2002-05-03 These two articles should be a wake-up call.
The USMA and others have made it clear that businesses find it uneconomical to produce both a metric and an FFU package. The theory goes, that since 95 % of the world is metric, that means that standardisation would have to eventually be metric. But, we are seeing increasing examples of American Industry ignoring such drastic claims that American Industry is suffering because it is not metric. It seems American Industry is having no problems exporting FFU to any part of the world, even India. How long will it be before the world is measuring in US units and metric is looked as an experiment that failed? unless something is done, all those little drips that Jim and Bill keep getting excited about, are going to turn into a torrent. But, a torrent of FFU flooding the world, not of metric overtaking the USA. We really need to fight back hard. If we don't, we can kiss SI bye-bye! John >Dear Harry, >The specific reasons - though we will not give you specific names. >1. When we were looking for a smaller standi-pouch (the pouch has a >gusset at the bottom -allowing the pack to stand up), there were no 300 gm. >ones available. They were all the standard 10 oz. size. Even though the >manufacturer of pouches is in Korea, and the food is manufactured in India. >2. This is the standard US size and the shelf heights and widths in >Supermarkets are largely configured around these standard sizes. If we want >a place in the planogram, we needed to conform. >3. We have changed the pouches in India too -as we cannot afford two >separate production runs. >I hope we have answered your questions - if not entirely to your >satisfaction. >Sincerely, >Alpana ----- Original Message ----- From: "Han Maenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, 2002-05-02 02:59 Subject: [USMA:19866] A chilling warning > I found this wake-up call on the USMA site, "Published articles on metric" > under "Metric system information (provided by the USMA)". > > Year 2000, no. 70 > > http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opletters.jsp?id=ns22406 > > When I loaded it, the number ns22406 at the end of the URL was changed into > another number and I got a different item. On that page, just change the > wrong number nsXXXXX in the URL to ns22406 and you will get the letter. > > Han > Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands > > > First published in New Scientist print edition, subscribe and stay informed > every week. > > > That's about the size of it > > WITH the US's total dominance of global economic activities, we may soon see > a beautiful system disappear in favour of an archaic one: the metric system > of standards, in use in all countries except the US (and a few microscopic > islands), is under threat. > > The metric system was devised to make computations easy, and it has been > highly successful. In the European Union, producers must offer their wares > in metric measures, preferably in round numbers. So I was astonished when I > recently found that adverts for monitors in a French computer magazine gave > their sizes in inches only. > > The same regrettable trend may be noticed in paper sizes. The European > standard is based on divisions of a sheet that has sides in a ratio of > square root of 2 and a surface area of 1 square metre: 1:(check)2 is the > only ratio that allows you to cut a sheet into two and end up with pieces > that have the same aspect ratio as the original--quite handy when you reduce > or enlarge. Cut an A0 sheet in two and you get two pieces of A1. Cut one of > these, and you get two sheets of A2 and so on. A4 is the size we all know > from writing pads. > > Most magazines, including this one, were printed on A4. But now New > Scientist is back to US sizes. Nature changed recently, too. So did the CERN > Courier. And, horror of horrors, EuroScience, the club which endeavours to > rival the American Association for the Advancement of Science, publishes > EuroScience News on American format paper. Very annoying when you want to > file these things together with standard A4 papers. > > Needless to say, not a single computer or printer allows you to use metric, > because all hardware pitches are in fractions of an inch, not in whole > numbers of millimetres. Truly, the Americans are coming. > > Robert Cailliau > CERN > Geneva >
