>I didn't watch the news tonight, but my cousin told me the crashing >stockmarket was the main topic. It's 1929 all over again.
Um, if a half-percent net decline in the Dow conjures up images of 1929, perhaps something more tranquil, like a savings account, is more your style. :-) I agree with Howard that the link between the euro and SI is a little too tenuous for this forum. (BTW, I do wish it the best of luck.) I'll do my best to stay on topic. In that spirit, I have a question: Does anyone have a suggestion for a good news website that includes SI? I'm looking for U.S. and world news. At the risk of beating a dead horse, I'm make another comment about the use of hours in units (kWh, km/h). I believe it really comes down to the fact that we use hours and minutes (fractional hours) to measure our lives for many things. An engineer may feel that m/s is more informative to know just how fast they are going, but the average guy on the street would rather know km/h. The fact that all metric countries use km/h rather than m/s (to my knowledge) tells me that they are doing it for a reason. The trip to Grandma's house will always take 25 minutes, not 1500 s. I'm not going to cook a pizza for 1020 s. We use hours and minutes in every day life, and that doesn't need to change. It isn't just an "old mindset", it is the way metric countries work, too. To say that hours and minutes are "good enough" or more convenient is not an argument against metrication as one person implied. >From Pat: >Notice how I have supported my argument that it is OK to use SI with a >carefully selected choice of example � and you have done the same thing to >support your view that kWh also has convenient calculations. Your example used seconds, which most of us would find confusing if we are measuring a quantity hours long. My point is that we often do measure such quantities, often enough that measuring in units with hours is entirely appropriate. I think it is important to choose your battles. Converting the U.S. to metric has good long term prospects because 95% percent of the world uses metric and 85% of its money does. If even the metric countries don't use m/s in cars and on highways, it will be a lonely crusade, and you will risk being seen as on the fringe. Carl
