• TheTetrapod@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Our smallest unit of weight is the ounce, which is 28g, and as much as Americans hate metric, we hate fractions more.

    • ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Some Canadian stoners in the mid 2000s still hadn’t managed to work out fractions smaller than 1/4, apparently. “I’m picking up a half quarter,” they’d say, to announce their procurement of an eighth ounce of cannabis.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Under an eighth you switch to grams. But in my experience the professionalization of cannabis seems to be metricating it.

        The US is slowly, item by item, learning metric. We know how much a liter is from soda. We’re learning how much a gram is from drugs, and before too long something will teach us what a meter is.

        • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          In the ultimate American way of learning metric, from a young age I could estimate 9 milimeters from holding ammunition, and estimate 10-50 meters from learning to shoot. God Bless the USA 🫡

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Yeah, but that’s a really bad comparison. It’s useful for rough estimates when needed, but it’s not something we interact with often enough for it to be practical. It’s when everyday products are being sold in metric length that it will start to click. Stuff like 20cm diameter pizzas, wooden boards by the meter, a 1.8m TV, and square meterage of an apartment.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Specifically we have 2L jugs of it and individual bottles are marketed as 16.9oz (they’re 500mL). Cans are still in US customary at 12 oz (355mL). But yeah, basically every American knows how much 2L is.

            In fact, I strongly suspect you could market most liquids in metric volume here (not fuel) as long as people can see them. We’re so used to 500mL and 2L. Hell just changing the standard can and the tall boy (16oz) to metric (make them 375mL and 500mL) would go a long way.

            That all said, full metrication will screw with recipes, but it’ll internationalize them.

            • k0e3@lemmy.ca
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              1 day ago

              That’s really neat. Kinda conversely, I live in Okinawa, which you might know as the Japanese islands that was under US occupation after the war. Here our milk carton is not 1000ml like the rest of the country. We sell them in 946ml cartons because we used to package them according to American standards—1/4 gallon.