📄 rule

alt-textIt blows our hivemind that the United States doesn’t use the ISO 216 paper size standard (A4, A5 and the gang). Like, we consider ourselves worldly people and are aware of America’s little idiosyncrasies like mass incarceration, the widespread availability of assault weapons and not being able to transfer money via your banking app, but come on - look how absolutely great it is to be European: The American mind cannot comprehend this diagram [Diagram of paper sizes as listed below] ISO 216 A series papers formats AO A1 A3 A5 A7 A6 Et. A4 Instead, Americans prostrate themselves to bizarrely-named paper types of seemingly random size: Letter, Legal, Tabloid (Ledger) and all other types of sordid nonsense. We’re not even going to include a picture because this is a family-friendly finance blog.

Source: Financial Times

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

TIL that there are different standards of paper sizes in other parts of the world. I never encountered this before despite living in Germany for 10 years, probably because the last time I was there was 30 years ago.

Gloomy,
@Gloomy@mander.xyz avatar

Wait… You can’t transfer money with a banking App???

ITGuyLevi,

Not really sure about that one, I’ve been able to transfer money with my banks app for more than a decade. Not all US banks are created equal.

Oderus,

Not all US banks are created equal

I think that’s the issue. Also how common direct deposit for paycheques in the US? I hear it’s rare but in Canada, it’s the norm and all our banks here can do e-transfers.

JargonWagon,

I’ve had direct deposit at every job I’ve worked for over a decade. Before then, I only had one job that didn’t offer it, though I had friends with jobs that did have direct deposit. Very common to have it these days. Some jobs can even get you direct deposit for the amount you worked that very same day, so I’d work 8 hours and by the time I get home, I’d have my pay from that day, and it’s like that everyday.

Source: US citizen

acetanilide,

It’s relatively common, unless you work for a typical cash pay job (usually labor jobs, like construction)

ITGuyLevi,

I’ve had direct deposit for every job since around 2004, before that it was a paper check on payday. Really I signed up for direct deposit after my manager gave me a hard time when I came in to pick up my check on a day I called out sick.

hOrni,

Yes. I can transfer money to someone just by knowing their phone number. I can do it on a Sunday afternoon and they get the money instantly. I haven’t used cash for more than a decade now. Haven’t used a card for at least 5 years.

notthebees,

Zelle is a thing with my banking app.

My sister has a credit union bank account and her app has it. I have PNC.

JargonWagon,

I’ve been able to transfer money through my banking app for a while without issue. Not sure where that came from in the post, cause it’s not true lol.

probablynaked,

What the fuck, that was way more hilarious than a blog post about financial securities messaging ought to have been

BluesF,

The annoying “letter” paper size is for some unknown reason what windows always sets as the paper size unless I change it to A4 manually. Naturally if I forget the printer won’t print. US paper sizing - annoying me on the other side of the Atlantic.

WaterWaiver,

File I’m printing: A4 PDF
Default printer setting in Windows: A4
Default setting on printer itself: A4
Setting that gets chosen automatically in the print dialog: Letter

nid_do,

Let’s not even start with the metric system (used everywhere) and the imperial system (used in the usa and some african countries).

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

According to wikipedia: “Some imperial measurements remain in limited use in Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and South Africa.” - so, not even “some”, just one African country, and limited use.

KyuubiNoKitsune,

Uh, I’ve never used inches, nor know anyone who does - a South African

nid_do,

I should’ve looked it up 🙈 I heard it once and didn’t have the countries in mind anymore.

OrnateLuna, (edited )

Don’t let the UK get away with their bs as well, they use a mix of metric and imperial. Imo that even worse bc at least america is consistent with their bs measuring system

Denjin,

Most annoying is cars. We buy fuel in litres but measure our cars efficiency in miles per gallon, meaning I either have to calculate how many gallons I put in my car or how many kilometres I’ve driven to work out if I’m being more or less economical.

dlhextall,

You’ve got to be kidding. How can that make any sort of sense?

Overshoot2648,

And Canada. I hate that map of the US and Burma. The US uses metric as it is part of customary units anyway. I also wish metric was base 12 or 16.

caesaravgvstvs,

OMG! This! I wish our numbering system was base 12 so much! As a species, we’re ready to evolve

elucubra,

I never gave any thought to this. Why is base 12 better?

caesaravgvstvs,

Because it’s divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, which makes it easier to do fractional values. 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5.

LinusSexTips,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/455f37c9-6ddb-437d-9bc5-a3748d91440a.webp

LANIK2000,

Americans aren’t consistent either. 2 liter and similar bottles (and it’s not even the same bottle, like they aren’t reusing molds or anything, it’s just an American 2 liter bottle). Sharp edges and points like on mechanical pencils are in millimeters. So are many nuts and bolts. Stuff like electricity and power are measured in metric units. Generally electronics/computer parts are in metric, the main exception that comes to mind is screen size, which even the rest of the world does in inches (LIKE WTF!?!).

There’s plenty of examples of metric units in the daily life of an American.

Oderus,

The best part is the US Military and NASA both use metric. I love that fact.

BorgDrone,

Except for the UI.

During the Apollo program they had very limited computer capacity in the capsule and lander. Computers were huge machines back then and they had to fit one in a spaceship.

The Apollo computers used metric internally for all calculations. Anything shown to the astronauts however was in imperial, as metric was apparently too complicated for astronauts to comprehend. They had to waste precious computer capacity converting to imperial because even astronauts can’t handle anything else.

riodoro1,

PC LOAD LETTER? the fuck does that mean!?

RizzRustbolt,

It means there is a tiny scrap of paper lodged in one of the uptake wheels in the paper tray.

33550336,
@33550336@lemmy.world avatar

dude devastated americans xD

HulkSmashBurgers,

The US also doesn’t officially use the metric system sigh.

Stovetop,

The US officially uses the metric system…to define the US customary system of measurements.

E.g. 1 foot is defined as 0.3048 meters.

bluewing,

That was just ONE aspect of the adoption of the metric system. And that was done to make backwards compatibility easier because of long lasting legacy systems. Because some systems, like say plumbing in a home or city, last for a very long time before they get replaced or repaired. New plumbing installations often use Tubing like PEX which is metric. I designed and fabricated a dozen brackets for a US customer over the weekend for delivery today. They were made using millimeters as specified.

And if you actually pay attention to how the metric systems compares to the US customary, you would see just how closely they are related from the start. Which makes sense since what we call Imperial measurements predate the metric system by several hundred years.

elucubra,

Plumbing is still described in customary in Europe. You have 1/2 or 3/4 fittings etc.

onion,

Imperial is actually just a couple years older than US customary, it was predated by the “English units”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_units

bluewing,

You are correct. But Imperial is pretty much abandoned and the US only kind of sort of followed it. There have always been some differences between US Customary and Imperial. The gallon is one of the most obvious differences.

bluewing,

Yes, yes we DO use the metric system officially. In the early 1970’s the metric system was made the official standard for weights and measures.

What we didn’t do was force everyone to use it at 3:11AM 11/21/1974. It was decided to take a longer approach and let the change happen naturally and it has happened.

Everything in the grocery store is marked with metric weights and volumes. We buy butter by the gram, soda pop by the liter and whisk(e)y buy the milliliter. And everyone is looking for that same missing 10mm socket/wrench. (Where does do those things go anyway?)

How much more metric do we really need to adopt?

Stovetop,

Well, milk is still sold by the gallon, butter is still divided into tablespoons, nutrition facts are still defaulted to cups and ounces. Wood is still sold by the foot or yard, cars still measure speed in miles per gallon, people still know their height and weight in feet and inches and pounds.

Could be worse but could be a lot better, too.

bluewing,

The gallon of milk makes it incredibly easy to divide it into quarters. That makes it easy to simply double things - 2 pints = 1 quart. 2 quarts = 1/2 gallon. Two 1/2 gallons makes 1 gallon. This dates back to the days when you went to the market and told the seller that you want 1/2 or 1/4 of that container of whatever was in that container. Simple math for simple needs.

Your 1/4 of a pound of butter or one stick, (again simple divisions for a simple use), is marked with rough marks of tablespoons for cooking if you are using such measurements. But you are quite free to ignore them if you are using a scale. Not really any issue.

Yes, in the US travel distances are measured in miles. But that slowly becoming meaningless also. People, (no matter the units used to measure the psychical distance), care more about “how long does it take to get there” rather than the actual distance traveled. But, you are free to push a button and switch to kilometers if you choose.

Measuring height and weight in feet and inches and pounds is pretty much the only thing the medical system uses US Customary for. And I can’t imagine the sheer number of man hours and cost it would take to go back and convert all those medical records to centimeters and kilos. Somethings are just not worth the effort and cost for a minor data point that only matters only as a long term trend. (just like a single blood pressure is a meaningless data point but over a year may reveal a trend or not)

Each measurement system, US Customary or Metric, has it’s own advantages and disadvantages. To think one is better than the other is a chauvinism based on what you are most familiar with and nothing more.

pukeko,

I mean, a liter is very close to a quart, so it’s not like we’d be asking people to adjust their mindset completely. And ditching US measures means we could finally, once and for all, dispense with the nonsense of having a dry and a wet “cup” measure.

As for converting records, well, it would be trivial to display a converted value in whatever EMR system a practice uses while noting the values are converted and allowing display of the uncoverted data for validation. (Which brings us to the EMR discussion.)

onion, (edited )

The gallon of milk makes it incredibly easy to divide it into quarters

How did you reach the conclusion that liters can’t be halved or quartered? You could call 250ml a ‘quart’ if you wanted to.

Metric butter also has markings on it.

Those medical records should be stored digital anyways, and then it’s a matter of a few man hours to tell the computer to convert them.

Each measurement system, US Customary or Metric, has it’s own advantages and disadvantages.

Imo metric can do everything US customary can, but not the other way around, because it’s missing the simple conversions. But that’s it. Everything else is same same but different

bluewing,

I never said that you can’t divide liters into fractional parts. Reread the quote again.

But for demonstration - what’s easier to think about 250ml or 1 quart, (a whole unit number or if you prefer 1/4 of a gallon)? A fractional based measurement system was the first type of measures invented by people precisely because it WAS simple for everyday use between sellers and buyers. The US has just kept using it for simple everyday needs. It’s neither better or worse than your 250mls, it’s just different than what YOU are probably used to. To me, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine with either measurement.

The majority medical records are available electronically. But that does not provide the base security of also storing written records. Networks go down, networks get hacked and not all places in the US can have or trust that those records will be available electronically 100% of the time. Paper ain’t going away anytime soon.

I suppose we could go off into the weeds a bit and talk about how US Customary thread pitches made for fast to produce, smaller, and cheaper machine tools vs their same metric counter parts. And how it helped make the US into the manufacturing powerhouse it became. And how those same US Customary threads are a just a little bit stronger than their metric counterparts. But you would probably not understand much of it and your eyes would glaze over pretty quickly anyway. But these days it’s merely a matter of G20 or G21 - The machines don’t care, why should you?

Both measurement systems can do exactly EVERYTHING the other can do. Somethings can be easier in one system than the other, but it’s far from a universal idea that one is 100% better than the other. Personally, I prefer using the metric system. But I don’t get hung up on it. I will use whatever measurement system best meets the needs for the job at hand or is requested/required.

In the end, the metric system IS the official system of the US. We just didn’t force a hard adoption date on it. But we use it everyday all day and don’t even think about it. Now if you will excuse me, I need to buy a 750ml bottle of Old Grand Dad bourbon Bonded, so I can myself an Old Fashioned cocktail later today while I’m smoking a pork loin…

vaionko,

cars still measure speed in miles per gallon

The American system really is something huh

Stovetop,

Sorry I totally meant fuel efficiency there, brain fart.

harsh3466,

There must be some invisible 10mm black hole just vacuuming up all the 10mm sockets and wrenches in the world. I can’t even tell you how many damn 10mm sockets and wrenches I’ve bought and I still only have one of each. Probably none. I haven’t needed to wrench anything in a couple weeks.

InEnduringGrowStrong,
@InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

It’s probably part of the great filter.
It also goggles up tape measures.

elucubra,

The 10s are being held hostage by the 12.5/48.78 wrenches

pyre,

idk why the image says “european”, the standard is worldwide. only north america and parts of latin america don’t use it afaik.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

I know Brazil uses the A# format, dunno about other latin countries.

elucubra,

A Sharp?

Tamkish,

Extra painful papercuts

Matombo,

no A-Hashtag you dummy

pendingdeletion,

A-pound

silasmariner,

AOctothorpe

Matombo,

nah that wpuld be A-£

onion,

Nah you mean A-lbs

Matombo,

That’s 12 A-Inch in imperial system isn’t it?

fhqwgads,

Japan also has their own system.

inconel,

Japanese use JIS but A size is the same with ISO so there’s no confusion here. For B size there’s slight difference in JIS and ISO, but as end user I hardly print anything other than A4 so haven’t encountered problems myself.

UntitledQuitting,

1.414, the magic number.

uis,

Is this why my printer has wierd size “letter”, that is not sized like letter?

Honytawk,

Yeah, US software always defaults to their own non-compliant standards instead of looking at the location and determining the default that way.

That is why we in Europe and all the other parts of the world get these strange fuzzy prints where the text is almost unreadable, and is cut off on strange parts in the text.

brbposting,

This sounds like our bad, sorry.

beefbot, (edited )

Not-super-fun fact: an 8.5 x 11 inch paper can be useful if you lack a ruler in an American office & you need to measure an inch or a foot.

If you fold the paper like in an image I’ll try to attach, the hypotenuse is 12.01 inches.

Edit: then you fold the 12.01 inch side against the 11 inch side to get a 1.01 inch measurement

Not exact, but good enough if you need to know your neck size to buy a fancy shirt online - not that I would ever waste my corporation’s time that way!

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/828545e7-b953-493a-9ea0-1b3ad90ac7a3.jpeg

uis, (edited )

Not-super-fun fact: you can measure in metric with school notebook paper.

https://basket-01.wbbasket.ru/vol95/part9594/9594259/images/big/2.webp

Each sqare is 0.5 by 0.5 cm.

EDIT: 0.5 cm, not mm. For measuring 0.5mm I can use 0.5 mm mechanical pencil lead.

Also there is coordinate paper:

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/f3ddd37e-797a-4222-b36f-8e2c90770fa2.webp

0.1 by 0.1 cm. Or 1 mm grid.

AI_toothbrush,

I use it a lot if i need to draw something that is x long. If you do a lot of graphs for example you can use the measurements on your ruler.

uis,

Correcting myself: 0.5 cm, not mm.

For graphs you can use graph paper with 1 mm grid.

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/f3ddd37e-797a-4222-b36f-8e2c90770fa2.webp

UntitledQuitting,

I love how that OP’s solution requires an inexact technique to achieve an even less exact measurement. Like Americans really out here being proud of the stupidest shit

Rev3rze,

Tiny nitpick: I think you meant 0.5 by 0.5 cm (or 5 by 5 mm).

uis,

Yes, sorry. You are correct

uis,

Also there is coordinate paper:

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/f3ddd37e-797a-4222-b36f-8e2c90770fa2.webp

1 by 1 mm.

efstajas,

What a nightmare

Valmond,

Oh no, it’s getting worse!

derpgon,

And most people here know that an A4 is 21 (exactly) by 30 (roughly) cm, which you can use (surprisingly) use for measurement aswell.

SomethingBurger,

21x29.7

This number is permanently stored in my memory, just like 1€ = 6.55957F

bleistift2,

I didn’t know Euro and Farad were related :O

elucubra,

Not only that, if you know your A4, you can do all paper sizes in you head: A3 has A4’s long side as it’s short side, and A4’s short side x2 for it’s long side. Rinse and repeat.

RecluseRamble,

Not exact

The motto of the whole imperial unit system.

Ultraviolet,

How does that work? 8.5^2 + 11^2 is 193.25, square root of that is 13.9. Where does 12.01 come from?

beefbot, (edited )

Huh. . That’s weird. I could swear I double checked my math before I posted this One Dumb Trick online years and years ago…

Found the mistake, I had skipped a step, updated original post

Ultraviolet,

Oh, that makes a lot more sense now.

elucubra,

Oh, that’s simple and useful.

Chef_Boyardee,

America got someone triggered over paper.

Pretzilla,

Shooting ourselves in the face to own the mets

rambling_lunatic,

My country (not USA) uses American paper. I hate it.

fhqwgads,

It’s a beautiful standard that works wonderfully until you have to deal with any actual measurements. 210 x 297 mm - so easy to remember and divide.

yukijoou,

i mean, i’ve never needed to divide the size of a standard sheet of paper - if i need a smaller variant, i can just fold it in half and cut it. when working with paper, it’s pretty easy to do physical math, and you rarerly need something that’s perfect down to the millimetre

regarding the size- it’s just something you learn through life. school supplies lists typically specify the size of notebooks and paper you need to buy in centimetres, so year over year, you quickly learn that A4 is 22:29.7, and the slightly bigger standard notebooks are 24:32

tigeruppercut,

so year over year, you quickly learn that A4 is 22:29.7, and the slightly bigger standard notebooks are 24:32

Pretty sure you just justified Americans using Fahrenheit ;)

yukijoou,

how so?

aBundleOfFerrets,

Arbitrary numbers become habit

yukijoou,

i mean, celsius has arbitrary numbers too - human is 37°c, ambiant is 17°c, cooking is 180°c, etc.

elucubra,

You forgot the /s

uis,

A4 is rectangle with 1:sqrt(2) aspect ratio and 1/16 m^2 area.

fhqwgads,

1/16? That doesn’t seem very metric. They should have made it a tenth like everything else metric. That would be an easy system.

^/s

drmoose,

Letter is 215.9mm x 279.4mm lmao

fhqwgads,

Good thing Americans don’t use metric, that sure would be an awkward size.

Maggoty,

No it’s 8.5 by 11.

See? Easy. Also you really have to try to get your hands on something that’s a different size. 99 percent of printer paper is Letter.

Threeme2189,

99 percent of printer paper is Letter.

Maybe in America. Over here you won’t be able to find Letter it’s all A4.

Maggoty,

Well yeah. The point is most people never have to interact with any other size.

lud,

Pretty much the same is true everywhere else though. A4 is just extremely common. All documents are printed in A4.

But if you want another size for a sign, blueprint or maybe a postage sticker it’s easy to get another size. If you want A5 just print the same thing twice on an A4 and cut it in half after or cut the paper in half first and then print on it.

If you want A3 you will obviously need a bigger printer (or you just tape two A4 together if it doesn’t need to look good.)

Maggoty,

I think I screwed up the assignment somewhere? For some reason the tape sticks to my letter sheet but not my A4 sheet and my construction paper crayon drawing is still too big for them to create a proper border?

drmoose,

8.5" is not any easier to divide than 297mm. Try dividing 8.5" by 8. What is that? 12 pebbles and 14 glibglobs each?

Maggoty,

It’s 1.06 Which is close enough to just do 1 inch cuts. Super easy. No possible better way to do it.

Xtallll,
@Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

1" and a sixteenth.

drmoose,

Ah yes - a system that uses both fractions and decimals!

fhqwgads,

Don’t bother, it seems the metric are allergic to fractions that aren’t irrational.

^/s

Honytawk,

The only time I ever encountered letter was when I bought the D&D starter set.

I was confused as to why the paper had this weird size. Then I remember it being a game made in the US.

Maggoty,

Well that solves it if WOTC used it then we need to get rid of it. Burn it in a fire. And we’ll need a new standard now. We could use the ISO standard but Western Union just handed me a thousand bucks to base it off telegram cards. Oh well.

RecluseRamble,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Maggoty,

    I think we’re on different levels. I’m solely here to make fun of both groups thinking they’re superior.

    RecluseRamble,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Maggoty,

    Why does this satire thing have to be so hard?

    enbyecho,

    Excuse me, I believe you meant to say:

    215 ^57^/64mm x 279 ^38^/96 mm

    pyre,

    300-3 isn’t that hard to remember. also i don’t know why you would need to divide it. they’re both divisible by 3 if that helps.

    beefbot,

    I don’t disagree! And in the interest of fairness I feel compelled to include an obligatory xkcd:

    xkcd.com/2937/

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