I apologize for being late on my reply but other matters took priority. First, I must say that I am mostly pleased with the discussion on this matter. I have also read what the others had to say and I will attempt to compile.
I agree with your definition of the hands-free approach as being capitalist and not democratic. The point where I vehemently disagree is when you state: "No one is out there generating new units for properties for which we already have them (which covers just about everything). An absolutely free market in measurements today will NOT generate some hodge-podge of new units of measure. Anyone who even tried to invent new units for things already within the colloquial or metric system would find no acceptance of their units." and: "Other than the plethora of historical units, are companies out there generating new and non-standard units of measure? No. Why would they? Where would the economic incentive be?" My answer is YES, Jim they will generate units and have being doing so! You cannot just ignore the mess of units of measurement generated by the US industry. I will explain: The first and simplest example is the computer screen resolution. Although the pixel size can be easily expressed in mm (0.15..etc.) as it is in Europe the computer manufacturers have invented the dpi. Then they invented the bps (baud per second) then the mips, the flops, the ppm (pages per minute) and God knows how many are there that I don't know about. They also went on their own and used the SI prefixes outside their dedicated meaning to express something that has nothing to do with those prefixes. Now the BIPM was basically forced to accept those denominations which they had to slightly modify in order to avoid a REAL hodge-podge. Actually, I am sure that nobody will ever learn or use the gibibyte denomination when they all know of gigabytes. My personal opinion (and I don't mean to loose focus on the subject) is that BIPM should have never accepted to adopt a standard for binary prefixes as it did. The whole think makes no sense to me. What has 2*10 with 10*3 in common? How is one supposed to make an analogy from kibi to kilo or gibi to giga? When Philips invented the CD they not only rushed to patent it but also to consult ISO and apply for a standard. This ensured that no parts of the patent were in any contradiction with the existing standards. Which US manufacturer ever did that? The example I gave you with the viscosity measured in so many units is absolutely real. The Krebs machine really measures the power required to stir the paint in a container with specified dims using an impeller with specified shape and dims. The result is not in W but in KU which is called Krebs Units. The user can also opt to have it measured in gm (on the US made machine) which is mot gram meter but gram. ?????#$@$%^. The story behind this BS is that some technician invented a machine that used pulleys and a string tied to the shaft of an impeller in the jar of paint. Then he measured the time required for a certain mass to drop a length equal to the distance from the Lab desk (??) to the floor. Since it took different masses to stir in different paints he patented this as a method which surprisingly has even a NIST procedure. It is used in the paint industry alone and if you want to size a pump that will pump that paint and you specify KU to the manufacturer he will give you a look you never saw before. This is my friend the reality of the Great American industry. For someone like me who was educated with a total respect for standards it is a complete nightmare. And I will give you a final example which is fiction but I think reflects the reality. Let's suppose Company X comes up with a new appliance. Let's call it electric oven. Now they have to rate the power of that oven. They can do it by stating the absorbed electrical power in kW. This would generate a direct comparison in the consumer's mind with the conventional electric ovens. However Marketing (capitalized) comes up with the theory that stating the power in kW will be a marketing disadvantage since their units use more power than the conventional ones. They are more efficient since they heat the objects many times faster that the power difference but this is not clear to the consumer if they use kW. So, the marketing manager comes up with this great idea of rating it in how many cups of water it can bring to boil in a minute. And name it "cpm"; Sounds familiar? This way, the consumer will grasp better the efficiency of the oven and leave aside the electric consumption. Hence, if they rate it as a "10 cups per minute oven" every dumbo would say: "Wow, in my old oven I can't even bring to boil one cup in a minute!" What would stop Company X to do so? The example could as well be of toilets and flows of xx GPF (gallons per flush). Or have you forgotten about this masterpiece of US standardization? The flush! symbolized F. What a great unit of measurement! Maybe we can get some grants from the Gov. to research "THE FLUSH" in our high tech University labs. Is there a milliFLUSH also? Of course not equal to 10*-3 FLUSHES but meaning that you flushed only after p...ing. BIPM should then rush and find a scientific definition for "THE FLUSH" based on the speed of light or something. Then define the mipisflush and the kishiflush. What a megafucjoke! So Jim, taking aside the sour jokes, why do you say it never happened? The US industry has absolutely no respect for standards. Their only standard is the $. Adrian PS: To top-up the Flush story, my spell checker came across milliflush and suggested to replace it with "mill flush" Maybe there is a submultiple to the Flush after all. Mr. Gate's spell checker doesn't recognize BIPM but knows about the millflush.
