this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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[โ€“] gnawmon@ttrpg.network 30 points 1 day ago (3 children)

๐Ÿฆ…๐Ÿฆ…๐Ÿฆ…

[โ€“] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 15 hours ago

0.54 nmi (nautical miles)

[โ€“] Landless2029@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

And yet the military uses "clicks"

[โ€“] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Just gotta ask any of the 90% of the world who use it to find out. Americans hate this one simple trick!

[โ€“] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Fun fact: there's quite a lot of countries that use "mixed metrics", with no real rhyme or reason for what uses old ancient imperial and what uses new shiny metric

UK - Miles for long distances, switch to meters for distances less than a mile, always use km in air and sea. Milk in pints, petrol in liters, water in ml, beer in pints. Human heights in Feet Inches, building heights in Meters. Human weights in a unit even Americans don't use anymore (Stone), animal weights in kg/g.

[โ€“] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (3 children)

Really? Do people walk around in the UK and say "I weigh 11 stone"? "I lost 3 stone on this diet"?

[โ€“] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 hours ago

Yeah man, it's fucking nuts

[โ€“] cheesyxpickle@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

Canadian here, I watch some UK fitness shows, can confirm.

Yessir, stone and lbs usually.

So 12 stone 8 for example. 14lbs to the stone.

[โ€“] yeather@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah, but does the kilometer have a cool origin like the mile? Checkmate math nerd.

[โ€“] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'd say it kind of does actually:

The Kilometer is defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's North Pole to the equator along the meridian passing through Paris.

Vs

The mile originated with the Roman measurement of mille passus, meaning "one thousand paces," with a pace being five Roman feet. The modern 5,280-foot statute mile evolved in England, where the 1592 parliamentary act defined the mile as eight furlongs (660 feet each) to standardize the distance.

One is measured by earth, the other by stinky feet.

[โ€“] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah but earth is wobbly and imprecise so now we define the meter as "the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second"

[โ€“] angrystego@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

That'a a cool definition. I wouldn't call it an origin though, that would still be the Earth measurement through Paris, which is also cool.

[โ€“] groet@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's North Pole to the equator

On ten-thousandth. The circumference through the poles is ~40,000km

over land or straight line?