4 ms·

Shouldn't their name be in metric units?

by pkaye 6y ago

camillomiller 6y ago
best comment so far. Fun thing is, before rebranding into this ungooglable name, they were called "Driveby", which was way more memorable and easily googlable. They had to add "mobility" to everything to be found. Even on twitter they're "Miles Mobility".
- pkaye 6y ago
  Driveby would be a terrible name in the US also. It means an incident in which a person, building, or vehicle is shot at by someone in a moving vehicle.
lm28469 6y ago
"Kilometers" doesn't roll of the tongue as nicely
- ficklepickle 6y ago
  Clicks can be short for KM in some locales. Equally ungoogleable though.
  - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
    km, not KM. KM is a Polish SI unit for hp (German PS).
jeofken 6y ago
At least in Scandinavia a mile means 10km, just a shorthand. Not sure if it’s the same in Germany
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  A few seconds ago while looking up the various definitions I found out that a German mile is apparently about 7500 meters (with three different definitions existing, all around that length). There are about 60 other definitions in Europe. I would have expected it to be most closely associated with the roman mile, which is around 1.5 km. Given that this is the very first time I've heard about the German mile, I would assume that <1% of the population knows about it, and they'd probably consider a "mile" either the US thing if they are familiar with it due to travel, or most likely with "some archaic unit that's somewhere around 1.5 or 2 kilometers long, no idea, why would you use that". The first association that I (as a native German speaker) when I read "Miles" in the German context wasn't distance units - I interpreted it as a given name of English origin.
  - Sebb767 6y ago
    > Given that this is the very first time I've heard about the German mile, I would assume that <1% of the population knows about it, and they'd probably consider a "mile" either the US thing if they are familiar with it due to travel, or most likely with "some archaic unit that's somewhere around 1.5 or 2 kilometers long, no idea, why would you use that". At least in my circle of fellow native speakers, we know US culture somewhat and I think most would therefore think of the US mile. This is actually the first time I'm hearing about the German mile, as well ;)

Shouldn't their name be in metric units?

by pkaye 6y ago

Shouldn't their name be in metric units?

best comment so far. Fun thing is, before rebranding into this ungooglable name, they were called "Driveby", which was way more memorable and easily googlable. They had to add "mobility" to everything to be found. Even on twitter they're "Miles Mobility".

pkaye 6y ago
Driveby would be a terrible name in the US also. It means an incident in which a person, building, or vehicle is shot at by someone in a moving vehicle.

lm28469 6y ago

"Kilometers" doesn't roll of the tongue as nicely

ficklepickle 6y ago
Clicks can be short for KM in some locales. Equally ungoogleable though.
- rad_gruchalski 6y ago
  km, not KM. KM is a Polish SI unit for hp (German PS).

jeofken 6y ago

At least in Scandinavia a mile means 10km, just a shorthand. Not sure if it’s the same in Germany

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
A few seconds ago while looking up the various definitions I found out that a German mile is apparently about 7500 meters (with three different definitions existing, all around that length). There are about 60 other definitions in Europe. I would have expected it to be most closely associated with the roman mile, which is around 1.5 km. Given that this is the very first time I've heard about the German mile, I would assume that <1% of the population knows about it, and they'd probably consider a "mile" either the US thing if they are familiar with it due to travel, or most likely with "some archaic unit that's somewhere around 1.5 or 2 kilometers long, no idea, why would you use that". The first association that I (as a native German speaker) when I read "Miles" in the German context wasn't distance units - I interpreted it as a given name of English origin.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > Given that this is the very first time I've heard about the German mile, I would assume that <1% of the population knows about it, and they'd probably consider a "mile" either the US thing if they are familiar with it due to travel, or most likely with "some archaic unit that's somewhere around 1.5 or 2 kilometers long, no idea, why would you use that". At least in my circle of fellow native speakers, we know US culture somewhat and I think most would therefore think of the US mile. This is actually the first time I'm hearing about the German mile, as well ;)