You’re mismeasuring the sugar, which isn’t 1ml = 1g. Also oil, but to a lesser degree. You’re good with the milk.
As stated before, though, generally all these “conversions” just aren’t things a typical person needs to do on a daily basis, so it’s generally such a minor inconvenience as to be minor. Like, sure, I don’t know how big an acre is in square feet, so what? Why do I even need to know that? Square feet is impractical for measuring land. Instead, I have a perception in my mind of roughly how big an acre is and I can judge that when I see a plot of land. Similarly, even though you can easily convert from Hectares to Square Meters, again, who cares? It’s too many Square Meters to be a meaningful number to comprehend.
For fish tanks, every time I’ve seen them for sale, they’re labeled as X gallon fish tanks so, again, I don’t see that as an issue. Similarly, with rides, they’re generally not labeled as “you need to be 56 inches to ride”, it has a line and says “you must be this tall” and it doesn’t matter how that line was measured, because it’s not labeled.
And sure, we can argue minutiae of contrived circumstances where people do calculations in daily life, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I did any calculations where unit conversion would have made it easier. I’ve calculated my gas mileage, but that’s just a simple divide, exactly the same complexity as in metric. Ditto for when I’ve weighed food at the supermarket. Or when I’m calculating the weights I’m lifting at the gym, just simple addition.
Again, this is true, but where does it apply for every day usage? I absolutely agree that engineers and scientists should be using the units that are most convenient for the application which is overwhelmingly going to be metric. But, for going about my life, I don’t care. Yes, I’ve even memorized a lot of these magic numbers, but this sort of goes back to the first point. There’s 5280 ft in a mile, and that’s obnoxious, but I’ve NEVER had to figure out how many feet are in, say, one’s 21.3 mile commute to work outside of a middle school math test. In general, all people are using units for in daily life is measuring how much of stuff, or rates so they know time or pricing or whatever.
Again, I agree, that we should be using metric for those purposes, particularly things in trade. If we’re building cars, it only makes sense to use metric parts, etc. My complaint about the whole “Go Metric” thing is that it seems to miss these sorts of differences. I’ve actually heard a Brittish person mention their weight in Stone, then at another time condemn the US for still using Fahrenheit, or a Canadian berate us “silly Americans” for Fahrenheit, but later talk about miles or gallons or whatever.
We just don’t NEED to force metric units on everyday use, they’re slowly fading out if they’re not serving much purpose, and the ones that are sticking around harder are the ones that still seem to have some utility. And that’s where something like Fahrenheit comes in…
I disagree that no one uses individual degrees. Yes, at more extreme temperatures, like 90s or 30s, we can’t really feel the difference, but when we get around room temperature, I can definitely feel the difference between each degree between about 68 and 75, then you can start getting into about 2 degree resolution. It’s a minor thing, but the whole point is, Fahrenheit has show it has a utility because people have latched onto it in a way they haven’t to, say, ounces over grams or liquid ounces over milliliters. Then again, temperature seems to be one of those things that we think and talk about on a daily basis, so whatever method we use is going to be that much more ingrained in us.
There’s an ounce of truth to the pro-Imperial side.
Wait, how much truth is that?
Goodness knows how many yards are in a mile.
Yet I do know that there are 1,000 meters in a kilometer.
IMHO? The metric system is easier to use. Everything just works, you don’t have to waste time converting weird multiples.
For example, I know that a liter is 1000 milliliters, but how many fluid ounces are in a pint, or a gallon? God knows - I certainly don’t!
Yup, that’s how I think of temperatures too. Anything below 10C is on the cold side, and you have to wrap up warm; anything above 30C is a bit too warm for me, and you have to find the air conditioned rooms.
And in the winter, if it goes below zero (not that it does much) you know it’s time to wrap up really warm and shove the heating on.
Because -40 is the same at C and F! However, the chances of actually experiencing such temperatures is very remote. As a comparison, most freezers (for storing food) are set at about -20C.
I don’t think of the American System as a system. It’s a collection of individually useful measurements.
A mile is useful to measure traveling distances. A foot is useful to measure large things like property lines. Inches are good for measuring smallish things, like people. Feet and inches together are really more trouble than they’re worth. I have a landscaping tape with decimal feet and a machinists ruler with decimal inches, makes calculations pretty easy.
Cups and spoons are useful for cooking and pounds are useful for weighing things. I agree that ounces (of both types) suck, I prefer decimal pounds by a long shot.
Have you ever lived in Saskatchewan? 
Only if you pick and choose. If you look at petroleum engineering, for example, the available reserves in a particular well is calculated as the number of (42-gallon) barrels. In the newest, biggest, deep ocean drill ships, the drill pipe used is 6-5/8" pipe with 6-5/8 Full Hole connections. The casing sizes are alll in inches. The density of the drilling fluid is measured in pounds per gallon. I guess you could say petroleum engineering doesn’t really matter, though.
Of course, the folks who use such measurements are all oilfield trash, so that may explain it.
Don’t even know that there was such a place that existed, until now!
I know most places in the UK though.
I’d say you’re being ignorant of how human beings work. People prefer different things. I’m sure there is a small percentage of people raised in F who prefer C, and vice versa.
Wrong. I lived in Japan for 8 years, and also said I prefer certain metric units on their own merits.
I am in agreement with you here. I don’t think F has anywhere close to enough advantage to overcome the “born into it and completely used to it” factor of C for those people. But the reverse is certainly also true: there’s not enough advantage of C (i.e., it matches Kelvin, etc.) for us to switch in the US.
Positively scandalous!
If only we could have met in the middle and not in Antarctica!
This. I was raised on Fahrenheit (disclosure: I lived on an international border and was exposed daily to Celsius, but never used it myself). But I’ve also lived (and currently do) in metric countries. Either system is perfectly fine by me, and there’s not one that’s more usable than the other. Heck, in my kitchen I regularly use both (sous vide is in F, oven in C, ThermoPen in F, fridge in C).
It just so happens that I was watching a NOVA episode last night, and I wanted to compare the 50 mile altitude that they mentioned to a typical airliner cruising altitude of 36,000 feet. So, yeah, I pulled out the calculator and used my memorized 5280 feet conversion. And you know what? It wasn’t obnoxious in the least. It’s not difficult to remember these conversions. I’m old and use my calculator (or Excel) for pretty much anything these days, and it wasn’t obnoxious to require it, either.
it’s funny that the people advocating the metric system trot out conversions that practically nobody has to do, like, ever. I’ve never in my life had to care about how many yards are in a mile. nor how many hectares are in a furlong, or how many rods to the hogshead.
I think clairobscur might have been referring to a metric version of this:
(it has different graduations for different ingredients)
I’ve never even heard of a hogshead before! Is that some made up unit? 
I know that, in the UK, the road signs are mapped out in either miles or yards. If you see that you are 300 yards away from where you need to turn off, how much of a mile is that? I’ve never known and probably won’t know either.
Whereas if the UK (and the US, obviously) adopted metric, if the sign said 400 meters, you’d know that it is also 0.4 km. And vice versa - if it says 0.5 km, you know it’s 500 meters.
With regards to the temperature thing, the only real difference is the use of Kelvin, but if you are in science, or electronics, or anything that uses equations to work out temperatures (or involving temperatures), those temperatures are almost always specified in Kelvins. To get from C to K is easy: add (or subtract, depending on which way you are going) 273.15. How do you get from Fahrenheit to Kelvins? I haven’t a clue.
Not a lot, which is as much information as is needed. 300 yards means “soon” not “0.17 miles, set your odometer now.”
Hogshead, Butt, Firkin, and Kilderkin are all perfectly cromulent units of measure.
Depends on if it’s a troy ounce or avoirdupois ounce.
Okay, thanks for the info. Well I guess you learn something new every day!
But those units are for liquids and are related to the gallon - which is not required because you can use milliliters, centiliters and liters! (In the UK, you often see wine bottles measured in centiliters, e.g. 75 cl = 0.75 l = 750 ml.)
At first, I thought this was a parody. None of these are examples of Imperial units being “better”. They are examples of your preferences. I find it hard to believe you genuinely can’t tell the difference.