• clif@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Fun fact, they short changed the horse:

    Over a short period of time, they calculate, a horse can exert up to 14.9 horsepower.

  • MudMan@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    OK, just to sanity check, because it’s not clear from the comments below.

    We all realize that metric areas do use hp for car engines as well, right?

    And a lot of them also do inches for TVs, which is weird and forces you to go digging into the specs for the cm measurements whenever you want to see if a TV will fit in a space.

    EDIT: Oh, I’m wondering now, do people use liters/cc for engine volumes in the US? I don’t know, but I also haven’t ever heard of a different way to refer to engine volume ever, so they must. What would they use instead?

    EDIT 2: For my money the most annoying unit conversion in car measurements is the US going for miles per gallon, keeping the volume of fuel constant and giving you the distance while metric uses liters per 100km, keeping the distance and giving you the volume of fuel. It may as well be impossible to convert between the two.

    • BluesF@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      In the UK we use metric and imperial so you can buy things in kilos but also measure your efficiency in MPG. Welcome to the island of the future/past.

    • Fonderthud@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Engine displacement is measured in liters or cc as standard. Harley Davidson demands in using cubic inches though.

    • Still@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      we have to dig to the specs for tv size cuz the size of tvs is the diagonal screen area not the actual size

      we use cubic centimeter for small displacement engines where the whole displacement is measured (is car) and cubic inches for the large ones where the displacement is measured per cylinder (ie trains)

      yup, reciprocal area measurements are a pain

  • WoefKat@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    How much do you weigh? As much as 11 stones and 2 pebbles.

    How far is that? 2 feet and 5 thumbs.

    How fast are we going? About 6 knots in a rope that’s hanging overboard.

    It does make me laugh sometimes sorry. But the real problem is not the base units… It’s the multiplication factor.

    • Deme@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I agree that most of the imperial system sucks, but knots (and by extention nautical miles) have a good reason for being used everywhere when navigating long distances around the globe because both are based on the way coordinates work.

  • zurohki
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    1 year ago

    My electric vehicle, when set to imperial, will display charging speed in horsepower.

    Apparently a wall outlet can provide 3.2 horsepower.

      • zurohki
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        1 year ago

        Giving me horsepower for the motor output instead of kilowatts kind of makes sense, but it changes everywhere.

        The battery just displays as a percentage, otherwise it might tell me the energy remaining in horsepower hours.

  • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    Ironic.

    The American truck complaining that the EU is too regulated, while in the US something as simple as headlights are so overregulated they blind people while driving.

    In the EU the headlights simply aim their lights away from incoming traffic automatically, which was a crime in the US until like last year.

    • Hubi@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      In the EU the headlights simply aim their lights away from incoming traffic automatically, which was a crime in the US until like last year.

      That only works like half the times at best. I’m still constantly getting my eyes lasered by big ass SUVs while driving at night. Not even counting the people that have misadjusted headlights.

  • Granixo@feddit.cl
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    1 year ago

    Ok, i’m gonna be that guy.

    Newton meters (Nm) is a measure of torque.

    While horse power (HP) is a measure of engine power.

    You obviously cannot convert one into the other because they mean different things.

    Also, when EVs eventually become the mayority, the kilowatt (kW) is gonna take over as the new standard for measuring engine power.

    • Skua@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Joules actually are Newton-metres, in a sense. A joule is (genuinely) defined as the work done when a 1 Newton force displaces a mass by one metre. So as long as you’re willing to risk the Bureau international des poids et mesures assassinating you for your physics crimes, you can totally pretend that Newton-metres are for measuring energy and Nm/s is a reasonable way to measure power. While you’re at it, you should measure torque in Coulomb-volts for the same reason

  • threethan@reddthat.comOP
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    1 year ago

    I made this as a total shitpost but I’m loving the informative comments. Godwin’s law at its finest.

  • ThePJN@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Bah! Most people have never even seen a horse. I never would have, had we not been dragged to see the pervert horse ballet when it came to town.