Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V?

Re:Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? by hot_gril on Tuesday August 29, 2023 @02:09PM (#37311658)

Ok I'm going to make this even darker: The metric system sucks for non-scientific usage, especially using Celsius for room or weather temps. Idk why Europeans (and other continents) insist on using something with such low granularity and weird usable ranges. 0F = prob not going outside, 100F = close to highest temp you'll see all year, 56C = highest outdoor temperature ever on Earth. In the 70s (F) = warmish weather, in the 60s = coolish weather, in the 20s (C) = either cool or hot. Digital thermostats add 0.5 increments if you set them to C mode, lol. Meanwhile KPH is too granular, while 0-100MPH is all you need for cars outside of racing. Divisibility into meters etc is pointless, cause it's not like I need to compare a road trip length to the height of a person.

Their only good unit is kilograms/grams.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? by riversflow on Tuesday August 29, 2023 @02:30PM (#37311906)

Meh, I don’t even thing grams are very good.

Pounds have a nice granularity for every day stuff: a 3 pound laptop and a 2 pound laptop are significantly different, but both are “about a kilo”.

On the other end, a gram is such a small amount that I can only perceive it in multiples, whereas I have a pretty good idea of how much an ounce is.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? by hot_gril on Tuesday August 29, 2023 @02:41PM (#37312049)

Actually yeah, I remember realizing the same thing a while back. 1 pound difference is about what I can perceive. Same with 1˚F difference.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? by Dylan16807 on Tuesday August 29, 2023 @06:50PM (#37315194)

A laptop that's a pound and a half is also very different.

But oh, if you're willing to say "and a half" you might as well be willing to say .7 kilo.

There's no real overall advantage, you just picked a couple very specific numbers. You can always pick very specific numbers to make any system look better/worse.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? by hot_gril on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @02:29AM (#37318401)

I don't think I can perceive a half-pound difference, but half increments are still nicer than needing the whole range of decimals. If I have to say 0.7 anything in everyday life, then it's not a good unit.

[ Parent | on HN ]