
Pokémon Go Is Secretly Teaching Americans the Metric System - geromek
http://gizmodo.com/pokemon-go-is-secretly-teaching-americans-the-metric-sy-1783459191
======
PhantomGremlin
Oh, come on. I learned "the metric system" in elementary school in the United
States of America nearly 50 years ago. I was in no way confused when it
appeared in the movie Pulp Fiction.

It's not like Americans don't know the metric system, it's that there is no
political will to change.

But it really doesn't matter. Large parts of industry in the USA are already
"hard metric". Anybody in STEM certainly knows metric, because that's often
what they exclusively use every day.

~~~
dalke
"Nearly 50 years ago" was the US made an effort to go metric. People thought
the transition would be "soon". Highway signs were put up in both metric and
miles.

I suspect that that was the high point in teaching metric in schools.

There's a difference between knowing metric and really having a feel for it. I
speak as someone trained in physics, but that doesn't mean I had a real sense
for what it means. What clothes should I wear for 23C weather? Is 13mm of rain
in an hour heavy or light? Is a car which consumes 4.5L/100km one that is fuel
efficient compared to most? How many centimeters tall are you?

Even now, living in a metric country for years, I have to think about some of
these by translating into, say, 52 mpg.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
It is a lot more difficult than folks think, that's for sure. I've only been
living in a metric country for 3 years, and I am only beginning to get a feel
for these things. Congratualations, me, you can no longer describe some bits
of life and the world in relatable terms.

~~~
dalke
Here's a fun one the other way. I know what 80-100C means as sauna
temperatures, and I prefer around 90C, but have to do some math to figure out
that's 175F-212F, and I prefer around 195F.

(Okay, the 100C=212F is a gimme, but not the others.)

------
homingbrain
Unfortunately, this looks like a localization bug that will probably be fixed
soon.

~~~
iokanuon
It won't be "fixed" soon, this isn't the first Niantic game that does this.

People were talking about this even in 2012 when playing Ingress:
[https://reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/13vjcw/the_real_nianti...](https://reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/13vjcw/the_real_nianticingress_conspiracy/)

------
chatmasta
That's hilarious. For me, running track and cross country taught me the metric
system. :)

Even as an American, it feels way more natural for me to express distances <
1km in meters, not "yards" (seriously the most wtf unit) or feet.

~~~
ajford
Out of curiosity, why is yards a WTF unit? It's within the realm of a meter
(~10% smaller), and as far as I've seen, about the distance of a large gait.
That's how my father and grandfather taught me how to estimate large distances
(room/house sized distances here), via a large pace that roughly matches a
yard (usually within 5%).

Now I really have no preference on feet-meter scale other than the fact that I
find the need to fall back to decimal meters or tens of centimeters when I can
use feet for a more round number. I'm terrible at gauging distances, so I have
very little use for either without a direct measurement.

------
elsurudo
I wonder if this was done on purpose. Either way, I like it.

