Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by skissane 1871 days ago
When US-based companies put things in US measurements and don't provide metric conversions, it makes me (as a non-American) feel like they aren't thinking about their non-US customers. It appears parochial.

Miles I can roughly convert in my head, but I have really no idea what a gallon or a fluid ounce is. I remember a pound is a bit under 500 grams but can't remember how many ounces in a pound. Fahrenheit to Celsius, I know there is a 5/9 and a 32 involved, but I don't remember exactly what to do with them.

What makes it worse here is that the original measurement was in kilometres – kilometres are the standard unit for measuring orbital altitudes in the space industry, even in the US-based space industry – and someone has gone to the trouble of converting that to miles and then omitting to include the original measurement.