On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Peter A. Giessel <pgies...@mac.com> wrote: > On 2010/11/12 at 10:33, rfar...@predatorlabs.net (Rob Farmer) wrote: >> it is better for real/serious work, but the general public doesn't see >> it as new or valuable - its just a stupid change in the way everything >> has always been done.
I'd say that's because for most people it offers no particular advantages in exchange for the work of learning it. Most people don't do unit conversions as frequently as scientists do, so the relative difficulty of converting from inches to miles instead of centimeters to kilometers doesn't affect them. Even countries that have ostensibly converted to SI on an official basis still have people using non-SI units on a day-to-day basis. Talk to someone from the UK and they'll probably give you their weight in stone and distances in miles. > It depends on what you mean by "real serious work". Try ordering a > cubic meter of concrete or a #25 rebar in the U.S. and see how far you > get. The construction field offers a particular problem because so many standard items come in inch-based sizes. Who wants to mess around with asking for a 122 cm x 244 cm piece of plywood? 4x8 feet is so much easier. ;) On the other hand, manufacturing has largely switched over. Look at a modern American car and you'll find mostly metric fasteners. _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"