• @ThatWeirdGuy1001
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    938 months ago

    Ayo the car thing is absolute bullshit.

    10mm bolt for the fuckin brake caliper but 3/8 for the fuckin slide bolts?

    Get the fuck outta here

    • @Anticorp
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      268 months ago

      GM has been using all metric for years now.

    • @[email protected]
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      118 months ago

      Don’t know what car you’re driving but I think you’re just using the wrong size wrench/Allen key

      • @ThatWeirdGuy1001
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        8 months ago

        My last car was a 2012 ford fiesta. The lug nuts are 19mm. The caliper bolts were 10mm and the slide bolts were 3/8.

        The car before that was a 2001 cavalier. Not only did it have metric and standard bolts but the slide bolts were fuckin Allen heads.

        Like literally why?

        • pancakes
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          148 months ago

          Probably because they were made by American car manufacturers and couldn’t make a logical or consistent design decision if their lives depended on it.

          • @ThatWeirdGuy1001
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            78 months ago

            Like I’m not even an engineer and I’m just screaming about the dumbest decisions made by people who make more in a week than I make in a year 😭

            • @AngryCommieKender
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              8 months ago

              The last one I ran into is that the Windshield Washer Fluid Reservoir in a Chevy Bolt is about 1/4 cup smaller than a standard 1 gallon jug of fluid. You could have expanded the diameter of the fill tube by less than 1/8 of an inch and fit that remaining 1/4 cup of fluid in there.

            • @Maalus
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              -48 months ago

              Yeah, but the difference is that they made it so you need an extra socket or an alan wrench. I think you’d have made dumb decisions that were a little bit more deadly.

        • @BilboBargains
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          8 months ago

          It’s usually cost. They have tooling to produce components that have probably been around decades. The cost of retooling just to change the fastener sizes may not be economically viable. Eventually these legacy components will be phased out and it will be 100% metric.

  • @Arve
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    778 months ago

    Don’t forget the most important US measurements of them all: 5.56, 7.62, 9, etc.

      • @[email protected]
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        288 months ago

        .308 is 7.62, civilian measurement vs military (there’s actually implications related to pressures, sidewall thicknesses, machining tolerances, but yeah same same)

        • Karyoplasma
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          138 months ago

          Yeah, it’s generally safe to shoot 7.62 from a 308-chambered gun, but not the other way around.

          • @Enk1
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            148 months ago

            Same for 5.56 and .223.

      • BOMBS
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        58 months ago

        pls explain 🙂

          • BOMBS
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            78 months ago

            why do they use decimal for imperial units?

            • Liz
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              178 months ago

              Because even people who worked in imperial recognized that dealing with stupid fractions is stupid.

              • BOMBS
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                38 months ago

                🫡🇺🇲

            • @[email protected]
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              48 months ago

              It means the round fired by the gun is .308 inches in diameter, or 7.62mm. Gun caliber is measured in inches for Imperial.

              • BOMBS
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                08 months ago

                so why don’t they write 1/1000 in then?

  • @[email protected]
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    528 months ago

    Also, the imperial system is defined through the metric system.

    In using imperial, you’re just using metric with extra steps.

  • @[email protected]
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    8 months ago

    In the UK, weed is measured in authentic receding British imperial units where an ounce weighs one less gram every year.

  • teft
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    358 months ago

    The army uses metric almost exclusively. It’s where I learned it.

    • @Carrolade
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      138 months ago

      Yep. One “klick” is one km.

      • @AnUnusualRelic
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        238 months ago

        I think the main problem US people have with metric is their aversion to anything that has more than two syllables.

        • @Stupidmanager
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          158 months ago

          Far worse: It’s laziness.

          I was teaching a friend how to make ravioli (yes, really) from the class I took while over in Italy. I bring my scale to measure the dough and the first thing she does is use the scale to get the right measurements and then, scrapes the contents into an imperial measuring cup. Worse, she was totally pissed when the semolina was not a perfect match to the 00 flour (mass and all that).

          She is a tried and true American. She just wants to whip out her 1 cup without measuring weight and can’t fathom why the dough just “wasn’t like I taught her”.

          By the way, the super secret Italian recipe is this: Ingredients per 2 people (spaghetti or tagliatelle) 100 grams total of: 50% white superfine flour 50% semolina Add 1 egg per 100 grams of flour

          For ravioli, you want more superfine (00) flour so the pasta sticks together better. So like above, 100 grams total of: 60% superfine flour 40% semolina

          Add 1 egg per 100 grams of flour.

            • @[email protected]
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              28 months ago

              Medium or large eggs, (the most common size) is about 5 eggs per cup, 4 per cup of extra large. - YMMV slightly depending the exact eggs your have.

              • @AnUnusualRelic
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                28 months ago

                Of course there’s a cup measurement for eggs.

                What was I thinking.

                • @[email protected]
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                  18 months ago

                  To be honest, ain’t nobody using that measurement unless you are using commercial canned shelled eggs for speed. And even then you are probably just going to open the can and dump the whole thing. But it does show that the system is complete.

                  Rare indeed would be the home cooks/bakers that used that.

          • @[email protected]
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            28 months ago

            What most people miss about weight vs volumetric measurement when cooking is that it’s all about ratios. And if you had been paying attention in math class, you would know that ratios are unit less. Which means as long as you keep the proper ratio between the ingredients, it matters not one whit on how you measure them. You can weight, you can use cups or spoons or handfuls and pinches to achieve the correct ratio. You even demonstrate this by stating that the ratio of flour to semolina is 1:1 or 3:2 depending on the end use. And one extra large egg, (about 55 grams or 2oz), should make for a decent conversion.

            But before you change units of measure, you need to be sure that the changes still hold to with the tolerances of the recipe. Something most people can’t do very well - much like your friend.

            And never forget - the true masters of fresh pasta making at home are all those little old Italian Grandmothers. And they are probably just eyballing it all anyway.

            • Captain Aggravated
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              48 months ago

              Which means as long as you keep the proper ratio between the ingredients, it matters not one whit on how you measure them. You can weight, you can use cups or spoons or handfuls and pinches to achieve the correct ratio.

              The problem with converting a 1:1 ratio of ingredients measured by weight and a 1:1 ratio of ingredients measured by volume is density. Two different kinds of flour may pack differently and thus have different densities enough to effect the consistency of the dough. And with something like flour, a cup of sifted flour is less wheat and more air than a cup of scooped flour.

              • @[email protected]
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                08 months ago

                It’s all about the ratio. The density does not matter as much as you seem to think. Plus there is a tolerance built in. Just think, you so carefully measure everything out with weight (did you get the weight exact?). Then you randomly toss a bunch of bench flour down when you kneed the dough. You have literally no clue as to how much weight of flour/semolina the dough picked up. So it really doesn’t matter as much as you might think. Now your scale does make it easier for you. And that’s fine, I have a kitchen scale and use it regularly myself. But I understand it doesn’t matter as much as you seem to feel it does.

                And again, those Italian Grandmothers are just eyeballin’ everything anyway.

        • Captain Aggravated
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          38 months ago

          To be fair you sound like Data from TNG Season 1 if you say something like “Give them a centimeter, soon they have a meter.”

    • @[email protected]
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      68 months ago

      Except in electronics. Everything is still .1 inch headers. We invented too many electronics and it’s stuck now.

      • @nezbyte
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        28 months ago

        It is also annoying that the electronics industry prefers the term “mil” for 1 thousands of an inch. Why not use “thou” like machinist use?

  • @[email protected]
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    308 months ago
    • talking to my european friends
    • talking to my african friends
    • talking to my asian friends
    • talking to my south american friends
    • talking to my north american friends (exceptions apply)
    • talking to my oceanian friends
    • talking to my antarctican friends
  • @negativeyoda
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    298 months ago

    My favorite fuckery is when Europeans see shit like 25.4mm, 27.2mm or 31.8mm and it’s because of imperial bullshit

  • @Enk1
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    248 months ago

    Not to mention that every single food product has metric measurements on the label as well.

    • @[email protected]
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      8 months ago

      Pisses me off so much that we don’t standardize that in Canada, they still show $/lbs as the main price advertised but the item is weighted in kg with the $/kg written in a smaller font.

    • @[email protected]
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      -28 months ago

      That’s ok, your animal welfare standards are so shockingly horrific, you can’t export any food anyway 😂

      • @Enk1
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        78 months ago

        Oh, man, you got us!

        Wait. I’m being told that the US is the largest exporter of agricultural goods in the world, exporting 20% of its agricultural production.

  • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]
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    188 months ago

    Last panel should be the entire US Customary System, which is literally just a rescaling of the SI (“metric” system) units. US Customary is derived directly from SI.

  • Nakedmole
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    188 months ago

    Bicycle parts entered the chat

    • BOMBS
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      88 months ago

      The entirety of the American scientific research community, which happens to be the most productive research community in the world, slides in with a wink 😉

      • Ephera
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        58 months ago

        I thought, you were saying that the USA is still researching how to build one of these “bicycles”. 🙃

        • @Hobbes_Dent
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          28 months ago

          The instruction manuals got banned.

    • @[email protected]
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      48 months ago

      Oh fuck the bicycle world for that, as much as I like working on my bike, it’s a fucking pain to figure out the size of parts!

      • Nakedmole
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        8 months ago

        At least in this case it’s not America’s but Britain’s fault. I primarily blame the small arms industry in Birmingham! :)

  • Jo Miran
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    178 months ago

    When I was young I lived in Puerto Rico for a few years (1980’s). Milk was sold in either one litre cartons or one gallon jugs. Distances in road signs and road markers were in kilometers but speed was in miles per hour. Fuel was sold in litres but fuel usage is in miles per gallon.

    • @Enk1
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      48 months ago

      I believe Canada and the UK do similarly.

        • @Enk1
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          8 months ago

          Do you say kilometers per litre or miles per gallon?

          Edit: re-read. The UK still uses mpg, I believe

        • @Omgpwnies
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          18 months ago

          Gallon jugs aren’t as common as 4L bagged milk here though

          • @[email protected]
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            18 months ago

            Depends on the province, bags are common in Quebec, Ontario, the Maritimes but not in the provinces west of Ontario and in NFL

    • BOMBS
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      28 months ago

      Seems like a good way to become proficient in both so that you’re more adaptable.

      • Jo Miran
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        8 months ago

        Nah. People just talked distances in fuel tank fractions, fuel dollars or travel time. For example, “how far is the mall?”, ‘about a quarter tank’. Or “how far is San Juan?”, ‘$5 will get you there’. Or " how far is Rio Grande" ’ about ten minutes that way’.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 months ago

      The US sells beverages in 2 liter bottles and milk in gallon jugs. Also any food packaging shows the weight of contents in both standard and metric.

    • @[email protected]
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      198 months ago

      Bullets are a weird, dumb one. Yes, kind of. But also: .308, .303, .30-06, .50 BMG .30-30, .45-70, .38, .32, .44, .45, .50AE. Then nonsensically basically all “30 calibre” are the same diameter, which is exactly not quite .3 of an inch. Most of those are calibrated by the metric system (as many imperial measurements are today), but the terminology exists in the imperial system.

      And then there’s fuckin gauges for shotguns smh.

      • @[email protected]
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        48 months ago

        Everyone uses guage descriptor for shotgun bores. It’s been around longer than the metric system. And it’s doubtful it will ever change.

        • @[email protected]
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          28 months ago

          Except .410 for some reason. I guess 67 gauge is starting to sound a bit crazy.

          But yeah I know. I just think it’s silly.

          • @[email protected]
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            48 months ago

            While it’s pretty much traditional at this point, there was a very good reason for a long time to do it that way. Gauge for muskets/Fowlers is related to the number of round balls of bore diameter that weights 1 pound, (remember this predates the metric system by about 100+ years). And if you owned a firearm, you had to own the proper mold and cast your own lead balls to shoot over an open campfire. You just couldn’t pop down the the sporting goods store and buy some ready made round balls to shoot. Knowing how many round balls per pound lasted into the 1800’s. Because if you were a Longhunter or mountain man fur trapper, it was important to know that your .45 caliber Pennsylvania rifle shot 47 to the pound and a .50 caliber Hawken’s rifle shot about 35 round ball to the pound. so you could easily know how much lead you needed to bring with over the next year in the lonely mountains.

            So if you owned a .72 caliber/12gauge musket you knew you would get 12 round balls per pound of lead. If you had a .69 caliber/14gauge, you would have 14 balls. A 20gauge/.62 caliber will give you 20 round balls.

            But yes, the era of the metallic cartridges sent things off the rails in naming cartridges. And post WW1, everyone just completely lost the thread. We have .38 Short, Long, Special, and .357 - all the same bullet diameters. And a seemingly infinite number of .22 caliber cartridges that not even god himself can keep track of.

  • @paultimate14
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    128 months ago

    The whole world uses both for various things. Even the countries that “officially” use metric. Specific global industries still use imperial. Canadian and British people are perhaps the most famous for combining the two, but most of Europe also mixes things in here and there.

    And of course the whole conversation is Euro-centric and ignores the historical use of traditional measurement systems in Africa and Asia, but somehow that never gets brought up.

    • @[email protected]
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      68 months ago

      Yeah TVs/screens for example are typically in inches anywhere I’ve seen. There might also be the metric listed.

      • @accideath
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        158 months ago

        They are indeed usually in inches but that’s probably bleeding back to Europe from the US. And most people don’t actually know how much that would be in metric. It’s sometimes listed but no one I know actually uses those numbers. We just know that 65 is bigger than 55, etc. If we want to know if it fits in our living rooms, then we look at the actual size in cm. I also couldn’t think of anything else that’s imperial, at least here in Germany.

        • ✺roguetrick✺
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          98 months ago

          It’s a diagonal measurement so it’s literally only useful for comparing screens.

      • Possibly linux
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        -48 months ago

        It makes sense as an Inch is a good measurement for that. You aren’t going to use mm or meters