I recently converted all my recipes to metric and now I dump everything in a bowl on a scale. Total game changer.
Welcome to the modern times!
That is because weight is more accurate than volume.
Volume was previously used because the measuring tools were cheaper and easier to use than a scale.
It's more accurate, it dirties fewer dishes, it's easier to scale recipes for larger or smaller batches, and it's much easier to fine tune portions. Plus, I make a very consistent coffee. I found something I like a lot, and I want it to be extremely repeatable.
I usually use grams to measure things into equal portions, easy maths I can often do in my head.
Metric was too confusing for bullets, so we use both, and but neither of them are actually the diameter of the bullet, most of the time.
.223" is the same diameter as 5.56mm (which is 5.7mm across), but if you use 5.56 in a 223, it might kill you.
223 in 556 is fine, might fail to cycle.
then why is it called 556 if its actually 5.7?
556 was the measure of the inner diameter of the rifling of a barrel of a gun that shot 556.
Metric is confusing. That's why for most shotguns, we measure the width by the number of lead spheres of that diameter that would equal one lb, eg a 12 gauge shotgun is the diameter of a 1/12lb sphere of lead.
Nobody knows how big 18.53 mm is, but everyone knows what a 12 gauge shell looks like.
Oh, and gun powder is measured in grains, maybe early smokeless pellets were about the same size as grains of wheat.
Even the "metric" measurements for firearms ain't necessarily true measurements either. Lots of them get rounded off or simply depend on just how they made the measurement to start with, (land to land or groove to groove). In any case a bullet diameter is almost always going to be just a tiny bit larger than actual bore size for modern cartridge bullets.
Americans use the metric system.... to define the true values of the entirety of our customary measurements!
If the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, metric is the reserve system of measurement.
By the way, the dollar is metric. 🤯
We’re really all just depending on SI at the end of the day.
That's not fair. We also use it to weigh drugs
Only below 3ish grams or above 1000 grams though.
You must think us Americans are just really stupid because we still use imperial, and violent because we'll only modernize our units for weapons, but you're wrong.
We also use metric units for dispensing soda, and measuring engine displacement.
So we're fat and we're obsessed with cars too!
We also using when weighing drugs!
dispensing soda
Only the 2 liter bottles. We still generally use 12 ounce cans and 20 ounce bottles. Our gas station/fast food fountain drinks are also measured in fluid ounces.
Also for marathons. To work off all that soda.
That's not true. We also use it in medicine. To measure, in mm, our progress to universal healthcare.
Medicine, you say? Well explain THIS. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the "French" scale of measurement, used to denote the diameter of catheters. WHERE:
1 Fr = 1/3 mm
Sickening.
The values are all negatives aren’t they?
Also drugs. You just try buying meth in imperial.
I wish the US had made the switch to metric back in the 70's. I remember having to learn it in grade school, and there seemed to be a push for it, but never went anywhere. I now work as a chemist where everything is done in metric, but then go back to US measures once I punch out for the day. Would be nice to have a single system instead.
In fairness... Most of the "behind the scenes" are done in metric so we kind of did convert to metric. It's mostly just the public that is imperial still.
back in the '70s*
Right? OP paid attention in math class but not in English.
And only some of the bullets.
Some of them we disguise the metric cause it's anathema to us, 30 aught 6 for instance.
Look at what we've done just to not have to refer to millimeters!
I think it started for the same reason we have metric tools; foreign imports.
Chad rest of the world: We only use imperial system to measure pizza, height, body waist and dicks.
What part of the rest of the world does that?
I'm from the rest of the world that would measure all those things in centimeters. I think only screen sizes and some tools would be in inches
Canada
screen sizes
Where I'm from, even that has a cm rating right next to it.
Canada is one of those "rest of the world places". Officially uses metric but the general population here (unless they are recent immigrants or work in the medical field) will tell you their height in feet and inches, their weight in lbs, they will tell you a recipe using Fahrenheit. Pizza is measured in inches. If you buy food, like deli meat, it is displayed in grams on the scale but a lot of people will ask for a half lb or whatever still. We use km for speed but we still use square footage if you are selling a house. Unless they are boomers or older, we will use Celsius for the weather though. I remember growing up learning metric and it was fine, everything made sense, then when I hit college was forced to learn American imperial for my job field cuz that's what the American standard was. I hate that I think in inches and feet for a lot of crap now. It's irritating switching back and forth depending on what you are doing.
There's ton of weird niche stuff. Mostly cycling related here but you get the point...
Bicycle pedal axle thread size
Bicycle wheel and tire sizing (actually metric standard but inches in common language)
Also wheel size on cars
Bicycle steerer tube diameter
10mm qr axle diameter on hubs (3/8" actually)
25.4mm handlebar clamp diameter sounds oddly familiar...Most proper denim pants are sized in inches, even from non-US countries.
But of course vanity sizing is a thing so a size 36 is closer to 38in unless explicitly specified, and most online retailers provide true sizing in cm anyway, so there's that.
In Australia it's fairly common to see pizza sizes in inches. The body stuff not as much, but sometimes.
I guess also bike wheel sizes, screens sizes. Height and body waist? Are you talking about the UK? Europe only uses inches for products that have certain expected sizes.
(may be a bit of an off topic rant)
The cluster fuck that is the UK's measurement system can be easily summarised by looking at fueling a car.
You fill your car from a pump that sells you litres of fuel. Then your car reports its fuel economy in miles per gallon.
How the fuck am I supposed to relate the 40 litres of diesel that I just bought to the 35 MPG on my dashboard without a fucking calculator?
I fucking hate it here. It's the exact same British exceptionalism that brought us fucking Brexit.
Television screens, hard drive sizes, PCB dimensions, car tires, rims, nails (though they're usually 9 inches)?
And bicycle parts... for some reason. Might be a UK thing.
If you're gonna start somewhere; it makes sense to start with the schools...
The US does in fact teach the Metric System in schools, it just doesn't get used for much outside of the Sciences, Firearms, Alcohol, illicit and Prescription Drugs, and Soda.
We see far more metric measurements than we actually notice every day. Almost every item in your grocery store shows both US Customary and Metric measurements right next to each other on the label. And we buy whisk(e)y in 750ml bottles.
But I would argue there is probably little reason to stop buying butter by the pound(454 grams) vs switching to selling butter in 500 gram packages. And no one misses buying whisk(e)y by the fifth rather than in 750mL bottles. Even when traveling no one really cares how many miles or kilometers it is from New York City to LA. All anyone really cares about is "how long" will it take to get there. Nor does matter if you measure your dick in inches or centimeters - it's still gonna be too short according to that woman you picked up at the club last weekend. I honestly suspect we are going to keep using a bastardized mixed system for a very long time for common everyday usage while doing "official" things metric.
The real question is: Where did all those 9/16" wrenches disappear to during the "good ol' days." And why can't I find that bloody damn 10mm socket today? What is up with that?
Hey we also use it in medicine to treat all those bullet wounds!
We also use it for engine displacement.
Basically all cars are all metric (for fasteners, etc.) these days. Even my '90s Ford is metric.
I have a '93 Ford and it's a bastards mess of SAE for one bolt and Metric for the next one.
It's also used in measuring soft drinks like the 2 liter bottle
I often see posts where people say that they weight like 260 liter bottles and lost 7 liter bottles over a week or something. Americans are crazy.
Also, bullet holes.
Nah, we just use it to define inches and pounds and the like.
To be fair, we mostly just did that for the European bullets
I think the British measure calibres in imperial.
.500S&W and .50 Browning would like a word.....
12.7×41mmSR and 12.7×99mm NATO have no words.
Those are mere translations for those that lack Freedom Units(tm). And not how the inventors intended them to known as. (Blessed be John Moses Browning and in His name we shoot)
Why is one called .500 and the other .50? I looked them up and both are basically the same diameter but I don't get the origin of the name itself (especially since the .50 is actually .510 diameter??)
They are, in fact NOT the same diameter. Despite what the names may imply. A .500S&W has a bullet diameter of .500" to prevent classification as a destructive device by the BATF in the US.
The .50BMG, is .510" bullet diameter. It is allowed because it's been grandfathered in - it's been around for a very long time. And the few people who can afford to actually own and shoot something in that caliber aren't a whole lot of people - despite what Hollywood, and to be fair some politicians would have you think. Stuff be stupid expensive Yo.
There are no legal or industry required conventions in naming rifle cartridges. You can pretty much call it whatever you want. Even the Europeans do this. You can have a rifle in 8mm Mauser, 8x57 Mauser, or 7.92x57 Mauser. And tehy all refer to the exact same cartridge and are totally interchangeable. There was a brief time with early black powder cartridge arms were about. They would name a cartridge something like .45-70-500 Government. This would tell you the bullet was .45 caliber with a 70grain powder charge, and the bullet weighted 500grains as used by the US government. And then by the late 1800's they somehow lost the thread and went completely off the rails bringing us to today. (I blame the French. Why? No reason, I just irrationally do.) Where many of the "new" calibers are often re-treads with a new name, because marketing.
as a non gun person, how much are we betting that we use metric sizing, and the load them based on imperial standards (for the ammo manufacturers that work in the US)
(It's just a way to brand....a 5.56 bullet is a .223 bullet but a 5.56 cartridge is much "hotter" then a .223, you can fire a .223 through a 5.56 rifle but I would strongly recommend not doing 5.56 in a .223)
This isn't true. Both 5.56 and .223 can be loaded to a variety of pressure specs. 5.56 being hotter is fudd lore due to it being the military spec.
The difference between the two comes down to how the neck of the cartridge is measured. The the 5.56 is rated to withstand a certain pressure...it does not mean it is always loaded to a higher pressure.
The reason you don't want to shoot 5.56 in a .223 is because the cartridge neck doesn't fit the chamber properly and the resulting incorrect headspace is what can cause a catastrophic failure ..again it's not due to the round being hotter.
if there is one thing i will never put time into learning, it's all the variants of them.
While that's true, another reason not to put 5.56 into .223 is that 5.56 has a slightly longer casing that might not have room to expand in a .223 rifle.
And a .308 is a 7.62mm NATO. You can fire a 7.62 through a 308, but you shouldn't fire a .308 round through a 7.62 NATO gun because of a slightly different shell shape and higher pressure loads.
This is a pretty good video explaining why the imperial system in the U.S. isn't as bad as it seems: https://youtu.be/iJymKowx8cY?si=wcyG7yM150e71Rn4
Just because it isn't as bad a joke would imply doesn't mean it still isn't really quite bad
Base 12 vs base 10 is pretty much the only objective advantage of USC, and it only uniquely occurs in USC for small construction-scale tasks (i.e. the inch-to-foot scale).
I don't think people critiquing USC are unaware of what this video is saying. We just think it's still worse.
source: 8th gen American who would rather switch to SI
Good luck getting the rest of the world to switch to SI. They prefer their less than perfect "metric" system.........
SI is the one true metric system!
I think farenheight is far superior to Celsius specifically for weather forecasts. 0 = very cold, 100 = very hot, 50 = medium.
Feet being roughly the size of a human foot, and inches being roughly the length between first and 2nd finger joint is also nice.
For anyone thinking of clicking the link, the first 27 are all you need to watch.
If you're that much of an idiot, and don't want to hear competing arguments, why click the link in the first place?
The United States has been on the Metric system since the late 1800s like every other Western country.
In what useful sense?
Every food label, with very few exceptions, lists the contents in either grams or milliliters, in addition to ounces or fluid ounces. Every thermometer I've ever seen has both Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. We buy electricity in watts with metric currency. We measure the light output in lumens, and the common lightbulb sizes are measured in millimeters, but the wires that carry the electricity are measured by AWG. The parts on my bicycle and car all use metric measurements, except for tires. Tires are an unholy abomination with section width given in millimeters, the cross-section in a unitless ratio, and the rim diameter given in inches.
Meh, what're you gonna do? We switched to, or adopted, SI and metric where it made sense, but we have a lot of legacy systems.
let me just pop my 10 mg pills.
That's not how that happened.
