• notacat@mander.xyz
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    11 months ago

    I do find cooking easier in grams. Just put the bowl on the scale and add ingredients until it hits the number. No measuring cups to wash. But it would life changing if woodworking switched to metric. Doing any sort of exact math is annoying as hell. What is 12’7” divided by 4? How many 1/8” is 0.55 inches?? It is my own personal hell.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
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      11 months ago

      I do find cooking easier in grams. Just put the bowl on the scale and add ingredients until it hits the number. No measuring cups to wash.

      Uh, you know metric has volume measurements as well, and Imperial has weight measurements? Measuring VIP vs scales is not really a difference in metric and imperial.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Directions and nutrition information and other stuff like that tend to use mass for metric and volume for imperial. Yeah, you can convert stuff, but it’s annoying.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      It’s also a lot easier to multiply and divide recipes if you switch it over to metric. This is particularly useful if you don’t have enough of one ingredient and need to reduce the others by that ratio.

      Then there’s the ability to measure the ingredient directly out of the container, using any scoop you can find, rather than needing multiple sets of measuring spoons.

        • RoquetteQueen@slrpnk.net
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          11 months ago

          Sometimes I buy liquid eggs in a carton if I need a lot of eggs for one recipe and don’t feel like cracking a dozen eggs. One large egg is about 50g, so 0.8 metric eggs is about 40g.

        • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          A metric egg is a little over 50 grams. You typically get a bit over 30 grams of white, 20 grams of yolk and 5-ish grams of shell.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          Say you have a recipe that takes three eggs but you only have two. Do you wanna do the math on what 2/3 of one cup is actually?

          • gordon@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Ummm… It’s 2/3 cup, and that is a standard measurement. But maybe that wasn’t the best example. Let’s say 2/3 of 1/4 cup. Well that’s 2/12 or 1/6 cup which is far from common. However a cup is 48 tsp, so 1/6 cup is 8 tsp.

            I mean it’s dumb as hell but it does work.

            The Metric system is easier though.

            • Lemon1095@lemmy.ml
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              11 months ago

              It’s like when the crazy guy says it’s easy and then pulls out a pinboard with pictures and string connecting them and proceeds to explain how it makes sense in his head and you have to admit that you sort of follow but also can’t believe what you’re hearing is reality.

              • gordon@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                The thing that drives me bonkers is that ounces is both a volume and mass measurement, and they aren’t the same for water.

  • visiblink@lemmy.sdf.org
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    11 months ago

    I’m a Canadian who started school when the change happened. Grade two, 1977: new rulers!

    I think it’s fair to say that we all ended up hybridized. Some things I measure intuitively in metric, others in imperial.

    People’s height? feet and inches.

    Grocery weights? pounds. If it’s in Kilograms, I quickly convert it.

    Grocery volumes (Milk, dairy products, shampoo, basically anything purchased in a container)? litres.

    Gasoline? Gallons or litres. Either is fine. But fuel economy is mpg.

    Temperature? Celsius outdoors, Fahrenheit indoors. We had an old thermostat when I was growing up.

    Carpentry measurements? Inches.

    Wrenches? whatever fits!

    Distances? It took a long time, probably fifteen years, but at some point, I stopped converting kilometres to miles. Now I just think in kilometres.

    • grue@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Grocery volumes (Milk, dairy products, shampoo, basically anything purchased in a container)? litres.

      Meanwhile, here in the US, we’ve got soda in liters but milk in gallons. Udder madness!

      Carpentry measurements? Inches.

      It amuses me that in metric countries, construction materials like plywood are often standardized to strange non-rounded measurements like 1220 x 2440 x 13mm because it’s actually just 4’ x 8’ x 1/2" in disguise.

      Wrenches? whatever fits!

      Interestingly, I can’t remember the last time I needed SAE wrenches. Even my old '96 Ford Ranger is metric, I think.

      • bpm@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Cars have been all metric since the mid-80s IIRC, to better standardise them for international sales. The Ranger was really a Mazda B-series, so it’s definitely metric.

      • MeshPotato@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Didn’t you see the meme: “There are 2 types of countries, those that ise the metric system and those that landed on the moon.”?

        It’s also usually shared by the same idiots that don’t realise that barley corn is an actual measurement in their beloved imperial system.

        Ask any of these smart arses how barley corns are in a foot or how many feet are in a mile and suddenly you hear excuses. Not to forget that the inch defined by the meter.

        • Lizardking27@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I’m not sure what your point is? Some people not knowing a certain obscure unit of measurement doesn’t discount an entire system of measurements. Also your mile example doesn’t make sense because most people do know how many feet are in a mile.

          • MeshPotato@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            You’re proving my point exactly. The imperial system is so convoluted that even people that INSIST that EVERYONE should use it, don’t understand its units.

            Just because most people don’t have to deal with a certain conversion, doesn’t mean that none do. There are enough engineers that design stuff which is related to problems on these variations in scale. They waste hours in productivity in needlessly complicated conversions (because fractions). Not to mention the mistakes that get introduced like the famous Mars lander that crashed because of imperial unit conversions.

            Not only are the units incredibly inconsistent, you also have the issue that Brits and boat people use variation of some of the same units. US Gallons vs British Gallons, mile vs nautical mile. MPH, vs knots. That barley corn that Holzkohlen mentioned defines shoe sizes, unless of course, you don’t wear shoes.

            • Lizardking27@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              You have no point to prove! You’re just ranting like a crazy person about stuff no one’s heard of that doesn’t even matter!

    • tavu@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago
      • US: 77⁄256 cubic inches vs 0.50 US fl oz (~4.929ml vs ~14.787ml)
      • Australia: 5ml vs 20ml
      • Rest of World: 5ml vs 15ml
  • Esjee@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    We went from posting Twitter screenshots as memes to posting reddit screenshots as memes

    • TheKingBee@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’d heard of that before so after a quick google America passed the Metric Conversion Act in 1975 then in 1982 the Metric Board was abolished by President Ronald Reagan…

      So like the harbinger of doom for American progress he was Regan killed it…

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          We actually got rid of that in Denmark recently, but in a pretty foolish way: our time is now locked in on daylight savings time rather than the original unmodified time.

          Probably gonna mean some dark mornings when the times come and we don’t switch back, which’ll suck for those of us who have a hard time getting out of bed before the sun’s up…

  • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    How long is that thing?

    A foot.

    How long is that?

    About as long as a foot.

    Oh cool, I have two of those to compare right here. Thanks for telling me how long stuff is in an easy to understand way.

    What about that thing?

    30 centimeters.

    How long is a centimeter?

    A hundredth as long as a meter.

    How long is a meter?

    As long as the distance light can travel in a vacuum in 1/299752458 of a second.

    Please throw yourself off a bridge for using bizarre measurements developed by frenchmen.

    • daqqad@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Whose foot? Chances are yours isn’t even a good approximation.

      Jokes aside, there isn’t even such a thing as foot anymore. All these idiotic measurement units like feet and elbows have thankfully been deprecated and are now simply a name for a certain amount of civilized units. Foot is exactly 0.3048 meters since 1959.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(unit)

        • daqqad@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          TY. I refuse to use idiotic units to such degree, my brain didn’t even flinch at completely wrong number I copy/pasted.

      • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Whose foot?

        Let’s go with Ariana Grande’s foot. The whole Ariana Grande is already used as a unit of measurement, so this will make the conversions easier.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        +/- 20% is good enough for e6 and covers the overwhelming majority of men’s foot lengths.

        For making a measurement without a tool +/-20% should be fine.

        It’s all fun and games, but I take issue with calling metric “civilized units”. Human civilization developed all kinds of units appropriate to the work being done and calling the ones defined almost in defiance of everyday use the civilized ones is absurd.

        • daqqad@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Being able to easily convert between various units makes the metric system the only one worth considering civilized.

          Every time I see a wrench labeled with some insane fraction like 18/32 my eye starts twitching. I honestly cannot tell which size is bigger without dividing and converting to decimal.

          Human civilization developed all kinds of dumb shit we’ve since discarded. Please let’s discard the idiotic units in my lifetime.

          • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            I think you mean a 9/16. It’s be pretty crazy to see one labeled 18/32.

            When you wanna make fun of sae use an odd number on top so no one can make fun of you for not reducing your fractions like a fourth grader. Or so you whip out 9/12 and get elementary school math mogged anyway.

            How is it easier to convert between units under metric? I don’t have any use for a kilogram length of lumber or a meter of gasoline. What unit conversions are you doing?

            • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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              11 months ago

              Nah, my ruler has cm on one side and inches on the other. The side with inches actually, unironically, lists 1/8 through 7/8 in each inch, including 2/8, 4/8 and 6/8!

              It’s not @dagad@lemmy.world who is being dumb, the Imperial system is.

              • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                11 months ago

                I can’t see what you described the sae side as because of a word filter, but I can guarantee a worse pejorative was used for people who chose that ruler on a job or worse, were assigned it in shop class. I think there’s a not for dumb people use for the unreduced scale but for the life of me I just can’t think of it.

                Is that really the complaint, that people don’t wanna do fractions?

                • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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                  11 months ago

                  I called it dumb with stronger wording, but that was unnecessary and I’ve updated my comment to be more clear.

                  And yes, among many other reasons. The main complaint is that the systems uses many different conversions internally; 12 inch in a foot, 72 points in an inch, 3 feet in a yard, an arbitrary amount of yards in a landmile, and slightly more at sea… I understand this wasn’t designed deliberately, that imperial is really just 3 measurement systems in a trench coat. But that’s exactly the problem.

                  But also yes, I’d rather do 9 mm or1 cm, than 3/8 inch

    • Bruno Finger@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Actually that’s a modern measurement concept based on the original meter. By using this concept, the size of a meter is tied to absolute terms in physics that “anyone” could measure with the right tools, while the original concept was based on a physical object called the meter, which is subject to many things such as heat dilation for example making it not accurate, and if the original object was lost we would not have a way to tell what is a meter (conceptually speaking of course).

      The foot on the other hand (lol) is traditionally based on the king’s foot size. This of course depends on which country (or realm?), and to make matters worst, who’s the king at the time, because yes the official measure would change based on that too.

      Of course that’s not how it is today, but we can say the original foot was lost long ago.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Ditto for the original meter. We sure are lucky that an approximation of the measurement is built into the name of the foot. It’s frighteningly European to have a measurement name that roughly translates to “measure”

        Hey, how many measures is that?

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s so nice the US and Liberia are the only two countries to share both Ebola AND the imperial system. They’re buddy buddy.

    • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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      11 months ago

      TBF in practice a lot of countries use the imperial system, from Canada to the UK to Jamaica to the Philippines. They just “use metric” on paper.

      Also, here in the Netherlands we use inches for screen sizes and cups for some cooking recipes. I will insist that my monitor is 55cm and even tech people ask me how much that is with full sincerity.

        • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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          11 months ago

          I noticed some Canadians seem to use metric exclusively, while others very much use imperial systems through and through. Android defaults to imperial systems when it’s set to Canadian English, which confuses me even more but I suppose imperial must be used a lot, then

          • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I find stuff like cups and spoons and pounds and inches are used here more than metric, but we definitely use kilometers only.

            • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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              11 months ago

              Android lied to me

              Maybe it’s a plot by the Australian government because it led me to set all my devices to Australian English; they’re always 100% metric

          • Catweazle@social.vivaldi.net
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            11 months ago

            @lord_ryvan @BonesOfTheMoon, I don’t understand how it can be in the 21st century that a system as idiotic and archaic as the imperial one continues to be used. NASA has already caused millions of dollars in damage by crashing several probes due to miscalculations with these outdated and devoid of any logic measurements, based on parts of the body of a king, dead centuries ago instead of clear physical and mathematical units as in the rest of the world.

            • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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              11 months ago

              I also don’t get it and my country is slowly adapting it too (Netherlands)

              I absolutely hate it and try to counter it actively