• Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca
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    19 hours ago

    100 m = 100 meters = 0.1 kilometers. Miles is abbreviated mi, as in 100 mi. I’m disappointed in you, The Picard Maneuver. Your jokes, shitposts, and memes are usually so much better than this. Are you ok?

      • Avicenna@programming.dev
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        9 hours ago

        anti-what? Is that like a negation on an actual joke that turns it into a non-joke but you can still read off the joke from its remnants?

        • ☭SaltyIcetea☭@lemmy.ml
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          2 hours ago

          basically. to make an anti joke you take the template of a normal joke and swap the punchline to something that isnt a punchline anymore.

          here is a anti-meme for example

    • toynbee@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      The Picard Maneuver

      Around here I think we’re supposed to refer to them as TPM.

      Until today I had assumed it was derived from “total percentage of meters” but now I just don’t know.

  • Zozano@aussie.zone
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    18 hours ago

    He’s going so fast, he took the optimal racing line, this American is truly a professional racist.

  • Grostleton@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    The abbreviation for miles is ‘mi’, ‘m’ is meters so apparently the American here is smarter than you OP.

    SMH

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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    1 day ago

    I’m confused and probably stupid, but…should the guy not be crawling 100 meters versus 1 km (1,000 meters)? What part of my brain has damage from being dropped as a child?

    • Spraynard Kruger@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      Thank you. I was looking at it thinking, “but 100m is only 10% of the other distance”.

      BTW for any curious non-muricans, miles is abbreviated “mi” so it doesn’t get confused with meters. The only slight exception is when you are dealing with transportation, where none of the units are abbreviated properly:

      • miles per hour = “mph” (should be mi/hr)
      • miles per gallon = “mpg” (should be mi/gal)
        • Spraynard Kruger@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          I think most people would understand kph = kilometers per hour. Don’t tell the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, though. They might get mad you for saying that.

  • CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    We joke, but the metric conversion act of 1975 means that most Americans are more familiar with metric than we care to admit. It’s on most everything. Mostly, it’s the professional class — engineers who don’t want to learn to visually estimate in liters/second rather than gallons/second — who have resisted switching over, rather than Joe and Jane American.

    • Zwiebel@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      Well the US units are defined by their metric conversion these days, so technically you are just using metric with some weird factor slapped on.

      So while the rest of the world uses meters with factors of 10, 1000, 1/100 etc., the US uses meters with factors like 3.280839895013123, 0.000621371192237, 39.37007874015748 etc.

        • owsei@programming.dev
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          6 hours ago

          Yes, because you are sticking with the base that matters for the value. Stuff on computer is binary, so base 2, so factors of 2. Other stuff we use the most common base, 10.

        • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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          20 hours ago

          Only for data and that’s a quirk of organising binary data in bytes. Factors of whatever your base is are better. Don’t think we’re going to be moving away from base 10 for volume or distance or power.

          • CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            I dunno, a half cup is 8 tablespoons, quarter cup is 4 tablespoons, an eighth cup is 2 tablespoons. A half liter is 5 deciliters, a quarter liter is 2.5 deciliters, an eighth liter is 1.25 deciliters. In cooking I’m much more likely to use binary arrangements than decimal, and the fact that metric users would use ml or cl instead of deciliters makes me think that ten isn’t really the magic number it’s cracked up to be.

            • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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              13 hours ago

              If you’re used to cups and teaspoons of course you’re more likely to use binary divisions. I’m more likely to use steps of 20% for that purpose. And if you want to actually tailor your proportions to match the one egg or whatever the indivisible object in your recipe is, then you end up with 241 mL or 13.57 Tbsp anyways. Anyway, ten isn’t the magic number, it’s just the one we use for almost everything, and already did when we had imperial measurements.

              • CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world
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                11 hours ago

                You and I, I suspect, agree here. I prefer 2; you prefer 5. But what matters about weights and measures is communication with other humans and everyone has decided to use a 10 based system and what matters is not your personal preference but interoperability. Mebibytes might be better than megabytes but you use megabytes in your documentation because that’s what everyone else uses.

    • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      As an engineer, I’d rather use the metric system. Is it harder for me to visualize since I didn’t grow up with it? Yes, but its so much easier to work with.

    • I’m convinced that the majority of whinging about metric in the US is actually coming from old machine operators tucked away somewhere in the industrial sector who don’t want to give up their old decimal inch Bridgeports and Shipleys, or have bosses who wouldn’t buy them new machines anyway. Everything else stems from there, bubbling on up through the pipes as it does.

    • bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      My son’s homework is frequently in metric (a US school district). Many drinks (wine and sodas) and medicine doses are too. The US uses metric just as the UK still uses miles and pints.

    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Huh? In my electical engineering studies almost everything is in metric. Are you thinking of certain holdover generations?

      • Spraynard Kruger@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        I’m a civil engineer in the US, and can confirm that my industry uses US Customary units. I have some mechanical engineer friends, and most also use US Customary units, with certain exceptions. While in school, the intro classes I took used metric more often than not because it allowed for easier understanding of the source material. By the 3rd year, classes started employing more examples and problems in US Customary units. By year 4, it was almost exclusively US Customary units.

        Forgive my lack of understanding here, but for electrical engineering, what are the alternatives to metric units? I know BTUs can be used instead of Joules, hp can be used instead of Watts, and AWG can be used instead of… Whatever the metric measurement is. BTUs and hp seem to be mainly used for specific industries and consumer products (let’s be honest nobody likes them anyway). AWG is used because that’s the standard that commonly available wires in the US are measured to.

        Temperature and length are obvious. More specifically, I am thinking of volts, amps, and ohms (my understanding caps out at what I learned in my physics classes).

        • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          19 hours ago

          I don’t believe there are any (unless you count length and mass measurements for physical component layouts). Perhaps it’s a byproduct of the field having international standardization for units from the outset.

          • Spraynard Kruger@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            I think you’re right about the international standardization. Also, I think another important factor is that the average American has a concept of how long a foot is, how hot 70°F is, how much a pound weighs, etc. These are easily to visualize because these measurements are used in everyday life outside of engineering applications. Most people don’t have a concept of the units we use to measure the invisible magic force in our walls.

  • Donebrach@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    6 month old Fake account posting slop. Good job Lemmy. You have become the enemy

    • blinfabian@feddit.nl
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      9 hours ago

      oh no, a new user posts shitpostings on the shitposting community, we cant have that 😔