Iāve worked in various labs over the past decade and we only use the metric system for our work. One job interview even turned into the lead scientist grilling me on metric conversions. They wanted to make sure I knew them off the top of my head since we used them so much. If I didnāt know the metric system and conversions in and out the job interview wouldāve probably ended there.
Well, I guess the hardest part is remembering the prefixes. The big ones (kilo, mega, giga, tera...) are well known in combination with bits and bytes anyway, even in the US. The small ones are not that widely used. But then again, there are mils, so both concept and name of a thousandth should be familiar, too. And isn't battery capacity for smartphones and laptops measured in mAh everywhere?
The rest is multiplying or dividing by 1000. I mean, yes, it's a little bit of effort, but how on Earth is that harder than calculating with fractions of inches, or converting miles to yards to feet to inches?
Iāve got the prefixes we use regularly memorized, but thatās not what they were asking during the interview. They were asking me for the conversions, things like how many centimeters are in an inch and how many grams are in an ounce, and how to do the math on the conversions. I converted ounces to grams a little too quickly and this made them start talking about weed. (It was an agricultural lab so that was more funny than weird).
Are these even used outside some sorcery called physics? If you're one of those magicians, I guess these units are the least of the problems you encounter
Sure. But going up is quite common. Kilometers are used every day, kilowatts and kilowatt-hours too. And when talking about power plants or the energy transition, it goes up to megawatts, gigawatts, terawatt-hours. Or gigatons of CO2 (although an Austrian politician called them gigabytes...)
Don't forget that America was gonna make the switch when British privateers attacked the ship with the weights Congress might have used to switch.
Sure, the US might have still turned it down even if it got there, but it never did thanks to the British.
Whenever you don't like the US, just remember who gave birth to it.
The really uncreative religious zealots. Iāll never get over the fact that they left Boston, travelled across the Atlantic only to name their new settlement Boston.
They weren't kicked out, they left of their own volition because they thought the religious freedom in the US was a bad thing. They should have been lost at sea.
Technically, the US *does* use metric units, just with extra steps.
Nowadays the imperial units are defined in relation to SI-units and have been since the 60s.
The literal definition of an inch, for example, is 0.0254 m or 2.54 cm, a gallon is defined to be exactly 4.54609 l and the pound as 0.45359237 kg.
The US does not use imperial units, they are technically illegal for use in the US. Imperial units were the result of an English reform carried out in 1824 that the US refused to adopt. The US uses instead US Customary Units (USC).
>a gallon is defined to be exactly 4.54609 l
That is true of the imperial gallon, but since the US doesn't use imperial units the USC gallon is only 3.785 L.
Indeed, it is so. The US Customary Units in turn then are defined how, though?
One of the first things I find when looking them up is [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units):
> The majority of U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and kilogram with the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and, in practice, for many years before. These definitions were refined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959.
So, "metric with extra steps" seems to still apply I guess.
Yup, those are the rules:
America does something bad;Ā somehow Britain's fault.
America does something good; "AmeRiCA nUmBEr WuN!!!!! DiS WHy We BEaT yOu!!!!!!"
Ehhh that story is known to be exaggerated. Congress told Thomas Jefferson theyād āconsiderā it which is, of course, politician speak for āthrow the proposal out the second we get the chanceā Jefferson was kind of obsessed with France (imagine an obnoxious weeb but with French things instead) so Congress and Supreme Court probably would have just brushed Jefferson aside as him geeking out over some new thing he got from France.
I almost feel like itās a conspiracy, Iām an immigrant and every Canadian Iāve ever met told me they use the metric system. Then I get here and find this clusterfuck of āwe cook in Fahrenheit but measure outside temps in Celsius; we measure distance in kilometers, but our height and building materials in feet/inchesā. And then you learn that 2x4s arenāt even actually 2x4 inches theyāre just called that because close enough I guess?
Donāt get me wrong, I love Canada, but they shouldāve decided to go with one system and stick with it. And stop telling foreigners theyāre using the metric system because itās really not true.
Pretty much same. Tho with range and consumption it depends where Iām heading and in what. At least in modern vehicles itās automatically calculated.
I much prefer metric system, as itās what I am used to and it seems much more intuitive to me.
I really like UK, especially Scotland due to its beautiful nature and castles. But I sometimes have a bit of struggle with imperial measurement systems. Theyāre quite interesting from my perspective.
America doesn't even use imperial.
Just Americans.
The military and scientific industries use metric. Nasa uses metric, spacex uses metric. It goes on and on.
Here in the UK I never thought weād move away from imperial measurements (for weight, we still have for distance and some volume, e.g. miles, pints and gallons - though different pints and gallons than the US), but metric makes things so much easier, though I must admit being used to buying a quarter pound of whatever at a deli, and finding out 100g was a lot less was a learning curve
Iāve got it sorted now, this was donkeyās years ago when we changed to metric, pre smart phones, so if you hadnāt figured it out before you just had to pick a number that sounded reasonable, I even asked at the deli what would be the equivalent but they werenāt sure and 100g sounded reasonable, and like you said was only 13g less, which annoyingly was enough to be a slice or 2 of meat less then I needed
Weight for things you buy is almost always grams now, so it feels like the āx feet tallā and āx miles awayā will be the only ones left soon. Even then, I think thereās just a sense of pride on being āover six footā so thatās why people use it?
Yes it should as only 3 countries use it so having the one system would eliminate errors, in theory, but humans make mistakes despite the simplest of tasks.
22,300lbs instead of 22,300kg suggests that the jet was refuelled by American ground crew, as America is the only country left that still uses imperial measurements in such things. So, rather than being a good example of why metric should be abolished, it is a perfect example of why America should stop dicking around being special and start educating it's people properly.
Canada was in the process of changing to metric, and ground crew screwed up the conversion. Aircraft's fuel gauges were also inoperative, and the holes in Swiss cheese model lined up.
Ok. So it was a Canadian cock-up while converting between systems. It doesn't change the fact that the US is the only country left using imperial and they really should get with the programme and stop expecting the rest of the world to conform to them. It's breathtakingly arrogant to assert that they're right and the other 95.5% of the world's population is wrong.
Happens frequently. With modern jet aircraft they know the fuel consumption and can make a reasonable estimate on the consumed fuel. If they hadn't filled it with half the fuel it needed, it wouldn't have been an issue at all.
For real, the MM/DD/YYYY is almost as stupid as the imperial system.
Why do they have to use such weird measurements and formats?
Why donāt use the same as the entire world, just to feel special?
To be fair, there are multiple different date formats. Like YYYY/DD/MM. Idk if the DD and MM are swapped or not, though. My point is is that there aren't just two formats
Either use ascending or descending order, depending on what you needćFor human readability DD/MM/YY is easier, for sorting, so especially at a computer, YY/MM/DD is betterćPutting DD in the middle makes no sense, why would it belong there?
Using YY, YYYY or omitting it all seems reasonable to me, depending on context, though others might disagreećTypically using YYYY is the best bet though bc it always workes and never is ambiguous
Order of scale. Nobody says or writes minutes/hours/seconds or seconds/hours/minutes or hours/seconds/minutes.
If you'd write an exact time, you write for example 16:33:25, not 50:22:15.
I'm not defending it, in fact I don't care for it, but I believe the MM/DD/YYYY format is an an extension of everyday conversion use. We say, "May 30th" not "30 May." Adding the year to the end if needed. In school we were taught to write Month day, Year, e.g. May 30, 2024. That's how most people write it on checks (or used to back when checks were a thing). Making everything numbers simply preserves that traditional order.
Personally, I find it confusing so whenever I'm asked to write a date I write out the month just to be clear. Of course some forms, especially online, require a specific format so I have no choice.
Also for the record, I don't care for September being the 9th month or October, November, December being 10, 11, 12. We're stuck with it, though. (Sept should be 7. Oct, Nov, Dec should be 8, 9, 10). I understand the history. I still don't like it.
No, perfect example of why they should instruct the people filling the plane to use metric
Like they had no reason to use pounds, they're supposed to know that they should use metric
Wait a second. This pilot was skilled enough to glide the plane down from 41,000 feet but somehow didn't see that he was running out of gas until it was all gone?
The plane's fuel gauges weren't working, and the plane only had digital gauges without any analogue backup. Therefore, the pilots relied solely on the ground crew to confirm that they had added enough fuel, which was not the case.
The investigators ultimately faulted the pilots for their decision to depart without properly functioning fuel gauges, which was against regulations. The ground crew's error in the mathematical conversion was only cited as a contributing cause, because the pilots should have also done an independent cross check to confirm the calculations, which they didn't do either.
According to the Wikipedia article (citing the investigation report), the crew did the calculations themselves because the ground crew failed to do so. But the ground crew failed to report the metric conversion rate, and without them being trained to do so (remember this was 1984), it isn't hard to see how the problem would occur.
The difference with Americans is they have beliefs; and beliefs are never wrong as far as they believe.
Americans are total amateurs at being wrong and become personally invested in seeing nothing but what they are told to believe. The most successful Americans have learnt how to accept that other nations life choices are not theirs to choose on their behalf.
Like other Americans, this guy has detached logic that he can dictate to the world what practices they can or canāt use. Call him the Americanazi as he decrees what should be abolished outside his realm, in the name of his imperialism.
Iāve tried buying stuff online from the US. Often they wonāt even sell to themselves (only the continental 48ā¦ tough luck Hawaii and Alaska). Then thereās the whole problem that youāve got to do conversions from some archaic measurement system that no one else uses. Then the postal rates are insane.
So in the end I buy from Chinaā¦ which doesnāt even speak Englishā¦ yet is infinitely easier to deal with.
Next time Americans are complaining about balance-of-trade, loss of jobs, manufacturing going offshoreā¦ they should consider perhaps just how much international business they are losing by sticking to Imperial measurementsā¦and generally being excruciatingly difficult to purchase from.
Everything about America is seemingly deliberately built to induce insularity, even their postal system. So many Americans explicitly say they only sell within the US, and when they answered why, generally it was because their postal system is so obtuse when it comes to shipping internationally, and the system does nothing to help, and the shipper generally has that American lack of curiosity about everything non-American.
I had something take weeks longer to be shipped than expected because I just gave my province code (BC), and I guess the postal clerk said they had no idea what BC meant and thought it was illegitimate, and did nothing to look it up or anything. The shipper, for her part, never looked it up herself or even cared to ask me until I inquired about why I didn't get my package weeks later and she said she didn't know what BC meant and thought since I couldn't be bothered to write out my full address properly I wasn't that invested in getting the product shipped.
Lately, though, they also only ship within the US because they only want to take cashapp for payment.
I can *almost* understand Australia being a virtual different planet for the USā¦ but *BC in Canada?* It shares a common border with the US!
Even I know thatā¦ and Iām not even on the same continentā¦ šš¤·š»āāļø
Exactly. To many Americans, it seems Canada is basically on the dark side of the moon for how unaware of it they are.
In this situation, though, I wasn't even bothered by the fact she didn't know. It was both how the postal worker just did a š¤·āāļø, and that the shipper just thought I was the lazy one for not hand-holding them and writing out British Columbia, when we know they'd **never** have the same consideration in return. They just assume anyone in the world would know what AZ, or CO, or OK is.
Yeah manā¦. I know all the US state abbreviations. But then that probably says as much about the USās culture-export power as it does about its lack of culture-awareness power.
Problem established: Difference of units between metric and imperial
Fact: Majority of world uses metric, save for america
Probable solution which makes sense: Convert to metric
American solution: Convert everyone else to imperial
LOL
The plane was endangered by lack of fuel, which was caused by pounds weighing less than kilos .... therefore, not enough fuel to keep the plane in the air.
So, the system at fault was the one Americans continue to use -- (bless 'em, poor sods!)
Now, if instead it had been kilos mistaken for pounds, because kilos are bigger than pounds there would have been an EXCESS of fuel, maybe even more than the tanks could hold, neither of which would threaten the plane with a crash landing...
... would they?
*Some people's logic is so obviously at fault, it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.*
Don't let us forget that the imperial units are legally defined by their metric value. This makes the imperial system just a skin they put on the metric system!
The metric system predates us knowing the speed of light. We later realized the most accurate way to define any unit of space is to use the speed of light since it will be the exact same regardless of time or location according to current best knowledge. The original definition was based on the circumference on the earth, and actually very slightly different to the modern meter.
Speed of light was first calculated in 1676. But their point remains, it's all just based on something else, the metric system is just representing set things. So is imperial, essentially those same things, just in a far more stupid scale.
Perfect example of why social media to have an account you would have to do some sort of intelligence test so we donāt have to deal with people like this
OK lets go along with Liberia, Myanmar and America and no one else at all! The SI ? Fogetaboutit! A hundred years of global standards. Tbh guys, the imperial system was really useful 150 years ago or before technology made it less useful than the metric system. So it was the greatest long ago but not now. Like you know, your country!Ā times_change
Wonāt abolishing metric take away some of their beloved guns? What will happen to a 9mm for example?
(I apologise to Americans gun lovers; there may be more but it is the only one I know of)
Could I be out of touch by using the imperial system?
No, no, it's the rest of the goddamned world that's wrong!
(I could post the meme, but we all know it by now)
Because air fuel is measured in weight (Kg for the vast majority except the u.s.a.) throughout the world as everything in aviation is weight dependent!
That event happened several decades ago, around the start of Canada's move to metric, when someone made a mistake. This stuff doesn't happen anymore.
I do wish there was a concerted push to finalise the move, agreed we've a weird mixmash happening where we use metric for certain things (weather, distance, products, etc) but the Canadian Imperial system for other things (e.g. personal height & weight).
So because of some American airports mistake, every country in the world, other than America, and two third world countries that don't use the metric system, should all go back to using imperial measures? Stupid, selfish Americans
I love the way the US are fighting for a measurement system that most of the world has abandoned, that was given to them by the British, "the ones who exploited them". Even the Brits went metric!
So somebody accidentally added an amount in pounds, when they specifications were made in metric. To me, that seems like an argument to abolish the *Imperial* system.
The guy here is right. This time it wasn't the Americans' fault. The fuel weight calculation for Air Canada was always in pounds, then they changed to kg. Due to a malfunction they were unable to do the calculation automatically, so the pounds and kg were confused.
He did. It was one of the first planes without a flight engineer. Canada was changing to metric, most of their planes used pounds and this was the first type to use metric. The fuel gauges were broken so they had to calculate it manually.
The pilots were involved in calculating it but weren't really trained in it and without a flight engineer (whose job it would be) it wasn't really anyone's job. So with confusion over what figures were in pounds (like the other planes used) and how and what to convert to kg they checked wrong calculations and thought they were correct.
7.6 billion people use metric, 400 - 500 million use a mixture, it looks like only one is hanging on by the skin of it's teeth.
The US & UK are pretty much down the metric route anyway, just the US won't admit it.
Are you tell me the airplane doesnāt even have a fucken fuel gage? How does this happen? Surely you look at the fuel gage and itās telling you the tank is half full so you call em and say, hey keep filling it up boys
They do but because of the quantities involved and it being spread across multiple tanks for balancing, the gauge doesnāt work as youād expect.
It instead counts down from a figure itās manually set to after refuelling, then it measures fuel flow to calculate how quickly it should deplete.
So if the person who filled it up thought lbs rather than kg, theyād likely set the gauge to 22,300kg and the pilotās only indication anything was wrong would be the feel from the weight difference since it would still be counting down as normal, from the correct value, it wouldāve probably still been reading 10,000kg or so when it ran out.
The weird forces experienced during takeoff, banking etc would cause the liquid fuel to move about so much that a standard sensor wouldnāt work, it would be telling you itās empty one minute then full the next as the liquid moved
They use a capacitance system with sensors placed around the tanks in order to measure the quantity. Canāt use a basic float, as especially with highly manoeuvrable aircraft that can go upside down the gauges would be going ballistic.
Iām not an expert on the type of aircraft involved but spent half my working life in the Airforce as an engine and fuel systems mechanic. We never set a gauge to what we thought we put in. In large transport aircraft each tank had its own gauge and you selected which tank you wanted to fill based on the fuel load requested and in order to maintain balance. (You can easily make the aircraft look like itās tipping over if you get it wrong). When the flight crew took the aircraft part of their checks was to ensure the fuel load was correct. Fighter aircraft were similar but less specific. You just filled it until you couldnāt get any more in, every time.
Quick! How many yards in three quarters of a mile!?
This is why the imperial system of measurements should be abolished.
Even if the person being asked that question knows how many yards are in a mile, (which in my experience is a shockingly low number of people , even among those who have used the imperial system all their lives) itāll still take them a short while to work out the answer.
Whereas the equivalent question in metric, how many metres in three quarters of a kilometre, basically answers its self.
Thatās cool, I wasnāt far off and I was remembering my secondary school maths teacher the whole time, Iām sure he used to say that there was 1760 yards to a mile, but I might be mis-remembering. Thanks for the nostalgia āŗļø
No thanks I'd rather use a scientific and more accurate way of measuring than using something that isn't the oldest but is rarely used, being used by 3 countries and one of those countries is stupider than a pigeon
Americans fought a war against this British empire for their sovereignty just to be the only country to continue using IMPERIAL measurements? Psychotic
The metric system got humans in space and later on the moon, not the imperial system. š¤·āāļø
Iāve worked in various labs over the past decade and we only use the metric system for our work. One job interview even turned into the lead scientist grilling me on metric conversions. They wanted to make sure I knew them off the top of my head since we used them so much. If I didnāt know the metric system and conversions in and out the job interview wouldāve probably ended there.
Well, I guess the hardest part is remembering the prefixes. The big ones (kilo, mega, giga, tera...) are well known in combination with bits and bytes anyway, even in the US. The small ones are not that widely used. But then again, there are mils, so both concept and name of a thousandth should be familiar, too. And isn't battery capacity for smartphones and laptops measured in mAh everywhere? The rest is multiplying or dividing by 1000. I mean, yes, it's a little bit of effort, but how on Earth is that harder than calculating with fractions of inches, or converting miles to yards to feet to inches?
Iāve got the prefixes we use regularly memorized, but thatās not what they were asking during the interview. They were asking me for the conversions, things like how many centimeters are in an inch and how many grams are in an ounce, and how to do the math on the conversions. I converted ounces to grams a little too quickly and this made them start talking about weed. (It was an agricultural lab so that was more funny than weird).
Oh, so the conversion between order and madness. Respect.
No, a unnecessary conversion between unit.
28g in an ounce. Don't ask how I know.
It's yotta/yocto/zetta/zepto that I keep getting mixed up. No end of hilarity ensues!
Are these even used outside some sorcery called physics? If you're one of those magicians, I guess these units are the least of the problems you encounter
No, they're only used in physics and they're rare. Just having a little joke :)
I don't think these are even used in physics. I think it's only in the context of computers .i.e. number of bytes, that we use these prefixes.
These arenāt really used outside of maybe computer science for storage capacity. In physics etc, you just use a power of ten.
In daily use, you seldom go smaller than milli, and occasionally micro. Nano and smaller is usually only used by various professionals.
Sure. But going up is quite common. Kilometers are used every day, kilowatts and kilowatt-hours too. And when talking about power plants or the energy transition, it goes up to megawatts, gigawatts, terawatt-hours. Or gigatons of CO2 (although an Austrian politician called them gigabytes...)
Oh good lord I had to study fluid mechanics with both metric AND imperial, and convert between them It was a hairy, messy nightmare
Don't forget that America was gonna make the switch when British privateers attacked the ship with the weights Congress might have used to switch. Sure, the US might have still turned it down even if it got there, but it never did thanks to the British. Whenever you don't like the US, just remember who gave birth to it.
You mean the religious zealots Britain kicked out for being absolutely insane
Sound pretty on point...
The really uncreative religious zealots. Iāll never get over the fact that they left Boston, travelled across the Atlantic only to name their new settlement Boston.
They weren't kicked out, they left of their own volition because they thought the religious freedom in the US was a bad thing. They should have been lost at sea.
They were forced out. Thatās why they went to America
Ah yes and because it failed one time 200 years ago they just never bothered to try again
Technically, the US *does* use metric units, just with extra steps. Nowadays the imperial units are defined in relation to SI-units and have been since the 60s. The literal definition of an inch, for example, is 0.0254 m or 2.54 cm, a gallon is defined to be exactly 4.54609 l and the pound as 0.45359237 kg.
The US does not use imperial units, they are technically illegal for use in the US. Imperial units were the result of an English reform carried out in 1824 that the US refused to adopt. The US uses instead US Customary Units (USC). >a gallon is defined to be exactly 4.54609 l That is true of the imperial gallon, but since the US doesn't use imperial units the USC gallon is only 3.785 L.
Indeed, it is so. The US Customary Units in turn then are defined how, though? One of the first things I find when looking them up is [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units): > The majority of U.S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and kilogram with the Mendenhall Order of 1893 and, in practice, for many years before. These definitions were refined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959. So, "metric with extra steps" seems to still apply I guess.
I just watched some video with a picture from an American Highways Department manual the measurements were all in millimetres.
Tbf, that does seem to be how the US deals with a lot of issues.
Yup, those are the rules: America does something bad;Ā somehow Britain's fault. America does something good; "AmeRiCA nUmBEr WuN!!!!! DiS WHy We BEaT yOu!!!!!!"
Ehhh that story is known to be exaggerated. Congress told Thomas Jefferson theyād āconsiderā it which is, of course, politician speak for āthrow the proposal out the second we get the chanceā Jefferson was kind of obsessed with France (imagine an obnoxious weeb but with French things instead) so Congress and Supreme Court probably would have just brushed Jefferson aside as him geeking out over some new thing he got from France.
A weeaboo for France is a Ouiaboo
Shut up and take my upvote
Don't blame the pearants for the kids adult stupdiity
They could have justā¦ you knowā¦ sent another ship
Wild
Butā¦ butā¦ america!!!1! :(
And 24h time keeping
Ah yes, everyone else abandon your measurements, so this single country in the world can understand weight
To be fair, this was Air Canada, so a second country!
Canadians use both systems, super confusing!
It's very weird cuz I know my height in feet and my weight in pounds but measure distance in meters and kilometers
I live in the UK and know my height in feet, my weight in stone and measure distance in meters and miles/feet and miles
So does the UK, I understand your pain
I almost feel like itās a conspiracy, Iām an immigrant and every Canadian Iāve ever met told me they use the metric system. Then I get here and find this clusterfuck of āwe cook in Fahrenheit but measure outside temps in Celsius; we measure distance in kilometers, but our height and building materials in feet/inchesā. And then you learn that 2x4s arenāt even actually 2x4 inches theyāre just called that because close enough I guess? Donāt get me wrong, I love Canada, but they shouldāve decided to go with one system and stick with it. And stop telling foreigners theyāre using the metric system because itās really not true.
They're 2x4 because that was their size before they were planed or whatever they call it. We also measure pool temps in F!
And for some reason, the entire aviation world uses feet for altitude
You could equally argue itās why the imperial system should be abolished
Especially since less countries use it
especially since there are multiple meassurements, with the same names but different values
Should see peopleās faces when you tell them that British and American gallons are different volumes :ā)
Fuel in UK is very confusing. I absolutely canāt wrap my head around how to estimate the price of fuel. Or range.
For me: anything above 30mpg = good enough Anything above Ā£1.60/litre = expensive
Pretty much same. Tho with range and consumption it depends where Iām heading and in what. At least in modern vehicles itās automatically calculated. I much prefer metric system, as itās what I am used to and it seems much more intuitive to me. I really like UK, especially Scotland due to its beautiful nature and castles. But I sometimes have a bit of struggle with imperial measurement systems. Theyāre quite interesting from my perspective.
Is this recipe a metric cup or is it an American recipe? Ugh.
Technically, "fewer" countries š
Unexpected Stannis.
[Word Crimes!](https://youtu.be/8Gv0H-vPoDc?t=57)
yeah but only Americans and their views matter. everyone else is abominable and have the moral rights of a gnat
America doesn't even use imperial. Just Americans. The military and scientific industries use metric. Nasa uses metric, spacex uses metric. It goes on and on.
And you know, imperial units are today tied to the metric one. No metric would make these imperial units unbound and not mean anything.
Americans are imperialists underneath it all.
yup they even have their own ~~colonies~~ Territories..
Here in the UK I never thought weād move away from imperial measurements (for weight, we still have for distance and some volume, e.g. miles, pints and gallons - though different pints and gallons than the US), but metric makes things so much easier, though I must admit being used to buying a quarter pound of whatever at a deli, and finding out 100g was a lot less was a learning curve
100g is less because you asked for less. When buying at the deli it is arbitrary. Just ask for 113g next time and you'll get your 4oz.
Iāve got it sorted now, this was donkeyās years ago when we changed to metric, pre smart phones, so if you hadnāt figured it out before you just had to pick a number that sounded reasonable, I even asked at the deli what would be the equivalent but they werenāt sure and 100g sounded reasonable, and like you said was only 13g less, which annoyingly was enough to be a slice or 2 of meat less then I needed
I ust always ask for š¤š» that much
Wait, you don't buy your deli meats in stones?
My dogs wish I did
Itās only 13g less.
itās over 10% less, which is quite a bit
So order 120g at the deli. Its not exactly hard
Weight for things you buy is almost always grams now, so it feels like the āx feet tallā and āx miles awayā will be the only ones left soon. Even then, I think thereās just a sense of pride on being āover six footā so thatās why people use it?
We often do in the UK. Having to use both is stupid. But hey, we can buy wine in ~~point~~ pint bottles now. Hooray! /s
Very little wine in a point bottle.
If you're in the West country a point is fair amount of woin.
Bah hoisted by my own petard. Never trust autocorrect. Ducking bone.
What's a point bottle?
Yes it should as only 3 countries use it so having the one system would eliminate errors, in theory, but humans make mistakes despite the simplest of tasks.
Especially when you consider that in this particular scenario it was the imperial measurement that caused the issue
Pssssst, if you donāt have any arguments to defend a stupid system, you have to make some up even tho itās obvious BS.
The urge to explain how backwards that logic is has sent me to the shadow realm. Bakura is my friend now.
I've instructed my brain to blank out any block of text that has that cry-laughing emoji in it and it's done wonders for my mental health.
Thank you so much for that yugioh reference, it made me extremely happy.
22,300lbs instead of 22,300kg suggests that the jet was refuelled by American ground crew, as America is the only country left that still uses imperial measurements in such things. So, rather than being a good example of why metric should be abolished, it is a perfect example of why America should stop dicking around being special and start educating it's people properly.
Canada was in the process of changing to metric, and ground crew screwed up the conversion. Aircraft's fuel gauges were also inoperative, and the holes in Swiss cheese model lined up.
Ok. So it was a Canadian cock-up while converting between systems. It doesn't change the fact that the US is the only country left using imperial and they really should get with the programme and stop expecting the rest of the world to conform to them. It's breathtakingly arrogant to assert that they're right and the other 95.5% of the world's population is wrong.
That's just Americans as a whole tho
Jesus, really? The fuel gauges were out? That's pretty shocking.
Happens frequently. With modern jet aircraft they know the fuel consumption and can make a reasonable estimate on the consumed fuel. If they hadn't filled it with half the fuel it needed, it wouldn't have been an issue at all.
*if americans could read, they'd be very angry* also tell them that the MM/DD/YYYY format needs to die too
For real, the MM/DD/YYYY is almost as stupid as the imperial system. Why do they have to use such weird measurements and formats? Why donāt use the same as the entire world, just to feel special?
To be fair, there are multiple different date formats. Like YYYY/DD/MM. Idk if the DD and MM are swapped or not, though. My point is is that there aren't just two formats
YY/MM/DD is completely fine, too! Just MM/DD is so stupid :D
How come? Just curious
Either use ascending or descending order, depending on what you needćFor human readability DD/MM/YY is easier, for sorting, so especially at a computer, YY/MM/DD is betterćPutting DD in the middle makes no sense, why would it belong there? Using YY, YYYY or omitting it all seems reasonable to me, depending on context, though others might disagreećTypically using YYYY is the best bet though bc it always workes and never is ambiguous
Order of scale. Nobody says or writes minutes/hours/seconds or seconds/hours/minutes or hours/seconds/minutes. If you'd write an exact time, you write for example 16:33:25, not 50:22:15.
I'm not defending it, in fact I don't care for it, but I believe the MM/DD/YYYY format is an an extension of everyday conversion use. We say, "May 30th" not "30 May." Adding the year to the end if needed. In school we were taught to write Month day, Year, e.g. May 30, 2024. That's how most people write it on checks (or used to back when checks were a thing). Making everything numbers simply preserves that traditional order. Personally, I find it confusing so whenever I'm asked to write a date I write out the month just to be clear. Of course some forms, especially online, require a specific format so I have no choice. Also for the record, I don't care for September being the 9th month or October, November, December being 10, 11, 12. We're stuck with it, though. (Sept should be 7. Oct, Nov, Dec should be 8, 9, 10). I understand the history. I still don't like it.
Nice flair dude š
America with its main character syndrome again. Lol.
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Ironic that Canada is not european?
No, perfect example of why they should instruct the people filling the plane to use metric Like they had no reason to use pounds, they're supposed to know that they should use metric
100%. We measure everything metric in healthcare. Why? Because peopleās lives are on the line. Same should go for pilots.
Same for NASA.
Wait a second. This pilot was skilled enough to glide the plane down from 41,000 feet but somehow didn't see that he was running out of gas until it was all gone?
The plane's fuel gauges weren't working, and the plane only had digital gauges without any analogue backup. Therefore, the pilots relied solely on the ground crew to confirm that they had added enough fuel, which was not the case. The investigators ultimately faulted the pilots for their decision to depart without properly functioning fuel gauges, which was against regulations. The ground crew's error in the mathematical conversion was only cited as a contributing cause, because the pilots should have also done an independent cross check to confirm the calculations, which they didn't do either.
According to the Wikipedia article (citing the investigation report), the crew did the calculations themselves because the ground crew failed to do so. But the ground crew failed to report the metric conversion rate, and without them being trained to do so (remember this was 1984), it isn't hard to see how the problem would occur.
When you laugh about stuff you don't understand...shows how dumb you actually are.
Can't ever imagine wanting to go back to imperial pints and lose the 2ml extra you get with a metric pintĀ
What is a metric pint?
Official name of the Australian pint. 570ml compared to the 568ml of the UK pintĀ
Thing you are forgetting - US pints are even smaller. So they are quite sad reading this
Fun fact as to why aviation uses weight as the chosen measurement for fuel; because volume changes based on temperature. Weight does not!
The difference with Americans is they have beliefs; and beliefs are never wrong as far as they believe. Americans are total amateurs at being wrong and become personally invested in seeing nothing but what they are told to believe. The most successful Americans have learnt how to accept that other nations life choices are not theirs to choose on their behalf. Like other Americans, this guy has detached logic that he can dictate to the world what practices they can or canāt use. Call him the Americanazi as he decrees what should be abolished outside his realm, in the name of his imperialism.
Is the commenter's profile picture so that button can easily be pressed every time they speak?
Iāve tried buying stuff online from the US. Often they wonāt even sell to themselves (only the continental 48ā¦ tough luck Hawaii and Alaska). Then thereās the whole problem that youāve got to do conversions from some archaic measurement system that no one else uses. Then the postal rates are insane. So in the end I buy from Chinaā¦ which doesnāt even speak Englishā¦ yet is infinitely easier to deal with. Next time Americans are complaining about balance-of-trade, loss of jobs, manufacturing going offshoreā¦ they should consider perhaps just how much international business they are losing by sticking to Imperial measurementsā¦and generally being excruciatingly difficult to purchase from.
Everything about America is seemingly deliberately built to induce insularity, even their postal system. So many Americans explicitly say they only sell within the US, and when they answered why, generally it was because their postal system is so obtuse when it comes to shipping internationally, and the system does nothing to help, and the shipper generally has that American lack of curiosity about everything non-American. I had something take weeks longer to be shipped than expected because I just gave my province code (BC), and I guess the postal clerk said they had no idea what BC meant and thought it was illegitimate, and did nothing to look it up or anything. The shipper, for her part, never looked it up herself or even cared to ask me until I inquired about why I didn't get my package weeks later and she said she didn't know what BC meant and thought since I couldn't be bothered to write out my full address properly I wasn't that invested in getting the product shipped. Lately, though, they also only ship within the US because they only want to take cashapp for payment.
I can *almost* understand Australia being a virtual different planet for the USā¦ but *BC in Canada?* It shares a common border with the US! Even I know thatā¦ and Iām not even on the same continentā¦ šš¤·š»āāļø
Exactly. To many Americans, it seems Canada is basically on the dark side of the moon for how unaware of it they are. In this situation, though, I wasn't even bothered by the fact she didn't know. It was both how the postal worker just did a š¤·āāļø, and that the shipper just thought I was the lazy one for not hand-holding them and writing out British Columbia, when we know they'd **never** have the same consideration in return. They just assume anyone in the world would know what AZ, or CO, or OK is.
Yeah manā¦. I know all the US state abbreviations. But then that probably says as much about the USās culture-export power as it does about its lack of culture-awareness power.
Problem established: Difference of units between metric and imperial Fact: Majority of world uses metric, save for america Probable solution which makes sense: Convert to metric American solution: Convert everyone else to imperial LOL
Fact: People who need to make precise measurements and calculations will use metric, even in the USA.
The plane was endangered by lack of fuel, which was caused by pounds weighing less than kilos .... therefore, not enough fuel to keep the plane in the air. So, the system at fault was the one Americans continue to use -- (bless 'em, poor sods!) Now, if instead it had been kilos mistaken for pounds, because kilos are bigger than pounds there would have been an EXCESS of fuel, maybe even more than the tanks could hold, neither of which would threaten the plane with a crash landing... ... would they? *Some people's logic is so obviously at fault, it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.*
The bigger question is why the hell are Canadian airline pilots thinking in pounds? Donāt they teach the metric system in Canadian schools?
This happened during the switch to metric
Yeah, it's definitely the Metric system that's the problem. I agree 212%
Or, the USA could go the extra 1760 yards and ditch freedom units too š
If you abolish the metric system then American units are meaningless. The latter are defined by the former.
As this happened just 41 years ago we should obviously switch to quarts and fluid ounces for fuel measurement. And football fields for distance.
Perfect example of why maintenance staff need to read the manual...
And use metric system, which is standard for international stuff.
Don't let us forget that the imperial units are legally defined by their metric value. This makes the imperial system just a skin they put on the metric system!
I suppose under that rationale the metric system is just a skin they put on light.
The metric system predates us knowing the speed of light. We later realized the most accurate way to define any unit of space is to use the speed of light since it will be the exact same regardless of time or location according to current best knowledge. The original definition was based on the circumference on the earth, and actually very slightly different to the modern meter.
Speed of light was first calculated in 1676. But their point remains, it's all just based on something else, the metric system is just representing set things. So is imperial, essentially those same things, just in a far more stupid scale.
Oh I agree with that. All of our measuring units are equally arbitrary, metric just makes the math easier.
Perfect example of why social media to have an account you would have to do some sort of intelligence test so we donāt have to deal with people like this
OK lets go along with Liberia, Myanmar and America and no one else at all! The SI ? Fogetaboutit! A hundred years of global standards. Tbh guys, the imperial system was really useful 150 years ago or before technology made it less useful than the metric system. So it was the greatest long ago but not now. Like you know, your country!Ā times_change
Americans already use Metric. USD is 100-based, dollars and cents. Just had to chuck out pounds, feet, inches, miles - and fahrenheitā¦
thatās just being decimal. metric means that everythingās derived from the meter.
Like kilograms too ? and kilowatts - for a car (not horsepower). Celsius tooā¦ Not everything is based on a metre (not meter)
Yeah thatās the problem here
No, it only means US Americans canāt adapt for shit, even if itās mission critical.
Wonāt abolishing metric take away some of their beloved guns? What will happen to a 9mm for example? (I apologise to Americans gun lovers; there may be more but it is the only one I know of)
Perfect example of why the metric system exists.. It's more precise, some idiot guessed with imperial and got it wrong like usual
That's why they use the imperial system in scientific contexts... oh wait.
Could I be out of touch by using the imperial system? No, no, it's the rest of the goddamned world that's wrong! (I could post the meme, but we all know it by now)
At least the profile pic warns you that whatever they just called out is bullshit.
Why aren't they using liquid measuring systems?
Because air fuel is measured in weight (Kg for the vast majority except the u.s.a.) throughout the world as everything in aviation is weight dependent!
Canada uses a weird mix of metric and imperial. They should choose one and be done with it so they don't have stuff like this happen.
We tried but the Conservative party stopped it before it was done, but didn't reverse it.
That event happened several decades ago, around the start of Canada's move to metric, when someone made a mistake. This stuff doesn't happen anymore. I do wish there was a concerted push to finalise the move, agreed we've a weird mixmash happening where we use metric for certain things (weather, distance, products, etc) but the Canadian Imperial system for other things (e.g. personal height & weight).
Seriously, is this for real???
Imperial system is a drunk uncle of measurements.
So because of some American airports mistake, every country in the world, other than America, and two third world countries that don't use the metric system, should all go back to using imperial measures? Stupid, selfish Americans
I love the way the US are fighting for a measurement system that most of the world has abandoned, that was given to them by the British, "the ones who exploited them". Even the Brits went metric!
They donāt even realise that their Imperial system is different from the original. Iāve talked to mature engineers that didnāt know.
So somebody accidentally added an amount in pounds, when they specifications were made in metric. To me, that seems like an argument to abolish the *Imperial* system.
I refuse to use feet for altitudes. 10000-12000m.
Not an American issue - this one was entirely caused by AC process failures. Google the Gimli Glider if you want to go down the rabbit hole.
I think the SAS content is the comment below the paragraph about the Gimli Glider.
The guy here is right. This time it wasn't the Americans' fault. The fuel weight calculation for Air Canada was always in pounds, then they changed to kg. Due to a malfunction they were unable to do the calculation automatically, so the pounds and kg were confused.
According to another comment the fuel gauge was inop as well. That was another part of the puzzle, Iām sure.
[Everything you need to know of the Gimli glider in one short video](https://youtu.be/jVvt7hP5a-0).
Sounds like some moron american got their hands on it
Didnāt the pilot check before take off?
He did. It was one of the first planes without a flight engineer. Canada was changing to metric, most of their planes used pounds and this was the first type to use metric. The fuel gauges were broken so they had to calculate it manually. The pilots were involved in calculating it but weren't really trained in it and without a flight engineer (whose job it would be) it wasn't really anyone's job. So with confusion over what figures were in pounds (like the other planes used) and how and what to convert to kg they checked wrong calculations and thought they were correct.
How? Weigh his plane? He probably checked that it was signed off, but wouldn't you think that the crew was competent at their job?
Keep in mind that this was an isolated historical incident that happened several decades ago...
Might just be a joke?
7.6 billion people use metric, 400 - 500 million use a mixture, it looks like only one is hanging on by the skin of it's teeth. The US & UK are pretty much down the metric route anyway, just the US won't admit it.
Are you tell me the airplane doesnāt even have a fucken fuel gage? How does this happen? Surely you look at the fuel gage and itās telling you the tank is half full so you call em and say, hey keep filling it up boys
They do but because of the quantities involved and it being spread across multiple tanks for balancing, the gauge doesnāt work as youād expect. It instead counts down from a figure itās manually set to after refuelling, then it measures fuel flow to calculate how quickly it should deplete. So if the person who filled it up thought lbs rather than kg, theyād likely set the gauge to 22,300kg and the pilotās only indication anything was wrong would be the feel from the weight difference since it would still be counting down as normal, from the correct value, it wouldāve probably still been reading 10,000kg or so when it ran out.
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The weird forces experienced during takeoff, banking etc would cause the liquid fuel to move about so much that a standard sensor wouldnāt work, it would be telling you itās empty one minute then full the next as the liquid moved
They use a capacitance system with sensors placed around the tanks in order to measure the quantity. Canāt use a basic float, as especially with highly manoeuvrable aircraft that can go upside down the gauges would be going ballistic.
Iām not an expert on the type of aircraft involved but spent half my working life in the Airforce as an engine and fuel systems mechanic. We never set a gauge to what we thought we put in. In large transport aircraft each tank had its own gauge and you selected which tank you wanted to fill based on the fuel load requested and in order to maintain balance. (You can easily make the aircraft look like itās tipping over if you get it wrong). When the flight crew took the aircraft part of their checks was to ensure the fuel load was correct. Fighter aircraft were similar but less specific. You just filled it until you couldnāt get any more in, every time.
Quick! How many yards in three quarters of a mile!? This is why the imperial system of measurements should be abolished. Even if the person being asked that question knows how many yards are in a mile, (which in my experience is a shockingly low number of people , even among those who have used the imperial system all their lives) itāll still take them a short while to work out the answer. Whereas the equivalent question in metric, how many metres in three quarters of a kilometre, basically answers its self.
Iām gonna guess about 1350yards? I mean, I *could* google it, but whereās the fun in that?
Unless youāre a maths prodigy or have the answer memorised for some reason, any quick answer will likely be a guess.
Ahh yes, but am I correct? This could very well prove me to be a maths prodigy š¤š§
According to my calculator the answer is 1320. Sorry, you were close, but it turns out youāre an ordinary mortal like the rest of us.
Thatās cool, I wasnāt far off and I was remembering my secondary school maths teacher the whole time, Iām sure he used to say that there was 1760 yards to a mile, but I might be mis-remembering. Thanks for the nostalgia āŗļø
No thanks I'd rather use a scientific and more accurate way of measuring than using something that isn't the oldest but is rarely used, being used by 3 countries and one of those countries is stupider than a pigeon
The metric system should be abolished because Americans don't like it or understand it. š¤Ŗš¤Ŗš¤Ŗ
Good job the pilot had 41,000ft and not just 13,000m to glide it down š
for all it's worth, the pilot still managed to save a nice amount of passenger's lives.
Gas is more expensive in metric
Ignore the fact that it is the most used and productive!
Americans fought a war against this British empire for their sovereignty just to be the only country to continue using IMPERIAL measurements? Psychotic
"We don't understand the metric system and are incapable of applying it.... it should be abolished"
That's human reading ability, it's nothing to do with what measurement system is used
Naw thats funny
Celsius 9/11 just doesnāt have the same gravitas