GP was taking about the US so imperial would be normal. It would be extremely not normal for a Pennsylvanian to describe their home in meters squared

Internet suggests that "normal" for 65% of HN is metric.

If for nothing else, units conversions is either trivial or stupidly complex, and everybody is doing it all the time so it makes actual difference. We used to have tens if not hundreds of similar systems to imperial one here in Europe during medieval times (my own country at least 5 of those), but we moved to much greener pastures since then and now it just looks... ridiculous to keep it polite.

It also seems weird on principle. If 65% of HN readers spoke Mandarin, would you make all your comments in Simplified Chinese?

That's what happened here. Somebody posted in their native unit, somebody converted it to the audience-standard unit and you took issue with "normal" and a lot of words were thrown on the bonfire of internet squabbles and here we are.

I don't expect people to change their units themselves. It's nice when they cover both bases. But it's also nice when people offer a conversion so others get the picture without having to do any mental gymnastics. I think what we could all do without is this bit.

Its just a matter of cultural change in society.

resistance is futile.

What you want is tradition not reasoning.

From a pure Logic point of view metric is better.

And it's used in the USA.

Even inches and feet are based on the metric meter.

Using a projected area of 70 cm², the floor space should fit ~33142 bananas when tiled end-to-end.

Negative pressure will pull air through crevices (which will be lower down, like under doors and windows, and from the foundation) drawing in dust and allergens. Ideally pressure should be neutral but that is easier to achieve with a "positive pressure" fireplace like that.