this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

Oh, get off your high horse

Your basic unit for speed is m/s, but for most day-to-day purposes you use km/hr. The conversion between the two isn't even an integer!

Not only that, but your system, by virtue of being decimal, inherits all the shortcomings of our quite flawed numbering system. You can't divide something by the second smallest prime number without breaking out repeating decimals.

In my opinion, a good measuring system would make up for those shortcomings instead. It should be divisible by at least the numbers you can count on one hand. Decimal covers 2 and 5, so ideally the measurement unit would cover 3 and 4. So that would be a base 12 system. Technically 4, being 2², would be covered too, so 3 would do just fine. Ta-da! 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard.

My ideal would be 21 though, get that 7 factor

If you like intervals of 1000, you'll be delighted (or mortified like me) to know that 7×11×13 is almost exactly 1000 (it's 1001)

[–] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 minutes ago

Not only that, but your system, by virtue of being decimal, inherits all the shortcomings of our quite flawed numbering system. You can't divide something by the second smallest prime number without breaking out repeating decimals.

What's more 0.203 cm or 0.291 cm? How about 3/8" or 19/64"?

How far is 1/3 of a mile? 1/3 km is 333m. How about 1/9? 1/9 km is 111m How long is 10 x 5/16"? 10 x 3.1cm is 31cm

Yeah, a foot breaks down easy in whole inches with many factors, but that's about it

[–] Twelve20two@slrpnk.net 1 points 27 minutes ago

You can also count on your finger joints (excluding thumbs) for base 12, too

[–] Angelusz@lemmy.world 1 points 40 minutes ago* (last edited 38 minutes ago)

I count a flat 8.

[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

Metric is used from all around the world, but comes from a quarter of it.

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

If you want to convert between imperial units, going straight from feet to miles is impractical. You'd be better off knowing the chart of survey units, and they're all small numbers so they're easy to remember.

12 inches in a foot

3 feet in a yard

22 yards in a chain

10 chains in a furlong

8 furlongs in a mile

Of course, i know this because I do 3d art in blender and refuse to set it to metric.

[–] mst@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Remembering 12, 3, 22, 10 and 8 does indeed sound way easier than remembering 1000.

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I know right? it's such an intuitive system with a convenient unit for every scale you might want to work with.

[–] EldenLord@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago

I genuinely can‘t tell if you are being serious. Could you tell me at face value, I just want to know.

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Of course, i know this because I do 3d art in blender and refuse to set it to metric.

You monster.

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

The dark side can be a pathway to many abilities some might consider ... stupid.

[–] philosloppy@lemmy.world 16 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

the only thing more aggravating than using imperial is having to listen to all the complaining about how metric is better. We get it, bro; it's out of our control at this point

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 10 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

My 2 main annoyances with the metric system:

First: The SI unit for mass is the kilogram. That's fucking stupid. A kilogram is 1000 grams, the base unit for something can't be "1000 of this other thing". Because the kilogram is the SI unit for mass, that means that a gram is, by definition, 1/1000th of a kilogram. The stupidity, it burns!

The second one isn't really an issue with the metric system, it's more when people are almost using the metric system then fuck it up, like the "Watt Hour" for measuring energy use. You know, there's already a way of measuring energy use: the "Watt Second", also known as "The Joule"

[–] foo@feddit.uk 6 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

I am glad someone else has noticed this. Why is my TV's power consumption reported in kWh/1000 hours?

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 points 42 minutes ago

Because your power is billed in kWh. Figuring out the kWh cost of a 77 watt TV is straight forward, but a lot of consumer labeling standards are about quick and easy side by side comparisons as opposed to perfect application of units. Easiest way to give a comparison that's accurate enough and doesn't involve odd numbers is to convert that way.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Urgh. There's a unit for that, it's WATTS. That's literally 77 Watts.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 1 points 17 minutes ago

Honestly that's the most aggravating part.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 17 minutes ago

Yea but people are idiots.

[–] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

it's more when people are almost using the metric system then fuck it up, like the "Watt Hour" for measuring energy use.

Energy is just so important to physics and engineering that it will be measured in whatever unit is most convenient to convert in that particular context: joules as the SI unit, watt hours for electricity usage, calories for certain types of heat or food energy calculations, electron volts in particle physics, equivalent tonnes of TNT for explosion energy, things like that.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I don't believe that "watt hours" are more convenient than joules, especially when they're not just watt hours but kilowatt hours or megawatt hours. At that point just use megajoules or gigajoules.

I can understand things like eV where the scale is so different that you'd have to constantly use tiny and unusual prefixes. But, for most other things like calories, it's just tradition rather than a well thought out reason.

[–] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago

I don't believe that "watt hours" are more convenient than joules

Clearly you've never had to do the calculations where these things come up, where hours are a much more common unit of measure for time than seconds, so that multiplying and dividing by time is easier when working with hours.

[–] CAVOK@lemmy.world 75 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

“In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.” ― Josh Bazell, Wild Thing

[–] Smeagol666@crazypeople.online 3 points 2 hours ago

I remember reading this quote a few years ago (probably Reddit), but I don't remember if attribution was given. Kudos to you CAVOK.

"High. You put the stove on high."

[–] Mobiuthuselah@mander.xyz 6 points 5 hours ago

I use both in my wood shop. Sometimes it's easier to lay things out in metric or divide numbers, but other times it's easier to remember an imperial number to go make a cut.

[–] cristo@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

What about a nautical mile?

[–] UnwrittenProtagonist@lemmyusa.com 41 points 10 hours ago

"Because we are free men, we will be free to measure liquids in liters and milliliters... but not all liquids, only soda, wine, and alcohol because for milk and paint we will use gallons, pints, and quarts, god willing"

"How many liters are in a gallon, sir?" "Nobody knows."

"Why not use meters and kilometers?" "We sill, soldier. But only in certain unpopular sports like track and swimming."

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

All units of measure are abstract.

I like metric because it's structured around an abstract amount. Even something like Celsius is pretty abstract, because the freezing and boiling point of water changes depending on the atmospheric pressure. The measure of a second? Why is a second, 1 second long? Why is it 1/60th of 1/60th of 1/24th of a day? There's other stuff based on seconds too, like Hertz, which is literally "cycles per second"

I like to think about how abstract these things are, because if we were to ever try to communicate with a truly alien race, we couldn't really use numbers, because their base numbering system would be different than ours, their symbols for numbers would be different, their entire understanding of math and how to calculate stuff could be wildly different, possibly because they understand things we do not. We couldn't even say to them to communicate on a specific frequency of EM, because that frequency is based on Hertz, which is based on seconds, which is based on ????? IDFK (neither would they). We base everything we know on the world around us, and that's entirely unique to earth. We make so many assumptions about how things are because we've only ever experienced life on this planet.

The only thing that kind of makes sense is how many days of the year there are, because it's based on solid science about our solar system. It's still unique to earth, but at least it makes sense on a larger scale. Everything else? Who the hell knows. Why is a meter as long as it is? Who defined this? Why? What abstract Earth-based thing was this based on that other societies of individuals would have no point of reference to relate to?

It's wild we've made it this far, to be honest.

Anyways, I kind of got sidetracked... I guess all I'm really trying to say is that metric makes more sense than whatever the USA is doing. Even if it's just as abstract in its conception.

[–] oneofmany@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

...which is based on seconds, which is based on ??? IDFK (neither would they)

"The second, symbol s, is the SI unit of time. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the caesium frequency, Δν~Cs~, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium 133 atom, to be 9 192 631 770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s−1." https://www.bipm.org/en/si-base-units/second

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

their base numbering system would be different than ours, their symbols for numbers would be different, their entire understanding of math and how to calculate stuff could be wildly different

The neat thing about math is it’s built upon universal truths that exist independently of how you describe them. 1+1=2 regardless of how you represent those numbers. Even among humans we have plenty of different ways of describing numbers.

Also, the best thing about science is that physics works the way it does regardless of how you describe it. An atom of hydrogen will always have the same spectral peaks, regardless of what units you describe those peaks in.

It’s these kinds of things we consider when trying to communicate with aliens. Take a look at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

These messages will probably never be received, even if there is intelligent life out there. But if something intelligent does find these messages, they will probably determine they are artificial, and hopefully manage to decode some of it.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

See, this is all fascinating for me. I love this stuff.

It's also a good exercise in recognizing the assumptions we make every day. I'm trying to get to a point where I can articulate my thoughts and I don't have to struggle through the curse of knowledge.

[–] TheOakTree@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I think one useful comparison would be to convert their measurement of the speed of light to our measurement and vice versa. They will use different units of distance and time, but the values themselves will be proportional unless they live in a black hole.

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