Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thefabricator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 422 posts

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

#231

Post by samus »

ericmay wrote: post #166
technothrasher wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the useful scale of Fahrenheit is far superior 0-100 versus 0-32. Well, first of all, I'm not sure why you're defining those scales as the "useful" ones. They don't even equate to each other. But why are you arbitrarily using 100 as the end of your Fahrenheit scale? Just so you can declare it 'Metric-y'? If you read his paper, Fahrenheit's scale is actually 0-96.

Well even 0-96 would be better, but I think 0-100 scales are more useful. Temperatures in most places are within those bounds and it's like a test you are graded on. You get a 0 on the test, that's really cold. You get a 100 - smoking hot. I'm not 100% sure of the normal upper/lower bounds in everyday life for most people on the planet for Celsius, but let's say it's 0-32. It' just feels weird to me to be operating o…

> Temperatures in most places are within those bounds

That seems to be a quite arbitrary and insufficient criterion. As soon as I start cooking or preparing a warm drink I already step way outside these boundaries.

In defense of the relevance of the Celsius scale in daily life: its endpoints represent critical temperatures of the most important liquid to life on Earth at ~1 bar. And at temperatures of 0°C or less I stand at danger of not just hypothermia, but frostbite.

> it's [..] historical in a way that Metric isn't.

How so? Celsius was proposed merely 18 years (1742) after Fahrenheit (1724).

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

#232

Post by bigstrat2003 »

qingcharles wrote: post #204
mschild wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mexico too. Anyone immigrated from basically anywhere is more used to buying in metric. And some products have already made the conversion, e.g. soda bottles.

> And some products have already made the conversion, e.g. soda bottles.

Some soda bottles. 20 oz bottles are still very much the norm at convenience stores, and 12 oz cans are the norm when you buy 12-packs.

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

#233

Post by nayuki »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #223
nayuki wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find the imperial system fits in better with that warmth of humanity Right, so you enjoy warmth such as: 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 stone = 14 pounds, 1 pound = 16 ounces. Lots of useless names and numbers to memorize compared to kilo = 1000, milli = 0.001. > in favor of cultural uniqueness and fun over conformity You're writing in impeccable English. As we know, English is an international language and most definitel…

I enjoy the warmth of the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second, or as me and my friends call it: a Meter.

For those who don't know: The original definition of a metre is 1/40 000 000th of a full circle of longitude of Earth. That was considered not accurate enough, so it was redefined as the length of a certain metallic bar kept in Paris. Then it was defined in terms of wavelengths of krypton light. Finally, it was redefined in relation to the speed of light.

But each time the metre was redefined, the new definition was within the error bounds of the previous definition and the instruments that could be used within the previous definition - this ensured that backwards compatibility was retained. That's how we end up with these weird-looking numbers; it's not for fun and games.

Meanwhile, backwards compatibility was absolutely broken many times in traditional and imperial measurement systems. Heck, we have a break even in recent history: The survey foot has been discontinued in terms of the international foot, but they differ by 2 parts per million. That might not sound like much, but if you're measuring a whole continent, then being wrong by 2 ppm over 3000 km means having a discrepancy of 6 m, which is more than enough to fit an extra house in.

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

#234

Post by Kim_Bruning »

ginko wrote: post #167
Ekaros wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only place I could imagine something is cooking and even there I probably would not be able to differentiate steak at 56C, 57C and 58C...

It might make a difference for mashing when brewing beer but even that’s a crapshoot.

Yes, but then you might conceivably still measure temperature in degrees Réaumur, if it's a rather traditional brewer. Or so I was told by a Reliable Source(tm).

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

#235

Post by baggy_trough »

IAmBroom wrote: post #227
baggy_trough wrote: post #111

Hopefully some future president will mandate that the federal government use metric, like Trump getting rid of the penny. The rest of society will gradually come along.

Carter literally did this. Society did not come along.

The feds gave up too early.

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

#236

Post by childintime »

threemux wrote: post #62

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…

Nobody I know speaks of temperatures in decimals of Celsius, like no one.

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

#237

Post by buildsjets »

If you specify all your bolt heads as 19mm and 13mm, then a 3/4" wrench or a 1/2" wrench is usually good enough to get the job done.

Similarly, a 1/4-20 bolt will fit in a M6 tapped hole if you use a large enough hammer.

A hazardous aspect of US threadforms is that #10-32 machine screws and #8-32 machine screws have the same pitch. So you can fit #8 bolts in a #10 hole and sometimes, they FEEL like they made good torque, because they engaged one side of the tapped hole, when they really have no tension capability whatsoever.

Reference the British Airways flight 5390 accident where the pilot got sucked 3/4 the way out the cockpit window and slammed against the side of the fuselage while a flight attendant clung to his feet and the co-pilot safely landed.

Also note that a British designed and built product was using US threadforms...

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-near-crash-of-britis...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390

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

#238

Post by humodz »

threemux wrote: post #62

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…

> The difference between 75 (usually a beautiful day) and 85 (hot) is 23.8C to 29.4C.

If you convert a nice, round number from one system to the other, you'll end up with a more precise, less nice number, which will give the impression that Celsius is harder to use.

In reality, people from metric countries just think in 5-degree increments: 25 is a beautiful day, 30 is hot. It doesn't feel any harder to read than Fahrenheit.

I wonder if there are people that moved to the U.S., switched to Fahrenheit and now find it more intuitive than Celsius. If one is easier than the other, I assume it still doesn't make up for the hurdle of learning a new system.

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

#239

Post by RandallBrown »

ddellacosta wrote: post #203
gonzalohm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. As an European living in the US. The only US units that I find useful are cups, teaspoons and tablespoons. And that's only for cooking. It's way faster to measure volume than weight (although less accurate)

As a pretty experienced American home baker I don't understand how you can assert that it's faster to measure volume with cups or etc. than to put a bowl on a scale and simply pour stuff in, measuring everything in grams. It's not even close in terms of speed, convenience, _and_ accuracy.

Maybe it's my skill with a scale, but it's much faster for me to scoop a measuring cup or spoon into a container and scrape off the top than it is to go back and forth adding/removing stuff on a scale.

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

#240

Post by samus »

qingcharles wrote: post #200
flohofwoe wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I know a lot of people who still think in the old currencies. Similar phenomena happen for people in countries that redenominated their currency, like Romania, where people still use the old amounts in spoken language.
Post reply on HN