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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Tbf as someone who grew up with the imperial system due to being raised by a British boomer its fairly easy if you're familiar with it, I still often cook in imperial due to a load of old cook books I have.
Having said that anyone who wants the imperial system in the modern day is a absolute idiot, metric is objectively superior.
A brit once told me that the imperial system makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of a peasant at the market - units of 12 was a lot easier to work with in the olden days because it's easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.
I guess it makes sense from a historical viewpoint.
I just wish it was always 12 instead of 3, 12, 1760 and whatever the eff they come up with.
Farenheit on the other hand does not make sense at all
The one thing that bothers me about the metric system is how much of it is never actually used. No one says "1 megameter", for example. They say "1,000 kilometers". When you think about it, most metric prefixes are never used with most metric units.
I've thought that was weird too. Decimeter's seems like a good unit for measuring a person's height, for instance.
Calling the boiling point of water simply "warm" is a bit sus.
It's a warm sauna.
F and C are both made up points, not absolute values. C is great, if what you care about is what water is doing. F is great, if you care about how something feels to a human (not saying you can't memorize new numbers, but 0 and 100 being dangerous is simple).
If you want an actual "best" temperature scale, use Kelvin. 0 is no energy. It actually has a fundamental base. If you argue that temperatures that are useful to humans are too hard to memorize, then you're making the argument against C too (or F when dealing with water).
They are both made up but what is the fahrenheit? Where does the scale start? How much does it increment by? How does it relate to other units?
Celcius starts at the melting point of water at sea level and each increment is 1% of the required change to turn water from frozen to boiling. This is arbitrary yes, but the importance is not if it's arbitrary but that it is a description of a physical property in our world that can be experimentally repeated, tested and verified. No authority can arbitrarily decide that a degree Celcius is actually different from what it was last year.
There's a reason that all imperial units are scientifically described by their relation to their metric counterpart and it's because metric units are based on physical properties of the universe around us and so we can measure them as opposed to just define them.
A mile is 8 furlongs.
If you think Imperial is a better system, you're the perfect example of the American education system at work.
In case those were too many words...
You stupid.
I don't think that freedom units are better, I think they're more fun, and I like having a bit of whimsy in these trying times.
in this thread: USAians consooming epic amounts of copium.
Never got this. I saw one fucking dumb american actually defend the rrtarded system by saying "It's actually more precise" - what a fucking stupid thing to say, when you don't even have a smaller unit than freaking Inches. Atleast we have mm. You guys use 1\4 Inch. Wtf is that??
It's a fraction. So like if you had one apple to split between four people then we would all get one quarter of a whole apple.
1 apple per 4 people = 1 per 4 = 1/4 = 0.25
I don't know that I would say that fractions are more or less precise than decimal.
So that guy was an idiot, but you're wrong about the smaller units.
Fractionals commonly go all the way down to the 32nd. If you need to be even more precise than that we have the thou, which is defined as 1/1000 of an inch or 0.0254mm.
Fractions are pretty good for quick ratios, which is why it's popular in carpentry, but I'd never call it "more precise" than decimal numbers. Anything that needs tighter tolerances than 1/16" is probably going to use metric measurements.
I will say that for most people it doesn't impact their life either way. If the Imperial system (or the modern American system based on it) were truly inferior they would have been replaced but it's mostly an issue in laboratories and engineering.
They’ll use 1/1000th of an inch, a “thou”. But at that point it’s basically metric but worse.
I fully forgot about thousandths even though I see them all the time as "mils". Definitely metric but worse.
We have even less than mm
through the power of the decimal separator!
While I get this is a meme, I do think the imperial measurement system deserves some credit. More the vast majority of humanity’s existence it has been an incredibly capable and powerful system. It’s only in more modern times where a system like metric is an upgrade. This is also ignoring the few ways where imperial still eke out a win, but that is besides the point.
Imperial’s weird gaps between units are pieces that come from a variety of different systems that got layered together over the centuries it lasted. 5280 feet in a mile? Based on the Roman mile which was 5000 paces from a soldier. 12 inches in a foot? From a different way people counted on their hands.
Length of an inch and length of a foot? From different parts of the body. Weird? Certainly. Practical? Amazing so. They were easier for day to day tasks and for measuring on the small, human scale. Metric is easier to calculate between different units and that is an amazing innovation.
Fahrenheit is weird today, but was more practical when it was first established. Even then it has value in how it is more granular without the necessity of decimals. Celsius is still the better unit, 0° being freezing and 100° being boiling for water is very useful. It gives you two easy to remember extremes.
Imperial had to walk, so metric could run in a way. Both systems are great in their own ways and in their own times. Imperial isn’t needed anymore, but deserves recognition for being good for its time and for being more practical historically.
The only dud metric really has is metric time, and that is because everything we have ever done has been based on the older time keeping system. Cultures have laid claim to certain dates and times of day within the old system that just have constrained us to it.
I definitely prefer metric overall, but I genuinely believe that imperial deserves more credit for getting us to the point where metric makes sense to swap to.
The imperial system was defined in 1824 (befoee that a mile was very different depending in the Region you came Form) The metric system was first defined in 1793... Imperial was never 'good for its time' cause it is actually younger than metric .
Yes it dies habe Mord historical baggage (Roman and stuff) but that doesnt mean the system itself is old. The old meassurements eere just local customs and not a system - what a 'foot' was actually differed depending in where you Where which is amazingly Bad for a meassurement .
Fahrenheit is actually a hilariously Bad design : first the original meassurements cant be reproduced (or rather: Fahrenheits meassurements were imprecice) Second : it has three points defined - you only need two - three Pointe just makes everything More momplicated Only one positiv thing here: dude was the first to create a halfway decent temperature unit
Metric time ❤️
Please also lets use the International fixed calendar where every month has exactly 28 days/4 weeks and the year has 13 months. Every 1st of the month is a sunday, every 2nd is a monday and so on, so you will always know which day it is by the number.
The leftover day is a dedicated new years day.
12 Month are better for dividing a year, which is often needed. I know it will never change, but I propose 12 30-day month and 5,25 extra days at the end of a year. Also 5-day weeks or 10 day weeks and every year starts with the same day.
"Sol" is a terrible month name, but the general idea is cool.
How do you write the date for the "leftover" day? Like, thinking about dates in Excel.
Sounds fun, now update every computer system simultaneously to a new date format.
time is stored as seconds since epoch anyways, the computer systems can easily survive by just converting to metric time when displaying. It's the systems that cares about week/month that hates it
100 warm
Yeah, I suppose that's one way to describe 100°C
"It's a bit warm today."
On a cosmic scale 100C is practically freezing.