On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:37 AM, Jess Holle <[email protected]> wrote: > While the US is often prone to stubbornly "go its own way", I don't > actually see that as a big part of the equation here. > > I think this is mostly about most folk in the US being unable to stomach > the thought of changing to some "weird" new units that they're unfamiliar > with. >
I think you greatly overestimate the impact these decisions have on "most people." For the vast majority of people, containers matter more than absolute amounts. Few folks drink 8oz of anything. They drink 1 ____ of something. This could be a can/bottle/whatever. Now, mileage is one that I would imagine would take some getting used to. But, most people would probably still care more about the time from one place to another than they would the absolute distance. Now, this still fails to dodge the irony of computer science types arguing about how the world needs to switch to metric. Again, how many bytes are in a kilobyte? > Then there's the investment required to switch unit systems across a > country the size of the US. Is the investment worth it? Certainly. > How can you claim the investment is definitely worth it? You realize for as long as we have bridges/buildings/machinery/whatever that uses the old style, we still have to produce the parts for them. What, exactly, is the gain from forcing a switch? A warm fuzzy that we are using something that is easier for you to logic about? I'm reminded of my father talking about how measurements were done with him growing up. Everything was in cups. And you could base it off whatever cup you happened to have with you. :) All of that is to say, I would welcome a switch, but it is more expensive than you're letting on. Amusingly, in Alabama, they used to have kilometer markers on the road in addition to the mile markers. They found that this caused confusion, because people did not report which unit marker they were at, just the marker. So... back to mile markers for the foreseeable future. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
