*Munches Table Quietly*

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.
  
  Ah yes, I'll have 0.8 metric eggs please.
- 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.
  
  A litre of water weighs a kilogram. When asked for 300ml of water, I can add 300g instead.
- 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

- 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
- 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!
- !cico@lemmy.world feels this in their soul
- Yeah man, can't believe some recipes go to 11.
  
  Can't they just make the 10 higher?
- That would only work for substances with a density of 1

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.
- >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.
  
  But somehow the brother is convinced, despite the fact that they left the hardware store without the bit they needed!
- What does he think "imperial" means? "federal"?
  
  To be fair the modern USA is imperialist, we just don't call it that because imperialism is no longer considered a good thing.
- How old is he ? Little kids are hard to convince.

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.

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.
- The US founded Liberia
  
  So it did. TIL.
- Myanmar uses imperial as well. At least partially. Or they did when I visited there a few years ago.
  
  Oh I thought they converted. Or were converting. I don't think they had Ebola though.
- 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.
- At least Raiden should've had no issues then

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!
  
  What's awkward about it?
  
  I use 24h in speech, it trips up some people a little but they all understand and I've gotten a few to switch!
  My native language is Dutch, but I to give an example I say “vijftien uur” for 15:00 / 3pm and “vijtien uur dertig” for 15:30 / 3:30pm. My closest English equivalents would be “fifteen oʼclocm” and “fifteen thirty”, really.
  My point is, make the tiniest possible step, only replace the number of the hour with the 24h variant and drop the am/pm part.
- Yes please
- If we are doing this, shouldn't we go straight to Kelvin? So we no longer have to deal with negative temperatures
  
  So water freezes at 273 degrees and boils at 373? No thank you

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.

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...

It’s so nice to measure fluid in milliliters and grams, it all works so well.
- Measuring anything in cups can fuck right off. Are we supposed to use expresso cup size? Or big gulp cup size?
  
  fr baking needs precision
  
  Weight is the only acceptable way to measure flour and water for baking.

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.
  
  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.
  
  inconsistent flour hydration and packing density has entered the chat
- 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!
- Right? Cooking is the single area where the American system makes sense. Much more intuitive and you don't need a kitchen scale.
  
  Using volume is imprecise no matter what units you're using. Not a big deal for cooking, but for baking, you definitely should use a scale.

tespoons? That's what tsp means?
Yeah what'd you think it meant, Eugene?
...ten square pounds?
Calzone explodes
Jazz music intensifies
- WTF is a square pound!? You've ruined my day.
  
  One pound times one pound, duh.
  
  When you go at it harder than a trash compactor and your partner literally changes shape.
  
  A square pound is when a guidance counselor who thinks he's still cool goes in for a fist bump and says "pound it "

The A* paper standard and the metric system. A Pythagorean can dream.

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

5ml vs 15ml.
- US: 77⁄256 cubic inches vs 0.50 US fl oz (~4.929ml vs ~14.787ml)
  Australia: 5ml vs 20ml
  Rest of World: 5ml vs 15ml
  
  That’s not a spoon, this is a spoon!

Boost screenshot, a fine vintage.

I dunno about tables, but I've been known to munch carpet
- You’re missing out man, tables taste like those ceiling fan blades but thicker!
- Bush for the win.

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).
- I assume you would also introduce a new standard with rounded numbers, metric doors are also 200x80 cm for example, and sizes of everything gets rounded in the rest of the world, too. Timber sizes differ a little between north america and the rest of the world, it is a different framework, you'd get used to it.
  
  All I think about is how much current tooling in manufacturing is made to use those round imperial measurements, and how much it would cost to convert/change them over. That's possibly the #1 reason why the US will never go metric.
  
  True, would just have to get accepted by the ICC and all the state legislatures who approve state wide code. I have a feeling it will be difficult to convince some of the less forward thinking states to accept metric codes that take into account the rounding…. Who knows though. I don’t know a ton about that side of things
- Just make your drawing in an imperial template and change the unit display when your done.

There is no spoon
- Fine, I don't know the difference between tea and table
  
  Just add a tables’ worth of tea to the tea-table
- c/factorio

- Distances? These are measured in time
  
  Hello fellow midwesterner?
- > 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.

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
- I also do because it is ISO standard. I also do 24 hours for time. I wish scheduling application would do that. I don't know how many times I have scheduled a meeting for 8PM the following day instead of 8AM.
  
  @SeaJ I agree on time, 24 hours makes it a lot easier to communicate times with people in other time zones and easier to calculate from GMT.
- What china, isn't year-month-day some iso norm?
  
  Yeah, ISO 8601 or better yet: RFC 3339.
  (You're actually allowed to read the latter.)
- All of East Asia use the same format.

Lets

Chinas largest to smallest unit makes sense to me since it's the same as Arabic numbers, largest to smallest, and so sorting order would also be same.

One is for eating tea and other for table.

The imperial system (of length at least) has a very human basis. An inch is the first joint of your thumb, the foot is your foot, the yard is one step, a stride is two (step left, step right), a mile is 1000 strides. Normal walking speed is about 100 steps a minute, so a mile is about 20 mins of walking
The problem is when they generalized these distances, they apparently used the biggest guy they could find... It still makes sense for rough measurements, but I already use metric for anything small or precise. Or fast - I don't even know what gravity is in imperial units. Kmph isn't natural for me, but I think I could get there...I like 60mph being a mile a minute, it helps me estimate, but i could get over it
Weight and volume? I already use metric for everything but my own weight, because screw that nonsense.
Temperature? I'd like something more human scaled for daily use, I've tried getting used to it but metric just doesn't click the same way. I like how Fahrenheit is roughly the livable range - below 0 is intense even with proper attire, and above 100 is dangerous even if you're adapted to it. It's not perfect, but maybe something like Celsius*2 for easy translation?
Anything not coming into contact with you, like cooking or cpu temp, would be better in Celsius though - things change around 100C
At the end of the day, I think it just makes sense to have more than one unit of measurement for certain things - one for human scale that is easy to grasp based on our bodies, and one for measurement.
It would be nice to say "I need like 10 feet of hose" and they give you 3.5 meters because it's understood it's an estimate, or you say "I need these boards cut to 2.75m" and they know it's a measurement and give it to you exactly that.
And I would not miss it if volume and weights were metric only - i can't tell you how many times I've converted teaspoons to ml or ounces to grams, maybe it's because I learned chemistry before cooking but holy crap is that so much more helpful

How long is that thing?
A foot.
How long is that?
About as long as a foot.
Oh cool, I have two of those to compare right here. Thanks for telling me how long stuff is in an easy to understand way.
What about that thing?
30 centimeters.
How long is a centimeter?
A hundredth as long as a meter.
How long is a meter?
As long as the distance light can travel in a vacuum in 1/299752458 of a second.
Please throw yourself off a bridge for using bizarre measurements developed by frenchmen.
- Whose foot? Chances are yours isn't even a good approximation.
  Jokes aside, there isn't even such a thing as foot anymore. All these idiotic measurement units like feet and elbows have thankfully been deprecated and are now simply a name for a certain amount of civilized units. Foot is exactly 0.3048 meters since 1959.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(unit)
  
  0.9144 m is 3 feet
  
  Whose foot?
  Let's go with Ariana Grande's foot. The whole Ariana Grande is already used as a unit of measurement, so this will make the conversions easier.
  
  +/- 20% is good enough for e6 and covers the overwhelming majority of men’s foot lengths.
  For making a measurement without a tool +/-20% should be fine.
  It’s all fun and games, but I take issue with calling metric “civilized units”. Human civilization developed all kinds of units appropriate to the work being done and calling the ones defined almost in defiance of everyday use the civilized ones is absurd.
- Actually that's a modern measurement concept based on the original meter. By using this concept, the size of a meter is tied to absolute terms in physics that "anyone" could measure with the right tools, while the original concept was based on a physical object called the meter, which is subject to many things such as heat dilation for example making it not accurate, and if the original object was lost we would not have a way to tell what is a meter (conceptually speaking of course).
  The foot on the other hand (lol) is traditionally based on the king's foot size. This of course depends on which country (or realm?), and to make matters worst, who's the king at the time, because yes the official measure would change based on that too.
  Of course that's not how it is today, but we can say the original foot was lost long ago.
  
  Ditto for the original meter. We sure are lucky that an approximation of the measurement is built into the name of the foot. It’s frighteningly European to have a measurement name that roughly translates to “measure”
  Hey, how many measures is that?