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1. Embed this notice
   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:01:58 JST Adrianna Tan

   After 7 years here I still don’t intuitively grasp imperial units so everything I buy is either way too much, or the opposite. I don’t really know how much a pound or quart is, really

   • Embed this notice
     maya_b (maya_b@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:04:04 JST maya_b

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     roughly a quart is not quite one litre and a pound is not quite half a kilo.

     thanks to watching miami vice as a child, I learned a kilo was 2.2lbs, so yay to drug smuggling math?

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:04:38 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     I miss the precision of going to a deli and getting exactly 225g of something. Half a pound doesn’t feel tangible to me

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:06:33 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     @gcvsa saying 8oz means zero to most
     of the world which doesn’t know, hasn’t heard of ounces

   • Embed this notice
     Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐 (gcvsa@mstdn.plus)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:06:34 JST Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Haha, that's exactly the reverse of all of us who grew up with US customary measurements. Half a pound is 8 ounces, and if you suggest to someone that they order "225 g" of something, it feels wildly over complicated.

     The metric system has zero relationship to human scale.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:08:18 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Ounces, pounds and quarts make as much sense to me as bushels and jins and any other measurement unit I don’t get

   • Embed this notice
     マリオ (Mario Menti) (mario@neko.cat)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:08:37 JST マリオ (Mario Menti)

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte I've lived in the UK for nearly 40 years and I still don't get imperial units 😆

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:08:55 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     But I enjoy baking and making coffee with a metric scale so that’s just how my brain works. I’d rather not bake than use measurements like ‘a cup minus two tablespoons’

   • Embed this notice
     maya_b (maya_b@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:13:08 JST maya_b

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     most Americans also don't seem to know how many feet to a mile, or how many yards. It's a whole number of yards, and so mush be 3x that many feet.

     I have no idea but it's less than 6000ft which is a nautical mile but only planes and boats use that so sorta generally useless.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:14:51 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Dan Ports

     @dan oh yes I was always confused while using American baking recipes and not having those cups

   • Embed this notice
     Dan Ports (dan@discuss.systems)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:14:52 JST Dan Ports

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte one of my grad school friends made it several years in America before she discovered that a “cup” was a specific unit of measurement and not, like, any cup you happened to have around

     Her baking improved substantially afterwards.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:25:58 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     I also just learned after 7 years that Tylenol is Panadol

     And I haven’t learned the names of any meds

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:28:24 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Bill Reese

     @reesecommabill no non-Americans feel similarly about Fahrenheit (it might as well be Kelvin to us)

   • Embed this notice
     Bill Reese (reesecommabill@gardenstate.social)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:28:25 JST Bill Reese

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte As an American, I too wish that we followed the metric system. Except for Fahrenheit. I’ll die on that hill.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:32:09 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Bill Reese

     @reesecommabill that might very well be true but given that it’s not used at all in most of the world, there are no practical reasons to even consider learning it

   • Embed this notice
     Bill Reese (reesecommabill@gardenstate.social)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:32:10 JST Bill Reese

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte the joke I always tell is “I don’t live my life by the state of water and neither should you!”

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:56:49 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • ⠠⠵ avuko
     • Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     @avuko @gcvsa business people who import things maybe. Most people not in trade don’t encounter non metric units with any noticeable frequency, not enough to even do a math problem or understand it beyond ‘Americans use that’

   • Embed this notice
     Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐 (gcvsa@mstdn.plus)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:56:50 JST Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte That isn't really true, though. Most of the rest of the world does business with the US and UK and is very well familiar with our standards. Even in the EU, there are still things that are measured by US units, rather than metric measurements.

   • Embed this notice
     ⠠⠵ avuko (avuko@infosec.exchange)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 08:56:50 JST ⠠⠵ avuko

     in reply to

     • Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     @gcvsa @skinnylatte the only US units of measurement I recognise are “super size” for fast-food, and “bullshit” for lies.

   • Embed this notice
     Raven667 (raven667@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 09:55:51 JST Raven667

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte never learn, those measurements are useless anyway, and most things are marked in metric as well which helps. One place where traditional measurements make sense is in cooking with seasoning, I'm not going ot use a high precision scale to measure out 5 grams of salt, but I can throw a 1/4 teaspoon easy.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 09:57:24 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • ⠠⠵ avuko
     • Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     @gcvsa @avuko because manufacturers make them in those amounts in parts of the world that use those measures. It doesn’t mean anyone is saying ‘give me 12oz of beer’.

     It has zero practical usage in daily life outside of the U.S. (and Liberia and Myanmar)

   • Embed this notice
     Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐 (gcvsa@mstdn.plus)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 09:57:25 JST Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     in reply to

     • ⠠⠵ avuko

     @skinnylatte @avuko One of the items that sticks out is the fact that even in the EU, mechanics' socket wrenches all use US standard drive sizes: 1/4", 3/8", 1/2". The sockets themselves are metric, but the ratcheting drive is SAE (the US Society of Automotive Engineers, which developed the standard). In the US, we use mostly metric tools, now. Very few things are still made using the older SAE standards.

   • Embed this notice
     Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐 (gcvsa@mstdn.plus)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 09:57:25 JST Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐

     in reply to

     • ⠠⠵ avuko

     @skinnylatte @avuko Also, beer in the EU and Asia commonly comes in 355 mL bottles. Why? Because that is the metric equivalent of 12 US fluid ounces, which has been a global standard for a very long time.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 10:14:44 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Yvonne Lam

     @yvonnezlam yes! This is what I enjoy doing

   • Embed this notice
     Yvonne Lam (yvonnezlam@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 12-Oct-2025 10:14:45 JST Yvonne Lam

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte When I was in Montreal, I realized you could order bread and 100g of cheese or paté in delis. Blew my mind.