Almost everywhere on earth mixes metric with some other system.
Some places even mix metric, imperial, and some traditional pre-imperial system.
Some places even mix metric, imperial, and some traditional pre-imperial system.
Several countries (e.g. France) use the word pound (livre) to mean 500g, which could confuse visitors into thinking something non-metric is being used. I noticed that in south America.
[0] These days, and selling butter in 200g packages to keep the prices seemingly low.
And that's why i do my shopping now based on €/kg. There are some very telling differences between even the same manufacturer: last thing i was looking at was gin [the drink] € per litre. Just a visually minor difference in bottle size was a substantial difference in a) cost and perceived value and b) cost and actual value.
Also in Italy, when dealing with agricolture, forestry, and related services, non-SI surface units are still commonly used, at leat in the north:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pertica_(unit%C3%A0_di_misura)...
Note that nobody I know below the age of 70 uses the "livre" unit in France. It's something you see pretty much only in old recipes
These are basically “sizes” that are imperial by tradition/accident more than people using them as measurement. If I wear size 32 waist jeans is that imperial? Maybe. I’m not measuring I’m just using it as a known size. Might be inches.
Same for wheels, rifle ammunition, …
I use inches for TVs/monitors and although I’m as metric as they get, I have a 55” TV and my car has 20” rims and so on. Everything has cm, kW instead of horsepower etc listed as well for a TV of course.
As far as I know only a few countries - presumably because of regulation - have switched for absolutely everything. Australia is an example of a country where you can get a 100cm TV.
"But being (as?) this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question ..."
(Which totally illustrates your point because it's not really 0.44 inches.)
On the other hand:
"Seven-six-two millimeter. Full metal jacket."
295mm tyre width, sidewall height is 30% of the width and the wheel it fits in is 20 inches (can't recall whether it's 20 inch radius or diameter).
(Is there anywhere that doesn't use this mix of measures for tire sizes [tyre syzes]?)
But here in Finland (a completely metric country) things like televisions are still marketed/sold as 44" etc where the cm value could very easily be used.
E.g TV sizes are mainly compared with each other, and so the unit used doesn't really matter, and if you want to know the external dimensions it'll typically be given in metric in countries which uses it.
This leads to two interesting consequences for aircraft that perform international flights from/to China: [1]
- they need to be equipped with two altimetry systems;
- they need to perform small climbs or descents when entering or leaving Chinese airspace, as metric flight levels do not usually match Imperial ones (flight levels are defined by round numbers).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_level#Metric_flight_lev...
[1] https://skybrary.aero/articles/china-reduced-vertical-separa...
I'm not saying I agree with it, but it is at least understandable!
Notice that before the end of WW2, continental European aviation was metric too. For this reason, the instrument panel from a Messerschmidt BF-109 is almost readable for a layperson: https://live.staticflickr.com/3746/14275081012_1f74be13b4_4k...
Also naval folks are stubborn too. Own miles, knots as speed, craaazy! : )
Instead of DPI, one could use µm per px, or px per (c)m if you want something easier to work with at very high DPI.
I know what DPI and points are, but just because I know a few values and can say "that one's large", "this one is small", with no idea how much they act iually measure. With other units I could approximate the viewing distance much better.
Easy halving, the same reason why A4 has been extolled.
Normal text would be 40mpt = 4mm = 11.33pt.
But there are already metric point definitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography)
Other examples are screen sizes: I have no intuition at all about how big 5.5" actually are, but I know where in the current phone market 5.5" would fall (awesomely non-huge!), whereas to my mind, the metric equivalent would carry no information at all ("bigger than a stamp, smaller than a TV"). And for sensor sizes you even have the situation where the imperial number is a "size class" with very little relation to actual size, whereas the metric number usually describes actual size. Completely different numbers. All countries use a combination of metric and some other system.
> Other examples are screen sizes
that's common, but not as units of measure, but as marketing.
Same as megapixels in photo cameras.
Nobody measure power in HP, we say "that car has 85 HP" only in speech, but when it matters (for example on car papers) power is express in KW and screens are measured in cm that are also written on the package, they are only marketed in inches.
You would be correct if people had an idea of how much power 1 HP is or the surface of 1 MP camera shot, but they don't know, they only know that 16 MP > 12 MP and 300 HP > 100 HP, they (we) ignore what it actually means.
It is also perceived completely differently depending on context.
A 120HP tractor is not the same thing than a 120HP car or a 120HP motorbike.
According to US measures I'm 5'11, which means nothing to me, while it's obvious to them, because they actually use foot and inches all the time and do math using them.
Also 90F means nothing to me.
It's actually a pretty convenient unit, as long as you're familiar with how large tatami mats are.
Note that this unit isn't used for measuring an entire apartment's floor area though, that's done in meters.