this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
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I thought about this too while I was filling up my tank yesterday, but I think they would just switch to quarts since that is just 1/4 of a gallon
That's right. Europe uses liters because that's their biggest liquid measurement. Ours is gallons, so we'll just split that by 4. You think MAGAs are going to go along with switching to a foreign commie system for our beautiful American gas?
Let me introduce you to quettalitre, 10^30 litre. a.k.a. cubic gigametre
We tried the metric thing in the 1970s - people hated it. Some things stuck like alcohol measurement in ml. Most didn't .
I was in Middle School/ High School at that time, and remember the attempted transition well. I even remember a science teacher telling us that THIS is going to be the way things are from now on, and we'd just better get used to it.
About 15 years later, I was using a standard American slide rule, and remembered that, and thought "Guess not, Poindexter."
Anyone who thought changing the measurement system wasn't going to be met with resistance was delusional. People hate change. Sometimes, change is better. As someone who went through it in Canada, there was a lot of disgruntlement from the previous generation, but the rest of us just moved on (mostly), and being able to just use decimals everywhere instead of base 2 fractions here, decimals there, multiples of 12 over there was absolutely refreshing. Now my kids barely even use imperial and just shake their heads when the oldsters talk about it.
And I'd still rather measure people's weight in pounds than in stone like a monster.
That's a really great perspective I never had. I only see it as a kid growing up in the 70s usa. But you folks got through it and we didn't. That's telling on our stubbornness at the very least. Btw I never had more trouble with alcohol than the time I visited .. asked for a pint. Do you mean a Mickey? Chuckles.
I can switch between metric and imperial with ease. Like many Canadians, I still do oven temperatures in F, height in feet and inches, and body weight in pounds. But I have a number of coworkers who use metric only, mostly immigrants and young people, and I will tailor my units for the people I'm talking to.
Pints.