Han Maenen's USMA 17974 surprises me. It reminds me of Napoleon's "customary metric system" of 1812 which divided the metre in binary fractions.
>Even if the kyu or Q is a non-decimal part of the mm, it will replace lots >and lots of ridiculous jetsam and flotsam. The 0.25 mm is still an >acceptable decimal fraction. We should NOT built a system of typographical >units on the Q; for everything else the millimeter should be enough. >I am 100% in favour af adopting the Q or kyu, the sooner the better and I am >also convinced that those who conceived it wanted to get rid of old and US >printing units. Having a millimeter divided by 4 is a very small price to >pay for a vast improvement. If they had gone to 1/8 then I would have said >no as well. >If the Q is ifp thinking, then the A-paper sizes are in fact the same as >they are a binary series. What decimal series of paper sizes would Han propose? I agree with Ma Be's message in USMA 17953: >Carter, Baron wrote: >kyu: a metric unit of distance used in typography and graphic design. The >kyu, >originally written Q, is equal to exactly 0.25 millimeter... > >The thing that baffles me the most about this is why in the world didn't >they go with the millimeter (or maybe even the micrometer)??? "Ifp" >thinking at work here? Good grief... :-( Joseph B.Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 TEL. 416-486-6071
