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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Hey I'm American and think we should switch to metric. While Celsius has a more objective basis than Fahrenheit, doesn't seem like the same slam dunk as the other measurements.
Are there applications where we're measuring in centicelsius or kilocelsius? There aren't weird non-base ten increments of Fahrenheit. In Fahrenheit 0 is cold and 100 is hot as well...
I'm still fine changing to it, just doesn't seem to have the same "in your face" value for this graphic.
Celsius makes most sense in places that experience proper winter.
Is it above 0? Then the snow is melting. Is it below 0? Then the melted snow has turned into slippery ice. Have fun!
Milk bottles in the supermarkets in the UK are now using weird sizes like 1.136l, because apparently that easier for some old cunt to read.
It's like this in Canada for years, everything in groceries is strange numbers in ml or g, converted from pounds/qt/whatever units
You really recognize these weirdly precise numbers in packaging.
355ml. 454g. 25.4mm.
Yeah, suuuuure your chocolate bar is precise to 3 sig figs..
The funnuest argument for farenheit that i keep seeing is: celsius is good for scientific things, but in everyday life, farenheit is better, because it tells you how it FEELS. 60F feels pleasant while 40 is too cold.
The delusion is real, even tge dumbest american can learn new numbers, i believe in you the same way you velive a pedo is gonna save you
This is the same level as "everyone has an accent except for me"
Yes but 69F is nice while 69C is not
69C is hot
It is a very tepid temperature for tea.
Fahrenheit is just a metric measurement of human experience. Why do you hate base ten?
The delusion is real, even tge dumbest american can learn new numbers, i believe in you the same way you velive a pedo is gonna save you
Do not overestimate US Americans: they didn't manage to prevent him becoming president, twice - with all kind of insane justifications on all sides....
I think it's sort of useful for weather, since in most places you're not gonna see temperatures under 0F or above 100F much if at all, so the scaling seems a bit easier. Other than that though, yeah, it's pretty terrible.
mg, g, kg
What are the others meant to represent?
Nobody uses those in every day conversation.
They will be used in specific contexts, like measuring fluids with syringes where space is limited and accuracy needs to be high.
I had a running gag once with my cheese guy where i would order in hectograms. I probably found it more amusing than he did.
Your cheese guy? You may be doing life better than me.
h = hecto da = deca (had to look that one up) d = deci c = centi
×100, ×10, ÷10, ÷100, respectively
You'll know centi from centimetres. Decimetres are somewhat common because 1dm³ = 1L. Hectopascal is a common unit of pressure.
What I'll defend, however, is fractional measurements when precision matters.
With decimal measurements, precision can't be nearly as granular. If your measurement is precise to one 1/8 of a unit, how do you represent that in decimal? 0.625 implies your measurement is precise to the nearest thousandth, but rounding it to 1 also isn't precise. 5/8, however, tells you the measurement AND the precision.
With fractional measurements, you can specify precision by changing the denominator to any number, whereas decimal is essentially fractional measurements, but with fixed denominator at powers of 10. For instance, a measurements of a half-unit with levels of precision between 0.1 and 0.10, fractional can be 6/12, 7/14, 8/16, 9/18, 10/20, 24/48, etc. Decimal can't specify that precision without essentially writing a sentance.
What's simpler to record? "24/48" or "0.5 +- 0.208333...."
This hurts my brain. Why do we care about all the weird fractions? +/- 0.1 is just another way of saying 1/10. You can still do that if you want without having to do fraction math in random denominators.
The fraction allows you to communicate length and tolerance in a single number. A decimal implies precision to the last number, a measure with a fraction can show 1/8 as more granular than 1/16. 1/8 of a cm is less precise than a mm, but if you wrote 1.125 cm, you are now implying sub mm level precision.
This matters because the level needed in building generally doesn't line up to 1/10 measurements. For example if you had a brick wall and a row had 1 cm height differences between bricks in a row it would be extremely obvious and look terrible. A 1mm height difference would be impossible to notice, but is also overkill to get that level. Ideal is about 5/8 cm or 6.35 mm difference over 3 meters of wall. The fractional measure often ends up easier to work with in practice.
If I want to build something and I want it to be 23/48" ± 1/24" how would I write that? Because the way I understand it x/48" would imply a tolerance of ± 1/48".
If you are drawing maps, a precision of meters is enough. If you are building a house, cm it is. If you are making furniture, mm. If you are working with metal, um (micrometer)