Show HN: USA.css – units set in inches, 1776 bytes

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 9:06 AM UTC

2038AD wrote: post #180

jacquesm wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 'international' does not mean 'French'. Yes, the French came up with it but since it now has international adoption it is the international standard with the United States as one of the last hold-outs. That's what you get when you have a country run by lawyers with very limited input from science.

Inches are in fact an international standard to which multiple nations have formally agreed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_yard_and_pound

Post by Symbiote » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 9:20 AM UTC

vandahm wrote: post #159

jholman wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? You're saying that Americans preferentially use base-2 fractions (nearly) everywhere except on computers; on computers you preferentially use base-10, even though said computers are going to store the values as base-2? That's the funniest thing I've heard all week.

> "on computers you preferentially use base-10, even though said computers are going to store the values as base-2?" I don't understand this comment at all. Most people are not computer programmers and therefore have no insight into how computers represent numbers. They just populate text fields in Excel, or whatever, with numbers. It's easier to use decimal points to do that than fractions. When I'm not using comput…

Post by Symbiote » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 9:36 AM UTC

iainmerrick wrote: post #142

frank2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "convenience" with "low cost of equipping the kitchen" then.

A set of measuring cups and a digital kitchen scale probably cost about the same. Just checked this with a quick search on Amazon -- most results are in the $15-20 range, with some available for $10 or less. (I dare say there are probably very cheap measuring cups available, and for a scale you’ll have to fork out occasionally for batteries, if you want to split hairs.)

Post by Retr0spectrum » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #116

Retr0spectrum wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh why France?

Within the EU France is quite nationalist compared to others, and yet, I fail to imagine someone there producing something like this. I'm a bit allergic to flag waving.

Post by beojan » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 10:20 AM UTC

DerekRobot wrote: post #178

cjsawyer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering and machining specifications are usually in 0.001” and referred to as thousandth’s or “thou’s”. Tools like wrenches or drill bits use fractions in the form x+1/2^n like 2 1/2 == 2.5”. It goes down to 1/64, I think.

It's a really well-sized unit for that kind of work. I know exactly what a thou is and how to keep things in spec, but I'm lost using mm.