this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
1028 points (98.0% liked)

Lemmy Shitpost

32013 readers
4920 users here now

Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.

Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!


Rules:

1. Be Respectful


Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.

Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.

...


2. No Illegal Content


Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.

That means:

-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals

-No CSA content or Revenge Porn

-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)

...


3. No Spam


Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.

-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.

-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.

-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers

-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.

...


4. No Porn/ExplicitContent


-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.

-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.

...


5. No Enciting Harassment,Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts


-Do not Brigade other Communities

-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.

-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.

-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.

...


6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.


-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

...

If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.


Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Memes

2.Lemmy Review

3.Mildly Infuriating

4.Lemmy Be Wholesome

5.No Stupid Questions

6.You Should Know

7.Comedy Heaven

8.Credible Defense

9.Ten Forward

10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)


Reach out to

All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Actual poster from 1917 that made me laugh. A lot.

Also, those motherfuckers are measuring the weight of those balls in kilograms, aren't they?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 100 points 10 months ago (1 children)

1917 shitpost with obstinate opinions held to this day. Brilliant!

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (22 children)

I don't think anyone believes the current system to be better, rather too much of a pain to replace. Americans really dislike learning and being inconvenienced.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 10 months ago (14 children)

Americans really dislike learning and being inconvenienced.

it's worse than that-- we have gallons of milk, but liters of soda. we drive in mph, but run in 5K. science and medicine weights are grams, but recipes call for ounces. want to fix an american car--hope you have both metric and "standard" wrenches

more like we'd rather stay with the stupidness and inconvenience we know rather than change anything, no matter how much better it would be

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (2 children)

want to fix an american car–hope you have both metric and “standard” wrenches

I will point out that with the singular and shining exception of lugnuts, at least this one has not been the case since at least the 1970's. All fasteners on current(ish) American cars are metric nowadays and have been for quite some time. I've never seen a single one that isn't on any car that's not old enough to qualify for historic plates.

This used to piss off the oldheads to no end back when I managed a hardware store because they would absolutely insist, sometimes literally screaming in my face about it, that their dang old good old boy red blooded American Ford that they just bought didn't have no Jap pinko metric bolts in it anywhere not nohow, and 100% of the time they were wrong. (This annoyed me only slightly less than the people who showed up needing a bolt, didn't know what it was, didn't bring the old one with them, and the only information they had was "I took it off with a 9/16 wrench." Hombre, the head size tells me absolutely nothing about the diameter, thread pitch, or length. Then they would claim that it's just a "standard" bolt, as if there's any such thing. Also, a 9/16" wrench will usually fairly easily remove a bolt with a 14mm head, so that really tells me nothing. Or 5/8" on 16mm. Etc.)

Harleys, however, take it as some kind of point of pride that they actually do use fractional inch fasteners everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

didn’t know what it was, didn’t bring the old one with them, and the only information they had was

LOL the library equivalent is "i'm looking for a book but don't remember the title or author, but it was about a woman who fell in love, and it had a red cover!" which describes a not-insignificant percentage of all books in existence

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That, and different editions and prints of the same book can and will have different covers.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

See also: the 9mm and 5 grams in my pockets

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (12 replies)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

I don't think anyone believes the current system to be better,

Check our ShitAmericansSay (on Reddit, ew) and you'll find plenty who argue that metric is worse.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Australia joined the metric system on the 14th February 1966. It took about two weeks before it was running trouble free. Everything changed, including currency, on a single day. The system is pretty easy.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (19 replies)
[–] [email protected] 63 points 10 months ago

The idea that a simpler system of weights and measures that operate in base-10 will somehow cripple America is somehow fucking hilarious.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

What was the point of this propaganda? To keep products incompatible somehow?

[–] [email protected] 70 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Capital owners that don't want to retool for a bullshit reason like "common good".

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It literally costs them more money to not use the global standards!

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago

In the long run, maybe. short term is all that matters. And short term it costs money

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Relabeling is such a chore.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

Replacing all your tools and machines is super easy, though. /s

FWIW I only work in metric, Imperial is utter trash, tbh.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Try farming in Canada. I will actually use liters per acre as a unit to measure in liquid fertilizer into a sprayer, spray it at gallons per acre and drive the sprayer at kph with a pump pressure in PSI on a field that was surveyed in rods.

It'll get harvested by a machine that has all metric bolts and uses a 30' cutting platform, the grain will be measured in bushels on the yield monitor and sold in $/bushel with the selling agent but the contract will be in tonnes and delivered that way.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And you have to do it in two languages too.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How awful. Making someone divide things by 10 instead of 12, 16, or fucking 64.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (11 children)

10 can only be divided evenly by 2 and 5. 12 can be divided evenly by 2, 3, 4, or 6. The Babylonians were right, base12 is superior to base10.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (26 children)

"Hey could I borrow a drill bit?"

"Sure, what size?"

"Seventeen sixty-fourths"

"Fuck you"

Sorry man I think in 2024 you're objectively wrong.

load more comments (26 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Exactly. What we did was backwards. We shouldn't have changed our measurement system to base10, we should've changed our counting system to base12.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] rbos 12 points 10 months ago

In retrospect I definitely would have liked a duodecimal metric system, but we have what we have at this point. It's good enough and a DAMN sight better than imperial.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I stopped caring about British units in 1776! Metric all the way, baby! 🇺🇸 We decimalized their dumb ass currency and we need to finish the job with weights and measures! A vote for imperial units is a vote for red coats! Vote for me for President and I will liberate us from British tyranny! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 🦅🦅🦅

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Poster shows the metric system giving Uncle Sam giant balls of steel?

Imperial emasculates.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

It's possible! We can switch! I'm US born and raised and I voluntarily switched to metric in college. It took me maybe we few months to start building an intuition for Celsius, grams, liters, and meters. And that was with me in isolation. I would imagine it would be much faster if everyone else was also transitioning.

Over the years, other people have asked me about this and I've been shocked at how many people don't realize most of the world uses metric. Someone asked why I was using "Mexico units" once... Also, I've met lots of people who think the US invented inches, pounds, etc, which is... uh... interesting. The arguments y'all are having here are way more advanced than what I've run into.

For anyone who wants to voluntarily switch, I highly recommend not to convert between imperial and metric. Just read the metric number and that's it. The weather says it's 25c outside? Don't convert to F. Go outside, experience 25c. Over time you'll build an intuition. Smartphones and computers have made the switch easier these days.

Of course, until we all switch you'll really end up being bilingual...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (5 children)

It's also helpful to remember that water boils at 100C and your body temp is about 36-37C. Helps me when I see the weather or something.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] phoenixz 30 points 10 months ago (17 children)

One kilometer is 1000 meters, one meter is 1000 millimeters. One square meter is 1,000,000 millimeters, one cubic meter is 1000 liters.

1 liter of water is 1 kilograms, so 1 cubic meter is 1000 kilograms. Sand is about 2.3 times heavier than water, so 1 cubic meter of sand is 2300 kilograms, or 2.3 metric tonnes.

I'm 1.96 meters tall, or 1 meter and 960 millimeters, or 1 meter and 96 centimeters. I weigh about 85 kilos, or 85.000 grams. Being 65% water, I carry about 55.25 kilograms of water, which will fill a little over 55 one liter water bottles

I can do this all day

Now let's do the same with imperial units! You first, cuz I'm not going to touch that shit with a 10 foot pole...

load more comments (17 replies)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The more I read about America, the more I realise what a fucking stupid country it was, is, and will probably keep on being.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

If I could read, I'd probably be insulted by this comment.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago

uncle sam you dense motherfucker go to SCHOOL

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

There are multiple copies of this posted in the cabinet shop where I work. In Canada.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

1l of (4°C) water weighs 1kg. 1kg (of anything) is 1000g. 1g of water is 1cm³. Stack 1000 1cm³ blocks to get a 10m high column. This column exerts 100kPa of pressure on its base. To heat it by 1°C requires 1kcal. And 1N would accelerate it by 1m/s every second.

I've posted this before on my mastodon, and on feddit.de, before the instance was shut down, but I think it's still a nice showcase how SI units interact with one another.

The worst thing we have in the metric system is kWh/1000h. It's just watts, but whoever designed the energy labels thought a bunch of zeros would be funny or something.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (6 children)

How many centimeters in a kilometer?

How many inches in a mile?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

American answer: "Shut up, Euro-freak. I'm trying to watch Big Bang Theory reruns."

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (21 children)

Ugh, who wants to change to a base-10 system when we keep what ever we have now?

load more comments (21 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The medical system ended up using the metric system anyway

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Metric is just easier and the founders of the US actually considered it but wars -obviously- distracted them from switching to it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

The US Government is entirely metric. It’s just the US Citizens that aren’t. So there’s this entire separation where no one uses metric, so nothing is made for metric, since nothing is made for metric, no one uses metric.

Obviously that’s changing over time plenty of people use a mixture of both systems all the time. The machines are mostly driving adoption at this point. 3D printers, cars, etc.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Fuck that, we should be measuring everything in Stone.

I'll take a seventh stone of chicken please.

And lengths in Royal cubits.

If we're gonna go weird we need to go all the way.

load more comments
view more: next ›