- cross-posted to:
- jonkenator
- cross-posted to:
- jonkenator
It’s nice to see larger outlets talking about urbanism topics and Vox has made a few videos in this area recently.
It’s nice to see larger outlets talking about urbanism topics and Vox has made a few videos in this area recently.
If it makes you feel any better Americans probably are more familiar with centimeters than fluid ounces except in certain quantities. I can visualize 12, 16, or 32oz, but only be a freedom juice is sold in those quantities. Meanwhile that same product is why I can imagine 2L.
As for bushels, I can’t even picture my state’s bushel of corn, much less an Iowa bushel of wheat and yeah I recall state and product mattering for the volume of a bushel.
This sort of thing is part of why I’m so pro US metrication. I don’t want a 38cm laptop, I want a 40cm laptop that I hook up to my 1m tv. I want agricultural goods measured in kg at market. Metrication didn’t hold because we converted reasonable numbers in us customary to less round numbers in metric. The average American has no idea how many fluid ounces are in a 2L bottle of soda despite it being required by law to be on the label.
And the thing is that we’re increasingly having to understand it. No us customary units work well for medication. Disaster by disaster engineers switch to metric. Baked goods are easier to make in metric because you use weight and grams are just better for it. Everyday measurements are just easier in metric because fucking hell teaspoons suck.
But yeah sorry my country’s dumbass measurement system is an international standard for literally anything
As a European who knows imperial units, it’s not how it works for us, and it’s not the point.
I can tell you approximately what a litre is the same way you can judge a gallon. By experience. By comparison. You know a “gallon of milk”, I know “a litre of milk”.
I can tell you what a meter is, but that doesn’t give me the power to tell your height to the centimeter.
Just today, I had to mop up a water leak. I couldn’t have told you how many litres it was until I had it in the bucket, because it was spread out on the floor.
The point of the metric system is not that everything is tidy, that a screen is not 38 cm but 40 cm.
The point is that I can tell you that 10 40cm screens are 4 meters. That a ton of water is 1000 kg, which is a cubic meter, which is 100x100x100 cm.
The problem with imperial units is not the units themselves, it’s the confusing calculations you have to take because you have a different unit which is 3, 12, 16, etc times the other unit.
How much is 16 1/3 cubic foot in inches. That is the issue at hand.