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Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by phist_mcgee on Monday January 24, 2022 @04:34PM (#30064366)
I find the mix of your commas and periods in numbers a little confusing.

>305,8 m/s but also 8.7m and ~1.4 hPa.

I know that Europeans have a different notation to Americans, but is there a rule here I am missing?

Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by tacker2000 on Monday January 24, 2022 @04:40PM (#30064434)
No, there is no missed rule, the comma is the only official decimal separator in these parts. But I can relate to the the OP. Us here in the comma world are forever converting numbers in CSV and Excel files back and forth so as to display them in a proper number format. It’s like that darned USB port, you have to flip it 3 times to get it right.
Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by nameistaken on Monday January 24, 2022 @04:50PM (#30064565)
This should be the grand compromise.

The US will convert to metric, however everyone else has to convert from commas to decimal points.

Places using decimal separators and the metric system are the real winners here.

Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by Bilal_io on Monday January 24, 2022 @05:00PM (#30064654)
I'll celebrate for a whole week whenever the US converts to the metric system. I hope I'll still be young enough to handle it.
Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by r00fus on Monday January 24, 2022 @05:31PM (#30064965)
Since it's a big "moat" for parts manufacturing (mainly for defense industry)... I predict the USA will give up imperial units when it's empire finally collapses.

Perhaps in the next few decades as China builds its own economic sphere.

Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by not2b on Monday January 24, 2022 @11:11PM (#30067900)
Carter started a transition to metric in the 1970s and Reagan killed it. It became a nationalist thing to keep it.
Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by denton-scratch on Monday January 24, 2022 @05:59PM (#30065302)
Um, it's unamerican to use "imperial" units. When you have a revolution, you have to get rid of all things imperial!

Therefore US pints are 16oz, not 20oz, and so on for most fluid measures (fluid ounces are based on dry ounces, which are avoirdupois, not imperial).

Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by r00fus on Monday January 24, 2022 @06:30PM (#30065652)
We kept linear measurements the same (feet, yard, miles). So it's a bit of a stretch to say we're not imperial. I'd say it's "US imperial".
Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by denton-scratch on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @12:37AM (#30068515)
I was about to comment that feet, yards and miles are not imperial measure; but I checked, and WP says they are in fact imperial units. So i learned something today.
Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by smoe on Monday January 24, 2022 @05:13PM (#30064809)
Growing up in Switzerland with a dot as the decimal separator, I newer knew just how much of an outlier we are in this part of the world until now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#/media/File:...

We also use apostrophe as the thousands separator, so: 1'234'567.89 which I personally always found much more readable that using commas and dots. Is there any other country that uses this combination?

Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by michilehr on Monday January 24, 2022 @04:43PM (#30064466)
No missed rule. Thank you for your feedback. I have replaced the decimal separators '.' with ','. Sorry for the confusion.
Re:How big was the Tonga eruption? by manquer on Monday January 24, 2022 @05:08PM (#30064748)
While OP here made a mistake, some countries use mixed systems depending on what it is used for . Switzerland for example uses comma for normal numbers and dot for currency alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Examples_of_...