#imperial measurements

[phoenixyfriend]

"It's in the negatives right now!" Okay but is it like a real negative or. You know. Celsius.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

The American education system has failed me because I conceptualize small weights in grams but large weights in pounds. Like, I have no clue what an ounce is, and kilograms are just pounds that are trying to hard (but not hard enough; 2 pounds would be okay, 2¼ would be okay, but 2.2046244201838 is nonsense)

[miss-bubles]

this week I learnt

that Australian pre-metric imperial volume measurements are different to US Imperial measurements

[kayespencer]

Stream of Consciousness Saturday 11/4/2023 I hope this isn't unmeetly #socs

A Meat Poem I loathe meatloaf. I’m not keen for meatballs. I’m not crazy about lunchmeat. I won’t eat mincemeat or sweetmeats. The End The Beatles’ song, Lovely Rita, (meter maid) is the first mete word that came to mind, which reminded me that I am not ‘one’ with the metric system. I learned the American standard measurement system (Imperial) of yards, feet, inches, quarts, gallons, teaspoons,…

[factual-flittermouse]

Fun Fact of Today: the imperial measurement system is called such because it was based off of the current ruler’s measurements (a foot was the length of the king’s foot, an inch was the length of the kings main thumb (or index finger?) joint, and so forth. As a result, the values changed with the rulers and people had to relearn them all over again. Eventually, they stopped changing them, but this is why the values don’t follow an even pattern like the metric system does.

[leo-fie]

Check out my new (and kinda wobbly) tattoo with centimeters and inches, because I need those measurements all the time but haven't found a short ruler with both. It's only a few days old and currently flaking.

[fishcat076]

Yeah About a Hug's Worth

Think about it: If a kid is trying to measure their mood or love with their arms, saying "I love you this much" or "more than this much" it's an actual unit of measurement! If someone says "my love for you is unfathomable" they're saying "my love for you is more than which an embrace can convey." Sailors literally talk by saying "yeah this square knot takes about six hugs of rope" The words "fathom" "unfathomable" "fathomless" all relate to hugs! We have been measuring length in hugs for 5 centuries! I think that's beautiful.

[victusinveritas]

[garbanzopaste]

the single most important real-world application of maths

[therobotmonster]

Fun Fact! The US date system (M/D/Y) also goes smallest to largest!

It simply does so by the set size rather than by the unit of time.

12 possible months, 31 possible days, infinite possible years.

This is ultimately no less or more arbitrary than the other way of doing it.

[esmeislewd]

One of the most annoying things about being a European into feederism is the unit hell. Thanks to the dominance of Americans in the space pounds and inches have sort of become the main unit for gainers (in the english speaking parts of the scene). However, I literally only ever use pounds when it comes to the weight of a fat person. Literally that's it. I couldn't possibly tell you what a pound of flour looks like, they're just the magic hot lady unit XD

[phoenixyfriend]

The next time someone outside the US tries to Give Shit about not using metric, I'll just ask when they're transitioning out of a base 24/60 time measurement.

Get back to me when you have a ten-hour day and 100min hour.

Until then "but we've always used this, it would be so annoying to change over when we're all used to these seemingly unreasonable ratios, it feels natural to us," is a justifiable answer for continuing to use the Imperial system.

No you would not get to retroactively grow up with the time. Your people and government would have to manually adjust as fast as possible because... IDK aliens showed up and the rest of the galaxy thinks we're weird for not using base 10. The boomers will complain, the teachers will panic, and you will have to sink so much money into changeover for signage and computers across the world.

EDIT: I am FULLY AWARE of the transition from imperial to metric in places like England (incomplete though it may be).

This is not about people who lived through that transition, because those are not generally the people who are snobbish about it. The worst attitudes, in my experience, come from people who grew up on metric and view others as idiots for preferring something else.

The post is about how the argument that metric is Objectively Better is hypocritical if you aren't also willing to change the time system.

The argument is Stop Being Dicks.

[juney-blues]

is it really "more intuitive" or are you just used to it

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Why does USA-raised Steven uses kilometers for his ship’s speed ?

There are two answers - the Watsonian and the Doylist. Which one will make you more comfortable?

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Daily fish fact #530

Goliath tigerfish!

The average fish grows to be 1.5 meters long and 50 kg heavy!

[demigod-of-the-agni]

*the average siphonophore is around 50 metres in length

**the average sperm cell is about 55 micrometres in length

***the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is presumed to be 52.8 lightyears tall. Yes, I did the math to get that percentage, which is not accurate but is close enough. The calculators kept giving me "e" values, which made no sense to me