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Comment by once_inc | Hacker News Reader

That is mostly because the international space community works with metric, so the Karman line is at 100km above earth, and converting to imperial units would be forced.

Remember, there are only three countries that use imperial units; two third-world counties, and a global superpower.

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The US doesn't use imperial units: it uses "US customary" units. Some of them are the same, but others are not. For instance, a gallon in the UK is very different from a gallon in the US, which causes miles-per-gallon ratings to be quite different between the two countries. The UK's gallon is properly called an "imperial unit" since the British actually had an Empire; the US did not.

That’s not entirely true. The UK and Australia use Imperial measurements quite frequently, especially for speed.

Colloquial speed yup. Not scientific speed which is m/s

Road distance is miles, running its metres. Except for the marathon. Beer is pints, my milk is litres but you can get pints. The lamb in the fridge for the weekend is 2.3kg, I’m 5’11 and way a little over 14 stone as I’m far, probably because of the 200g of Brie I am thinking about eating tonight. I was looking at a floor plan the other day, the room was 6.5m x 3.8m

hi, i’m australian, the only time i ever use imperial is if i work with hydraulic hoses or (rarely) tell someone my height we pretty much only use metric, unlike the uk

Also Australian, can confirm although TV/monitor screen sizes are also usually expressed in inches.

We also haven't made the switch to metric time yet ;)

Here in Japan, TV screens are also in inches. But they don't call them "inches" usually; instead, they're marketed as "85 type" (for an 85-inch screen).

it just detracts a bit from the "wow so high! 10 miles! factor" for the luddites among us

12,875 metres high, and when you touch down

You'll find that it's stranger than known

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