One problem metric solved was that each country had their own value for inch, mile, pound etcetera. This is partially fixed by everyone but the US going to metric. But I highly encourage everyone to ask “Okay, but is that a Swedish mile, nautical mile, Roman mile, or Chinese mile?” whenever miles comes up with Americans. Similar for inches, feet, and so on.
The British have a stupid mix of Imperial and metric. We usually measure distance in meters/centimeters but feet and inches are still used fairly regularly especially if you’re measuring the height of a person. Large distances are usually measured in miles unless you’re going for a run in which case you probably use km. Then you go for a drive and measure your speed in miles per hour, and your fuel efficiency in miles per gallon. Except you now need to fill up so you go to the petrol station where the prices are listed in pence per litre. Most other liquids are also measured in litres unless you’re buying milk or beer.
Then if you’re weighing things you probably use metric, unless you’re weighing a person or you’re an old person cooking. Temperature is also measured in celcius unless you’re old.
Don’t forget to give your weight in stones and a horses height in hands…
The ironic thing is that the imperial system comes from Britain. It’s just that US decided to keep it.
The imperial system and the US customary system are different for volume and weight
Also, the metric system is french.
FRENCH‽
So same as soccer
Called football everywhere except north America where you use the term football for the game you play with your hands…
i just want to call soccer “footie”. i still prefer sepak takraw though.
Well, at least it fits the theme with the ass backwards imperial system.
Soccer was only ever a nickname tbf, It stood for a(socc)iation football.
I guess an equivalent would be like calling your police the bobby force.
French invented metric system…
And legally America does use the metric system…
yeah this is imperial washing. they setup a colony and left it with an antiquated system of measures, then cheated off their neighbor for a better one.
And the worst part is, they didn’t even adopt it completely. They were not even going the complete mile.
Oh, you!
And at least Americans use a consistent system of measures. Not the weird half breed that the UK uses.
the more metric the better. in that regard, the UK is better than the US. of course, both are inferior to any other country which only uses the metric system
If I might make an argument for the imperial system? I’ll acknowledge that it is bad, particularly from a scientific perspective, but one advantage that imperial has over metric is its use case for human related issues. Most of the stuff you interact with daily is much more easily measured in feet and inches vs meters and centimeters (this ignores decimeters, but I’ve literally never seen anyone use decimeters in my entire life). Another good example is temperature. Celsius is more objective, but when dealing with the standard sorts of temperatures humans are generally concerned with, Fahrenheit gives you more granularity within that range.
All that is to say: If I’m at work and someone uses imperial for an official measurement, I’m putting my fist through the drywall, but from a day to day perspective, I actually prefer imperial.
Also, the mile is fucking indefensible. I’ll happily leave all 5280 of its feet out to rot.
Most of the stuff you interact with daily is much more easily measured in feet and inches vs meters and centimeters…
… only if it’s what you’re used to.
Most of the stuff you interact with daily is much more easily measured in feet and inches vs meters and centimeters
Hard disagree. The centimeter is the best measurement there is for everyday stuff, you can easily express both round values or weird ones, and don’t need to switch between two scales as you do with feet and inches (and the stupid fact that there’s 12 inches in a feet, wtf). Meters are for distances.
(this ignores decimeters, but I’ve literally never seen anyone use decimeters in my entire life)
BECAUSE THE METRIC SYSTEM IS DECIMAL AND YOU DON’T NEED STUPID CHANGES BETWEEN UNITS, MOST PEOPLE JUST SAY TEN CENTIMETERS!
Celsius is more objective, but when dealing with the standard sorts of temperatures humans are generally concerned with, Fahrenheit gives you more granularity within that range.
If you’re measuring ambient temperature, 99% of the time being more precise than 1°C is pointless, in a room you may have more variance than that from a corner to another, same goes for outside. For things where you need better precision you sure as hell wouldn’t be using the imperial system, and you could instead take advantage of this neat trick called DECIMALS.
Edit: addendum for everyday convenience: buying shit at the supermarket. The label expresses price per kilo but the packaging is in grams? You don’t even need to think about it. Drinks? They can even mix litres and kilos, no problem, the difference would be below negligible.
Here in Italy we usually ask for meat cuts in “etti”, aka hecto grams aka 100grams, so I look at a cut, I see it’s 35€/kg, I ask for 3 etti, immediately know it’ll be 10.5€ (ALSO BECAUSE SALES TAX IS INCLUDED ON THE LABEL FFS)
Are there any? E.g. here in Germany we use kcal instead of kJ for food energy density. Also horsepower is used instead of W for engines. But for the most part we use only metric.
I’m wondering if there are countries where they completely conform to the metric system.
At least when you use calories and kilocalories you don’t have to multiply by 12 or 3 or 5820 when you want to compare a big and a small number.
Of all the terrible non-metric things Americans use the Fahrenheit is the most defensible. It’s just idiotic when the rest of the world uses metric.
fucking stones.
they measure thing in stones, still. the uk acts all uppity about metric shit and still uses imperial garbage variably all over.
This meme wasn’t created to ridicule Americans, it was created to enrage the French, and to a lesser extent the Germans.
This is offensively incorrect.
Deer are closer to 1.75 bicycles tall.
Maybe they’re as tall as bicycles are long?
One Imperial deer is 1.74832 bicycles. If you’re going to use a retarded system, you must also use retarded significant figures.
This is useful information that tells you how many hamberders a deer corpse can make
Hamburgers is probably not the worst measurement for a cow, it removes all conversion.
That second phrase can be useful information…
How many double-sized hamburgers is it? 600?
- But don’t be fooled. Between brain, bones, and waste you’ll only get get 200 double quarter pounders out of them. A little more if you add beef or pork fat to make them juicy.
ETA: I have no fucking clue what is going on with the formatting.
Easiest way to avoid formatting the list is to put a backslash before the dot:
12345\. Blah blah...This was a common problem in Reddit in NaNoWriMo when people posted their daily wordcounts and what they had been doing.
X. is what Lemmy uses for numbered lists. So
`1. Stuff-
Stuff
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Stuff ` Becomes
-
Stuff
-
Stuff
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Stuff
To avoid that you could write 400\. rather than 400.
Ha, yeah. I wasn’t thinking about it. It’ll just stay as a list starting with 400 then.
You’re awesome for letting me know for next time.
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