How Come Inches Instead Of Centimeters?

Wouldn’t using centimeters be more accurate due to less extrapolating and a closer exact measurement? Most people on this forum measure in inches, which I have also done up to this point, but why would we do that knowing that there is a more accurate way to measure typically just on the other side of the ruler? It may be a little anal, but I am going to measure in cm from now on because following progress is part of the fun. So why not be as accurate as possible?

Phoenix

Knock yourself out.

When you break it down to sixteenths it is pretty accurate. Eight inches just sounds a lot bigger than twenty centimeters.

Because in real life when people talk about it, nobody says “I’m packin 20 centimeters”

It’s just the measuring system American’s use, and they aren’t going to start using centimetres which they aren’t used to using, even if it may by slightly more accurate.

How is it more accurate?

Funny, I posted on this long ago.

tps - We need a new Thundersplace TOOL

I like this, what do you call it, metric system, you speak of. It sounds promising.
Perhaps it is our antiquated measuring sytem that has been holding us back all these decades.

I said it before and it’s worth repeating. When I was in elementary school (grades 1-6) in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s my teachers prepared us for the inevitable future by teaching us the metric system and the game of soccer. Both of these beloved international practices were about to sweep across America.

Some states’ leglistatures got the bright idea to post highway signs in kilometers and miles. The people reacted. Take that shit down!.

And then there’s soccer. What can I say. :rolleyes:

Go Wildcats! Kentucky will win the NCAA tournament.
Or maybe Duke or North Carolina.
Perhaps Kansas.

Q. How Come Inches Instead Of Centimeters?

A. “Cause this is A-mur-ica, dammit!!”

GM

Hee hee hee… he said “anal.”

In your post there you link to this site : CNN.com - Why the metric system is wrong - Dec. 3, 2002

It’s an interesting article but it doesn’t at all invalidate the metric system. To call it a crock because it doesn’t accurately correspond to the diameter of the earth is to miss the point entirely. The real strength of the metric system is that it allows for easy conversion between units and even across different types of measurement.

1km = 1000m
1m = 1000mm

In the Imperial system:

1 mile = 8 furlongs
1 furlong = 40 rods
1 rod = 5 1/2 yards
1 yard = 3 feet
1 foot = 12 inches

It’s obvious that the imperial system is the crock here. A load of units and conversions between them that someone just pulled out of their ass. Try doing physics or engineering with the imperial system and then with metric and you will see in minutes just how awful the imperial can be.

However we aren’t doing physics or engineering, we’re tugging on our dicks to make them bigger. Penis size is in an extremely small range and can be measured in inches without needing to convert to other units (nobody has a penis several feet long). It’s just a matter of convention and what people are used to. Everyone in the UK/US talks about penis size in inches, and that’s just fine by me. Unless you want to study the physics of your member or try and build bridges with it, it doesn’t really matter.

Don’t forget the good old chain which at 22 yards (the length of a cricket pitch) is one tenth of a furlong. Remember an area one furlong by one chain equals one acre, the area of land a peasant was expected to plough in one day with a team of oxen.

The French only invented the metre and the metric system because they were jealous of our far more elegant weights and measures.

Here in Sweden we use inches to measure things that are considered more powerful/better the larger they are, and when small differences are irrelevant. Nails, woofers, rims (but not tyres), TV screens and monitors (but not the physical dimensions of the set), pizzas, dicks, etc.

Just an observation :)

As for accuracy it is irrelevant because you can measure in decimal inches. We have just become accustomed to measuring in fractions as it sounds better to say 1/8 then .125 which is decimal units. Also standard is too ingrained into industrial machinery to ever phase out the standard system, as if this we’re to be done all older machinery would not be repairable and that would financially infeasible to the world. However if you wanted to buy a classic automobile, and never fix it, since no one would make standard parts or it would cost you several hundred times the real value of the part to buy it in standard, that would be a plus. This I am fairly sure is why there will never be a switch, as America was a major player in the industrial revolution and it produced a vast amount of machinery in standard so you might as well forget about it ever happening. I am a fan of the ease of the metric system for converting though.

This is starting to sound like Quantum PP mechanics.

Yes, it is true that your peepee is not a constant erect length, but a distribution of lengths as a function of time, temperature, peepee-pulling-effort and zillions of other things.

If you have a measurement technique, which has an uncertainty of less than 1/16” (even for length), I’d like to know about it.
Otherwise measuring in centimetres will add more precision to your measurements, but no extra accuracy. The uncertainty in the measure is the same whether you use kilometres, metres or ant’s ball hairs.