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[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 112 points 6 months ago

While we are at it, let's all (as in the entire planet) switch to 24hour UTC and the YYYY.MM.DD date format.

[-] cmhe@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

While we at that, lets switch to the international fixed calendar as well.

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[-] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

YYYY.MM.DD and 24 hour for sure.

Everyone using UTC? Nah. Creates more problems than it solves (which are already solved, because you can just lookup what time it is elsewhere, and use calendars to automatically convert, etc.).

I for one do not want to do mental gymnastics /calculation just to know what solar time it is somewhere else. And if you just look up what solar time it is somewhere, we've already arrived back at what we're already doing.

Much easier just looking up what time (solar) time it is in a timezone. No need to re-learn what time means when you arrive somewhere on holiday, no need for movies to spell out exactly where they are in the world whenever they speak about time just so you know what it means. (Seriously, imagine how dumb it would be watching international films and they say: "meet you at 14 o'clock", and you have no idea what solar time that is, unless they literally tell you their timezone.)

Further, a lot more business than currently would have to start splitting their days not at 00:00 (I'm aware places like nightclubs do this already).

Getting rid of timezones makes no sense, and I do not understand why people on the internet keep suggesting it like it's a good idea.

[-] Loki@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 6 months ago

I'm pretty sure they don't mean "give up on time zones" but "express your timezone in UTC". For example, central Europe is UTC+1. Makes almost no difference in everyday life, only when you tell someone in another zone your time. The idea is to have one common reference point and do the calculation immediately when someone gives you their UTC zone. For example, if you use pacific time and tell me that, it means nothing to me, but if you say "UTC-8" I know exactly what time it is for you.

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[-] woelkchen@lemmy.world 87 points 6 months ago

Americans use 9 millimeters at school all the time.

[-] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

How many football fields is that

[-] uis@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago
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[-] Thade780@lemmy.world 71 points 6 months ago
[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 62 points 6 months ago

I am once again asking for yyyy-mm-dd

[-] bitwaba@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

ISO8601 crew represent!

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[-] HootinNHollerin@slrpnk.net 49 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

As a mechanical design engineer in America having dual systems creates unnecessary complexity and frustration and cost for me all day every day. I full force embrace switching to metric

[-] KreekyBonez@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

as a mechanic working in a hodgepodge US/EU factory line, I have to suffer through always carrying double the tools to service metric and SAE machines. and after so many years in the industry, I still slip up and say 3/16 when I mean 3/8 sometimes, because fractions are a shit system for wrenches.

oh, and some of our linear encoders readout decimal-feet, because fuck it, why not?

[-] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

My condolences. I'm already annoyed with the times USC units are presented in Australia (our nominal pipe sizes are often talked about in inches, and sometimes valves and such have USC flow coefficients because the manufacturer is American).

So I cannot imagine the pain you must be subjected to.

[-] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 42 points 6 months ago

Metric yes please. Also for fucks sake use the 24 hour clock. Some of us learned it from the military but it’s just earth time and way easier than adding letters to a number

[-] ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 18 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

the 24 hour clock

I switched to it in my later teens when I realised how many cases it would be better in.
Conversion during conversation might be an extra step, but I'll be pushing for the next generation to have this by default.

Also, much better when using for file names.

Also, YYYY-MM-DD. There's a reason why it is the ISO

Anti Commercial-AI license

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[-] whoisthedoktor@lemmy.wtf 35 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

There was a beautiful time back when I was young where we tried to change to metric and schools taught us nothing but. Now I'm ~50 years old and don't even know how many pints are in a gallon. Or feet in a mile. Always forget whether it's 12 or 16 that's inches in a foot / ounce to pound. Always have to look that shit up. Because they didn't teach us that garbage. Ever.

Guess what I NEVER have to look up? The measurements that tell you in their fucking prefixes how many X are in Y. What a concept.

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[-] rayyy@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

We should have gone metric in the 70s. This year will be the 45th anniversary of the Metric Conversion Act, which was signed on December 23, 1975, by President Gerald R. Ford. You may have even seen a map that has been incriminatingly illustrated to show how they are out of step with the rest of the world. It’s a compelling story and often repeated, but you might be surprised to learn that it’s simply untrue!

[-] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 22 points 6 months ago

Metric has been legally "preferred" in the US since 1975. We just don't use it.

Also while I was looking up that year I came across this wild factoid:

In 1793, Thomas Jefferson requested artifacts from France that could be used to adopt the metric system in the United States, and Joseph Dombey was sent from France with a standard kilogram. Before reaching the United States, Dombey's ship was blown off course by a storm and captured by pirates, and he died in captivity on Montserrat.

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[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 20 points 6 months ago

If you pretend to be a confused foreigner you can make them do math

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[-] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 18 points 6 months ago

You can't have it because of peer pressure from dead people. You gotta take them seriously, motherfuckers will haunt your ass and say shit like "thirty fathoms, gold dubloons and schooners, twenty nickel shillings". We have the metric system in our country and the ghosts suck, they don't even try to come up with sensical nonsense phrases for the sake of the bit, the lazy bastards.

[-] Zorque@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago

You could always use the metric system, that was always allowed. Most food (I've seen) has both imperial and metric measurements. Most digital measuring devices and lots of analog ones will have options for both. Speedometers generally have both.

Really, the only one stopping you from using the metric system in your daily life is you. Unless of course you're saying you want other people to use it. Which is a distinctly different proposition.

[-] Septian@lemmy.zip 11 points 6 months ago

I'd argue the two greatest barriers for the average, non-STEM individual adopting metric in America is the speed limits being in mph and the temperature being in °F. Both are convertible easily enough, but when you constantly have to do so to engage with critical infrastructure or safety (cooking temps, etc.) It provides a barrier against adoption for anyone without the drive to make a concerted effort to use metric.

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[-] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I dunno, it'd probably be better but there's nothing stopping people from using metric in places where it makes sense. I write most of my recipes in grams because it makes them easier to multiply or divide.

At the same time, the most common thing people use units for is a point of reference, and it really makes no difference whether your point of reference is metric or traditional units.

[-] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

I switched all my devices to Celsius, learned it, and haven’t looked back since.

[-] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

That's fine right up to when you're complaining about the temperature to an american.

[-] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

That's fine right up to when you're complaining about the temperature to an american.

But I am an American. To learn Celsius I came up with a quick heuristic to do “accurate enough” conversions for the months between switching off Fahrenheit and getting to the point where I knew Celsius well enough.

So I can pretty quickly go from Celsius to Fahrenheit for my ignorant compatriots.

Edit: For anyone downvoting me, if it’s because I called people who don’t know Celsius “ignorant,” please understand I’m using this definition: “lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about a particular thing.”

Not this one: “lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated,” nor this one: “discourteous or rude.”

We are all ignorant about things we don’t know about. No shame in ignorance, it’s the default state of all living beings!

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[-] Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

Look I get it, but also, I like fahrenheit and miles. They are more intuitive and closer to the 'feeling'. 100 degrees is really hot. 100 mph is really fast. Maybe that's my own bias from growing up with it though

[-] Hubi@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

Yeah, I think it's mostly just a familiarity thing. To me 0°C is cold af, 10°C is chilly, 20°C is nice and 30°C is hot. 100 km/h is fast but not really fast, though I'm probably biased in this regard from regularly driving on the Autobahn lol

[-] businessfish 14 points 6 months ago

exactly! whenever anyone says imperial units are "more intuitive" and better reflect "how it feels to humans", i can only think: obviously, you grew up with it. that's what you know.

no matter what measurement system you were raised on, it will feel intuitive to you and reflect how you as a human experience the world because you are used to measuring things in those units. having said that, i'd much rather we used metric if for nothing else than the ease of unit conversion.

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[-] slickgoat@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

That's an artefact of the "now".

In Australia we once had the imperial system and about a year after the big switch (14 Feb 1966) we became all metric like a mofo. Now 35c feels hot and 15c feels cold. Plus units of ten is so much easier than factions.

Ask the US military about the metric system, they've been using it since at least Vietnam, if not earlier.

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[-] eezeebee@lemmy.ca 12 points 6 months ago

Not only is 100C is also really hot, it's the boiling point of water. Now that's a 100 degrees that really stands for something.

[-] Windex007@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

"intuitive" in the sense you described just means "familiar". One feels like one. Ten feels like ten.

The magic of metric isn't that each base unit is somehow more valuable in metric. It isn't. One will always feel like one.

The magic is how easy it is to convert from the "small one", the "medium one" and the "big one".

Also, the convention of fractional inches is ridiculous.

It should be trivial to order 27/64, 3/8, and 7/16. Don't make me do that math.

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[-] Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

I'm a scientist. I've used the metric system since grade school. In fact, I convert Imperial measurements to metric to do estimates.

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[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

Be the change you want to see in the world. Use the metric system.

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[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago

Dammit people, we need to stay focused. First abolish DST THEN institute the metric system! We have to have our priorities in order and stay organized or we will never accomplish anything!

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[-] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Natural Gas companies: No, MMBTU/scf or bust!

[-] blazera@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Fine, fine, Ill use celsius.

[-] Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago

"Fuck me it's hot today"

"Yeah it's at least four washing machines Celsius bro"

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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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