Lately I’ve been noticing that many products are not as they seem. One would think that making measurement devices should be relatively easy these days. Here are a few examples I’ve come across where they are woefully inadequate.

Exhibit A

This is a measuring string that came with some tool I bought from AliExpress. Yes, the tool works fine, no issues there. I later used this string to measure something and ordered it for that particular measured size. I was shocked (and ridiculed by my wife) when it arrived and it was much smaller than expected.

Exhibit B

I ordered something on Amazon which came with this free metal ruler. From my experience with “Exhibit A”, I went to measure it to make sure it is “calibrated” correctly. Shocked again I was to find out that even a simple ruler is not to be trusted. Note how my two yellow measuring tapes are perfectly identical.