• huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 days ago

      way easier to learn/remember or to convert things in your head. less chance of getting it wrong.
      but once you’ve spent years and years getting used to the mess that’s US customary measurements, you’ve already put the work in, so metric doesnt look that much easier (and if you’re unfamiliar with it, will look downright harder).

        • Jentu@lemmy.ml
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          4 days ago

          Fractional math of a US tape measure is certainly more complicated than it needs to be. I’d rather just add and subtract directly than find the common denominator and subtract that in my head.

          US car manufacturers got halfway through converting to metric, but decided to keep a few things that require SAE tools, cluttering up a garage or shop with slightly different tools.

          Ounces vs fluid ounces is infuriating. So is having a recipe call for a pint of blueberries but blueberries are sold by the dry pint. Making larger or smaller portions in grams/weight is way easier than figuring out what sort of measuring spoon combinations you need for making a smaller/larger portion of a quart ingredient.

          • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip
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            4 days ago

            The only thing on US cars that isn’t metric these days may be bolt threads, but I’m pretty sure even those are metric now, except maybe for wheel nuts.

        • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          4 days ago

          it’s so complicated i definitely don’t remember ounces in a pint or quart or yards in a mile, let alone any of the less common ones despite living in this shithole.

          division by 10 is the easiest division you can have in base 10

        • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          4 days ago

          yes, it’s generally easier to remember 10 as the conversion number and nothing else, and it’s also easier not to have to add/multiply fractions of an inch in your head.

          this also works between types of units, so it’s pretty simple to remember that 10cm^3 i’m a fucking idiot, it’s a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm cube, so 1000cm^3 is 1l is ~1kg of water, for example.

          • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip
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            4 days ago

            I already know how many cups to a pint, pints to a quart, and quarts to a gallon there are bad fractions are so simple that we learn them in the 1st grade.

            • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              4 days ago

              it’s still more stuff to remember than you have to in metric. but yes, of course, now that you’ve already spent years memorizing this shit and practicing fraction addition/multiplication in your head a lot, it seems easy to you.