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Comment by mikro2nd | Hacker News Reader

> Why won't the press report in real units instead of frankenunits

Probably because its an American focused news site, reporting to American people, who use and will understand miles as a measurement. It really isnt hard to understand.

Not to mention it's an American space program and an American mission. It should probably be understandable to Americans.

We use metric in the "American Space Program".

I cannot think of an engineering or scientific endeavor in the US that DOESN'T use the metric system.

The US is officially, metric; ansi converts back for the uneducated.

Here's a colorful video: https://youtu.be/SmSJXC6_qQ8?t=63

Here's boring government text: https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/si-units-mass

> The US is officially, metric; ansi converts back for the uneducated.

This is the type of flamebait we don't need.

The American Public doesnt use metric. Thats why the article is written with miles.

> real units instead of frankenunits

Imagine commenting on an American media piece targeting an American audience about an American space agency launching an American spacecraft and complaining that the article uses American units. Wild.

Just be fucking happy they are not using football fields or multiples of some tall building length as unit.

The worst I saw was some cook telling the amount of pepper in recipe in cranks of pepper grinder.

To play devils advocate, most cooking does not require the kind of precision that warrants getting out a small scale to measure the weight of crushed peppercorns. Not just because these things are season-to-taste, but also, because the average person cooking a meal can instantly translate cranks of pepper compared to a small unit of weight. Most home recipes also measure ingredients by volume rather than weight, so I can understand this.

I agree. And it's far faster to measure something by scooping it via measure spoons than to try and match a desired weight on a scale.

Or Smoots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot

You have: 81 miles You want: smoots * 76599.403 / 1.3054932e-05

Because it’s NASA and the primary audience is American tax payers who funded this.

The American public doesn't understand the metric system. That's why they publish information in strange units like Miles.

I love this argument. Americans are dumb because they can't understand metric!

Why is metric better?

It's easier to understand, of course!

American's don't have a very intuitive understanding of metric because we don't use it. But every numerical literate American understands how to apply the metric system since that is all that is taught in schools (so much so engineer school grads are often unfamiliar with units actually used in US engineering).

We all know 130 KM is 130,000 meters, but we don't think in KM or M.

That’s a blatant lie with an air of European “superiority.” Yea we do, every one of us learned it in our school math and science classes.

It’s arbitrary to convert between any two mathematical units in general (it’s one of the main exercises in junior high math.) Any discussion of Americans “just not getting it” or “doing it wrong” is a cope from societies who have done far less in the past century in terms of scientific and technological progress.

You realize that a large proportion of Americans are effectively innumerate. Unit conversions are beyond their ken.

Again, every American does this in 6th grade. It’s required to pass high school which a majority of Americans do. This is a cope from less economically and technologically sophisticated societies who can’t compete with us.

I learned it in school, as did my class mates. I held onto it as I am technically minded and I appreciate the simplicity of metric. My class mates do not all agree that remembering metric conversions is useful.

> It’s required to pass high school which a majority of Americans do.

Many schools lie about the scholastic ability of their graduates.

Oh well in that case this whole conversation is moot because it’s all probably just made up.

Or, you’re taking clearly unfactual pot shots at the current leader of technological innovation because it’s the only cope you have.

Getting your ass handed to you economically, culturally, etc by the “innumerate” must really hurt. I guess I can see the reason for the sour grapes

Many if not most Americans have some concept of kilometers and meters, especially anyone who runs, or is involved in sports outside of the big 3 American sports. We just tend to prefer the imperial, as we grow up using and interacting with it. Inches and feet are just easy to reason about in physical space on a human scale, they're great when you aren't trying to do more complicated math.

> Inches and feet are just easy to reason about in physical space on a human scale

Nah, everyone else in the world measures physical space in metric units without any problem.

Thank you, I really appreciate this constructive feedback.

I obviously get the metric system, and most Americans are pretty familiar. But inches and feet are rooted in physicality. An inch is roughly a finger width, four inches make the (now rarely used measure) hand, and 3 hands is a foot. You can step off roughly accurate feet. I long stride is about 6 feet, or 2 yards. All of these measures divide neatly by 2, 3, and 4. It makes most fractional measures, especially things like 1/16th of an inch easy to work with. I wouldn't use it for science, but for building a table or measuring a rough distance imperial units are super intuitive.

You actually want them to use metric? Okay, comrade. /s

Edit: I'm being sarcastic and mocking anti-metrication...

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