• Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 days ago

    You can but there are real examples where mixing units results in failure. NASA lost a 125 million dollar mars probe in 1999 because JPL and NASA use metric but Lockheed Martin added acceleration data in American imperial units.

    It might be a circle jerk but it is also best practice to use a standard system and there’s really only one holdout on not using that system. I say this as an American who wishes people would just use metric because it’s just easier unless you just fucking love fractions of an inch.

    • HarneyToker@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Your example of not mixing systems up within projects is somewhat valid, but not applicable to the whole. There are a lot of uses for Imperial, and using Imperial in landscaping does not have a chance of causing catastrophic failure in rocket science.

      • Sunshine (she/her)@piefed.caOPM
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        3 days ago

        There are a lot of uses for Imperial

        Other than it being “cultural” and laziness there’s no point in keeping imperial. Stop using an obsolete system so we Canadians can switch our stoves to Celsius without having to worry about you yanks cooking with our equipment and hurting yourselves.

        I’m going to use metric for height and weight. I don’t care if some wanker American complains they can always head south if they want or visit Liberia for a getaway, get with the times already.

        • HarneyToker@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          The metric system, base 10, is not easily breakable into thirds without irrational numbers. In aesthetic fields, such as landscaping or interior design, the ability to break something into exact thirds, quarters, halves, fifths, sixths, and so on, is invaluable. It’s not just cultural. It sounds like it is to you, which is weird… why are you personally identifying with a unit of measurement?

          I also don’t understand your Liberia reference. Could you elaborate?

          • Honytawk@feddit.nl
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            3 days ago

            The metric system, base 10, is not easily breakable into thirds without irrational numbers.

            Says the metric that freaking uses fractions…

          • i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 days ago

            Liberia, until 2018, used the imperial system. They were one of three countries that used the imperial system, Myanmar being the third one. They are currently in the process of using metric, but it appears they are using both for now.

            • HarneyToker@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              Not sure why you can only go to Liberia, I’m sure you can buy a meter stick when you arrive in Europe.

              Man, we should all just use the same currency so we don’t have to do all these crazy conversions! Maybe we all start just using the US dollar? /s

              • i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                3 days ago

                I was just explaining the Liberia part of the comment, I was not the commenter. I am American and like both metric and imperial. I prefer metric for baking and applications where higher precision is useful, but use imperial for most other things since that is what is commonly used around me.