this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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I take no complaints on that subject from people who measure in inches, feet and ounces.
You got some proof the OP is American?
Attacking the person and not the argument is an ad hominem fallacy.
We adopted the standard. The boat with the official measurements sank on the way over, you unread swine.
Fun fact: the moon landing was programmed and calculated in metric.
So, laughs in moon landing units.
US units have all been redefined in relation to metric, so technically they use metric just with wierd factors
You (meaning the US) had 200 years to undo one mistake and you failed.
happy anni-fedi-versary!
And yards...and Fahrenheits!
That F is zeroed out on fucking Brine makes it the most absurd thing.
Like OK there may be an argument for base 12 or base 16 (but not both)... But a mixture of water, ice, and sodium chloride?
Like OK blame a German I guess , but at least they were smart enough to decide, "Das ist stupid"
C is pretty made up too. Why water, and why sea level? Don't complain about F if you aren't using K, where zero actually means zero. Anything else is just picking arbitrary points that you like for one reason or another.
Because it’s one of the most abundant resources available on earth that is imperative to our understanding of the existence of life and is the commonest solution regularly used by humans in scenarios where temperature is a relevant factor.
Because vast swathes of humanity live at or near sea level, where we already arbitrarily nominate the level of atmospheric pressure to be 1 ATM.
While K has a natural zero-point, the gradation (by your logic) is entirely arbitrary as well because it’s based on C and not some other cosmological constant.
You angered the fascists with this one xD.
Oligarchs hijack the government to oppose the will of people, obviously that means every single US American wholeheartedly supports their oppressors. You must read so many books to be that smart.
You really easily fall for ragebait, don't you?
Make a comment that doesn't do well
Cry and say you were ragebaiting like that's a thing people like or are ok with
Curl up alone and night and wonder why
Jesus I just made a joke
Wow joking about a fascist takeover that's eroding freedom and killing people on a global scale?
Maybe not your best decision of the day.
God forbid the units used by the average person in everyday life are easily divisible by whole numbers, not resulting in things like infinitely repeating decimals.
Yeah, thats why metric is better. Sigfigs are better than fractions and weird conversions.
Ah yes, measuring out anything into thirds is awesome with metric. Nothing ever needs to be split into thirds.
Good point. Splitting things in to 3rds is the most common function of everything. Why, just the other day I was building a box. I started by measuring the largest face of the backplate and subtracting the thickness of the side plates so I could figure out the internal volume. Most people would have done a simple equation like x-y but I prefer to do 3((x/3) - (y/3)). It's a much cleaner method.
What happens in American customary units if you need to split it into 7ths?
Significant Figures. Things are rarely one third down past 3-4 sigfigs. Maybe 6+ if you're being really precise or EDMing a part.
God forbid units used by the average person in everyday life are easily converted between, not resulting in things like 'how many feet are in a mile'.
The main conversions would be betwren meters and centimeters ot in your case feet and inches. Those happen way more often.
And as soon as you get slightly out of most everyday lives but still quite everyday into the realm of unit conversion betwren different things like volume, speed, power what have you imperial just falls apart.
Yeah I hate when I have to convert temperatures between systems, and then the nice round numbers that represent common values used in everyday life like 0, 20, 30, 40, and 100 become absolutely nonsensical values like 32, 68, 86, 104 and 212
Metric measurements are only decimals in North America because things are fabricated to be round imperial numbers for the American market. When you buy a piece of lumber in Europe it's cut to 45x95mm which (shockingly) converts to the absolutely nonsensical 1.77165x3.74016 inch two by four
Ah yes, nice round numbers there as well with metric. Why isn't it just 50x100mm? And that conversion is not even the imperial measurement of a 2x4, and you clearly don't understand where the dimensions come from.
There are nominal dimensions, and actual dimensions for lumber. The name 2x4 is the nominal dimension, the rough size before drying and planing. Between the forest and the hardware store, a board loses material twice.
A log goes through a sawmill and gets cut into rough boards. At this point, a 2x4 really is about 2" x 4". Green (freshly cut) wood contains 30% or more moisture.
The boards go into a kiln where hot air drops the moisture content to about 19%, as water leaves the cells, the board shrinks. The dried boards are rough and uneven. A planer shaves all four sides smooth. S4S (Surfaced Four Sides) means all four faces are planed. The planer removes another 1/8" or so from each face.
Result: a board that started at 2" x 4" ends up at a standard measurement of 1-1/2" x 3-1/2".
Now to get back to the metric equivalent... that 45x95mm board... starts with a nominal dimension of 47x100mm. Neither the nominal or actual dimensions are nice round numbers here, although at least the actual dimensions at the end are a multiple of 5. Why some places also refer to these as a 2x4, well they're the equivalent even though the actual size is completely unrelated.
UK example
Not sure why you assumed I didn't already know that (I did), but thanks for the completely pointless off topic essay I guess
Nice! You're my first elitist, eurotrash, shithead block of the day! Good work, Pierre!
Thank you, would you then like some info on the old British monetary system? Fartings, guineas, halfpences and the likes?