this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's all metric behind the scenes. When you pump your gas it shows gallons, but it's doing the math in litres. We turned our backs on the ⅓ lb burger, we've trained corporations to treat us like idiots.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Yeah engineers use metric then we convert because you (general) don’t understand metric and don’t want to learn

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm an engineer but I work in imperial. Most machines run inches so I design in inches.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Fair enough I actually use mixed because my maintenance department doesn’t like metric but we have foreign bosses and suppliers

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

A thousand grams to a pineapple, and 20 football pitches to a kilometre. Simples!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

"There is a considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest tourist"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Every food label, with very few exceptions, lists the contents in either grams or milliliters, in addition to ounces or fluid ounces. Every thermometer I've ever seen has both Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. We buy electricity in watts with metric currency. We measure the light output in lumens, and the common lightbulb sizes are measured in millimeters, but the wires that carry the electricity are measured by AWG. The parts on my bicycle and car all use metric measurements, except for tires. Tires are an unholy abomination with section width given in millimeters, the cross-section in a unitless ratio, and the rim diameter given in inches.

Meh, what're you gonna do? We switched to, or adopted, SI and metric where it made sense, but we have a lot of legacy systems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The units Americans use (Miles, feet, cups, ounces, etc.) actually are Metric units. They're just not the standard ones. Because, again, The United States has been on the Metric system since the late 1800s like every other Western country.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Citation needed. Those are United States customary units per Wikipedia. Often incorrectly named Imperial units, but this is the first time I've seen it argued they are metric.

Also, The Metric Conversion Act happened in 1975, so not since the late 1800s. It also carves out that use of metric is voluntary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The majority of U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and kilogram with the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and, in practice, for many years before

From the article you linked

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Not redefined as 'metric'. It means the base measurement is connected to SI along a fixed constant. Meters and kilograms are the base units for length and mass in SI, which is actually metric. The respective USCU units for length are inch, foot, yard, and mile and mass a really annoying number of things.

The systems of measurement are connected, but USCU is not metric.