this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
117 points (96.1% liked)
Asklemmy
43852 readers
860 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
And yet it's still more convenient that without Google, I can just go: 1 liter of water is 1 kilogram, 1000ml, and contained by a box of 10 x 10 x 10 centimetres. It will start freezing at 0C° and start boiling at 100C°.
(0.264172 US gallons of water is approximately 2.205 pounds, 33.814 fluid ounces, and contained by a box of approximately 3.937 x 3.937 x 3.937 inches. It will start freezing at 32°F and start boiling at 212°F.)
Yes, everyone knows metric is nicer. But it's just not an issue at all in day to day life. How often do you need to know the weight of a certain volume of water or the edge length of a cube that exactly contains that much water? For temperatures, everyone memorizes 32 and 212 as a small child and never had to worry about looking it up.
Would I rather use metric? Sure. But when almost everything is labeled in US units, all the advantages of metric pale in comparison to the hassle of having to convert almost every single measurement I encounter.
I'm not disagreeing at all, I would totally back a nationwide switch to 100% metric. But I'm also trained in science where it's the standard, and don't really do any carpentry or auto repair where US units are still (I think) the norm.