On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Dave Sill wrote:
>
> >It's like comparing America
> >to Australia. Why do America have to make everything back-to-front
> >for us?
>
> Such as?
I'll bite that one. Here's my short list off the top of my head. In no
particular order, it's also my opinionated view, it's not accurate,
I'm not complaining (and please don't point out that I am now living
in Canada and working for a Canadian company because I know that
already :) And I don't think North Americans go out of there way just
to annoy Australians (however we Australians have been known to go out
of our way to bait North Americans - it's fun and often altogether too
easy :)
- we each drive on different sides of the road
- we describe dates differently mm/dd/yy vs dd/mm/yy
- we tell time differently, eg quarter past 9 vs quarter after
nine
- we're metric, the USA isn't (and Canada still hasn't quite made
up its mind yet, even after almost 30 years. And if you think
otherwsie, why do they sell coffee/meat by the pound here?)
- and while we're on the subject of imperial measurements, a ton
in Oz is 2400 pounds, but it's 2000 pounds in North America.
Gallons are smaller in North America too (approx 3.5 litres compared
with approx 4.5 litres).
- North American light switches are up for on, but in Oz they are
down for on.
- Australian power points (or power outlets if you don't know what
I'm talking about) all have switches on the outlet itself, not at
the wall.
- we have different telephony infrastructure. For example in North
America a T1 is approx 1.5Mb/s while in Australia an E1 is 2Mb/s
- 911 is the emergency number in North America, while it is 000 in
Oz, 999 in NZ and UK etc.
- typically, North Americans have a North American centric view of
the world, while people in Oz tend to be, on the whole, more aware
of the rest of the world. (I know, a sweeping generalisation and North
Americans have improved greatly since I first encountered them on
mass in 1978).
- lots of other things
--
Regards
Peter
----------
Peter Samuel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.e-smith.org (development) http://www.e-smith.com (corporate)
Phone: +1 613 368 4398 Fax: +1 613 564 7739
e-smith, inc. 1500-150 Metcalfe St, Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1 Canada
"If you kill all your unhappy customers, you'll only have happy ones left"
