Fuck I wish imperial would just disappear. Metric is 100% better in every single way, bar none.
As a European who grew up using only metric I like inches for crafting. It’s a good scale for the things I craft and I prefer fractions over decimals when doing quick math or measurements.
But that doesn’t mean metric shouldn’t be the standard.
I think we should all switch to base twelve and then measure everything in dozenal metric. All problems solved.
Base-60 ftw.
Can we make it so?
Is lemmy big enough that we can rise awareness for a change? Or the other way around, can we use the rallying behind the metric system to make lemmy popular?
Metric is 100% better in every single way, bar none.
Imperial unit ratios tend to have a greater number of smaller factors, which makes fractions nicer. 1yd/3 = 1ft. 1ft/3 = 4in.
The fractions don’t help me when I go to the grocery store and unit price of one bag of nuts is “per pound” and the unit price of another is “per ounce”. You’d better be good at dividing by 16 in your head if you want to price-compare! And you’d better be good at remembering how many fluid ounces are in a quart when you go to the olive oil aisle (hint: it’s not 16).
There’s nothing nice or consistent about those fractions. A third of one is one of the other, but a third of that is four of the other? Imperial units don’t convert in any meaningful or logical way, you have to memorise the conversions. With the metric system, it’s all tens.
And the fact that there are no usable units smaller than an inch and you have to use fractions should drive any craftsperson up the wall.
I agree there’s nothing consistent, but having 3 as a factor in ratios does make things nicer - it lets you stick with integer numbers for more things. I’m not saying it’s better than metric, but I do think having more small factors in ratios is nicer than having only the factors 5 and 2.
I’m an American who designs PCBs in millimeters instead of thousandths of an inch. I’m doing my part.
Military, most manufacturing is metric only thing that’s not metric are street signs, building trades and anything else the redcaps interact with daily.
Except American aerospace.
After we lost that one expensive spacecraft we’ve been moving towards metric more and more there as well.
Oh my God I have a story about this.
Our entire company wants metric. The guidance folk want to do their modeling in metric. The prop team wants to do fluid/thermo in metric. The structures team wants to do load analysis in metric.
But the boys at the 'pad are imperial only. The water system, fuel tanks, all ground infra is in imperial. If someone runs down to the hardware store they can easily find a fitting, gasket, or o ring in imperial. But metric? Good luck.
So our company decided to support both. The flight computer and ground software did unit conversions, everything was unit-aware, telemetry was occasionally manually converted because the onscreen wasn’t the right unit. We had written our own turing complete, inhouse programming language and we ended up implementing dual-static typing. We had float, int, bool and then we had units where some operations required the units to be the same thing. So cm and inch but not inch and kilogram.
The project was terribly mismanaged. To this day some still wonder why.
🫡
One pound is what, about 500 grams, or half a kilogram (well, 453.59 grams to be exact)? But seriously though, everyone should stick to the metric system. It’s all in the power of tens.
Yeah but what if I don’t have access to a ruler and I only have my feet?
Lmao checkmate euro
I think USA officially switched in the 70s?
it’s in small text on all of your products.
The argument there would be mass confusion is really silly becuse the rest of the world switched and they did just fine.
Is the USA saying it’s not as clever as THE REST OF THE WORLD?
It’s just a pun. They’re both units of mass, hence there would be mass confusion.
It doesn’t work with the pun, but the more confusing part for people would probably be the fact that pounds are used for both mass and force, but in SI, the units are different (kilograms for mass vs newtons for force), though that doesn’t really matter for most people.
Pounds aren’t used for mass. They’re explicitly a measure of weight. It’s just almost always in the context of earth’s gravity so the approximation to mass can easily be made.
That’s incorrect. They are, in engineering contexts, referred to as pounds mass (lbm) or pounds force (lbf) respectively. The US Customary Unit for mass is the pound (lb) (aka pound mass, lbm)
Neither of which were referenced by op. Lb is not a measure of mass.
Again, that’s incorrect. Pounds (Lbs) are the US measurement for mass. Feel free to provide a source to the contrary. I specified pounds mass vs pounds force because in an engineering space, it’s worthwhile to be specific, but the Pound (lb) is all that is specified in any documentation as the unit for mass in the US system.
If the USA is OP then I guess so
the imperial units should be the smaller text
We’ll just call your local coke dealer, duh.
It’s a bit weird that the US uses a measurement that was created in the time where people used their body parts for measurement.
Like, the inch is around the size of a thumb, and a foot could be bigger or smaller depending of who measured.
Still, it’s still used as a measurement that only a small fraction of the world still uses.
Still, it’s still used as a measurement that only a small fraction of the world still uses.
That’s a lot of stills 🤔
But coming back to your point, yes, I have no idea why the US insists on keeping the imperial system, it’s outdated, ugly and inconsistent. Plus you cannot easily convert from one unit to another.
Sorry, english is my second language.
Your grammar is correct and your sentence structure is fine. It just lacks a bit of… pizzazz 😉
You could say
Regardless, it remains in use as a measurement that only a small fraction of the world continues to use.
Which maybe is a little bit too much pizzazz for Lemmy but you don’t really get to have fun with your writing elsewhere!
a bit weird that the US uses a measurement that was created in the time where people used their body parts for measurement.
Wdym?
What’s so weird about my new monitor which is 7 penis in size?
21 inch diagonal, eh?
This would be better with one panel right?
Comedy homicide
ba dum tss.
I see this meme beaten to death yet most people I know use the metric system, and my US based company and their nationwide conglomerates use the metric system too and have for over twenty years.
It would be a weighty decision to be sure.
It weighs on a lot of people’s minds
