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Comment by Andrew_nenakhov | Hacker News Reader

I wonder which country of the mighty triumvirate of USA, Liberia and Myanmar would be the first to leave this club.

Plenty of other countries still use “foot” as a measurement. Try asking a Canadian or Brit how tall they are in cm

I'm 23 buckets tall and half a periwinkle.

Canadians still use the imperial system personally but the country is metricized. We’re just stuck with paper and wood in inches because we’re next to the US.

There are a lot more similarly arbitrary things than just paper and wood which are measured in imperials in Canada.

I'm reminded of this (comical) guide I first saw posted on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/e1hx4f/how_to_c...

It's on the way out, but in Ireland people are colloquially weighed in stones, sheep in kgs and feed in lbs. For a while, speed and distance weren't compatible.

Metric money was a similar issue in the 60s. People still thought in shillings for decades. I read that historically (especially in Britain) entirely different counting systems were used simultaneously. Shepherds had their sheep counting numbers, sailors had a different one.

Dialects ran deep, not long ago.

Incidentally, it's lucky that metric never became known as "The French System."

Speaking as a Canadian mechanical engineer: pretty much all raw materials. Metal bars, beams, sheet and plates, etc. Wire in AWG. Cutting tools for machining are also way more common in inch sizing.

At least metric fasteners are becoming common enough that I can use almost 100% in my designs.

I think most British people under 40 would measure height in cm, so it’s dying out.

I can tell you (I'm English) and i would expect most people can (with those preferring feet skewing older of course).

The only "in your face" use of imperial is speed limits. Maybe one day that will get fixed.

I think they should switch to m/s. Seems far more intuitive as a way of understing speed.

Going 30 down the highway. Roflmao.

Edit, hey this actually works out quite well, 1 for walking speed in parking lots and 15 round town.

Though I do think going the other way might be better. 3000 down the highway.

In Britain we overwhelming use metric in business, construction, industry or science. Things like feet for height still have resonance but more in a cultural way than practical.

Myanmar doesn't use imperial units or US customary units.

They use traditional Burmese units. Non-metric doesn't equal imperial/US customary.

It is not a club of countries who use imperial units. It is a club of countries that do not use metric system.

Btw before the coup Myanmar seemed to be on a path to finally convert to metric system, but now I think they have bigger issues to worry about.

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