I’m moving my posts from Reddit to Lemmy before delete them.

This post is from 2022-07-13.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    181 year ago

    Yeah, imperial is… confusing… like you have inches, but then you don’t get decainches, you get feet 😒. And then you don’t have kiloinches, you have miles 🤦.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      171 year ago

      What drives me nuts is that everyone likes to pretend America came up with this shit. But it was Britain, they just decided to abandon it for a new standard and were were too busy building a damn country and hating Britain to just adopt a new measurement system.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      611 months ago

      Then they also use 1000ths of an inch. Because fuck it, let’s just throw in a single base 10 unit.

      Biggest dislike is lb-mol and Rankine. Like, it you’re gonna do science, use the metric system, Jesus. Ain’t no one gonna take you seriously using your off-brand clown units.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        Then they also use 1000ths of an inch. Because fuck it, let’s just throw in a single base 10 unit.

        Well, to be completely honest, you could say the same about miliseconds… I mean, they are the only ones that do base 10 regarding time measurement 😂.

        Ain’t no one gonna take you seriously using your off-brand clown units.

        🤣🤣🤣 gave me a good chuckle 🤣🤣🤣

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      61 year ago
      • 1 foot = 1.2 decainches
      • 1 yard = 3.6 decainches
      • 1 mile = 5.28 kiloinches
      • 1 mile = 1.76 kiloyards
      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        4
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        WTF, I though they were related in 10s, that’s not even true 🤦.

        EDIT: Shit, now I got it, they’re related in 12s, like in dousens… why, WHY!

        • The Gay Tramp
          link
          fedilink
          21 year ago

          It’s not like base ten is some magic thing that’s better in all aspects. I’ll admit that imperial is inconsistent sure, but a dozenal system makes sense when you need to divide things a lot. One foot being twelve inches means you can half, quarter, third, or sixth it without dealing with fractions

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            2
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I have to agree though that this is true. Still, it makes it more difficult if you have to work with 10s, like take a 10th of the measurement.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              41 year ago

              From Wikipedia:

              “A “dozen” is a unit of measurement. It means twelve (12) items of something. The term goes back to duodecim, which means 12 in Latin. Humans might have started to count on a base 12 because there are approximately 12 cycles of the moon in one cycle of the sun. In other words, a solar year has 12 months. The first to have used the unit were probably the Mesopotamians.

              12 dozen (144 items) are a gross. 12 gross (1728 items) are called a great gross. A great hundred is 120 or ten dozen (a dozen for each finger on both hands).

              The dozen is convenient because its multipliers and multiples are convenient: 12 = 3 × 2 × 2, and 360 = 30 × 12. The French word douzaine means “about twelve” and is part of a family of words with similar meanings, e.g. vingtaine – “about 20” centaine – “about 100” etc. A baker’s dozen, also known as a long dozen, is thirteen.”

              So, as you can see, the idea of a dozen seems to be deeply ingrained in our history and psychology to the point that we probably shouldn’t question it too much and leave bakers to ponder the mystery of 12=13.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  41 year ago

                  Bakers dozens are more about legal protection than anything. An extra loaf of bread is a lot easier to give away, than taking a beating in medieval times for shorting someone.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          111 months ago

          EDIT: Shit, now I got it, they’re related in 12s, like in dousens… why, WHY!

          Haha, if only.

          Distance

          -12 inches = 1 foot

          -3 feet = 1 yard

          -22 yards = 1 chain

          -10 chains = 1 furlong

          -8 furlongs = 1 mile

          Weights

          -16 drams = 1 oz

          -16 oz = 1 pound

          -14 pounds = 1 stone

          -8 stone = 1 hundredweight = 112 lb

          -20 hundredweight = 1 ton

          Volume

          -20 fluid oz = 1 pint

          -8 pints = 1 gallon

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            1
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            What? They measure in chains and stones 🤨 😂. I actually didn’t know that 🤣🤣🤣. Regarding oz, I thought it was a liquid (volume) measurement unit… cuz I’ve seen it on milk containers… oh well, guess I was wrong 😂.

            EDIT: Oh wait, no, it’s for both weight and volume 🤣🤣🤣.

            EDIT 2: Nope, there is a volume and a weight oz 🤣, this thing just keeps getting better and better 🤣.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1211 months ago

    And now let’s look at our time units… leap years, leap second. A month has 28, 29, 30 or 31 days. A day has 2*12 hours. An hour has 60 minutes or 3600 seconds (Babylonian mathematics :) )

    I see room for improvement.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      11 year ago

      It’s mostly just people like to attack conversions no one really does. Even with it’s nice easy conversions, the average person isn’t going to tell you how many nanometers are in a megameter, which isn’t qualitatively different than barleycorns in a league.

      Science also just invents new units of measure when it’s convenient, light years, parsecs, astronomical units, moles, etc.

    • @muhybOP
      link
      111 months ago

      I mean, I feel kinda same too but maybe someone will find a better things to write.

  • tuto
    link
    fedilink
    41 year ago

    Where is the first picture from? I’ve only seen the statue in Bremen (Germany), but never really looked up what it meant or where it really comes from.

    • @muhybOP
      link
      111 months ago

      Are you the cat or the dog? (By the way the cat’s just pretending to help.)

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    311 months ago

    Imperial was based on using body parts and common items to measure things. Inch was about the width of a mans thumb, foot the size of his foot, yard was the length of his arm, etc. But we have more access to things to measure now so like its kinda pointless but just stuck.

    • @muhybOP
      link
      31 year ago

      deleted by creator

    • @muhybOP
      link
      11 year ago

      That would be a challenge. :)

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    -111 year ago

    I know its bait, but why do Euros care so damn much if we use a different system? Better than the UK

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      71 year ago

      The world is connected and it’s really annoying to look a YouTube video or some tutorial page and needing to convert every time.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      611 months ago

      As others have pointed out, it’s not just the Europeans (Australian here). But really it’s because of how prominent the US is. We can’t avoid them more often than we’d like.

      Irks me as an engineer whenever I’m forced to use such an annoying set of units in my work. Btu/hr is especially awful. Like it’s got British right there in the name, how embarassing for a system of units touted to be patriotic.

      (There are many reasons metic is better, but it’s a foregone conclusion at this point, so I’d rather focus on the petty reasons to soothe my frustration)

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        111 months ago

        to add insult to injury – US “considered” metric conversion back in the ’70s and did manage to pass through a couple pieces of legislation that architectural and engineering plans were allowed to be submitted in metric – but any home owner attempting to submit plans in millimeters will still get stomped on

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      511 months ago

      We wouldn’t mind so much if your system wasn’t so damn arbitrary, and if you weren’t literally the only country on earth to refuse to come together with the rest of us.

    • @muhybOP
      link
      211 months ago

      It is bait. Human mind can adapt to anything, either it’s metric or imperial, even bananas. However unlike imperial, metric is systematic and you really only need to know one rule: Multiply by 10. It’s also transitive, meaning 1 liter equals to 10 dm^3. Other than this, rest of the world using metric so it’s tedious to being have to convert measurements every time, from both sides.

      Also scientists, gun owners and drug dealers already using metric. /j