[MUD-Dev] Metric vs. English System of Measurement in Games

[ceo]

olag at ifi.uio.no wrote:
> Adam M wrote:

>> 1 foot seems to be believed to be a more useful length than 10cm
>> - certainly, when measuring real-world distances on the "human
>> scale" (c.f. architecture books) a foot is much easier to work
>> with, completely ignoring the fact that it's approximatable by
>> your own body.

> 10cm is a very tiny foot... Anyway, I don't really see why feet
> are easier than meters.

The point is that 1 foot == 1 unit in imperial. Metric only has 1cm
or 1 metre - maybe this is a better way of putting it: in metric,
your only unit units are the span of your arms or the width of a
small finger, whereas most people want something about a foot long
as 1 unit?

10cm seems to be the best approximation for one foot - IIRC the term
"decimetre" was even invented for this slightly more convenient
real-world length, although at school it was officially frowned upon
as a bastard offspring unit :).

>> For instance, those friends of mine who are 6'-4" come up with
>> very similar hand-segment lengths as those who are a mere 5'-5".

> And those height measures are _completely_ uncomprehensible to
> me. I find it much easier to visualize people as 150cm, 160cm,
> 170cm and 180cm. I have prototypes for men and women in those
> ranges. E.g. women are approx 166cm and men are 180cm, so tall and

In imperial: women are all 5-something, men are 6-something.

But yes, I believe tens of cm would be more convenient for this -
it's just that (from personal experience!) I can never remember
which of the 3 or 4 10cm ranges is which - is it 150, 160, 170, or
is it 160, 170, 180, or even 170, 180, 190 that covers the majority
of the population?

Going back to your earlier point, 5 and 6 are easier numbers to
remember - especially since if you're not sure you just compare your
height to your foot size and quickly confirm / deny your memory...

> Except that I prefer inches when talking about beams and nails,
> feet when talking about boat lenghts, yet other units when talking
> about

This is something very common in the UK. Due to school curriculums,
it's now the main preference for most (young) people:

  Everything under 1 metres: cm and metres

  Everything over 1 mile: miles

  Everything in-between: depends on the circumstances; heights they
  prefer feet, short distances they prefer metres (all races are
  100m, 200m, 400m, and then people stop being able to visualise it
  and prefer to use miles).

Maybe this is a peculiar artifact of the last 30 years of UK
schools, but it's very very noticeable.

> quantities of countables... Then you have the Danish with their
> own way of counting (base 20)... Etc.

Cool! :).

Adam M
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