• ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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    28 days 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

  • Arve@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

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

  • crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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    28 days ago

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

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

  • manicdave@feddit.uk
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    28 days ago

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

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

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

        • Stupidmanager@lemmy.world
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          28 days 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.

            • bluewing@lemm.ee
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              27 days 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.

                • bluewing@lemm.ee
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                  25 days 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.

          • bluewing@lemm.ee
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            27 days 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@sh.itjust.works
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              27 days 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.

              • bluewing@lemm.ee
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                27 days 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.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      27 days ago

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

      • nezbyte@lemmy.world
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        27 days 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?

  • wieson@feddit.de
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    28 days 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@lemmy.world
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    27 days 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@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

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

    • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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      28 days ago

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

      • Enk1@lemmy.world
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        28 days 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]@lemmy.sdf.org
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    28 days 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.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    28 days 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.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        28 days 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’.

    • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days 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.

    • twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      27 days 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.

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
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        27 days 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.

        • twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          27 days 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.

          • bluewing@lemm.ee
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            27 days 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@lemmy.world
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    28 days 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.

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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      28 days ago

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

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        28 days 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.

      • 30p87@feddit.de
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        28 days ago

        Rims are also commonly referred to in inches, at least in germany. But just as with screen sizes, it’s 50/50 with cm, the latter being more useful especially with screens.

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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        27 days ago

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

        • yopla@jlai.lu
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          27 days ago

          That’s why they have centimeters (cm). When I buy a TV in Europe the diagonal size is expressed in cm.

          People here have a better feeling of what 138cm is than they do for 55’ because they are just more used to it.

          Neither is a better measurement, it’s just a matter of what you’re accustomed to. If you were used to banana scale you’d think 8b is easier to understand than 55’.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      27 days ago

      but most of Europe also mixes things in here and there.

      I hate calories and horsepowers