weird

Not sure what age has to do with it, but FWIW I still have to think
about it when I'm asked for my height, and particularly my weight. In
essence I still think of them in ft/in and st/lb. Somehow cm and kg
just don't have the same meaning.

 

Sadly I think I am older than you. Apart from beer, milk & travel[1] I
seem to have got myself fully metric.

[1] Presumably because these are still quoted as imperial.

 

Whereas I'm significantly younger than you and I'm 5'10".

 

Hmm...

Height is feet and inches.
Weight is kilos.
Small measurements are in cm/m
Large distances are in miles (but often convert to KM)
Still convert fuel to gallons and work out consumption in mpg.

 

Check to those, but

I've long since moved over to Km for distances, and was even happy to
use them instead before I even moved here. I guess it's such an easy
calculation it never felt like any effort to convert to or from either
measure.

I stuck with this while I still had the Volvo whose trip computer was
in mpg, although the Peugeot we've had since 1993 is in l/100km. I
became quite good at doing a km/l to mpg calculation in my head when
riding the km-clocked gixxer. Since I bought the VW I've become much
more used to the continental measure, although it still really only
has meaning when stated in mpg.

 

I'm the same with all of those. I'm on the cusp with temperatures
though. I've used Celsius for cold temps for as long as I can
remember[1], but only started using it for hot temps in recent years. I
still prefer 70 deg F to 20-something deg C though.

[1] 0 deg C makes far more sense than 32 deg F.

 

Odd, that. I've never, I mean not since I was old enough to look at a
weather forecast, felt inclined to use fahrenheit. I still need a
minute or so of thinking about it before I can make any meaning of it.

 

Er? l/100km are useful for saying "it is a 300km trip, so I'll spend 18
litres".

 

Not sure why I do it. The only reason I can think of is when I was a
kid & forecasts were in fahrenheit, the only temp I cared about was 70
degrees. Hotter than that meant go out on the bike/horse in jeans & a
T-shirt, colder meant take a jumper/jacket.

I only started to care about much colder temps later in life when icy
roads might be a problem, & I suspect forecasts were in celsius by then.

Actually I don't /quite/ agree with Burnt's list in that although most
weights are in kilos, I still use stones & pounds for people. I
wouldn't have a clue how much I weigh in kilos without calc'ing it.

 

And fucking useless for anything other than multiples of a hundred.
And IME much more relevant is the question: how far can I get on x
litres of fuel? Which involves inverting the measure and doing mental
long division. Kilometres pre litre would make much more sense, and
can easily give the answer to your question as well.

 

Indeed. In Celsius I know that 5 and below is cold, 10 has a bit of a
nip, 15-20 is comfortable, 25 plus is hot, and 30 plus is find an
aircon unit stat.

In Fahrenheit I have no clue at all other than a Bon Jovi song.

 

I remember weather forecast temperatures etc. being given in
Fahrenheit, but switched instantly to Celsius when it became the
official measure and now struggle to comprehend American programmes
when they use Fahrenheit.

Stones and pounds for me. Not only do I have to convert from Kg, but I
have to convert the American terminology in pounds to make sense of the
weight. WTF they insist on quoting vehicle weights in thousands of
pounds I have no idea - it means nothing to me until I convert it to
tons (or tonnes, which I see as being a direct equivalent in that the
difference has no practical effect).

Windspeeds given in Kph mean SFA, too - m/s I can relate to, otherwise
it has to come out in mph to make sense.

Working with wood or metal only works in mm, mind - I see no point in
working in 8ths, 16ths or 32nds and then having to do LCD calcs to come
up with the sum.

 

But that just leads to more confusion, as knots is a much more usual
measure at sea and in the air, and of course that's in _nautical_
miles per hour, so just using mph is much less clear.

Although yes, as a sailor I'm most familiar with knots, but as with
ordinary mph, it's an easy enough task to convert from kph in my head
if necessary.

Does anyone still use such quaint measures?

 

<checks for crosspost>

Blimey!

 

Depends, most of we continentals are descendants of a nazi experiment that
allows us to easily calculate 25, 50, 75kms and other fractions. You
untermensche.

I see more logic in thinking what my distance is and then deduce how much
fuel I need with l/100km, specially for a car with a big tank. Or
calculating cost of ownership per km.

Mpg make sense for bikes with small tanks, we Dagos normally talk about
bikes f.e. in terms of km up to hitting reserve for a given tank capacity.
But who cares, before you run dry some oxygen thieve will be praying for a
stop and have a fag.

 

Heh, when I was recycling that SparcStation box I was getting odd measures
all the time until I tried with the inches scale. Looks like in the 90's Sun
still adhered to 3/8" and the like

 

So, how far could you get if you've filled your tank up with 22l, then
ridden full-out, where you know historically that you'll use about 12
l/100k, for 37 km, if your "careful" consumption is 6.5 l/100 before
you need to fill up again?

No cheating now, do it in your head... c'mon, it's not _that_ hard...

Now do the same calculation if it's stated as 8 and 15 km/l.

And answer honestly, which was easier?

But that's plain ridiculous. Do you really start out on a journey
thinking "hmmm, I've got 350km to go, I'd better put 42 litres of
petrol in"?

 

It's the tinnies, mite. Gets their wucking furds muddled, innit.

 

I simply fill to the top and have an easier life, honestly

l/100km are good for deducing costs of a trip, but that doesn't mean filling
to that exact quantity (well, I sometimes did in spring before a short car
trip knowing that summer will be bike only season)

 

Merkins still work in fractions of an inch and a high percentage of
plant on anything built before about 1975 in this country will be the
same. It's a problem when you work in a service industry as I do and a
lot of people don't realise and ask for a 75mm hole in something when
it's actually a 3" part that goes through it and they needed a 76.2mm
hole.

Graduate Engineers are the worst for not realising we used to make
everything in feet and inches and consequently we get a lot of major
**** ups involving large components being ordered that don't fit when
they arrive on site.