ashi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:27 am
This isn't quite what you asked, but I am still useless with imperial units and anytime I have to convert hogsheads to furlongs or whatever damn nonsense I feel like I am trapped in a Terry Pratchett novel.
16 ounces in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone, 8 stone in a hundredweight, 20 hundredweight in a tonne.
12 inches in a feet, 3 feet in a yard, 220 yards in a furlong, 8 furlongs in a mile.
5 fluid ounces in a gill, 4 gills in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon.
Unless you're in the U.S. of course. Then there's 16 fluid ounces in a pint.
Ferrus wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:32 pm
I would say though that the one thing that baffles people in the US are 24 hour clocks which whilst not as common in the UK than they are on the continent are still widespread enough in certain contexts - such as train timetables or plane tickets, for sometime as well as my father remembers his grandfather teaching him how it works as he was a train clerk - that most people who aren't idiots know how to convert between it and am/pm whereas in the US seems a source of confusion (and used mainly in the military as I understand).
Is that for real?
Much worse than the hour though is the date. Like who the fuck thought that MM-DD-YYYY was a good system.
Julius_Van_Der_Beak wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:45 pm
Utisz wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 7:44 am
Is U.S. exceptionalism, in particular, a "real thing"? Do people really identify with the idea that the president is the "leader of the free world", or that the U.S. is generally the greatest country on earth? Or is it just something more romantic than brain-felt?
ashi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:27 am
1000% The variance is by what margin one believes the US to be the greatest country, at what point it stopped being the greatest country, and whether or not it can return to the position. People will describe it as a racist, violent shithole police state with one breath and then insist it is better than most of the world with the next.
I'd echo this. It's pretty common even among a lot of center-left types unfortunately; listening to them, you get the sense that Trump's greatest crime was that he acted in a manner unbecoming of the leader of the free world.
I would say that the American empire has been in decline for the past twenty years, and Trump is an obvious symptom of that, but the majority of people can't even seem to conceive of that is a possibility. This isn't reassuring at all; I'm sure lots of people in Rome were in denial about its decline.
I guess that leads me to another question: do some people need to work two jobs to maintain a reasonable standard of living? We were watching a documentary on the opioid crisis (The Crime of the Century) and there was an EMT who said that he had to work two jobs just to keep his head above water. Like is that a real thing? That's fucking crazy. An EMT is obviously a skilled worker. The idea he would have to work his EMT job and do bartending or whatever is nuts. It wasn't like he was going around in a Lambo wearing a Rolex or anything either.
Julius_Van_Der_Beak wrote: ↑Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:45 pm
Just multiply a celsius temperature by 1.8 and add 32!
starjots wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:02 pm
Just did a quick trip to Walmart to buy some toys for our cats. I counted five (5) people on scooters. One guy did have a cast on his leg. It wasn't even particularly busy. After you're query, I can't help seeing them everywhere now.
The metric thing in the US is a continual source of continual minor aggravation. I have two sets of socket wrenches, one for each system. You never know what system the nut was made under until you try it out.
Also, we put in a little do it yourself irrigation system with 1/2" and 1/8" piping bought online. We had to add on and bought some additional 1/2" backbone tubing at the local hardware. When we added it, it leaked like a sieve at the connections because our 1/2 tubing wasn't really 1/2 inch. Our original system was actually metric and the add on imperial or vice versa, don't remember. But they all said 1/2 inch because god forbid you mention a millimeter in public. We had to tape wrap the shit out of a bunch of joins and that'll have to be good enough.
Yeah, that's the same in Ireland and even here in Chile. People have died because of this shit.