Oh god I didn’t even notice that
Comment on You
jonc211@programming.dev 8 months ago
It bothers me that the height chart suggests there are 10 inches in a foot
Maven@lemmy.world 8 months ago
TalesFromTheKitchen@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I just had to look it up, you guys really don’t have it easy with your measurements. Miles, Yard, foot, inch and nothing matches up.
Liz@midwest.social 8 months ago
And yet every time we suggest switching to metric the very vocal minority claims it’s all actually very easy and switching wouldn’t be worth the hassle anyway. We’d actually save money if we switched to metric, by reducing the number of errors caused by bad measurements, but whatever, kermudgeons gonna kermudgeon.
theneverfox@pawb.social 8 months ago
So it’s all super weird, but not as hard as it sounds. How often do you need to convert between feet and miles anyways? We don’t really use yards for anything, converting between inches and feet is the length conversion that’s obnoxious
It’s very human though, they apparently picked a giant when they standardized it… It still roughly works
An inch is the last joint on your thumb, a foot is your foot length, a yard is a stride (one step with each foot), a mile is 1k strides.
It takes 20 minutes to walk a mile at a normal pace, a healthy person can consistently travel about 20 miles in a day. 10k steps is 5 miles, the somewhat arbitrary goal we picked for pedometers.
It’s weird, but it feels very natural when talking about the physical world around you. It’s a great measure of distance, but it’s not a good measure of length
bisby@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I was at a track meet once and the lady running high jump was doing a horrible job. She was finally figuring out what she was doing and said : OK, we got this. Next height will be 5’12"
Liz@midwest.social 8 months ago
This lady is one of the many reasons we need metric.
MyNamesNotRobert@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
Shrinkflation came for the imperial system, I’m afraid. 10 inches is the new metric foot.
dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 8 months ago
How tall are you in Olympic swimming pools?
lancecobra@lemmy.world 8 months ago
What about the fact that 4 feet is ankle height yet his entire torso is only 1 foot tall?