OT: Why the US will never go metric....

[Don Klipstein]

In <0001HW.C84C29FE011658DFB01AD9AF@news.eternal-september.org>, Fester
Bestertester wrote:

Your average precocious kid, curious about physics is handed a set of
tools guaranteed to waste much of his (or her) energy, manipulating
our weird-ass base-12 and base-16 units and multiple contradictory
unit definitions.

Children in SIU countries spend a few hours learning how to convert SI units
by moving a decimal place. We in the US spend days, and even then the
brightest don't quite get it.

Yes, the US system is with us, but it's so last century...

But we (USA) are in good company: the other metric holdouts are Burma
(Myanmar) and Liberia.

I'm confused by the UK's adoption. They speak of kilometers, but also of
MPH.... ?

I have one bit of an associate and someone else as an e-mail friend in
England, and I know well the top guys and some of their employees and a
few of their fellow contractors, and a few relatives of a few of these, in
Canada.

It does appear to me that UK is "unofficially" "not quite completely
metric". And that Canada appears to me merely "officially metric". The
Canadians that I know fairly well and converse with frequently and even
see in person a couple times a year tend to have some liking to think of
feet and inches and miles and pounds.

One of them is a recently retired Toronto police detective who recently
set up a little bit of a business of his own, working heavily as a
machinist, and as "traditional" of machinists in "auto-making country"
(in/around Mississauga, Ontario to Indiana and Michigan and thereabouts),
he thinks in terms of inches and "thou" (thousandths of an inch) and
decimal notation of inches.

However, my Canadian friends and associates do appear to me to be
fairly "used to" driving speeds in KPH and weather-reported outdoor
temperatures in Celsius. They even seem to appreciate a bit how I tell
them in Celsius what the weather is like my way. Heck, I read component
datasheets and I design and test boards and products, sometimes with a
non-contact thermometer (and I am aware of putting tape onto bare metal
to get a good reading by that from heatsinks, etc). So, I am quite used
to Celsius.

--
- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Fester Bestertester wrote:

Your average precocious kid, curious about physics is handed a set of
tools guaranteed to waste much of his (or her) energy, manipulating
our weird-ass base-12 and base-16 units and multiple contradictory
unit definitions.

Children in SIU countries spend a few hours learning how to convert SI units
by moving a decimal place. We in the US spend days, and even then the
brightest don't quite get it.

You must be surrounded by real losers.

Yes, the US system is with us, but it's so last century...

But we (USA) are in good company: the other metric holdouts are Burma
(Myanmar) and Liberia.

I'm confused by the UK's adoption. They speak of kilometers, but also of
MPH.... ?

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.