Forget Metric

The United States is the last major holdout of the english system of measure. The rest of the world would like us to come into the 20th century already and pick up the metric system. However, we already have the superior system...ours works in the 21st century.

Take the measure of volume. In the english system we have fluid ounces (it even tells you what you're measuring!) eight of which makes a cup, two cups make a pint, two pints to a quart and four quarts to the gallon. The metric system is simply one thousand milliliters to a liter. Seems simpler right (except for the word milliliters; how many confusable letters can you jam into a word)? But what happens when a computer gets involved? Say I want to convert liters to milliliters. In a simple computer (for example a microcontroller) the logic would go something like this:

1. Shift the number 1 bit to the left.
2. Shift the number 3 bits to the left.
3. Add the results from steps 1 and 2.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 using the result from step 3.
5. Repeat steps 1-3 using the result from step 4.

Now how would I convert gallons to fluid ounces?

1. Shift the number 7 bits to the left.

See the difference? Gallons to fluid ounces takes one simple calculation. Since computers operate in base-2, multiplying by a power of two (128 in this case) is quick and easy. Liters to milliliters requires a multiplication by one thousand, much harder to implement. The exact same results show up when you convert pounds to ounces vs grams to kilograms. Converting the other way is worse. Fluid ounces to gallons is a 7-bit right shift. Converting milliliters to liters involves implementing a divider.

Now the system of length measurements is a little harder to justify. Some may point out here than an important constant, the speed of light, is almost an exactly clean 3e+8 under the metric system. But in feet per second, c comes out to 9.8e+8, about as close to a whole number as the metric version of the gravitational acceleration. And as long as we're allowing rough approximations, g in feet per second is about 32--multiplying and dividing by g is only a 5-bit shift under the english system.

And both of those constants involve time, and our measurements of time are extremely stupid: 60 seconds makes a minute (who uses a base-60 system?), 60 minutes makes an hour (at least it's consistent), 24 hours makes a day (whoops), 30 days makes a month, except when its 31 days or when its 28 days or that rare case when it's 29 days (bigger whoops), or if you prefer 365 days makes a year except every forth year its 366 days but every twenty-fifth of those exceptions is an exception and is only 365 days again except that every fourth of these exceptions to the exception is an exception and is 366 days (make it stop). Tweak our time system and we can make the constants into whatever we want! How about making c equal exactly 2³⁰ (or 1 billion) for easy calculation?

Metric was fine for that dark age when one was lucky to have a slide-rule to solve their physics problems with. Today computers are everywhere and the very concept of a decimal numbering system is anachronistic. All systems of measurements are nothing more than arbitrary points labeled '0' and '1', why not choose ones that embrace the hexadecimal system? (And if you're one of those nuts who thinks trinary logic is going some where: three teaspoons makes a tablespoon and three feet are in a yard).