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Comment by perching_aix | Hacker News Reader

As a European if somebody tells me the diagonal size of a display in cm or meter, I'm simply not able to "grasp" it. I need to whip out the calculator and divide by 2.54, turning it into inches. It's just how monitors are measured in my head at this point.

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When the Euro was introduced, I've heard people say things like "older generations will never adapt to the new currency, they'll always refer to the old denominations in their head" – which turned out to be completely untrue.

Adapting to new units is very possible, but it needs a concerted effort. Absent a good inherent reason or anybody capable of artificially creating one, it won't happen on its own.

Did it? I feel like 60+ year olds (current age) mostly still convert (bonus points for not accounting for inflation)

Wasn't arguing otherwise. If anything, I was illustrating so: I used inch so much, that despite it not being the native unit of length measurement over here, for the specific purpose I used it for it managed to stick incredibly hard.

It was a true concern, I know people who never got used to it. But were 70+ at the time and dead by now, so it eventually gets fixed, yeah.

Using the diagonal to measure the size of a display is also a bit weird because it doesn't compare well across aspect ratios. A 34 inch 21:9 ultrawide is actually smaller (in terms of area) than a 32 inch 16:9 display.

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