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[–] 159 points 5 months ago* (85 children)

What the fuck is "half a pickup truck" for a measure

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  • [–] 169 points 5 months ago (38 children)

    Americans will use anything other than the metric system.

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  • [–] 46 points 5 months ago (15 children)

    As an american, I am 100% onboard on switching entirely to measuring things in terms of pickup trucks.

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  • [–] 57 points 5 months ago (8 children)
    1. Preheat oven to 1 pickup truck
    2. Bake for 1 pickup truck
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  • [–] 24 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Since most automobiles are water-cooled, the pickup truck temp is probably about 110 f / 43 c, so you'd want to preheat to 3 1/2 pickup trucks.

    Similarly, since the mean life of trucks is probably 20 years, we'd measure casual time in a subdivisions of 175,320 hours / 10,519,200 minutes. One picotruck would be 1/10th of a minute, so you want to bake for 300 pico-trucks

    We will of course maintain this system once trucks become 50-year lived semi-autonomous drones that never get over 35 c, because the one constant in defining units is that rejiggijng definitions is preferred to technical precison.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago* (14 children)

    This is a Canadian publication.

    EDIT:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Narwhal

    The Narwhal is a Canadian investigative online magazine that focuses on environmental issues.[1][2]

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    Unfortunately, a lot of Americanisms have infected Canada due to our historically extremely close trade and cultural relationship with them. Measurement ignorance is one example. Some Americanisms actually become arguably worse in Canada, because we are effectively rudderless, pulled in all different directions by both our own laws and customs and American laws and customs at the same time, resulting in an even less well-defined choice of units. Another example is dates. The US uses mm/dd/yy which is already stupid on its own, but Canada uses BOTH mm/dd/yy and dd/mm/yy seemingly without rhyme or reason, which results in complete ambiguity of many dates, or trying to figure out based on context, looking for other dates that might use a day number >12 to identify which one actually is the day vs the month.

    It's awful. I am happy we are distancing ourselves from the US right now, but I'm not sure it will ever be enough to totally escape their shadow.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

    The US uses mm/dd/yy which is already stupid on its own, but Canada uses BOTH mm/dd/yy and dd/mm/yy seemingly without rhyme or reason

    Maintains our cognitive health. Can't just look at a date and know what it is without doing math and logic (method of exclusion)!

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    and when it's 2/3 which is it?

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    yeah, we have fucking idiots who have no idea what a kilogram is.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (11 children)

    Two of them is roughly the size of a pickup truck...

    Like, it's volume, they could say X gallons, but it would be hard for people to visualize. So people use an example most readers would be familiar with.

    Have you honestly never wondered why journalists use random things? Or has no one taken the time to answer before?

    It's been common literally for centuries before either of us were born, but most likely all of human existence. Just with animals like buffalo instead of pickup trucks.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I think the issue is half of a regular truck or a 'Murica' truck. I got loaned one of the latter last I had some work done on my regular vehicle, it wouldn't fit in the garage and I had to actually use the steps/handles to get in. As a 6 foot plus person that's kinda abnormal.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago* (6 children)

    You know what is roughly half the size of an American pickup truck and very common? A sedan. Like a regular sized car.

    The annoying thing isn't using a common object to show scale. It's that they are cutting it in half. Like, you have other whole objects to choose from. It kind of ruins the point.

    That's what frustrates me about the title at least.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    Americans will use literally anything except the metric system 😔

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

    I don't mind the "size of common everyday thing" for a news article. It gives an easy to understand measure of the scale.

    It's the "half" part that is infuriating. Like, you couldn't just pick another common object of the right size? Like, I'm pretty sure you could just say "a sedan" and be pretty close to the size. Is this just AI writing titles?

    Just another method of getting clicks. Writing stupid titles like "half a pickup truck sized" so people click it to understand what the fuck they mean.

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