I was born in the US and have switched by myself. My brother thought I was weird until one day we went to the hardware store.
I needed to buy a 15/64 in drill bit, but they didn’t have it. So then we thought, fine, maybe we can use the next closest size…
…
Except WTF is the next size up or down from 15/64??!!! Neither of us could figure it out. Internet wasn’t great. Sales people didn’t know. We left because we weren’t sure what to buy.
In metric, it’s trivial. 5mm drill bit, 4mm is smaller, 6mm is bigger.
After this, he stopped thinking I was a weirdo for using metric measurements. But he still uses imperial because murica.
Also, interesting, I learned that he thinks imperial units were invented by the US. I told him they were British units and I stopped caring about British units in 1776, but he didn’t seem to believe me.
16/64 is 1/4. Your next size up is a quarter inch. Is it intuitive? Maybe not. Is it really that hard? Only if your educational institutions have also failed you.
How old is he ? Little kids are hard to convince.
What does he think “imperial” means? “federal”?
Except WTF is the next size up or down from 15/64??!!!
There’s lots of great reasons to switch to metric. Inability to do basic fractions isn’t one of them…
For the record, it would be 16/64, or, 1/4
For the record, it would be 16/64, or, 1/4
Nope! It’d be 6mm, then B gauge (6.045mm), then 1/4" (6.350mm). And that’s not including things like over/under reamers and such.
(Sorry, I’ve been watching too much Blondihacks lately.)
Everyone has trouble with something that’s basic for someone else - we just have different skills. If these fractions are too confusing for a significant minority of people, then that’s a good reason to switch from fractional to decimal.
Except In this specific case, it’s about measurements for tools. Fractional is far more practical for construction than decimal for tooling.
I do find cooking easier in grams. Just put the bowl on the scale and add ingredients until it hits the number. No measuring cups to wash. But it would life changing if woodworking switched to metric. Doing any sort of exact math is annoying as hell. What is 12’7” divided by 4? How many 1/8” is 0.55 inches?? It is my own personal hell.
It’s also a lot easier to multiply and divide recipes if you switch it over to metric. This is particularly useful if you don’t have enough of one ingredient and need to reduce the others by that ratio.
Then there’s the ability to measure the ingredient directly out of the container, using any scoop you can find, rather than needing multiple sets of measuring spoons.
I get around it by just working in inches entirely. If some guy needs the foot-and-inch measurement I’ll convert but generally calling for something to be 97 5/8" is sufficient, without needing to add feet into the equation.
I do agree that metric would be interesting. I have a metric tape measure I use when I am practicing botany so I can work on familiarizing myself with common metric distances like 10/100cm
I do find cooking easier in grams. Just put the bowl on the scale and add ingredients until it hits the number. No measuring cups to wash.
Uh, you know metric has volume measurements as well, and Imperial has weight measurements? Measuring cup vs scales is not really a difference in metric and imperial.
Directions and nutrition information and other stuff like that tend to use mass for metric and volume for imperial. Yeah, you can convert stuff, but it’s annoying.
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Any baking recipe that doesn’t list all measurements by weight belongs in the trash.
mfw I finally find someone else who writes “250gr water” in their cooking notes
Fortunately water is the easiest thing to convert.
Seriously. Many ingredients are different depending on if they’re packed, scooped, or sifted. 1 cup of brown sugar can be very different than another cup.
I tried this with cocoa powder before, as I’ve seen some people in cooking videos shake the cocoa in the cup, and shake the cup to flatten it. And others scoop the cocoa with a spoonand flatten it with the spoon to fill the cup.
The second method yielded over 1.6 times the amount of cocoa powder!
Yeah man, can’t believe some recipes go to 11.
The A* paper standard and the metric system. A Pythagorean can dream.
Mfs don’t realize we already fuckin use metric for all kinds of shit.
I bet the dang Nasa doesn’t measure their rockets by the barley corn.
Fun probably-already-known fact: NASA accidentally destroyed a $200 million Mars orbiter from of a missed imperial->metric conversion, because NASA does generally work in metric, and some Lockheed-Martin software provided numbers in imperial (while claiming to be metric)
Didn’t you see the meme: “There are 2 types of countries, those that ise the metric system and those that landed on the moon.”?
It’s also usually shared by the same idiots that don’t realise that barley corn is an actual measurement in their beloved imperial system.
Ask any of these smart arses how barley corns are in a foot or how many feet are in a mile and suddenly you hear excuses. Not to forget that the inch defined by the meter.
I’m not sure what your point is? Some people not knowing a certain obscure unit of measurement doesn’t discount an entire system of measurements. Also your mile example doesn’t make sense because most people do know how many feet are in a mile.
You’re proving my point exactly. The imperial system is so convoluted that even people that INSIST that EVERYONE should use it, don’t understand its units.
Just because most people don’t have to deal with a certain conversion, doesn’t mean that none do. There are enough engineers that design stuff which is related to problems on these variations in scale. They waste hours in productivity in needlessly complicated conversions (because fractions). Not to mention the mistakes that get introduced like the famous Mars lander that crashed because of imperial unit conversions.
Not only are the units incredibly inconsistent, you also have the issue that Brits and boat people use variation of some of the same units. US Gallons vs British Gallons, mile vs nautical mile. MPH, vs knots. That barley corn that Holzkohlen mentioned defines shoe sizes, unless of course, you don’t wear shoes.
You have no point to prove! You’re just ranting like a crazy person about stuff no one’s heard of that doesn’t even matter!
We went from posting Twitter screenshots as memes to posting reddit screenshots as memes
That’s called progress, imo
Excuse me, I think you mean X.com screenshots.
I’m a Canadian who started school when the change happened. Grade two, 1977: new rulers!
I think it’s fair to say that we all ended up hybridized. Some things I measure intuitively in metric, others in imperial.
People’s height? feet and inches.
Grocery weights? pounds. If it’s in Kilograms, I quickly convert it.
Grocery volumes (Milk, dairy products, shampoo, basically anything purchased in a container)? litres.
Gasoline? Gallons or litres. Either is fine. But fuel economy is mpg.
Temperature? Celsius outdoors, Fahrenheit indoors. We had an old thermostat when I was growing up.
Carpentry measurements? Inches.
Wrenches? whatever fits!
Distances? It took a long time, probably fifteen years, but at some point, I stopped converting kilometres to miles. Now I just think in kilometres.
Grocery volumes (Milk, dairy products, shampoo, basically anything purchased in a container)? litres.
Meanwhile, here in the US, we’ve got soda in liters but milk in gallons. Udder madness!
Carpentry measurements? Inches.
It amuses me that in metric countries, construction materials like plywood are often standardized to strange non-rounded measurements like 1220 x 2440 x 13mm because it’s actually just 4’ x 8’ x 1/2" in disguise.
Wrenches? whatever fits!
Interestingly, I can’t remember the last time I needed SAE wrenches. Even my old '96 Ford Ranger is metric, I think.
Cars have been all metric since the mid-80s IIRC, to better standardise them for international sales. The Ranger was really a Mazda B-series, so it’s definitely metric.
Please, baking is such a pain in the ass because measurements are never consistent
And everything is measured by volume. Just tell me the amount of salt I need in grams and I don’t have to worry about if it’s kosher or not.
inconsistent flour hydration and packing density has entered the chat
You technically only need kosher salt if the recipe involves some of kind of fermentation or yeast rise, because the iodine in non-kosher salt will kill the yeast before it can rise.
But every recipe from the US uses kosher salt, which means their measurements don’t match for other salts, but if they gave the weight it wouldn’t be an issue. 5g of salt is 5g of salt no matter the size of the crystals, but one teaspoon can be totally different.
That’s why making a preferment like poolish is a superior method for any bread recipe. You only add salt once the poolish has finished the leavening process.
Sure it is
You can teaspoon the shit out of everything. 3tsp to a table. 5ml to 15ml. Cut recipes by turning everything into a tablespoon. Need to make 1/2 of something that is already 1/4 cup? That’s 16 tbsp to a cup, so you were at 4, now half a 1/4 cup is simply 2 tbsp
For dry shit, get a gram scale and welcome to consistency city
I didn’t know the conversion for tbsp to cups, that’s super helpful!
Google assistant has gotten worse and worse but “Hey Google, how many tablespoons are in x” is pretty helpful
Or use DuckDuckGo
Or use the terminal app
qalc, which converts and calculates with everything!Does that plug into assistant speakers?
I’m not a massive fan of it but hands free cooking questions are nice. I use DDG for my browser search
I’m sure some open hardware hacker could get DuckDuckGo or
qalcto work through their home-soldered voice-controlled assistant.But other than that, no. For what it’s worth, I spend 2 to 3 seconds for each conversion through the terminal, when preparing a recipe
Super selfish reason but as an architect in the US, I deal with nice round imperial numbers all day. Door frames, typically 2”. Standard commercial door, 3’x7’. All the codes are based around imperial too. ADA door width, 3’. Masonry Dimension, every 8 inches. At this point, it would be hard to remember that ADA turning radius is 1525 mm (not the easy 5’…. And yes, I know that’s changing to 67” soon). There are literally hundreds of dimensions I would have to relearn. I suppose it’s probably for the best to switch over and rip that bandaid off, but damn, it would be a headache and take me much longer to review drawings in metric (in the short term).
It’s so nice the US and Liberia are the only two countries to share both Ebola AND the imperial system. They’re buddy buddy.
TBF in practice a lot of countries use the imperial system, from Canada to the UK to Jamaica to the Philippines. They just “use metric” on paper.
Also, here in the Netherlands we use inches for screen sizes and cups for some cooking recipes. I will insist that my monitor is 55cm and even tech people ask me how much that is with full sincerity.
Yes like I certainly measure flour in cups in Canada lol.
I noticed some Canadians seem to use metric exclusively, while others very much use imperial systems through and through. Android defaults to imperial systems when it’s set to Canadian English, which confuses me even more but I suppose imperial must be used a lot, then
I find stuff like cups and spoons and pounds and inches are used here more than metric, but we definitely use kilometers only.
Android lied to me
Maybe it’s a plot by the Australian government because it led me to set all my devices to Australian English; they’re always 100% metric
@lord_ryvan @BonesOfTheMoon, I don’t understand how it can be in the 21st century that a system as idiotic and archaic as the imperial one continues to be used. NASA has already caused millions of dollars in damage by crashing several probes due to miscalculations with these outdated and devoid of any logic measurements, based on parts of the body of a king, dead centuries ago instead of clear physical and mathematical units as in the rest of the world.
I also don’t get it and my country is slowly adapting it too (Netherlands)
I absolutely hate it and try to counter it actively
When I was 6 in 1980, they told us we would be switching in a year or two.
I’d heard of that before so after a quick google America passed the Metric Conversion Act in 1975 then in 1982 the Metric Board was abolished by President Ronald Reagan…
So like the harbinger of doom for American progress he was Regan killed it…
Any day now
Just like daylight savings time…
We actually got rid of that in Denmark recently, but in a pretty foolish way: our time is now locked in on daylight savings time rather than the original unmodified time.
Probably gonna mean some dark mornings when the times come and we don’t switch back, which’ll suck for those of us who have a hard time getting out of bed before the sun’s up…
I personally fucking hate ounces. Recipes could mean volume or weight.
They could but let’s be realistic. Anyone who uses volume for recipes is a moron.
And now we’ll add a pound of milk
And Celsius? And 24 hour time?
We use 24 h format here where I live but we speak in 12 h format because it’s less awkward. Not all that shines is gold, I guess
Computer, wake me up at zero six hundred hours!
That’s absurd, we just say “wake me up at six hours” and it understands us.
And “wake me up at 18 oʼclock” for the pm variant.
It’s so nice to measure fluid in milliliters and grams, it all works so well.
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fr baking needs precision
Weight is the only acceptable way to measure flour and water for baking.
Actually not accurate for “Rest of the World”, China uses year month day.
Which is the best date format for sorting stuff alphabetically.
Iso standard time
