Gregory's ServerY'all, America desperately needs to embrace the metric system.
Fer reals.
|
81 comments
 @saramg Technically, the US's units are defined based on the metric system. A pound, for example, is defined as 0.4535 kg, or whatever the exact number is. :)   @saramg i want to cry into my pillow every time i'm reminded that i'm american...... :BlobhajShock: @saramg I had the same problem with drinks when visiting Germany. I saw a label in โdlโ and assumed it was Deutche Liters. @derickr "Teutonic Tendencies" sounds like the name of a band that might be cool. @josh @saramg With this we try to hide that the correction factor differs by region. In Bavaria, it is either one liter or half a liter, set by state government. In Cologne it is 0.2 liter, everywhere else usually 0.33 or 0.4 liter depending on local regulations, but can vary. (We tried to unify that once for all. As we still depend on fax machines, nobody was yet able to gather all authorities for a common meeting to do so.)  Hilarious #DeathSantis already has people believing #Florida has its own sytem of measurements: @saramg it should have been understood from the beginning that everything must be labeled in both units for one human lifetime. Some people will get an intuitive grasp of the metric units from seeing both units on containers all the time. The rest will die. And the next generation that grew up learning metric units won't have a problem.  @saramg There are only three countries in the entire world NOT using metric. Liberia America is in good company.  @jimgoodall @saramg When the English and Aussies weigh themselves in "stone", which metric system are they using? @vwbusguy @saramg Try being in Canada and measuring distances in hours driven. @jimgoodall @vwbusguy I think the problem might be "people who speak English as their native language". @jimgoodall @vwbusguy @saramg We do that one in the US too  @vwbusguy @jimgoodall @saramg Aussies use kilograms. No one uses imperial measurements here. No, we really don't. I remember my pre-decimal height and weight, but every form requires the info in metric. Same for everything. Us old folks may still think in Imperial, but we as a country do NOT.  @vwbusguy @jimgoodall @saramg Distances on UK roads are still in miles. Metrication didn't quite take. But thank goodness we no longer do money calculations in pounds, shillings, and pence! (ยฃ1 was 20s, 1s was 12d) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom   @jimgoodall @saramg A couple of years back I was also stunned to discover that Canada and the U.S. are among the I think only TEN countries on the planet who still use "letter" sized paper instead of the way more intuitive A1, A2-type sizing. Hey, North America and the handful of others: Time to let it go, already. @saramg I just love the way that would play out, if there was any traction to switch to metric. It would go on a state-by-state basis, with some states eager and switching over, and others fighting it to the death. The adorable prospect of people from the latter crossing state lines and yee-hawing as they see the speed liimit go from 70 (mph) to 110 (kph). And 50 or 70 in residential areas. Freedom! @saramg @lmgenealogy โฆand start writing your dates the same way as every other country. @lmgenealogy @saramg Much like lots of our language we likely moved to distance ourselves from the US when they went their own way. I like that our date is more human-relevant yet we use Celsius for temperature. The US use human-relevant Fahrenheit but then mess up their dates! @del @lmgenealogy I was ready to agree right up until "Friday" by itself. I have had WAY too many arguments with people using that variant incorrectly. e.g. "No, not tomorrow-friday, the next friday, if I meant tomorrow-friday I'dda said tomorrow!" Which just makes my engineer brain scream. @del @lmgenealogy Written dates though.... I'm less inclined to exclude year and will pretty much only do "5th May, 2023" or "2023-05-05" as the only unambiguous options. @lmgenealogy @del Right. That's what I mean. X/Y/Z is meaningless unless we're lucky to be talking about a date after the 12th of the month. @saramg @lmgenealogy Can I be so bold as to ask you to try and include days of the week too? People typically know their own daily or even weekly routine reasonably well but may not immediately know what day of the week an arbitrary numerical date in the future falls on. By including day of the week you provide context around the date that helps people orientate themselves and understand how the event might fit in with their life, routine and availability. ๐ Problem there being, we sure as hell don't have a standard for that in Canada. In one shopping trip and for Canadian products, I'll see best before dates ranging from 06MR2023 to MAR 06 23 to 2023MR06, along with the ever-loathed 06-03-2023 (with no indicator of what's what, so wait, is that March 6th, or June 3rd?) More than caring what the format is, I just want us to agree on one and have everyone fucking do it that way. @reay @saramg @lmgenealogy This. I was thinking of your loathed version. Everyone but the US goes day-month-year. I work for a US-based multinational US and though most of their staff are in other countries they constantly try and push the US format on us โbut without any heads up that itโs not making use of our local regional settings.  @saramg Legit concern, though: one of my cars is documented in gallons, and the other also in gallons, but one's imperial and one's us gallons. So the idea that there might be yet another weird local ounces, aside from troy and avoirdupois and fluid, is somewhat reasonable. @smellsofbikes @saramg Yeah, this is a thing. Cars in Canada used to have better mileage ratings than US cars, not because they were more efficient, but because their gallons were bigger.   I'm still mad we quit switching to metric. I was working with a guy in Canada and he was sort of complaining about it being confusing because they switched when he was a kid in the 70s, and I told him we were doing it too until jackasses stopped it. Apparently he never heard that. I drive on the only metric highway in the U.S. every day. @billyjoebowers California has a number of highways which are at least dual-marked for distance (but not speed). It's a tiny thing, but I certainly appreciate it.    @saramg YOU NEED TO MEASURE WEIGHT IN POODS, NOT STONES! LITTLE FATHER TSAR WAY IS ONLY RIGHT WAY, NOT DECADENT IMPERIAL JOHN "STONES" BULL WAY!!  @cstross @saramg Yes, metric, BUT The REAL issue is that our states are actually allowed to redefine scientific measurements & facts in law and make up BS things like FL ounces. Even if we *did* switch to metric it'd still be entirely plausible to discover that FL had decreed the Florida Meter (FLm) as a measurement equal to 1yd ("close enough and consistent with history" ) ๐คฆโโ๏ธ  @saramg Iโm all for it, but I donโt think it would fix whatever is going wrong with this person.   |
@saramg embrace, extend, and extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_foot