All Units of Measure are FAKE!

09/03/2026 x2

Recently it has come to my attention that all units of measure are fake. well not *ALL* of them but most of them.

Decibels - trust me bro I googled this years ago I know what im talking about :)

Technically decibels are in the metric system. Thats because Deci- means 1/10th. However, that makes decibels logarithmic, so a 2 decibel sound is 10x louder than a 1 decibel sound. But this doesnt make sense, because back in the 1800s when they were first putting in telegraph lines, a "Bell" was a measurement of how far the sound of a bell would travel over a meter of copper wire. (confusing I know!) Which means a "1 Bell" bell sound means it can travel a maximum of 1 meter. Modern scientests thought 1 Bell was too large and unwieldy of a unit for everyday use, they decided to divide it into 10 smaller units called "decibels" AND because its logarithmic, adding decibels multiplies the power rather than adding to it. I think is just a bad unit because originally a "Bell" was a measure of sound over distance rather than purely distance.

Units of paper

I found out yesterday that 1 unit of 500 sheets of printer paper is called a "ream". I have literally never heard anyone use this term before in my life. I figured it would be something like a "deck", like a deck of cards; or called a "stack" like a stack of plates, or pallets, or cash. Alas NO! its called a REAM. and thats just what 500 sheets are called... just wait until you hear what smaller/larger units of paper are called!

25 sheets of paper = a Quire

500 sheets = a Ream

1000 sheets = a bundle

5000 sheets = a bale

200,000 sheets = a pallet

a roll of toilet paper averages to be about 250 sheets, so a half ream. what a scam!

Units of measuring pressure

A plumber, a pilot, a weatherman, a scuba diver and David Bowie walk into a bar...and none of them know how to measure it. (this joke sounded funnier in my head)

Pressure is defined as force divided by area. Simple. However people just can't decide on what should be the standardized units of measure for pressure. The units will change based on, what country you're in (think: metric vs imperial), What you are measuring (water, air, oil, vacuum, hot water, cold water, soy sauce, gas, blood, propane, etc.), Containers (Tubes, tanks, bowls, open air, glass, toilets, tires, fireplaces), if the measured material is moving or not, AND just general vibes. It seems measurements of pressure can just vary based on who you ask. The result is just a clusterfuck of units.

don't even get me started on feet...