iamnotincompliance:
Warp speed due it's hilarious inconsistancies. According to the entire plot line of Star Trek: Voyager, it'd take them 75 years to get home at top speed, then they list that top speed at 4 billion kilometers per second. At that speed, it'd only take them 3 years to get home, and no, I did not figure this out. The legwork was already done for me. I never would've noticed this on my own, or cared for that matter.

Simply amazing what you can find when you're not looking for it.

Holy relativity batman, how hard is it to standardise a speed conversion in a series?

The Zube. () My measurement of fun based upon the scale of between -30 and 200 but for the most part would be unlimited postivley, because the human form can only take so much fun. 0 is neutral in all ways. -3 is not fun like eating curry when you're not in the mood. -15 is not fun like watching a chick flick you do not want to watch. 10 is about as much fun as this post gets amusing yourself. 50 would be the average funny movie, 120+ would be theme parks, 150 and excess might be mind-blowing sex. 200 would be the human limit because God doesn't want you having that much fun with your Earthly body.

I haven't read any of this, but I am going to be obnoxious and say the decimetre. It's the best, and I should learn to measure everything using it. How far is that place? 20,000 decimetres. How long is this pencil? Half a decimetre. It's perfect!

wilsonscrazybed:
I'll represent my nautical brethren and say the "fathom." Such an ominous and foreboding word when used in the right context.

A fathom is 72 inches btw, that's 1.8288 meters for all you people who don't use the king's measurements.

I'm a fathom tall. That's pretty awesome.

Also, I like the term "fortnight". Pisses everyone off around me when I say "Let's see eachother again in a fortnight" because they'd like me to talk post-1900's english generally.

ThaBenMan:
I know this is going to sound weird to all of you Brits and Aussies on here, but I like "stone" as a measurement of weight. It just sounds cool, like, medieval-y or something.

Australia doesn't use 'stones' and the rest of the imperial system (it's imperial right?). We use grams, kilos and tonnes.

Lukeje:
As a chemist I feel obligated to say the 'Mole'... If you don't know what it actually is, it sounds ridiculous when people start talking about measurements in little brown furry creatures...

Yay, now I fell all included because I learnt what that was last week in chemistry (yr 11).

Also correct me if I'm wrong but I thought S.I units were just the metric system and didn't inlude anything else. Anyway I love the simple 10 x = 1 y for the metric system instead of 12 x = 1 y (inches and feet) or 5280 feet to the mile whats going on here?

Edit: Purple Rain, I think hes trying to say stone might sound weird to us because we don't use stone as a weight measurement ie: Australians using the metric system might not know what a stone is (as a measurement).

Edit2: Or it's possible I'm digging myself into a hole, arrrrrrrrrhhhh, Cobra's!!!!!!!!

My favourite unit of measurement?
The Olf, its used for measuring stench.
1 Olf= The smell of a man who is having 0.7 baths per day

joethekoeller:
My favourite unit of measurement?
The Olf, its used for measuring stench.
1 Olf= The smell of a man who is having 0.7 baths per day

I sincerly hope you just made that up. Also what about other factors such as use of deoderant and/or recent physical exercise.

If you were making a joke whoops, I'm not really sure after the I looked up siemens on wikipedia and it was true.

Going to sleep now.

Darth Mobius:

Rabid Toilet:

Edit: We also have the same problem with languages, where everyone is convinced that all other peoples should learn English, instead of taking the time to learn to speak a new language.

In all fairness, Great Britain made English the universal trade language long before our country was ever dreamt up... We just don't want to change it. Hell, 3/4 of the world speaks English, why SHOULD that change? (Not as a primary language, but it is the primary language of Aviation, and most scientific words in other languages are slight changes of their english counterpart, if they even bother to change the spelling...)

actually i'll kill 2 birds weighing one stone here :)

the international language up till recently (50 years at the most) was french believe it or not, this was also used in diplomacy and aviation

as for americans learning other languages, from what i've seen it's just them speaking english slower and louder, the tempo and volume changes depending on the language they are trying to speak

Markness:

joethekoeller:
My favourite unit of measurement?
The Olf, its used for measuring stench.
1 Olf= The smell of a man who is having 0.7 baths per day

I sincerly hope you just made that up. Also what about other factors such as use of deoderant and/or recent physical exercise.

If you were making a joke whoops, I'm not really sure after the I looked up siemens on wikipedia and it was true.

Going to sleep now.

Sorry that one is actually true. Also I forgot to mention that 1 Olf= The smell of a standardized person ( 1.8 m2 Skin and not exercising or having exercised recently ) that has 0.7 baths per day

Dead Babies (when calculating volume)
Yes yes I know its really sick but any time the missus judges how big something is by saying "I could stuff 6 dead babies in there, 7 if i cut them into pieces" I get a uncontrolable and probably downright girly case of the giggles. ><

Other then that Id have to say millimeters. Makes everything sound soo much bigger. ^_-

Rabid Toilet:

Joeshie:
As an engineer, I obviously love me some metric system. It's the only logical system of measurements out there.

The metric system is a lot easier and more logical than Imperial, it's just that we Americans were raised on it and are a bit resistant to other ideas. If something is different, it's automatically considered "difficult" merely because we don't want to bother learning it.

Edit: We also have the same problem with languages, where everyone is convinced that all other peoples should learn English, instead of taking the time to learn to speak a new language.

This is also why older Americans hate Videogames. Think about it.

The Cubit (18 inches) for the win. It makes about as much sense as the Stone (14lbs).

tacticity is cool. also dyne isn't used anymore, but it's still cool

About the stone - my bad, I just figured Australia used it as well. And I was saying it would sound weird because it would be a common, banal thing to those that actually use it.

I find it really strange that Americans' don't use stones but use pounds. That's like using inches but not feet. 100 pounds or whatever to weigh someone is just stupid.

Metric horsepower does exist, PS, which stands for Pferdestärke (or Horsepower) and it equals somewhere near 0.9hp. But kW is the proper way to measure power.

I like Scovilles, used to measure the piquancy of chillis, and also the Erg. Just for the way it sounds.

The Pint. Just because it implies Beer :D

Anarchemitis:
The Tesla. Magnetinc flux density ftw, man.

Seconded.

Also, if we're gonna go into fictional ones, I've always loved the Rel, even though it's very ill-defined.

EDIT: My favourite slang unit is "As long as a piece of string."

cleverlymadeup:

Darth Mobius:

Rabid Toilet:

Edit: We also have the same problem with languages, where everyone is convinced that all other peoples should learn English, instead of taking the time to learn to speak a new language.

In all fairness, Great Britain made English the universal trade language long before our country was ever dreamt up... We just don't want to change it. Hell, 3/4 of the world speaks English, why SHOULD that change? (Not as a primary language, but it is the primary language of Aviation, and most scientific words in other languages are slight changes of their english counterpart, if they even bother to change the spelling...)

actually i'll kill 2 birds weighing one stone here :)

the international language up till recently (50 years at the most) was french believe it or not, this was also used in diplomacy and aviation

as for americans learning other languages, from what i've seen it's just them speaking english slower and louder, the tempo and volume changes depending on the language they are trying to speak

English is largely the "universal language" largely due to Great Britians colonization and the scientific progress of the United Stated post-WWII. Most science columns and papers were published by English speakers and so it was in many peoples best interest to pick up and learn English. The spread of American and British culture post-WWII also facilitated the process.

I'm a traditional sort of guy, so I'll have to go with the Calvin.

jamiemac:
The Pint. Just because it implies Beer :D

haha, nice

Metric, by far.
Now if only the US of A would stop being so archaic and stupid about their measurements.
Imperial? Fahrenheit? What the hell, man? What's wrong with Metric and Celsius? The scientific community, and most of the free world, use them. Stop being difficult!

After metric, however, I have to admit my fondness for the good old "Fuck" system.
Twice as much of X as you could ever concievably need is a Fuckload. (Where X is anything between "Toothpaste on that toothbrush" and "SCUD Launchers")
Two Fuckloads is a Metric Fuckload.
Two Metric fuckloads is a fuckton.
Two fucktons is a Metric Fuckton.
Ergo, a few metric fucktons of explosives and ammo means that your "Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction" plan is on the right way.

jamiemac:
The Pint. Just because it implies Beer :D

In that case, the 'Quart' would be even better...

The unit of evil: the kilonazi, as used here:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0489.html

The Franco:
But my two favorites are inductance, which is measured in Henry's and then conductance, which is measured in Siemens (which is pronounced in a way as to make me do a double take in lecture). Henry's just sounds goofy, and I honestly thought Siemens was an accent error - my professor is from Cyprus - until I saw the word spelled out.

These two are both named after people. Henry was French, and Siemens was German (Werner von Siemens, he invented the first type of indoor elevators). I don't see how they should be weirder than Watt, Joule, Ohm, or Coulomb.

My favourite units of measurement are those directly connected to perception, like sone or candela (Yes, I also prefer the HSB colour coding).
This also counts for "estimated values", like "an arm's length", "three body lengths", "about as strong as a young cat", and such.

Oh, and of course Terry Pratchett's "New York Second" (the time between a traffic light switching to green and the first honking behind you) and "thaum" (The magical energy required to create one white pigeon or three billiard balls)

I've always liked the candela, the unit of luminous intensity.
Don't ask me why though...

The parsec is pretty cool, but Star Wars made it stupid. :(
(1 Parsec=3.262 Lightyears)

Lukeje:

jamiemac:
The Pint. Just because it implies Beer :D

In that case, the 'Quart' would be even better...

perhaps, but unfortunately I know of no pubs that sell beer by the quart

I like the kilometer because i can also pronounce it as the Kill-O-Meter!Muwaaaahaha!

Saskwach:
Holy relativity batman, how hard is it to standardise a speed conversion in a series?

It must be fairly difficult, because they still don't have it down. How else do we explain a 70 year trip taking the exact amount of time as a 7 year series?

I also enjoy that quote from Grandpa Simpson: "My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it." That works out to almost 10.5 feet per gallon, or for our metric friends, 1,185.4815 l / km. Suddenly my 1972 Oldsmobile doesn't seem quite so bad.

Thaliur:

Oh, and of course Terry Pratchett's "New York Second" (the time between a traffic light switching to green and the first honking behind you)

That's not an original Terry Pratchett idea... It's a 'New York Minute' as described by Johnny Carson.

Hmm... Single specific point of measurement-- the Yoctogram, AKA "One sextillionth of a gram."

Because there are few funnier ways to call something "insignificantly small"

"Shakes"

A unit of time measurement something on the order of 1/10,000th of a second. Usually referred to when measuring interactions of Atomic Bomb components. It is approximately 3 shakes between when the fire order is issued to the element and when the bomb actually detonates....

there is a measurement in geology called "cleavage", as in how much cleavage a rock has. look it up im not joking