Actual poster from 1917 that made me laugh. A lot.

Also, those motherfuckers are measuring the weight of those balls in kilograms, aren’t they?

  • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    One kilometer is 1000 meters, one meter is 1000 millimeters. One square meter is 1,000,000 millimeters, one cubic meter is 1000 liters.

    1 liter of water is 1 kilograms, so 1 cubic meter is 1000 kilograms. Sand is about 2.3 times heavier than water, so 1 cubic meter of sand is 2300 kilograms, or 2.3 metric tonnes.

    I’m 1.96 meters tall, or 1 meter and 960 millimeters, or 1 meter and 96 centimeters. I weigh about 85 kilos, or 85.000 grams. Being 65% water, I carry about 55.25 kilograms of water, which will fill a little over 55 one liter water bottles

    I can do this all day

    Now let’s do the same with imperial units! You first, cuz I’m not going to touch that shit with a 10 foot pole…

    • CommissarVulpin@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      One mile is 5280 feet, one foot is 12 inches. One square foot is 144 square inches, one cubic foot is 1728 cubic inches.

      1 gallon of water is 8.34 pounds, and 1 cubic foot is 7.48 gallons, so a cubic foot of water weighs 62.38 pounds. If sand is 2.3 times heavier than water, a cubic foot of sand weighs 143.5 pounds.

      I am 5 feet 10 inches tall, or 5.83 feet, or 70 inches. I weigh about 220 pounds, or 3520 ounces. If I’m 65% water, I carry about 143 pounds of water, or a little over 16 gallons.

      Guh

      • Preflight_Tomato@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        I had to check the math because 1 m2 being 2300 kg while 1 cu ft at 143 lbs seemed crazy, but with the volume difference it’s all correct.

        Thank you for putting in the effort 🙃

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          To illustrate, 1m³ = (100cm)³ = 1,000,000cm³ = (1000mm)³ = 1,000,000,000mm³

          You go from the single dimensional conversion between m and cm being a factor of 100 and 1000 for m and mm, to the 3 dimensional conversion being a factor of 1 million for m and cm or 1 billion for m and mm. It scales up fast.

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Cool.

        Also great way to miss the point.

        Now, no calculator. How many feet is 0.683 miles?

        I know that 0.683 kilometers is 683 meters.

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Actually, I think the entire world minus two or three countries,.one of them being the US of A.

        By pure coincidence I do live in Canada, but I’m dutch. Also lived in Mexico. Everything is metric and easy, unlike the USA.

        • macaroni1556@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          Your late reply made me realize I replied to the entirely wrong comment and yeah I make no sense.

          I meant to reply to the farming comment mentioning insane mixed units like Liters per Acre

    • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Height in imperial is kinda useful. If you say a person is 4 foot tall vs 6 foot tall it immediately paints a vivid picture

      • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        This isn’t some intrinsic value. What you’re used to makes the most sense. If you were used to measuring people’s height in meters, 1.3 meters vs 2 meters would paint just as vivid a picture.

        • exanime@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Classroom supplies for elementary school always included a 30 cm ruler, so you’d immediately know what 30 cm difference is

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        That paints nothing to me, nor anyone in the rest.od the world. That literally only works in the US and a few other thirds world countries…

        1-80 versus 2 meter does the same and makes sense