Points are a weird and inconsistent unit of measure

(buttondown.com)

25 points | by danborn26 2 days ago

7 comments

  • tariky 12 minutes ago
    As someone from european continent. Those US measurements units look and feel so hard to work with.

    Instead metric system is predictable and easy to work with.

    Real question is why US just don't move to metric system?

  • cheschire 15 minutes ago
    EMUs always seemed weirder to me. Like an unnecessary compromise instead of just using metric outright.

    https://startbigthinksmall.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/points-i...

  • PopAlongKid 1 hour ago
    From the title I thought this was going to be about basis points, as used in finance. (A basis point is one hundredth of 1 percentage point).
    • RexM 42 minutes ago
      I thought it was going to be about story points.
    • sevenseacat 34 minutes ago
      I thought it was going to be about story points and I was going to wholeheartedly agree with the premise
      • NooneAtAll3 11 minutes ago
        what do story points measure?
  • endofreach 34 minutes ago
    I don't know what happened in my brain but i expected a piece about points as in keeping scores. Maybe about how we evolved from binary results (alive/dead in early human competitions) to more complex systems. I'd say humans played games long before being able to count. Of course competition is inherent to human nature. But i'd say, without getting into any philosophical debate, a certain amount of compassion and empathy is as well. Which must have resulted in early ideas of fairness. Especially when respect and status seem to be crucial to society.

    So, how and when did points come into play? ...

    Well, ok. I stop procrastinating for now (i hope). I hate my brain.

    • butvacuum 12 minutes ago
      Not sure, but typefacing/fonts is absolutely cursed with this stuff. I'd be shocked if there isn't a true type font that runs DOOM. There's a reason Microsoft pushed font rendering out of the kernel in Vista. (Technically, they started the work on it)
  • zetanor 51 minutes ago
    That's why my favorite unit is the px, a.k.a., 1 centiinch.
  • WillAdams 1 hour ago
    TLDR; folks should just use PostScript (Big) Points.

    The mention of

    https://frinklang.org/

    is kind of interesting --- hadn't heard of it before --- may need to revisit the "ProportionBar" tool which I made ages ago....

    • JoshTriplett 12 minutes ago
      > TLDR; folks should just use PostScript (Big) Points.

      The distinction ends up being important if you need compatibility with some document format, or with common typesetting expectations. But if there weren't a concern of surprising people with certain expectations of font-picking widgets, I'd argue that the better choice would be millimeters.

      4mm is a great default font size, and going up by one integer mm at a time is a reasonable step size (it's just under 3pt).

  • dsevil 1 day ago
    Just posted the following poorly-fleshed-out comment there:

    So disappointed that this document, as much as it obsesses over obscure physical quantities no one cares about, makes no mention of THE FUCK.

    1 fuck is equal to the amount of concern you have about something below which you cannot achieve without having no concern at all, as which giving "zero fucks" is defined. "Absolute zero fucks" would be the formal terminology.

    For preliminary purposes, we can assume 1 fuck = 1 shit = 1 damn, but must account for the possible existence of a big-point-vs-printers-point style situation. Also they could be drastically different, like if 1 shit given about global warming would be equivalent to 299_792_458 fucks or something like that.

    I have very little knowledge about the *real* machinations behind the standardization of measures (a tinfoil conspiracy kook would call it an Agenda 21, or 21 Agendas One, but I'm not going there), I want this to be discussed.