Hacker News Reader

Comment by dorfsmay | Hacker News Reader

> Darn, how many of these incidents will we require until we finally get rid of the metric system once and for all!

Are you serious?

There are 3 countries in the world not using the metric system. The non-metric system is difficult to use because it's using 12 based units with a 10 based numbering system.

Sure switching over is going to be painful but that's true either way, and there are quite a few examples of people switching to the metric system but none, as far as I know, the other way around.

View on HN

Statement of retraction and apologies

On jul-25 at 11am pdt, charles_f was standing out to comment on an interesting aviation story. Seeing in passing a reference to issues regarding imperial and metric systems confusion, and given the popularity of this kind of debates on the internet, they decided to set course on a "joke".

The joke was thusly constructed: the metric system is commonly used across the world and much more sensical than outdated imperial system, and people commonly announce their discontent for the latter and ask to discontinue its use. Therefore commenting using the opposite point of view as if it were an evidence, and in a serious tone, had a chance to trigger surprise and interrogation in the reader's mind, quickly resolved by the idea that the author wasn't being serious and making fun of this debate, and triggering a chuckle. This type of jokes is commonly referenced as "sarcasm" in the professional jokers world.

But before the joke took flight, the joke funniness sensor wasn't working, as well as the joke and sarcasm announcement systems. The author sent Robert, their left moustachioed fat finger, to dip in the joky tank, and check if it was fun. Robert answered "yo bro yain't starting to finish all your jokes by 'just kidding' like a brainless soccer dad".

Based on this manual reading the author was reinforced in their certainty that the joke would work and maybe make someone else's life a little brighter for a half second (500 time thaus, for those using imperial), and decided to take off.

We all know the result. The joke worked, as some people understood it, but not all detected that it was one.

The author would like to apologize for, and retract the "<joke/>" that they added as a comment to their original comment, since adding a revelation that a joke is, indeed, a joke, undercuts the element of doubt and surprise necessary to maximize its effect and duration. The same goes for lengthy, rational discussions about said joke and should be avoided. (It turns out that this particular type of joke can be delivered in their lengthier form, which get ruined if its actual, underlying agenda is revealed in plain text). As such the author would like to also immediately retract this statement and apologize for it.

This is the single best response I have ever seen to someone not understanding a joke on the internet. And I can not agree more completely with

>adding a revelation that a joke is, indeed, a joke, undercuts the element of doubt and surprise necessary to maximize its effect and duration.

/s is a plague on internet humor.

I enjoyed very much the joke, and this response.

I think the GP might be yanking our chains a little bit.

Also you kind of have to include the UK in the list of countries that use imperial measures. We're mostly metric but the roads are in miles/yards and if you tried to take pints (which are larger than American pints at 568ml) out of British pubs in favour of the smaller half-litre it would make the party that did it instantly unelectable. People are nearly always measured in feet and sometimes weighed in stone (14 lb) too. I'm a little surprised we don't measure fuel efficiency in miles to the litre because that would be pretty typical of the British approach to measuring things.

I actually don't think it's a bad thing, a bit of mental maths never hurt anyone and it underlines the fact that units of measurement aren't handed down on a stone tablet as a fact of nature.

> if you tried to take pints (which are larger than American pints at 568ml) out of British pubs in favour of the smaller half-litre it would make the party that did it instantly unelectable.

Definitely something only a government with the ability to essentially erase history would able to pull off.

>>> if you tried to take pints (which are larger than American pints at 568ml) out of British pubs in favour of the smaller half-litre

FYI here in metric-land (well, Italy) we normally have glass of beer in the size of regular (600ml) and small (400ml), and half litre is usually used only for weissbier

What's the problem with just selling 568ml bottles? Why does it have to be named somehow?

Most bottles are 660ml and cans are varied, but many are 500ml.

However, in pubs and restaurants, the standard glasses are 568ml and half of that, for a half-pint.

Why would they remove that if you removed imperial usage?

What does it mean to “remove imperial usage”?

Are you suggesting we should stop calling it a pint and instead demand that we order “568ml of Hobgoblin, please?”

Why would we do that instead of just ask for a pint?

UK shops do just that, for example milk in supermarkets is still sold in pints but labelled in metric due to EU laws.

Not everywhere in the UK. In Northern Ireland milk is sold in 1pt, but much more commonly 1L, 2L, and 3L bottles.

Who really cares what names the glasses in bars have? Canada, Australia and New Zealand all use the metric system, and all sell pints of beer in their pubs. Australia and Canada also sell schooners of beer, which come in 425ml and 946ml sizes respectively (where a schooner is 103ml in the UK).

No matter what system a country uses, there’s nothing stopping a bar from selling 568ml portions of beer, and giving you one of those when you order a pint.

> there’s nothing stopping a bar from selling 568ml portions of beer

The law (via regulations) stipulates what sizes can be sold. As an example, this[1] from 2011:

> The centuries-old cry of "fancy a pint?" may soon become "fancy a schooner?" under plans to relax the strict rules dictating drink sizes.

> Current regulations mean draught beer must be sold in pints (equivalent to 568ml), halves (284ml) or the little-known "thirds", and wine in measures of 250ml, 175ml or 125ml

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12113880#main-heading

Whatever the regulations about portion sizes are, they’re independent from the measurement units used. The government is allowed to regulate portion sizes of 568ml, 284ml and 189ml.

Also, is it really illegal to serve a 150ml glass of wine in the UK? That’s insane… A 750ml bottle of wine is supposed to have 5 glasses in it, not 4.28

So you already have solution for non existing problem? Who cares about the imperial part if you already sell metric 568ml beers?

> the roads are in miles/yards

They actually aren't. They're all measured in metric, then roughly translated to imperial for the signs.

Original commenter was joking

> There are 3 countries in the world not using the metric system.

The US uses metric for many, many things. Frequently side-by-side with imperial equivalents. AFAIK it's also the official position of the USG that metric is prefered.

> The non-metric system is difficult to use because it's using 12 based units with a 10 based numbering system.

OTOH, 12 divides evenly by both 4 and 3, which are common divisions.

It's mildly worse than that, because the US uses metric side-by-side with US customary units, which at least for volume use the same unit names as Imperial but are smaller.

(Does the US use Imperial as well? My most common experience with US vs imperial measure is in pints of beer, although Canada has caught on to the 16 oz pint, and don't even start me on 12 oz "pints".)

The US does not use Imperial measurements that I know of, which can be confusing to Americans if UK mpgs are interpreted as equivalent to US values.

But there's more than one kind of ounce in the US. Fluid ounces are volume whereas dry ounces are weight/mass. From memory - and I memorized this from cooking - 8 fluid ounces (one cup or a half pint) is 8.337 dry ounces (assuming the approximate density of water).

Then there's metric horsepower vs. other types. It's clearly so much more natural for a horsepower to have a German name (pferdestärke!) and mean 735.5 watts instead of 745.7 watts (numbers copied and pasted, not checked).

> From memory - and I memorized this from cooking - 8 fluid ounces (one cup or a half pint) is 8.337 dry ounces (assuming the approximate density of water).

Why memorise this to such precision if you're already approximating away the density? The job is already done for you, 8 dry ounces is approximately 8 fluid ounces, whether its water, milk, oil, or orange juice. If you need to measure liquid mercury, you're not working in the kitchen; if you need greater precision, you need to measure mass or volume directly as appropriate.

>Why memorise this to such precision

Because that was the precision used by the particular author I got it from. It's not that the fourth s.f. really matters. I think the 7 actually helps my memory by making the number distinctive and not just 8 1/3.

It's like remembering that body temperature is 98.6 F. It's obviously false precision and it's not even an accurate average, but it's the way it's traditionally recalled - plus it works out to exactly 37 C.

>8 dry ounces is approximately 8 fluid ounces

I did write "cooking" originally and it is a valid point that when cooking as opposed to baking usually a little more or less liquid is immaterial.

But I meant to include baking and, say, mixing drinks.

A 4-5% difference isn't always important, but it's often noticeable. I've been using a digital kitchen scale for >20 years, and I just find volumetric measuring cups annoying compared to going by weight. I don't want to go back and forth filling a container and checking it on a level surface, to eyeball a meniscus, to wait for every drop of a viscous liquid to fall, or to sift flour.

I don't cook or bake with liquid mercury, but I use sugar, which is ~7 ounces per cup, and flour, which is (according to me) 4.25 to 4.5 ounces per cup. That's considerably different from 8 = 8.

> > The non-metric system is difficult to use because it's using 12 based units with a 10 based numbering system.

> OTOH, 12 divides evenly by both 4 and 3, which are common divisions.

If we could go back to the dawn of civilization and choose a base 12 number system that would be nice, but a bit late to change now. (IIRC ancient Sumerians used a base 60 number system, but that eventually fell by the wayside).

That being said, nothing prevents one from choosing dimensions that are a multiple of 12mm e.g. when woodworking.

> OTOH, 12 divides evenly by both 4 and 3, which are common divisions.

Interestingly, I don't hear pro-US-unit people apply this to money. The UK used to use money not based on 10, but changed during the 1900s. So it's not without precedence.

If 12-based is so great, I'm looking forward to the US listing prices as "10 dodecadollars, three dollars, and 3 dodecacents".

If you are in engineering or physics in the US, you use metric.

There are some beautiful conversions too: 1 m^3 of water is 1000 kg or 1 metric ton. It is also 1000 liters of water.

Wait until you run into the Imperial system's slug, a derived unit of mass, or the blob, the inch-based unit of mass in the Imperial system. 1 blob is 12 slugs.

The metric system is just logical and cleaner than the Imperial system. No crazy conversions e.g. 1 ft = 12 inches, or 1 ft / 5 = (1 ft * 12 inches/ft \ 5 = 2.4 inches = 2 inches and 0.4 inches is almost 25/64 or 13/32nds!!)

1m = 1000mm or 100cm and 1m / 5 = 200mm or 20 cm. 1m / 3 = 0.3 (repeating decimal) m or 333.3 (repeating decimal) mm. No fractions needed.

I can't tell you how many people struggle to read a tape measure down to a 1/16 or 1/32 or in machining to 1/64 and not really grasp it. Uncertainty in measurement is a recipe for disaster in science and engineering.

</joke>

Ah! Wasn't clear, should have added a /s.

No. Death to the sarcasm mark.

Are you serious? If not you forgot /s

But how else would these freckled ninnies know when sarcasm is implied, if not spelled out explicitly for them in the form of some putrid postscript marking?

Sometimes just assuming others aren’t being antagonistic is best. You’ll live a better life.

Explain how it wasn't clear as a statute gallon of 277.274 cubic inches of water.

That was neither clear (nor funny).

It was pretty funny ... and pretty clear.

It was instantly and undoubtedly clear to me.

I've heard that some countries half converted and it's been a disaster for them. They're using grams and meters but are still clinging to on the old base-12 time-keeping system. I hope the US doesn't stumble down the same path.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com