• Samsy@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Wait I’ve checked this, a Big Mac is 3,5 inches in height. That’s 94,5 inches not 74.

      Seriously, I’m an European and don’t know what I am talking about. Inches, Feet, Legs, Elbows… Lol only in america.

      Historians will get the Elbow joke.

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    Do Europeans really give their height in cm? You’d think they short hand it like to like 1.7m or whatever since height is one of those things that doesn’t really need to be exact and will change by a cm or so based on the kind of shoes you are wearing, or wearing shoes at all.

    • bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      When the metric system was introduced in the UK, the schools taught decimeters, decameters and hectometers, not knowing that no one would ever bother with those.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        Even if they are used rarely, they are still named.

        So it is good to know they exist in order to explain the metric system.

        I was still taught them back in the day in Belgium.

    • palordrolap@kbin.social
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      5 months ago

      Do North Americans really give their weight in lb? You’d think they’d short hand it like to like 15 stone or whatever since weight is one of those things that doesn’t really need to be exact and will change by a lb or so based on the time of day and what you’ve eaten.

      • PapaStevesy@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        No, we give our weight in pounds instead of ounces because weight is one of those things that doesn’t really need to be exact and will change by a couple dozen ounces or so based on the time of day and what you’ve eaten.

        • palordrolap@kbin.social
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          5 months ago

          No, see, here ounces compare to millimetres. If height and weight fluctuate over centimetres and pounds, and they do, lesser units should be disregarded, right?

          • PapaStevesy@midwest.social
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            5 months ago

            Stone isn’t a measurement in America, it’s inorganic material. The next-heighest commonly known weight is a ton, or 2000 lbs. Not very helpful.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        A better example would be if europeans really gave their weight in grams. I don’t think they do, they use kilo’s cause they don’t really need the precision of a gram for something like that.

    • Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You can round it to 10’s or 5’s.

      My licence says 183 cm. I’ll usually say 180.

      Edit: so the cartoon guy would probably just say 190cm

      • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        5 months ago

        continental europeans who know their height in feet must number in the hundreds! (my dad and i happen to be two because of Karl May reasons, but i doubt anyone else bothers…)

    • WoodenDing@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Germans do go with meters when talking about their height but they’ll give you two decimal places.

    • none@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Unless you happen to be 2 meters tall, yes, you would give your height in cm. You might round it, but you’d never say you’re 1.8m tall.

        • Instigate@aussie.zone
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          5 months ago

          Where I’m from, some people will still use feet/inches only for heights of human beings (weird, I know), but the most common response is in cm. For instance, if you asked me how tall I am I’d say 173cm, but I would say it like “I’m about a hundred and seventy-three” or “one-seven-three” - you don’t really have to say the units. Much the same as you’d say “I’m five foot seven” and you don’t need to specify “inches”.

        • zout@fedia.io
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          5 months ago

          Well, where I live, 1,85 m is less than average height, 1,90 m is more than average. It’s also a noticable difference, especially if you’re in the same height range.

            • zout@fedia.io
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              5 months ago

              The answer is if you round up to 1 digit, these heights are the same. So we give height in cm’s, because otherwise it’s not a usefull metric.

              • PapaStevesy@midwest.social
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                5 months ago

                Except numerous people in this thread say they and people they know give their height in meters. So I guess it’s not really never then, huh? Just saying, try not to be so absolute about something so inabsolute.

                • zout@fedia.io
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                  5 months ago

                  If they would really give their height in meters, they would almost all be 2 meters except for the very short people.

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Never ask why never.

          Not when it comes to height measurement.

          …Not when it comes to height measurement.

    • Ethalis@jlai.lu
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      6 months ago

      In France it’s generally in meters with two decimals, so basically the same as giving it in cm

    • Vaquedoso@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Not European, but from a country that also uses the metric system. We give out our height in meters, as you said. Saying it in cm would be okey for medical reasons I suppose. Also there isn’t much difference in what unit you use, you just have to multiply/divide by 100, which is easily done in your head

      • SomeoneElse@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        I use a wheelchair on occasion - when I’m unwell and use my wheelchair I measure about 3cm taller than when I’m well and have been walking!

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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      6 months ago

      Not europe but yes, we do it in cm. Never heard people rounding up or down to the tenth though, so 164cm is 164cm, not 160cm.

    • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      In my native language we say the equivalent of ‘one and eighty-five’ to refer to 185 cm of height, so basically we give it in meters.

    • unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      You always do it in cm wherever I’ve been. It’s either directly in cm, as in 172 cm or phrased in meters, as in 1.72 m. You cab say you’re around 170 cm tall or around 1.7 m tall, but the ‘default precision level’ is 1 cm

    • PostingInPublic@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      176cm would be given as “eins-sechsundsiebzig” in German, literally translating to one six and seventy (yeah it’s backwards), which works exactly like currency.

    • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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      6 months ago

      I guess its just because saying “one-seventy-nine” rolls better off the tongue than “one point seventy nine” or “one point eight”

    • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 months ago

      In German, you’d probably say 1 Metre 85 (Ein Meter Fünfundachtzig), or 1 85 (Eins Fünfundachtzig) to be more brief. I’m relatively certain that it very much differs from language to language, and probably regionally within languages.

    • Linssiili@sopuli.xyz
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      5 months ago

      When using feet and inches, its fine to use precision of 1 inch as it’s much smaller unit than 0.1 m.

      If one says that they are 5’11" (180.34 cm), they can be 5’10.5" (179.07 cm) to 5’11.5" (181.61 cm) tall. That’s 1.4% variance.

      If using meters with one decimal place, and say they are 1.8 m (5’10.9"), they can be 175 cm (5’8.9") to 185 cm (6’0.8") tall. That’s 5.6% variance.

      Thus it’s not really viable to use only one decimal place when using metres as unit, so in many languages it’s easier to just say the length in centimeters compared to use two deeimal places.

  • CaptKoala@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Fuck your freedom units. I’ll stick to sane units of measurement thank you.

    • Zess@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Personally I find 6 big unit + 2 small unit easier to visualize compared to a large number of small units 🤷‍♂️

      • set_secret@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That’s because your conditioned to do so. If you grow up with cm as your default height measurement it’s just as natural as your 4 foot 6 or whatever. 180cm i can easily visualise, it’s not that either is inherently better (although you know in your heart the metric system is superior 😉)

        • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Yeah, the adult range is roughly 150cm for a tiny woman, up to 200cm for a towering man. 170cm is pretty average for a woman. 180cm is pretty average for a man.

          So, 188cm is already a rather tall man.

  • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Metric system:

    • Tons of great subdivisions
    • Continuously and exclusively use the same two or three prefixes for everything ever
      • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        The world is flat, birds aren’t real, and there are only three prefixes in the metric system. You get it.

        • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          All the prefixes are just base ten though, so who cares? They don’t add more subdivisions.

            • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              You said the metric system has tons of great subdivision which is objectively false. Prefixes in the metric system only multiply by 10, which by definition does not and cannot add additional sub-divisions. The point is that while the metric system is a useful system of measurement in very limited situations, the biggest advocates for it have no idea why they like it, and are ignorant of it’s deficiency’s.

              Let’s try to raise the discourse a bit. Divisors are absolutely the most important part of a human-centric numeric and unit system, and the metric system, being a base 10 system, absolutely sucks at that.

              • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Elaborate on how it’s “objectively false” that there are plenty of subdivisions, especially lots of subdivisions that aren’t frequently used.

                This should be good.

                • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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                  5 months ago

                  10 has 2 divisors, or “subdivisions,” that is not “plenty” that is 2. Thus it is false, objectively, to claim that 2 and 5 are “plenty.”

  • Bianca_0089@lemmy.today
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    5 months ago

    I just wish people would step up to a bigger scale when it’s needed or to a smaller scale for the same reason. I hate seeing big massive boats measured in thousands upon thousands of centimeters instead of just using meters or feet, and it’s annoying when people say their height in hundreds of millimeters.

    Or when knife-blade thickness gets measured in hundredths of decimal inches or weird fractional measurements instead of just using millimeters since it’s a smaller unit.

    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      I hear americans measure tire thread depth in 32ths of an inch?? I mean it’s nice that you’re using powers of two but huh?

    • gentooer@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      Yeah, I never heard anyone tell their height in centimetres. It’s always like “I’m 1 metre 71” or so.

      • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        IDK about english-speaking places, but in Hebrew we’d say “meter 70”. I never thought about whether this is strictly grammatical in Hebrew, but by the descriptive approach I guess it must be because it’s commonly used.

        Edit: but it doesn’t really work when you want to write it as a number so you’d have to write either 1.70m or 170 cm (if you prefer 1m 70cm that’s fine but it’s two numbers)

  • limelight79@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    All these comments, and I’m wondering who would ask someone about their height like this…it’s pretty easy to estimate someone’s height just by observation.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Eh, I’ve seen it as a smalltalk topic, to just want to know what the height is precisely, especially when someone is particularly tall.

  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    I’ve gotten so sick of working with people in multiple timezones that I’ve just started using UTC for everything.

    Fuck you for living in a different sliver of the planet. You aren’t gonna make me do all the math. I’m bringing you down with me.

    Let’s see them tremble when daylight savings time ends.

    • efstajas@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Your comment made me realize how we take for granted that everyone at least measures time the same way. Imagine the clusterfuck if there was metric time & imperial time.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        Thank colonialism

        Imagine we determined seasons based on the birds flying into a meadow in Japan

        Or we measured days in quarters like Thailand (France forced their neighbours to use 24h time but since Thailand…then Ayutthaya and later Siam were never colonized they kept their weird clocks)

        Russia never adopted leap years so that’s why Russian New Year is at a different time than the rest of us

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          5 months ago

          Well, at least there are global events that correlate to the true seasons - equinoxes and solstices - that can be observed and measured anywhere in the world (except maybe at the geographic north and south poles? Not sure).

    • Crazazy [hey hi! :D]@feddit.nl
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      5 months ago

      idk if all my calendars around me have been implementing it wrong, but if not, UTC is also affected by daylight savings, making it the same time zone as GMT

      • EntirelyUnlovable@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        UTC isn’t supposed to be affected by daylight savings, neither is GMT which should be UTC+0. During daylight savings the UK changes to BST, which is GMT+1

    • Jentu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 months ago

      Haha I work with people in the Midwest and west coast and do this too. But I still have to whip out the UTC time converter, so it’s 90% of the work just to be a bit of a pest.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        In windows 11 (and possibly windows 10) you can add additional timezones to your clock. Your primary time shows at all times, and the other time zones show when you hover over it.

          • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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            5 months ago

            No worries!

            If you really want to be a dick, get in the habit of sending out everything in UTC (make sure you are labeling as UTC to avoid confusion), and then when you work exclusively with people in your own timezone (let’s say EDT), you say something like “let’s sync up at 15:30UTC-4.”

  • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    You can see this was made by an American.

    Because why would the European use decimals for their own height? Just so it rounds to the nearest inch? Unlikely.

    • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Particularly one who doesn’t understand significant figures. Are you certain that you’re precisely 74.000 inches, without even a thousandth of an inch of rounding? If not, you don’t get to use 5 sigfigs when converting.

      • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        I thought the joke was that the bald guy only accepts “n feet m inches” (0 ≤ m < 12) and any other format is not allowed

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Mathless morons should be exiled to the middle of the saharan desert with a 5l bottle of water and a metric measure map to the nearest settlement