• jg1i@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I was born in the US and have switched by myself. My brother thought I was weird until one day we went to the hardware store.

    I needed to buy a 15/64 in drill bit, but they didn’t have it. So then we thought, fine, maybe we can use the next closest size…

    Except WTF is the next size up or down from 15/64??!!! Neither of us could figure it out. Internet wasn’t great. Sales people didn’t know. We left because we weren’t sure what to buy.

    In metric, it’s trivial. 5mm drill bit, 4mm is smaller, 6mm is bigger.

    After this, he stopped thinking I was a weirdo for using metric measurements. But he still uses imperial because murica.

    Also, interesting, I learned that he thinks imperial units were invented by the US. I told him they were British units and I stopped caring about British units in 1776, but he didn’t seem to believe me.

    • cantsurf@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      16/64 is 1/4. Your next size up is a quarter inch. Is it intuitive? Maybe not. Is it really that hard? Only if your educational institutions have also failed you.

    • grandkaiser@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Except WTF is the next size up or down from 15/64??!!!

      There’s lots of great reasons to switch to metric. Inability to do basic fractions isn’t one of them…

      For the record, it would be 16/64, or, 1/4

      • grue@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        For the record, it would be 16/64, or, 1/4

        Nope! It’d be 6mm, then B gauge (6.045mm), then 1/4" (6.350mm). And that’s not including things like over/under reamers and such.

        (Sorry, I’ve been watching too much Blondihacks lately.)

      • explodicle@local106.com
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        1 year ago

        Everyone has trouble with something that’s basic for someone else - we just have different skills. If these fractions are too confusing for a significant minority of people, then that’s a good reason to switch from fractional to decimal.

        • grandkaiser@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Except In this specific case, it’s about measurements for tools. Fractional is far more practical for construction than decimal for tooling.

      • Stuka@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        But somehow the brother is convinced, despite the fact that they left the hardware store without the bit they needed!

      • explodicle@local106.com
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        1 year ago

        To be fair the modern USA is imperialist, we just don’t call it that because imperialism is no longer considered a good thing.