texas)!
50F is a crisp early spring/late autumn afternoon. You probably want a jacket, but not a coat.
But farenheit is rarely used here and I am completely unfamiliar with it. If someone tells me that it is 50 degrees farenheit... I don't even know if that is hot or cold!And all because you Americans can't stop sucking up to Belize.
AKA The BEST Weather.
1 kg = 1 liter of water.
I'm and American and generally like Imperial units although if I was doing physics and chemistry all the time I'd definitely work in the metric system. I do find short distance measurement, such as you would use with carpentry or the size of sockets, to be very convenient in mm and cm, since it's easier to add 57 mm and 45 mm for example than adding 3/8" to 4 and 1/4" or the like. Unfortunately, boards and bolts and whatnot haven't really caught on in metric units.
I prefer miles to kilometers since a typical highway speed is around 60 mph or so and 60 mph = 1 mile per minute. If I'm 90 miles away it'll take me 90 minutes to get there.
I definetely prefer Farenheit for practical day to day temperature measurement of the weather. The wider scale in the human comfort range makes it easier to get a feel for how warm/cold it is. 0 degrees is very cold, 30 degrees is cold, 70 degrees is warm/comfortable, 100 degrees is hot. For scientific measurement I'd use centrigrade.
When someone tells me liters of water, I can picture soda bottles on shelves. When someone tells me "0.5 acre-feet," that really doesn't mean much, visually-speaking.There's an XKCD for that.
After seeing that the link tries to tell us that a 2 litre bottle has a volume of 3 litres I stopped reading.
About translated rulebooks: Sure they use the measurements common in the language used. But when using them nobody else knows what you are talking about because something like the 5ft step is common knowledge from 3.0 and following.
And in addition to that the translated books are much more expensive. And while I see why that is the case (there are fewer produced, which increses per unit costs) it reduces the demand even further.
And as a last point: When I first read the enviromental rules (where the temperature is relevant) I used an online conversion tool, found out that the temperatures given are totally unrealistic (no child I know would be still alive if could weather was that dangerous) and from then on decided that it doesn't matter that the numbers given are in °F because I will not use them.
EDIT: Someone noticed the 2L=3L before I did.
A millimeter is slightly less than 1/25th of the finger width at the IP joint of the thumb of an average man.
We used to have to teach measurement to remedial kids in high school. Some of them seemed to have an impossible time using a simple ruler, which I found astonishing. One of the other teachers said, "I'm not surprised;" (holds fingers about 3 inches apart) "the boys keep telling the girls that this is ten inches."
Ba-dum!
This needs to go here
'MURICA!
Being old enough to remember when America started to make the shift to metic and then the government caved to the auto industry, I wish President Carter and the Congress had held fast. But to expect any politician to resist the money and do what is right is just a pipe dream that will never happen.
I have NO idea how many feet are in a year or yards per mile.
1760 yards per mile. For "feet per year" you're on your own!
But there's nothing common sense about Farenheight (and Googling is a pain because then you need to figure how to spell "Farenheight").
I'd LOVE for the temperates to include a reference to Celsius. "... roughly 98 degrees F (32 C)".
Actually, Farenheit (while it may not be familiar to you) is a pretty common-sensical scale. Very roughly, temperature of 0 degrees F is about as cold as it typically gets in the temperate zone, 100 degrees F is about as hot as it gets in the temperate zone. Seventy degrees is room temperature.
I use C in my work (another physicist here), but F when I want to know if I'll need a sweater.
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I just got back from a week in Canada, and the TV weather reports generally confused me. I couldn't tell by the numbers if I should wear shorts or jeans. (I fired up my smartphone and grabbed the weather report there-- my weather app uses Imperial units...)
I think we're all in agreement that metric units make more sense from a mathematical standpoint. But unless you grew up with them and have an intuitive feel for the units, they just don't feel right.
I've lived in the US my whole life, and Imperial units are completely internalized. I mean, I know how far it is to walk three miles; I can look at a tree and estimate that a branch is 20 feet up; if I hear that a particular guy is six feet tall and weighs 180 pounds, I have an immediate sense of his build; if the temperature is 35F, I know to wear a coat and gloves; if it's 85F, I know to wear shorts and sandals.
And on a tangentially-related note... Did you know that miles per gallon is actually a measurement of area?
Did you know that miles per gallon is actually a measurement of area?
Yes, just as acre-feet are a unit of volume. But that's not really fair -- I'm a professional hydrogeologist.
Don't forget the other reason Pathfinder uses the American standard of measurements: faux-medievalism.
But more importantly, why the hell are you measuring temperature in any degrees while playing Pathfinder? The only temperatures are very cold, cold, whatever, hot, and very hot.
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And on a tangentially-related note... Did you know that miles per gallon is actually a measurement of area?
Not quite; he got a little sloppy with how he presented units in that article. Miles/gallon is a measurement of area^-1, which is conceptually meaningless. Gallons/mile is a measurement of area.