2001-09-02
I don't think this means anything. For all we know, the composer of this is
a BWMA member himself. No matter what these people use when it comes to
reporting through the press, the simple fact is the information coming from
the official services and from the satellite sources is metric. If they
report in Fahrenheit's, then they are going through a conversion, which is
their time and effort they are using to do it.
The BWMA claims they don't care if others use metric as long as they have a
choice to use FFU. But, what they also want is FFU to be the prime, base
system, where everything is stated in rounded, rational FFU numbers and
those of us who chose to use metric have to go through the effort to convert
to metric and end up with non-rounded and irrational numbers.
They get all excited about railroad widths being in FFU. They even get more
excited when almost the whole world uses this standard. The however blind
themselves to the fact that the world has been able to convert that FFU to a
usable rational number in SI. They get excited when new technology appears
to use FFU, like 3.5 inch floppies, but will tune us out when we mention
that the true dimensions are rational metric. They get angered when a
company that goes metric changes parts and uses metric components when they
used FFU components in the past. They get angered when a company packaged
in rational FFU and switched to rational SI. If they truly accepted an
individual's right to use the system of their choice, they should not be
complaining when companies do go metric of their own free will.
The fact is Han, as far as Britain is concerned, metric is winning out, and
for every seemingly one step backward, there are two steps or more forward.
And if the conversion wasn't as advanced as it is now, they wouldn't be
putting such an effort into it.
And as for Jim Dale, I'm sure his temperature in the 70's (degrees
Fahrenheit) is a conversion of temperature in the 20's (degrees Celsius).
You may want to write to him disguised as an average British citizen and ask
him what a "foringhite" is?
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Han Maenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, 2001-09-02 14:39
Subject: [USMA:15103] British meteorologist about Indian summer
> I wonder whether the BWMA is making inroads with British meteorologists;
it
> is campaigning against the use of the Celsius scale in forecasts. Here is
> senior meteorologist Jim Dale with a long range prediction for September,
> expecting an Indian summer in Britain and he uses only the Fahrenheit
scale:
>
> "The week ahead will be changeable. There will be a cool picture for the
> first couple of days of Autumn. But after that we will start to see an
> Indian summer which will last, at the very least, to the middle of the
month
> and may well continue for longer. The sunshine is enough for people to get
> excited about. People are putting on their coats again and kids are going
> back to school, everyone thinks the summer is over.
> But what we're saying to them is that despite this run of cool weather the
> heat and sunshine will persist into an Indian summer. The warm weather is
> waiting in the Atlantic at the moment for this rough stuff to move away.
> When it does move it will come in from the west. Most places will enjoy
> copious amounts of sunshine, little if any rain and temperatures into the
> 70's fahrenheit zone."
>
>
