Americans will use literally anything but the metric system, part #289,231

[hdv@front-end.social]

@Meyerweb lol

[meyerweb@mastodon.social]

@ashur Oh, well played, sir. Well. Played.

[gardengeek@mstdn.social]

@Meyerweb

but are those lean-mean-fighting-machine athletic golden retrievers? or couch-potato pupperoni-eating golden retrievers? I need to know whether to charge my phone.

[alexcorby@indieauthors.social]

@Meyerweb Were the dog measurements really that precise that they had to say 109 and a half dogs? Why not just round up and say 110? When I assign homework, do I really need to specify that I want the answer to the nearest whole dog?

[funkula@goblin.camp]

@Meyerweb I'm more annoyed that they used 6.5 dogs to represent 109.5 dogs. Just cover the tree in dogs and I won't bother counting them but use that few and it's annoying

[kevinrj@mastodon.social]

@Meyerweb @cachondo The reason I was told, why Americans won’t change to the metric system, is that it would cost too much money to change all of the machinery that makes things, like a machinist would use.

[tehstu@hachyderm.io]

@Meyerweb This is the second one of these I've seen today, slightly thankful that I'm old enough and British enough to be comfortable in imperial and metric.

The funny bit is why they chose dogs. If you can't envisage what 7000 lbs of ice weighs, would knowing what 109.5 dogs weighs help? Bizarre. Why not say "2 cars". Doesn't even have to be a specific car, just grab some clipart. It's very approximately 2 of any US car, and then you wouldn't need to have half a golden retriever.

Good job, CBS.

[forthy42@mastodon.net2o.de]

@Meyerweb In metric units, this is only part #1000

[cachondo@defcon.social]

@kevinrj @Meyerweb :) it's become a funny meme at this point more than a serious suggestion, I think.
Where it matters, like in scientific experiments, I think the US is already quite good at managing.
After the Mars Climate Orbiter thing from the 90's, at least the scientific community woke up to the technical benefits.

[darwinwoodka@mastodon.social]

@Meyerweb this is not very accurate, I've had golden retrievers weighing anywhere from 55 to 104 pounds

[mutter01@mastodon.social]

@Meyerweb Couldn’t they use, how far Cruz is travelling?

[eedly@mindly.social]

@Meyerweb This has become the meme version of the "no press is bad press" desperate cry for attention. If you come up with the dumbest equivalent unit you can think of, a screen cap of your weather report will start trending.

I believe we could nip this in the bud if we only allowed newscasters to say "fuckload". Everybody—whether they use metric, imperial, whatever units our future alien overlords will use—everybody understands a fuckload.

[thefinley@mastodon.social]

@isotopp @Meyerweb Never lifted a Cybertruck, but that's cool to know. lol

[rpmik@avgeek.social]

@Meyerweb LLMs must be responsible for these utterly bizarre comparisons

[amsomniac@mastodon.mit.edu]

@Meyerweb 109 and a puppy

[bltpizza@mastodon.social]

@Meyerweb Most all of us have seen an ice cube 🧊, even touched one. How much does a Golden retriever weigh, 60-100 lbs? No effing clue how this helps me understand how much a lot of ice weighs. I do know that very little ice will cause trees to explode.

[andreu@mastodon.andreubotella.com]

@eedly @Meyerweb I mean, as a European I prefer metric fucktons.

[bltpizza@mastodon.social]

@kevinrj @Meyerweb @cachondo This doesn't explain why my job ignorantly uses the imperial system for our juice recipes. 99% of the ingredients are imported from more developed countries that use the metric system on their labeling. So we have to use an imprecise conversion formula for no damn reason other than the lab and management are dumdums

[jdechko@mastodon.social]

@Meyerweb I don’t know if I’d rather be prepping for 7000 pounds of ice or 110 golden retrievers. Either way, the cleanup will be awful and take days.

[zillion@freeradical.zone]

@Meyerweb That's the most roundabout way I've ever seen of reporting that the average golden retriever weighs 29.5 kg, or 14.75 chihuahuas. (I am not a veterinarian. Don't hold me to the chihuahua conversion.)