Give an inch

[martin goddard]

I rather like inches.
MM are great for basing though. None of that 1 and  1/8 inches.
Big enough to matter.
However a bit alien to European gamers and outdated?

Your preferences, anecdotes and comments?


martin

[Matías]

I'm from a country that uses the metric system so I'm quite used to mm, but I use inches when measuring movement, since most of the rules I use are European.

[Sean Clark]

Yes it's odd that games use imperial for movement and shooting but metric for base sizes.

Inches are a nice increment when moving and shooting, and suits my eye better.

[Leman (Andy)]

A number of rules have appeared recently which use increments of base width for movement and range. Owing to my table being 6x3 I quite like the 2/3 inch scale for games that don't use grids, especially when my bases are a little smaller than usual. I have a mat in 8" squares and a 2/3 scale ruler downloadable from the Baccus site.

[Colonel Kilgore]

I think it's about what is most appropriate for the task at hand. Luckily with gridded games it doesn't matter 

Simon

[Smoking gun]

I'm quite happy using both. I don't like the way how some products like wood are sold in approximations of imperial measurements 90cm is not a yard (3ft) it's too short, sell me 1m and I'll cut it to length.

I recently bought a sheet of birch ply from a timber merchant and it was exactly 8 x 4ft, I was very surprised and pleased. The plywood came from Finland!

This reminds of an old joke: Steve "What's a yard?" Martin "It's what the middle classes call a patio."

Best wishes,
Martin Buck

[Leman (Andy)]

I suppose that now the UK is determined to go it alone the time is ripe for the reintroduction of feet and inches, chains and furlongs, pounds and ounces, pounds, shillings and pence, pints and gallons etc. If you're going to do a job then do it properly - bring back the groat! I'll bet you five guineas they don't though.

[Norm]

I remember when decimal currency was introduced to the UK, my rather wise grandmother described it as a rip, saying that in the old money, you could go to the loo (spend a penny) 240 times for a pound, but with the new pound, you could only go 100 times. True Dat! 

[mellis1644]

I can't wait for the call for old real money to return to the UK. None of this French decimal malarky. Pounds, Shillings and Pence for the UK. Now that'll make everyone mad. So prices listed as £3, 4s, 2d will confuse everyone in the world these days - and generate huge expense for UK companies- erm biz opportunities for conversions.

For the record really keep the decimal. Inches are fine and living above the US we deal with them but decimal system is easy to deal with really

[martin goddard]

Yes, there is the US use of inches etc.
Imperial also makes it easier to read old books which mention measurement.


martin

[Leman (Andy)]

It also made arithmetic a much more central part of maths. In fact in primary school it was called arithmetic or sums. No maths until grammar school, even though we did algebra and geometry in standards 3 and 4 (in Wales - now called years 5 and 6). Ah the joys of carrying over from 16 to pounds and 14 to stones. And there was even more fun to be had with long division.

[Smiley Miley 66]

Being a lorry driver, if you talk about "how heavy?" I use metric as it's easier and makes sense.
Talk of distance " how long?" feet and inches.
But modelling always metric.
In 1973 Christchurch Council rise to fame was to make going for a Pee 2pence a time. Simon Bates on the Golden Hour always mentioned that fact for that year ?
Miles

[Smoking gun]

I'd like to propose a new system of measurements for international use. It's based on the ubiquitous iPhone, the long side is the basic unit of length, and its weight is the basic unit of mass.

Best wishes,
Martin Buck

[Smiley Miley 66]

So what's an iPad ?
Lol
Miles

[John Watson]

Despite LSD being a more mathematical currency, decimal will rule. LSD could be divided by 2, 3 ,4 and 6 but decimal fits with the computer age. Think of all those ATMs, hand held payment widgets etc that would not be able to cope with non digital. So even if other things go back to pre decimal, I don't think money will. And don't forget we went digital before we joined the EU.
My first proper job was in 1971 when I was working on tax returns for the previous year. So the first part of the year was calculated in LSD (6th April to 14th February) and then converted to decimal for the remainder of the year (15th February to 5th April). There were no handy calculators around then to make the job easy. It was a testing task and, for what it is worth, I can still work between the two systems.
John