It’s great fun especially when you’re trying to work out how fuel efficient your car has been when your tank and fuel pump is in litres and the fuel efficiency is in miles per gallon.
Oh and you’ll have a jolly time following a recipe from more than 20 years ago trying to remember what the hell “Gas Mark 4” is in centigrade for fan or convection ovens.
Oh and my personal favourite for the industry I’m in: when designing a PCB your component sizes will use imperial codes, your wire diameters will be in AWG, your track widths and PCB dimensions will be in millimetres, but your copper thicknesses will be in ounces despite the final weight for the assembly will be in grams.
Bear in mind that the gallon we use is different from the US gallon, too:
a UK gallon is eight (imperial) pints of 20 fluid ounces, so 4.54 litres
a US gallon is 231 cubic inches, so 3.79 litres
The reason that I thought American car fuel economy was so terrible as a child is partly because UK mpg is +20% on US mpg for the same car on the same fuel. But also, because American car fuel economy is so terrible.
It’s weirder when you look at Canada vs USA. Mileage here is usually written L/100km, but back in the day the cars were exactly the same but the mileage in Canada was better because the the US gallon is only ~83% the size of a proper gallon.
This! That stupid map that just shows the US and Burma always annoys me. The US customary system includes Metric units. Canada and England still use Imperial/Customary. And “Metric” Is actually like 5 different systems with similar features like ANSI/ISO, KMS/CGS, and the three different pressure measurements.
Natural units >>> Metric
I want an alternative to Metric that uses base 12 units instead.
It’s because we’re stuck with a bunch of twats who can’t let go of the past. They’ll stick with Imperial measurements, mostly because the word looks like “Imperialist” and that’s the side they want to be on. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a wrought-iron dildo.
The only part I disagree with is stone/pounds for people’s weight. Although we use stone, I’ve never heard someone use pounds… Maybe if you’re in Weight Watchers or something, but otherwise it’d be rounded to the nearest half a stone (e.g. 9 and a half stone)
Since volume is equivalent to metres cubed and distance is equivalent to metres (both multiplied by some conversion coefficient), I think fuel efficiency should be measured in metres squared, because why not.
A similar chart could be made for the US, proving that it does use metric: soda and wine bottles, medicine doses, eye-glasses measurements (in fact most medical things).
I think that both systems are used in schools now.
But then I see cooking instructions for a “cup of chicken strips” and a recipe having 1/4 cup of butter, and I wonder why anyone thought that volume was a good idea there.
May I present to you, how to measure like a Brit
It’s great fun especially when you’re trying to work out how fuel efficient your car has been when your tank and fuel pump is in litres and the fuel efficiency is in miles per gallon.
Oh and you’ll have a jolly time following a recipe from more than 20 years ago trying to remember what the hell “Gas Mark 4” is in centigrade for fan or convection ovens.
Oh and my personal favourite for the industry I’m in: when designing a PCB your component sizes will use imperial codes, your wire diameters will be in AWG, your track widths and PCB dimensions will be in millimetres, but your copper thicknesses will be in ounces despite the final weight for the assembly will be in grams.
Bear in mind that the gallon we use is different from the US gallon, too:
The reason that I thought American car fuel economy was so terrible as a child is partly because UK mpg is +20% on US mpg for the same car on the same fuel. But also, because American car fuel economy is so terrible.
Don’t forget that the UK fluid ounces are different (slightly smaller) than the US fluid ounces as well
20 UK fl oz = 19.21 US fl oz
Holy crap, that’s why craft beer tall cans are different from 16oz tall boys here in the states. I’d always wondered why the were 19.2.
It’s weirder when you look at Canada vs USA. Mileage here is usually written L/100km, but back in the day the cars were exactly the same but the mileage in Canada was better because the the US gallon is only ~83% the size of a proper gallon.
Thank you for posting this. So sick and tired of people saying that GB switched to Metric.
This! That stupid map that just shows the US and Burma always annoys me. The US customary system includes Metric units. Canada and England still use Imperial/Customary. And “Metric” Is actually like 5 different systems with similar features like ANSI/ISO, KMS/CGS, and the three different pressure measurements.
Natural units >>> Metric I want an alternative to Metric that uses base 12 units instead.
It’s because we’re stuck with a bunch of twats who can’t let go of the past. They’ll stick with Imperial measurements, mostly because the word looks like “Imperialist” and that’s the side they want to be on. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a wrought-iron dildo.
The only part I disagree with is stone/pounds for people’s weight. Although we use stone, I’ve never heard someone use pounds… Maybe if you’re in Weight Watchers or something, but otherwise it’d be rounded to the nearest half a stone (e.g. 9 and a half stone)
Yeah, it’s common talking about babies birth weight but that’s about it.
I’m 14st 13lb. Nowhere near 15 stone.
According to this chart, goat milk is vegan 🤔
Goats are actually malevolent vegetables.
Since volume is equivalent to metres cubed and distance is equivalent to metres (both multiplied by some conversion coefficient), I think fuel efficiency should be measured in metres squared, because why not.
But square inches, because come on.
A similar chart could be made for the US, proving that it does use metric: soda and wine bottles, medicine doses, eye-glasses measurements (in fact most medical things).
I think that both systems are used in schools now.
But then I see cooking instructions for a “cup of chicken strips” and a recipe having 1/4 cup of butter, and I wonder why anyone thought that volume was a good idea there.
If it’s medical, over 12%abv, or 2L of soda we use metric. Or related to spaceflight after the incident
Not milli-inches? Is this a UK thing or have PCB design evolve since I last touched it?
Anyway, milli-inches is one of the funniest unities I’ve used.
But what if it is horse milk?
Cubic hands?
How about spherical feet?
Short distances should be meters, feet, inches, millimetres.
None of that fractions of an inch bollocks.
And milk is often actually in litres and half litres, we just assume it’s in pints. Clever little bit of shrinkflation.
American machinists go a different way altogether: thousandths of an inch. So no binary fractions, but still imperial-ish. :/
That one makes sense.
Yes. Calculating how much a car journey is going to cost is such a chore. Trip in miles ÷ mpg × 4.5 × £/litre of fuel = cost.
I just assume I’ll do 45.45 MPG, then I’m pleasantly surprised when the fuel bill is lower than expected.
You forgot that inside temperature is in Fahrenheit, outside is in Celcius.
No it isn’t, I rarely see fahrenheit in the UK
Old people who still remember old money
How old are you? Even my parents, both in their 70s, use Celcius for everything.