I do a lot of constructive things whether it’s home remodeling, fixing a broken down vehicle, or doing a random fabrication of some sort. What bothers me is the 2 ways to take measurements. The Standard System and the Metric System. One is much simpler to understand than the other. I find it quite annoying when I need to switch my tools back and forth depending on what I am working on.

I don’t want to get into the details about why the US decided on the Standard System of Measurement or why it was ever invented (look it up on Wikipedia), but it simply complicates things. Standard Measurements heavily deals with fractions, and points. For example, 1/8″ = 0.125, 3/16″ = 0.1875. Take a pair of digital calipers, and it’s going to read the measurement for you in points. It’s up to you to be able to convert that back into a fraction if you’re going to switch to a tape measure.

With the Metric System, you’ll only need to deal with points. And because the units of measurement are very systematic, 1 meter = 100 centimeters = 1000 millimeters, it’s much more easier to calculate. Switching over to weights, you’re looking at 2000 pounds in 1 ton, 16 oz in a pound for the Standard System. For the Metric System 1000 grams is 1 kilogram, and 1 gram is 1000 milligram.

See what I’m getting at? The metric system is much easier to work with since every measurement is divisible by 10. Simplifying the units of measurement would make engineering more efficient. The numbers are much easier to handle. If we do switch the entire world over to the metric system, there is a lot less room for error and much less number of tools required for the job since you’ll only need to focus on 1 type. Let’s go metric! < /rant >