SaraMGY'all, America desperately needs to embrace the metric system.
Fer reals.
Jim Goodall@saramg There are only three countries in the entire world NOT using metric.
Liberia
Myanmar
United States
America is in good company.
Scott Williams 🐧@jimgoodall @saramg When the English and Aussies weigh themselves in "stone", which metric system are they using?
@vwbusguy @saramg
Stone predates metric.
I'm Canadian and use both imperial and metric, because I'm old enough.
Try being in Canada and measuring distances in hours driven.
Construction measurements are metric, but when you measure yourself, it's feet and inches.
Shipping weight is metric, but a person's weight is pounds.
Weather temperature is Celcius, but normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees.
It's a bizarre mix.
@jimgoodall @vwbusguy I think the problem might be "people who speak English as their native language".
Reay Jespersen@jimgoodall @vwbusguy @saramg Out of curiosity, which construction measurements are metric?
We had a reno done recently, and decided our ceiling heights in feet, all the studs remain 16" on-centre, etc.
I'm old enough to still weigh myself in pounds (vs. the doctor weighing my daughter in kg, requiring my using a calculator), still use F on my oven, and had until quite recently, for decades, thought I was six feet tall because my driver's licence says I'm 180 cm.
https://www.reayjespersen.com/blog-1/2022/06/22/update-to-the-confusion-about-my-height/
@jimgoodall @vwbusguy @saramg So even in the same industry, it’s still a mixed bag of imperial vs. metric. 🤷♂️
@reay @jimgoodall @saramg That is an issue for American cars. I've had Fords that mixed Standard and Metric on the same vehicle and it was incredibly frustrating.
@vwbusguy @reay @saramg
I was visiting the Canadian NORAD bunker in North Bay, Ontario, many years ago. I looked at the three big diesel generators there, & they were English Electric brand, out of the 50's. The guys there told us about how when they were first installed, the fasteners on them were all British Whitworth threads. Once they were operating, all modifications done on them were done with SAE threads. In the 80's, they went metric.
THREE full sets of tools required to do anything.
I was visiting the Canadian NORAD bunker in North Bay, Ontario, many years ago. I looked at the three big diesel generators there, & they were English Electric brand, out of the 50's. The guys there told us about how when they were first installed, the fasteners on them were all British Whitworth threads. Once they were operating, all modifications done on them were done with SAE threads. In the 80's, they went metric.
THREE full sets of tools required to do anything.
Jonathan Frederickson@jimgoodall @vwbusguy @saramg
> Try being in Canada and measuring distances in hours driven.
We do that one in the US too
Haelwenn /элвэн/ 
@lanodan @vwbusguy @jimgoodall This is actually, shockingly close to my flowchart. Though I've erased Fahrenheit from my world with the exception of cooking.. The bit about cooking (temps and measures) is spot effing on.
@saramg @lanodan @jimgoodall One thing that's always interesting to me is that I never hear Americans use the term "Imperial". You might rarely hear a Canadian gallon referred to as "Imperial" but we call it Standard (or US Standard). A hardware store person might ask you "Standard or Metric?" (if Metric is even an option for that tool).
@saramg @lanodan @jimgoodall When people say stuff like "US needs to got off Imperial measurements", the first thought is "When did we adopt Canadian gallons" before I realize they're conflating US Standard and Imperial because the units have the same names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems
@vwbusguy @saramg @jimgoodall Ah yeah, the part where it gets *really* annoying internationally because you have to ask yourself if the person is british or american if you need enough precision.
@saramg @lanodan @jimgoodall Odd fun fact, the US Standard system is actually older than the Imperial system in terms of definition of the standards.
@vwbusguy @saramg @jimgoodall So UK adopted US standards but changed few bits? Or most unit conversion software are just doing it wrong?
@lanodan @saramg @jimgoodall Nah, more like US is preserving an older system that got codified half a century before the UK one did. Same thing for US English versus UK. Often US English preserves older pronunciations or wording preferences as UK English continued to evolve and standardize well after the separation.
Why Do Americans Put an 'R' Sound in Colonel? | #shorts
@lanodan @saramg @jimgoodall Or perhaps more relevant:
Why Do Americans Call it the Pound Sign? | #shorts
Rue Ciphervale@jimgoodall @vwbusguy @saramg Ecuador's pretty similar -- you buy meters of pipe but the diameter's in inches, gas is in gallons but everything else is in liters, etc.
Josh Samuel
glyn@vwbusguy @jimgoodall @saramg Distances on UK roads are still in miles. Metrication didn't quite take.
But thank goodness we no longer do money calculations in pounds, shillings, and pence! (£1 was 20s, 1s was 12d)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Kingdom
rood@jimgoodall @saramg Liberia doesn't count. It's Merica 2'0
@jimgoodall @saramg A couple of years back I was also stunned to discover that Canada and the U.S. are among the I think only TEN countries on the planet who still use "letter" sized paper instead of the way more intuitive A1, A2-type sizing.
Hey, North America and the handful of others: Time to let it go, already.