Actual poster from 1917 that made me laugh. A lot.

Also, those motherfuckers are measuring the weight of those balls in kilograms, aren’t they?

      • RedEye FlightControl@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Replacing all your tools and machines is super easy, though. /s

        FWIW I only work in metric, Imperial is utter trash, tbh.

          • sparkle@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            of an approximation of a derivative of the Roman foot in metric*

            The Roman foot was between approximately 0.96 and 1.1 international feet (most commonly about 0.97 ft, except in modern Belgium where it was 1.091 ft/13.1 in, the size of Nero Claudius Drusus’ foot). The modern foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 meters, by international agreement.

            • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              The really neat thing about those changes to the meter is that it didn’t really change how long a meter was (-ish), it changed the precision of that definition, as well as the ability to reproduce an exact meter, reducing the need for a specific piece of material to define the meter (which changes length based on environment). Now, an exact standard meter can be reproduced independently in any lab with the proper equipment.

              • Bgugi@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                What’s especially wild is that the kilogram was still an artifact in 2019! Every single calibrated weight in the world, big and small… They all could be traced back to a single metal chunk in a french vault.

        • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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          4 months ago

          Well we already deal with a mixed system, so they could relabel where possible and just phase out any machines where not, and in the interim just hand out slide rules with conversions on them.