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

Et.

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

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[–] puchaczyk@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Aside from the 1 to √2 ratio, the area of A0 paper is exactly 1m². People behind ISO 216 thought of everyting.

[–] Turun@feddit.de 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Which is awesome, because every number up halves the size. This, combined with the standard way that paper weights are given (e g. 80g/m2) allows you to easily calculate how much a piece of paper weights: 1 A4 80g/m2 weighs 5g (1/2^4 * 80g)

[–] Weges@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Now it makes even more sense!

[–] bort@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

People behind ISO 216 thought of everyting

how to make a good standard:

step 1: copy from DIN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216#History

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Well, Germans are pretty anal about standards (thankfully) and they do them right, so why not copy them?

[–] onion@feddit.de 1 points 2 months ago

The world would be a better place if we copied good things more often.

Imagine all of Europe copied Dutch transportation-, German prostitution- and Portugese drug-policies

[–] bort@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago

so why not copy them?

oh, I totally agree with you.

In fact standards are made to be copied. That's like the entire point of them.

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

From their website: "We're ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. We develop and publish International Standards."

[–] uis@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

Sadly, ISO in recent decade started to do bullshit. They don't pay for standard development, they don't employ anyone for standard development, they collect membership fees from national standards organizations, require payment to download most standards and don't allow to copy published standards. Also they retroactively paywalled a lot of standards.

[–] chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Wait, the US genuinely doesn't use A4 etc.?

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

We have trouble fitting all our freedom on your kooky, internationally-recognized sizes

Here’s a comparison using the most sensible units possible:

[–] kakes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ngl as a Canadian, I implicitly thought 8.5x11 was A4. Well that's dumb, we should switch.

[–] OkGo@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

I’m British and you are not alone, worse still, I spent a year in the USA and never even noticed.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Also, I'm pretty sure A4 runs through an American printer just fine.

[–] MetaCubed@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Letter paper (8.5" x 11" | 215.9mm x 279.4mm) is kinda sorta pretty close to A4 (8.27" x 11.69" | 210mm x 297mm) so without having the two next to each other, it can seem like A4 is just a funny piece of letter, and vice versa. But to answer the actual question, USA and Canada (and apparently the phillipines???) use the "North American Standard" which is a terrifying mess in comparison to the beauty that is the ISO standard.

Edit: typos

[–] RandomStickman@kbin.run 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Their hole puncher has three holes and binders/folders have 3 rings as well

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How many have yours got? More or fewer?

I have seen legal/letter sized clipboard with two rings, for the short end of the paper.

[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Either two or four. The two holes are kinda in the middle then if it's four holes it's those same two plus two more closer to the edge

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[–] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

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

[–] bluewing@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] onion@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] onion@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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

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

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A Sharp?

[–] Matombo@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

no A-Hashtag you dummy

[–] pendingdeletion@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A-pound

[–] Matombo@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

nah that wpuld be A-£

[–] onion@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago

Nah you mean A-lbs

[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago (3 children)

To be fair, A4 yields unwieldy pages that are too long to comfortably read. And when do you ever need the feature to fold an A4 sheet into A5?

[–] Kerb@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

almost all consumer printers are for a4.
i had (rare) occasions where i wanted to print a picture for an a3 sized frame and was able to glue together two a4 prints.

also, as far as im aware, books in a4 size actually consist of a3 sheets bound together in the middle. (same with other sized books)

[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

almost all consumer printers are for a4.

I never said A4 wasn’t the standard. I said it’s not a good one.

books in a4 size actually consist of a3 sheets bound together in the middle. (same with other sized books)

Let’s check. I grabbed four random German books from my bookshelf. If you’re right, the pages should either be roughly 30cm×21cm (A4) or ~~15cm×10.5cm~~ [Edit: 21cm × 15cm] (A5).

Book 1: 18cm × 11.5; book 2: 19cm×12.5cm; book 3: 20.5cm × 12.5cm; book 4: 24cm × 17cm. None of those conform to the standard.

[–] thedarkfly@feddit.nl 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Are you american? If so, the "unwieldy and too long" is probably because you're not used to it. I'm not used to letter-size and it seems weirdly short and unnecessarily wide but I know it's because I'm just not used to it.

[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I’m German. If the pages are a comfortable size, why does no publisher ever use A5 or A4 paper? To quote an answer I gave to another comment here:

Let’s check. I grabbed four random German books from my bookshelf. If you’re right, the pages should either be roughly 30cm×21cm (A4) or ~~15cm×10.5cm~~ [Edit: 21cm × 15cm] (A5).

Book 1: 18cm × 11.5; book 2: 19cm×12.5cm; book 3: 20.5cm × 12.5cm; book 4: 24cm × 17cm. None of those conform to the standard.

Another hint that the paper format is weird is that scientific papers on A4 are always either printed in two columns or use the ninths rule for margins, i.e. 1/9 of margin on the inner and upper edges and 2/9 of margin on the outer and bottom edges, essentially throwing away almost half of the page (I’ll admit there are more economic recommendations of 1/11 or 1/13). This is to make the columns narrower to get closer to the target of 60–80 characters per line. Note also that this makes the ‘usable’ area approximately 20cm long, which is much closer to the American’s ‘Legal’ format (216mm).

[–] Yamayo@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Let’s check. I grabbed four random German books from my bookshelf. If you’re right, the pages should either be roughly 30cm×21cm (A4) or 15cm×10.5cm (A5).

Book 1: 18cm × 11.5; book 2: 19cm×12.5cm; book 3: 20.5cm × 12.5cm; book 4: 24cm × 17cm. None of those conform to the standard.

A5 is not 15x10,5

If A4 is 291x210 then OBVIOUSLY the next one starts with 210: 210x148.

[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You’re right. Sorry for getting my post-7pm arithmetic skills on you. However, my point still stands. ‘Close’ is not ‘conforming’ to the standard.

[–] ValiantDust@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago

I do this all the time. I print two pages on one A4 sheet (or rather four, two on each side) and then fold them so they are like a leaflet.

That's the main advantage of the system – you don't have to design things differently depending on how big you want to print them. You can scale the same design to an A6 flyer or an A2 Poster.

[–] nid_do@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago (7 children)

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

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] nid_do@feddit.de 0 points 2 months ago

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

[–] Oderus@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 1 points 2 months ago

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.

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[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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!

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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@jlai.lu 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

21x29.7

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

[–] bleistift2@feddit.de 1 points 2 months ago

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

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