this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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Asklemmy

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For instance, a foot...is basically a foot length. So there's this foot-measuring waddle some people do walking literally heel-to-toe to get a general sense of the space. An inch is kinda a finger width, etc (they're all not perfect by any sense).

I've decided to just take the plunge and basically re-learn all my measurement systems because I'm seeing less and less of those being used. I started with just memorizing all the conversions but that's literally just adding another step. Everything I own basically has settings to switch or show both measurements (like tape measures) so I'm just going to stop using Fahrenheit and the United states "Customary System" all together.

Any tips or things you're taught or pick up on? There's a funny primary school poem for conversion of customary liquid measurements,

Land of Gallon

Introducing capacity measurement to learners can be challenging. To make this topic more accessible and memorable, we can integrate creative and interactive activities into our teaching approach. Using storytelling, we can transform the sometimes daunting task of learning measurement conversions into a whimsical tale.

  • In the Land of Gallon, there were four giant Queens.
  • Each Queen had a Prince and a Princess.
  • Each Prince and Princess had two children.
  • The two children were twins, and they were eight years old.

Once students are familiar with the story be sure they see the connection between the story characters and the customary units of capacity measurement. If necessary, label the story pieces with their corresponding units of measure: queen = quart, prince/princess = pint, children = cups, 8 years old = 8 fluid ounces. You can reduce the number of customary units in the story based on student readiness. link

tl;dr looking for anything to remember the hierarchy and memorizing the metric and Celsius measurement system, sometimes explained in schooling or local sayings. (if I had an example for those systems I would give one lol).

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

For distance:

  • learn to do a 1m pace
  • measure your height to compare against other things
  • measure the length of your finger gun (mines basically 150mm)

For temperature (for me):

  • below 6 think about wind chill and keep warm
  • 6-10 = warm jacket weather
  • 10-14 = pants and sweatshirts
  • 14-18 = great exercising weather
  • 18-22 = shorts and t-shirts or light sweatshirt.
  • 22-26 = very warm
  • 26-30 = uncomfortable
  • 30+ = sweating just walking around

For weight, it is too dependent on your strength. For some, lifting a 20kg sack of flour would be to much, for others grabbing two 40kg sacks of cement per trip to the palet is normal.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

I discovered that my height in cm is the same as my weight in pounds. That was helpful for memorization.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Your temperature scale is clearly from a northern country :P

  • 22-26 is pleasant in Italy
  • 26-30 is warmish
  • 30-35 is warm
  • 36+ sweating just waking around
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

As a northen-ish countryperson. I share this scale

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Quite the opposite

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

10cm is long. don't let anybody tell you otherwise

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Spreading my hand out, the distance between the tip of my thumb and the tip of my pinky is almost exactly 20 cm.

When I need to measure something like a piece of furniture, I "crab walk" my hand along its side, counting 20 cm for every step.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The military and doctors in the United States officially use the 24 time format, there is something to think about (when we talk about accuracy and adequacy)

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I switched over all my devices to 24 hour - phone, computers, cars, etc. I even change the settings on my wife's phone sometimes. It's so much easier to mentally read.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

You can walk a klick in 10 mins

A ruler is 30cm. Roughly a third of a meter.

Four cups to a litre.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

1 km is about 15 minutes walk.

1 meter is about a step.

1 cm is about the thickness of a gusset on medium sized industrial machinery

1 kg is about 2 pints (or a little more than a quart)

20ยฐC is comfortable for most people, 35+ is uncomfortably warm

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

2 pints of lead is about 1kg?

A kg is a measure of mass. A pint is a measure of volume.

This has messed with my head that you've equated them with each other.

I'm guessing you meant a litre is about 2 pints?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I wrote 2 pints of water, but the sentence flowed weirdly. Idk

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

That's nice, though I'd say 1 meter is more like a long stride, or at least two walking steps.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

realistically, nobody uses all the units.

eg, decimeters are practically unheard of.

anyway, start measuring things around you. like your fingers, your hand, your ceiling height, that sort of thing. and then remember what those measurements feel/look like. that'll give you something to compare other things to. you can do the same thing with volume measurements and so on.

for example, i found that one of the knuckles on one of my fingers is exactly 4cm long, so i always have that with me.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I use micrometers ยตm when I buy a water filter (mechanical), ยตm 1 micrometer traps debris more than ยตm 5 micrometers and bacteria, as well as some large viruses.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

There is so much potential for unused unit systems. Imagine if gigameters where used instead of light years!

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

You don't really need to remember conversions within units, because it's all in base 10. Apart from that, 1 millilitre is 1cmยณ of water, which weighs 1 gram, and requires 1 calorie of heat to increase its temperature by 1ยฐC.

[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

30 is hot, 20 is nice, 10 is cool, 0 is ice.

Honestly, with metric, 24 hour time and celcius, the easiest way to learn is just to switch to it completely.

I'm in an imperial country and still switched over to metric/24h/c just because it makes a lot more sense for most personal stuff. It's been enough years that I know much of it just ambiently. I prefer it, tbh.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago

Change the time on your phone.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

looking for anything to remember the hierarchy and memorizing the metric and Celsius measurement system, sometimes explained in schooling or local sayings. (if I had an example for those systems I would give one lol).

This is how I was taught it in school:

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

A person who buys some material, Thinks to themselves managerial, I could use grams or litres, Maybe even amps or square meters, At least it isn't Imperial.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm in Canada, and learning French in school actually helped me with fractional measurements since French is based on Latin.

Cent is 100 in French, so 1/100 meters is a centimeter

Mille is 1000 in French, so 1/1000 meters is a millimeter

Dix is 10 in French, so 1/10 meters is a decimeter (this is last because it's not super helpful since you never see deci- units in the wild outside of niche applications)

And for the powers of 10, we only really talked about kilo (1000) in school, but I was interested in computers since I was a child so I figured out mega, giga, terra, etc fairly early on.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

For daily use of temps, I found it best to just switch my apps and stuff to use Celsius. Then just made a point to take mental notes as to see what the current temps were on my devices. Especially when it was feeling too hot or cold. On days that felt nice, would see what temps they were and just kind of learned what ranges were between them (I tend to find 16-23C to be fine warm temps).

I can't say exactly what the temps in Fahrenheit directly. But can give a range for friends and co-workers if they happen to ask me what the temps are outside (they obviously take the Celsius value as not helpful but they know I am going to give them). I can say that for me the "exposure therapy" of just using Celsius has been much easier than things like distance. I can kind of handle thinking of static distances, but I am not able to translate active things like speed.

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