• bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    How long is that thing?

    A foot.

    How long is that?

    About as long as a foot.

    Oh cool, I have two of those to compare right here. Thanks for telling me how long stuff is in an easy to understand way.

    What about that thing?

    30 centimeters.

    How long is a centimeter?

    A hundredth as long as a meter.

    How long is a meter?

    As long as the distance light can travel in a vacuum in 1/299752458 of a second.

    Please throw yourself off a bridge for using bizarre measurements developed by frenchmen.

    • daqqad@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Whose foot? Chances are yours isn’t even a good approximation.

      Jokes aside, there isn’t even such a thing as foot anymore. All these idiotic measurement units like feet and elbows have thankfully been deprecated and are now simply a name for a certain amount of civilized units. Foot is exactly 0.3048 meters since 1959.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_(unit)

        • daqqad@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          TY. I refuse to use idiotic units to such degree, my brain didn’t even flinch at completely wrong number I copy/pasted.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        +/- 20% is good enough for e6 and covers the overwhelming majority of men’s foot lengths.

        For making a measurement without a tool +/-20% should be fine.

        It’s all fun and games, but I take issue with calling metric “civilized units”. Human civilization developed all kinds of units appropriate to the work being done and calling the ones defined almost in defiance of everyday use the civilized ones is absurd.

        • daqqad@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Being able to easily convert between various units makes the metric system the only one worth considering civilized.

          Every time I see a wrench labeled with some insane fraction like 18/32 my eye starts twitching. I honestly cannot tell which size is bigger without dividing and converting to decimal.

          Human civilization developed all kinds of dumb shit we’ve since discarded. Please let’s discard the idiotic units in my lifetime.

          • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I think you mean a 9/16. It’s be pretty crazy to see one labeled 18/32.

            When you wanna make fun of sae use an odd number on top so no one can make fun of you for not reducing your fractions like a fourth grader. Or so you whip out 9/12 and get elementary school math mogged anyway.

            How is it easier to convert between units under metric? I don’t have any use for a kilogram length of lumber or a meter of gasoline. What unit conversions are you doing?

      • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Whose foot?

        Let’s go with Ariana Grande’s foot. The whole Ariana Grande is already used as a unit of measurement, so this will make the conversions easier.