• mumblerfish@lemmy.world
      17·
      12 days ago

      Hecto used to be popular in sweden until like 2000 or so, when it came to food. Especially candy and charcuterie were priced and ordered in “hekto” (the “gram” dropped in speech).

    • kazerniel@piefed.worldEnglish
      7·
      12 days ago

      In Hungary “dekagram” is the default unit when buying food from actual humans at a deli counter or market. Asking for 30 deka of cheese sounds like a more human-scale number than asking for 300 grams.

      Though it’s interesting that hecto would be even better for this, as we always use deka in 10s (or at least 5s), so we could just ask for 3 hectograms of cheese for an even more human-scale number :)

      • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
        6·
        12 days ago

        That’s pretty cool. Makes me think about speaking in ounces locally (NL). “3 ounce of cheese please” will get you 300g. They could ask if they cut it too fat: “mag het een onsje meer zijn?”/“Is it ok if it’s a small ounce more?”

    • Axolotl.cpp@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      6·
      12 days ago

      Hecto is very used in Italy with food “I’d like 3 hectos of ham, sir”

      Deka is too small to be useful tbh, maybe it’s used with medicines or drugs?

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
    30·
    12 days ago

    Metric haters when they realize their electricity is measured in Volts (metric unit), not in “relatable” units like Sparks:

  • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
    23·
    12 days ago

    Hey hey, US customary units are metric:

    The majority of U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and kilogram with the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and, in practice, for many years before.

    They just use weird provincial conversion factors, that’s all.

    • wieson@feddit.org
      11·
      12 days ago

      They could be more metric. Just imagine this wonderful reality:

      • 1 inch = 2,5cm
      • -> 1 hand = 10cm
      • 1 foot = 30cm
      • 1 yard = 1 m (=3ft+1hd)
      • 1 pound = 500g = ½kg
      • 1 thou = 25μm
      • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
        11·
        12 days ago

        Funny thing is here in the Netherlands some people use pounds and ounces ( pond and ons in Dutch ) when they buy meat at the butcher. 1 pond = 500 gram, 1 ons = 100 gram

      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
        4·
        12 days ago
        • 1 yard = 1 m (=3ft+1hd)

        Oh yeah, that’ll be fine, I’m sure it will make everything simpler:

        1km = 1000yd + 1000hd = 1111yd + 1hd

        What could possibly go wrong.

        1 slug = ... ?

        • wieson@feddit.org
          1·
          12 days ago

          I redefined 1yd as 1m so 1km = 1000yd = 1kyd

          1000 yd = 3000ft + 1000hd = 3333ft + 1hd

          I think the inch-feet conversion is used more often than the feet-yard conversion, so I kept the 12:1 and broke the 3:1

    • 🌸𝓯𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻🌸@sh.itjust.works
      21·
      12 days ago

      A mile is a 1000 paces walked, counting only one foot in most places. Different countries take different steps so a mile is different in each country. Somewhere between 1.5 and 2 kilometer is the most common.

      A yard is almost one meter, so I’ll allow it.

      It makes sense for a system where you want to easily divide quantities and only can work with the fingers on one hand.

  • SpinItBetter@lemmy.world
    14·
    12 days ago

    Put this on the Ronald Reagan did it pile. Jimmy Carter started us on the path to metric and then Reagan halted it.

          • Linda R@nord.pubEnglish
            2·
            12 days ago

            Deci is used for baking as well, all the time. How is that “only for drinks”?

              • Linda R@nord.pubEnglish
                1·
                11 days ago

                I’ve never seen one recipe that uses them. But maybe we just live in different countries.

                A millilitre sounds like a crazy level of precision for cooking or baking, though. How is that ever necessary? I guess you’re rounding to decilitres in practical use anyway?

                If I encountered something like “150 ml” in a recipe, I’d assume it was written by a mad engineer and just use a measurement tool for 1 dl and put about 1½ of those. Makes life easier and the result will be just as good. Different nations have very different approaches to cooking, it seems!

                • WIZARD POPE💫@lemmy.world
                  2·
                  11 days ago

                  Well yeah it does usually round to 50ml. Idk why use ml but that’s what is most often used. I just checked my recipes and about 90% use ml. A couple use dl and one used both dl and cl.

    • HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      12 days ago

      Also: —

      • zepto (symbol z): 10⁻²¹ (one sextillionth)

      • yocto (symbol y): 10⁻²⁴ (one septillionth)

      • ronto (symbol r): 10⁻²⁷ (one octillionth)

      • quecto (symbol q): 10⁻³⁰ (one nonillionth)

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    10·
    12 days ago

    Wait, no, please convince my countryfolk to metricate. I’m an engineer and desperately want to be able to design things in metric. It’s so much better but the average American doesn’t know a meter from a hole in their ass

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      6·
      12 days ago

      But they do know litres, because the big soft drink bottles are sold in litres. They know grams if they do drugs or bake. They know prefixes like Mega, Giga and Tera if they are into computers, and they know about “kilo” if they pay an electrical bill. If they’re into military stuff, they know about “clicks”, which are actually… kilometers.

      I think it’s slowly creeping in.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        4·
        12 days ago

        So weird phenomenon actually, because our military is fully metricated, you wind up with some of the most die hard American exceptionalist/American nationalist types fully using metric and 24 hour time. A friend was raised in a household like that where they just didn’t use US customary at home because the military doesn’t.

        We’re all taught a lot of the basics in school. And yeah we have an instinctive idea of what 2L looks like. Drug users know grams, as do some bakers (a lot of baking is still done by volume here). And other than that I’d say maybe a quarter of Americans know that a meter is kinda close to a yard. Maybe 5% (may be overestimating tbh) know that a liter of water is a kilogram.

        Slowly but surely though more things are being roundish numbers in metric here (like 325 mL/12.9 fluid ounces) and I think that’s a vital component of the move to metric. We are actually headed there, we’re just slower than the UK and Canada.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          11 days ago

          Yeah, that’s funny because the hoo-rah American Exceptionalist types are otherwise very conservative and dislike anything foreign, but they also adore the military, and the military has to be practical, and traditional units are so not practical.

          I would guess that in time the US will adopt metric – it will happen much faster if the American Century ends and other countries become more powerful. Since almost everywhere else is mostly metric, the US won’t be able to go it alone anymore.

    • josephc@lemmy.ml
      2·
      12 days ago

      Normalize it. Use meters and kilograms on your own even before legislation. Convince others to use it. Push back the storm. If a handful of people in your town use it then it goes from something that nobody uses to a thing that a few people (and the rest of the world) use. Be the change you want to see.

    • YragNitram1956@feddit.uk
      2·
      12 days ago

      “The story of the metric system starts, somewhat unexpectedly, in 17th Century England, with the proposal by the natural philosopher John Wilkins for a consistently decimal system of units. The Europe of his time was divided by the use of innumerable different systems of measure, with each country using its own traditional units (and in many cases, a lack of even national standardisation meant that different regions within countries would use their own measures). To remedy this, Wilkins conceived of a single, rational standard, based on the best science of his time, which all nations could equally share. His idea for a “universal Measure” was not adopted in his era, although that very phrase would ultimately (via Greek translation) give us the name of the metre.”!

    • Linda R@nord.pubEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      the average American doesn’t know a meter from a hole in their ass

      Do they actually know yards? A metre is pretty close to one yard. If you know yard, you know the metre.