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Imperial units people, Do you sometimes get confused about time units as well? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi, I think in metric units, so almost everything is some form of a power of 10, like a kilogram is a 1000 grams, etc.

Sometimes I will think of an hour and half as 150 minutes before remembering that it is 90 minutes.

Does something similar happen to imperial units users? Because as far as I understand you don't have obvious patterns that would cause you to make these mistakes, right?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm with you on going metric. It's insane that we still use imperial units.

Congress passed a bill in 1975 that was supposed to transition us to metric, but it obviously didn't take.

I end up using metric units quite regularly for various reasons. My intuitive understanding of imperial units is still better, which irritates me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

1866

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's fascinating. I'd never heard of that one. It apparently made the metric system legal for commerce, but did not try to implement it for general use.

So we have been trying to get this right for almost 140 years...and failing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Oh no, 230 years. 1866 was just the first time the Senate was involved, as far as I know.