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The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

thefabricator.com

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Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#191

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one. Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally…

If you want to get even more divisive, try converting people to metric baking measurements. Baking bread and cakes is much more repeatable if you use mass rather than volume to measure ingredients.

The results from this recipe were never consistent when I used volume measurements. I converted to mass in metric and now I get consistent results.

adapted from: [https://www.justsotasty.com/wprm_print/11594](https://www.justsotasty.com/wprm_print/11594)

Banana Brownies

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 35 minutes mins

Total Time: 50 minutes mins

### Equipment

- 9x13 inch (23 x 33 cm) baking pan*

### Ingredients

- 227 g unsalted butter (2 US sticks) unsalted butter (The better the butter, the better the results. In the U.S. market, Kerrygold yields the best results, followed by Cabot, and "well, it's still brownies" Market Basket house brand.) - 400 g dark brown sugar - 2 large eggs - 5-10 ml vanilla extract - 150 g mashed bananas (about 2-3 large, brown bananas) - 156 g all-purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur All Purpose Unbleached Flour) - 60-70 g cocoa powder - 2-3g teaspoon salt - 280(ish) g chocolate chips (I prefer Ghirardelli Bittersweet 60% Cacao Baking Chips, use 1 bag) )

### Instructions

- Preheat the oven to 350F degrees (180C or 170C fan forced). Line a 9x13 inch (23x33 cm) pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil leaving an overhang around the sides. Alternatively, lightly grease the pan. - Melt the butter in a double boiler. Add in the brown sugar, stir, and let it sit in the double boiler, stirring occasionally until the mixture has a nice caramelly flavor. - While the butter-sugar mixture is cooking in the double boiler, combine the dry ingredients. - Sometimes cocoa powder is lumpy, and you may need to sift it. The alternative I use is combined flour, cocoa powder, and salt, and use a whisk to mix it all together and break up any lumps if there are any. - Take the brown sugar butter mixture off of the double boiler and mix in the mashed bananas and vanilla. - The bananas usually cool the mixture enough that the eggs won't cook when you put them in, but if the mixture is hot, add some flour, add some of the dry ingredients, and that will cool it down enough to add the eggs safely. - Stir in the chocolate chips. - Pour/spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 35 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with a few damp crumbs. - Cool fully (about 4 hours), then slice. Store brownies in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. (Never last that long in my house)

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#192

>They specify dimensions in feet, inches, and fractions of an inch. But not all of them do. There are many more fun and exciting non-metric measurements you might encounter than plain old fractional inches. A fabricator might encounter sheet metal thickness in "gauge". Wire sizes, ammunition, and machine screws also come in "gauge" sizes but all four are different scales. US drills come not only in fractional inch si…

Gauges are a measurement, but they aren't a unit. They don't necessarily have any linear correspondence to actual distance/volume/whatever, and in fact are typically inverse (higher number = smaller thing). And yes, they're categorical. (Sometimes you even see 00 as a gauge number.)

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#193
post #68

Having converted science, manufacturing etc, what's the first (or next) true consumer facing thing that could change?

Grocery sizes. In fact, a lot of them already have it on the items. Typically because a lot of products are also sold in Canada so they put the ml measurement next to the gallons.

If I understand correctly, the FPLA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Packaging_and_Labeling_Ac... ) requires grocery items to be labeled in both American units and metric units. Metric-only is illegal in America but legal and common in Canada. I have shopped in American and Canadian supermarkets and speak from personal observations.

It seems the exception is that wine imported into the US can keep metric-only labeling, so I have indeed seen bottles labeled only "750 mL", sold in the US.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#194

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

I think it was Reagan turning all backwards orientated

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#195
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fahrenheit is a bit more convenient for describing the weather" - you might need to show us an example here that is not biased. Because to me, Celsius is a bit more convenient for describing the weather.

Celsius isn't granular enough for describing how humans feel temperature.

Why are you restricting yourself to whole numbers? Do you refuse to measure lengths shorter than a barleycorn?

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#196

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

>> But then [post-1970s] some kind of shit seemingly started to poison the country.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ - the oil ran out and the post-war boom ended.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#197

The US being stuck in imperial is such a meme nowadays with "freedum units" and the like. It's yet another odd thing that makes it easy for the rest of the world to laugh at the US. In these isolationist times I doubt this will change soon though, but it'd definitely help international collaboration.

Most likely the current administration will pass executive orders banning the use of metric system, and then force other countries to switch to imperial or face heavy tariffs.

Jokes of this form were tired by about November 5, 2024.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#198

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

It was there again in the 90s after the wall fell. Fukuyama was boldly proclaiming the “end of history.” Newt started to kick at the edges with his combative policies but the inertia continued until the dotcom crash and 9/11 came along, and fully ended with the Great Recession.* * (From my viewpoint as a millennial. Gen Z might think the golden years were during Obama, or just pre-COVID. To some extent every generati…

>> It was there again in the 90s after the wall fell.

Don't forget that connecting everyone to the internet was going to produce world peace, utopia, universal education and understanding. Instead of creating a conduit for memetic viruses to infect the world at unprecedented speed.

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#199
post #86

"Back when I was a Catholic-school kid in northern Wisconsin, my school lessons briefly focused on the metric system. This was in the late 1970s." Man, the progressive school (Comanche Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas!) must have had a huge impact on my life. In addition to open classrooms (I was in Unit 5, not 4th Grade), team teaching, a focus on experimental science, a circular layout to the school with a sunke…

> Yeah, we went over the Metric System that whole year. I can still sing the "Metric Family" song from the film on metric units ("Kilo", "Milli", etc.). And to my young an impressionable mind, the U.S. was joining the rest of the world "Free World" in a kind of Star-Trek-like casting aside of the old things that divided us—joining each other with a focus on progress, science, space… I’ve always found this peculiar be…

So do your marh then in the roman system and have fun with it.

Enjoy the warmth!

Re: The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)

#200

I'd part with cups and teaspoons/tablespoons and the like, but you'll pry inches/feet/yards and fahrenheit from my cold, dead hands. They're both more convenient for daily use. I think I'd prefer to keep miles as well but I don't have a good reason for that one. Fahrenheit has more precision without using decimals for the thing 99% of people are using temperature measurements for: air temp. Where I live, we generally…

> They're both more convenient for daily use. That's really just because you're used to it. The rest is rationalization... OTH of course the rest of the world can hardly complain since we didn't switch time or (angle-)degrees to decimal either ;)

Right. It's like when countries switched to the Euro or decimalized. There's a period when everything feels really janky and everyone complains and then a couple of years later everything is just fine and they forget what the old system was even like.
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