On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 at 17:29:28, Phoebus R. Dokos wrote:
(ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
><snip>
>> I do personally too.
>> All our timber merchants still sell imperial sizes, but display them
>> metric - which is bizarre.
>>
>So they sell Two by Fours but say: 60.8cm x 121.60cm ?
Exactly, but they use mm.
The figures, being so large and strange, are incomprehensible.
As you say, we simply ask for it in imperial and they sell and label in
metric.
One of the strangest sizes I ever saw was from Kodak.
The photographic industry still uses Imperial paper sizes in the main -
for darkrooms anyway. Kodak sold a standard 10" wide roll of paper and
had this bizarre sizing, with cross conversion:
10 inches x 10 metres
25.4 cm x 390 inches (approx!)
The worst of _both_ worlds!
... and we will _never lose our 568 ml beer glasses.
I got stuck there finding the value, as the web sites I found were
dominated by US, so plenty of conversions of pint to cup. Now that is a
_really_ stupid measure!
.... and _why_ is the US gallon 80% of the imperial gallon?
The plumbing industry though _has_ changed (in the main (sorry about the
pun) 15mm, 22mm, 25mm and so on.). In particular, 15 and 22mm are so
far off imperial that they need special adapters. It is a _real_ pain
when adding to plumbing in old houses. However threading is still
imperial and with BSP threads in the main.
Yanking it back ONT - printers with sprockets will probably forever be
Imperial. The standard sprocket distance is based on original print
sizes - EM I believe - which is an exact fraction of an inch.
Tony
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