539
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
539 points (100.0% liked)
Showerthoughts
33453 readers
996 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Well metric is obviously better for conversions which helps a great deal. I think my intuition problem either goes away with extensive use or being born to it.
I do really like the “foot” as a highly human-relatable unit. At 4 feet tall, a man is aberrantly small or a dwarf. At 5 feet tall, a man is normal but short. At six feet high, a man is tall. At 7 feet tall, he is aberrantly big. It’s a highly usable human scale thing and there isn’t a great analogue in metric. Maybe you get used to decimeters (wait… decameters?) too but they are less commonly used. Giving someone’s height in centimeters has never gotten familiar for me. And the deca/deci thing I think undermines your intuitive point a little. These are easily confused.
I think millimeters and milliliters are great for precision. Imperial sucks below 1 inch or 1 ounce. All fraction bullshit.
So each system has its pluses on intuition. But metric has the conversions advantage and the precision advantage so that’s what wins for me.