Damn right. Bloody Jacquard looms. i
------ Original Message ------ Received: 05:38 PM COT, 01/07/2014 From: Steve Smith <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OT: SI units and precision > This American colleague personally has no use for the metric system. > It's a completely arbitrary system that has no real advantage over our > ancient and traditional measurements. It makes no more sense than the > ten-day week. While France has given us many great things, their > preoccupation with multiples of ten is a rather silly one. > > An inch, a cup, a pound, a foot, a pint and a grain all have a > relationship to the practical world that is much more useful than units > based on the circumference of the earth. And while it was once somewhat > difficult to convert miles per hour to feet per second (or furlongs per > fortnight), we have calculators and Google now. > > sas > > On 1/4/2014 7:20, Dougie Lawson wrote: > > Rob, > > > > The biggest stumbling block is getting our American colleagues to stop > > using their Imperial (and modified Imperial) measures, AF screw threads & > > cups in the kitchen and switch everything to SI units. > > > > At the same time we need the Gov't here in the UK to switch from miles, > > miles per hour, miles per gallon and pints to Km, Km/h, Litres / 100Km and > > half litres (it's only 68ml short of a pint). > > > > I'm old enough to know pounds & ounces, inches & feet, grammes, > > kilogrammes, centimetres and metres so a switch to the full Metric system > > won't bother me. > > > > After we achieve that we can then consider the millis vs centis vs kilo vs > > mega order of magnitude problems. But it's a minor problem when we have the > > Luddites who won't use the nice weights and measures that the French > > invented for us. > > > > Regards, Dougie > >
