Post #1462222

2026-04-20 18:23 UTC

We&#39;ve had this long furling tape from Japan for the longest time, for years!! thinking it was in inches. Causing us lots of mistakes and fuck ups, the whole time we thought it was our own miscalculations, that we must have messed up in converting it to metric or something. 1) The unit on the tape is in tenth of a foot. 2) That&#39;s almost exactly 3cm, BUT NOT QUITE. 3) The ruler says FEET, but then breaks it down in 3cm segments each divided in tenth of a tenth of foot. WHAT THE FUCK RULER

Replies (14)

@xethos@mastodon.xethos.net 2026-04-21 01:03

@neauoire@merveilles.town that's actually cool as hell - bet it has an esoteric use where "tenths of a foot" and "tenths of an inch" is actually used Which also doesn't sound dramatically more insane than what Americans actually settled on - just less common. Like a relic of two competing standarddsss...hey-wait-a-minute Saving this rabbit hole for later I guess 😐

Open ##1474570
@rostiger@merveilles.town 2026-04-20 18:24

@neauoire One ruler to mess with them all. :ohnobubble:

Open ##1528473
@emaytch@mastodon.social 2026-04-20 18:25

@neauoire what a chaotic thing to put into the world

Open ##1528474
@alderwick@merveilles.town 2026-04-20 18:26

@neauoire Perfectly cromulent semi-SI units. Decifeet, centifeet, kilofeet :flan_thumbs:

Open ##1528475
@yngmar@social.tchncs.de 2026-04-20 18:27

@neauoire Lol, successful sabotage, well done Japan! 👍

Open ##1528484
@ori@hj.9fs.net 2026-04-20 18:27

Those are metric inches. Obviously.

Open ##1528485
@7xien@thicc.horse 2026-04-20 18:28

@neauoire wow I love it lol

Open ##1528494
@yaodema@chitter.xyz 2026-04-20 18:31

@neauoire shaku-sun-bu approximator based on international feet, I guess? unless zhat's slightly off and actually 0.9942x ze measurement on your tri-blade ruler, which'd mean it's literally just shaku-sun-bu

Open ##1528495
@CodingItWrong@oldbytes.space 2026-04-20 18:32

@neauoire that's like almost AI-generated levels of insane

Open ##1528504
@valhalla@social.gl-como.it 2026-04-20 18:33

@neauoire and is it marked 100 m? that's either something that fits a culturally relevant niche, or *pure evil*

Open ##1528505
@angelwood@merveilles.town 2026-04-20 18:34

@neauoire i got more cursed units where that came from

Open ##1528508
@blakecoverett@hachyderm.io 2026-04-20 18:38

@neauoire Apparently it is not a rare thing in oilfield work? I recently watched this https://youtu.be/sdWEGzWFcCc?t=276 which has lots of other fascinating horrible units, but that's the bit that talks about "decimal feet".

Open ##1528532
@liebach@mastodon.art 2026-04-20 18:39

@neauoire Cursed!

Open ##1528539
@neauoire@merveilles.town 2026-04-20 18:41

We kindda wanna pass it on, but we'll have to put a label on it something, like: CURSED UNITS, experimental uses only.

Open ##1906828