Damn dude...that was longer than his article!! hahhaha...
At 23:01 2002-08-27 +1000, Pat Naughtin wrote:
>Dear Robert Kirby,
>
>I have just read your article 'Don't Be Fooled By Familiar Look North of the
>Border: It's Metric' in the 'Salt Lake Tribune' of Monday, August 26, 2002
>
>I detected from this article that you seem to be either somewhat confused,
>or maybe even opposed, to the metric system.
>
>Might I respectfully suggest that you don't have to use it? Sit in your
>lounge chair and look about you, or walk about your home, and think of the
>things you own or use that are metric, and those that are not. Then you
>might like to go shopping while you consider the same question. Once you
>have decided what's metric and what's not, simply avoid all of those
>products or services where metric measures are used.
>
>Here are a few suggestions that you might find helpful.
>
>1 Don't use any electrical appliances whatsoever. Electricity has always
>used metric units. It's a no-no. For example, don't use an electronic radio
>alarm to wake you in the morning as these use the metric units: amperes,
>coulombs, farads, henrys, ohms, siemens, teslas, volts, webers, and watts
>(at the very least). Choose one of those old wind-up clocks, making sure
>that it doesn't have a second hand because seconds are metric units too. If
>you have a gas stove don't light it � the chemistry of the gas is evaluated
>using a metric unit (mole) so you won't want to cook with gas.
>
>2 When you get out of bed, it's OK to wear slippers because these still
>use the good old-fashioned size numbers developed in the time of the Magna
>Carta in 1215. As size numbers are based on the length of a barleycorn,
>shoes are OK to wear too. As most of my shoes don't fit too well, I suppose
>that barleycorns must vary quite a lot. The pain of your ill-fitting shoes
>will constantly remind you that your shoes are not measured in millimetres �
>at least you can feel good about that.
>
>3 In the bathroom, avoid using mouthwashes, toothpaste, hair care
>products, and skin care products in metric containers. Be careful, as the
>toothpaste might say ozs, but these could be metric sizes such as 100 mL (3
>17/32 fl oz(imp) or 3 3/8 floz. (US)). This trick is known as 'hidden
>metric' and it happens when metric products are re-labelled using non-metric
>units to give you an illusion of continuing contact with colonial times.
>Remember, if you use these products, you are still supporting the metric
>system.
>
>4 Avoid breakfast cereals because of the metric nutrition information on
>the side of the packet. Beware of eggs; the eggs may have had their
>cholesterol levels measured in micrograms. And as for bacon it is probably
>best to avoid it. Consider this conversation, overheard in a delicatessen,
>where the bacon was packed in 250 g packs:
>
>Old Fogey: Don't talk to me about them kilo-thing-amys things missy, I think
>in pounds.
>
>Modern Ms: I don't know anything about pounds. I went to school in the 1970s
>so I'm not old enough to know what you're talking about.
>
>Old Fogey: I want half a pound of bacon.
>
>Modern Ms: I'm sorry Sir. This pig was killed and packed in metric, if you
>want some bacon, either you ask for it in grams, or you will have to kill a
>pig for yourself.
>
>And your coffee from Brasil was packed using kilograms � so your cup of
>coffee has to go too. This is a pity if you've just chopped the wood and lit
>the fire (no gas or electricity remember) hoping for a caffeine fix.
>
>5 After breakfast, dress carefully, avoiding clothing from any nation in
>the world except the USA. All other nations design and manufacture clothing
>using metric measures.
>
>6 When you go out, don't travel in any sort of motor vehicle unless it's
>very old. Volkswagens, for example, have been metric since the 1930s. Now,
>all cars in the world (including all those made in the USA) have been fully
>metric since the development of interchangeable parts for the 'world car
>concept' in the early 1970s. Every modern family sedan has (about) 10 000
>separate parts, each of which requires (say) 10 measurements. All cars have
>been measured some 100 000 times � using metric measures � often to the
>nearest tenth of a millimetre.
>
>Let's suppose that the maker of a metric family sedan labels speedometer in
>mph, the odometer in ml, the tyres in in, and the tyre pressure in psi.
>These four labels (they're not measurements) out of 100 000 measurements is
>sufficient to convince some car owners that they are driving an 'English
>units' car in an 'English units' nation, and that all is right in this
>'English units' world � but not you � you know about hidden metric. Don't be
>fooled by this extreme example of hidden metric. Don't own, don't drive,
>don't hire, and don't ride in any automobile, and it's best to be cautious
>with trucks, buses, and tractors as well.
>
>7 If you have a job to go to, it probably won't be in manufacturing
>because almost all manufacturing industry in the world is already completely
>metric, and those that are not completely metric are using components
>imported from the world's only non-metric nation � the USA. The military is
>out too; they've been using metric armaments for years.
>
>It's also unlikely that you will work in importing or exporting. As I said,
>all of the world is already metric and they are finding it increasingly
>difficult to trade with the USA. Since every other nation in the world has
>already chosen to use metric, they say:
>
>'Why should we bother to convert back to old measures, just so we can do
>business with the USA, when all the other, 180 or so, nations have already
>converted to metric?'
>
>'You only need visit internet sites of mechanical parts and machines tools
>in the USA to see the magnitude of their measurement disaster.'
>
>So the USA imports more metric goods and services than it can export using
>old-style measuring units.
>
>8 At work you won't use computers (no electricity remember): and even
>laptop computers use batteries measured with volts. Even if you could use
>them, modern computers are all metric. Don't be fooled by things like the,
>so-called, 3 1/2" floppy or 17 inch screens; these are simply more examples
>of hidden metric. According to international standard (ISO/IEC 9529-1)
>floppies are 90 mm x 94 mm x 3.3 mm, with a mass of 24 g, and the magnetic
>media inside is 86 mm � not a 3 1/2 anywhere!
>
>All other computer components come with metric specifications � all hidden
>of course. In addition to the clock speed of the computer, in megahertz, and
>the size of the memory, in megabytes and gigabytes, all the fasteners and
>other parts of your computer, all the way down to the substrate to make the
>computer chips is metric. The makers then give your screen a name in inches
>(very approximately) and the software writers use default tabs and margins
>in inches, and these are enough to delude many people into thinking that
>they are using old-style technology.
>
>9 At lunch, don't eat anything that might be measured using calories,
>Calories, kilocalories, or the correct unit kilojoules, as these are all
>metric units. It's probably best to avoid dinner on the same grounds.
>Clearly, now that you don't eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, or (probably)
>snack foods, your anti-metric program is going to do a lot of good for your
>body mass index. You might not even need the job you haven't got any more.
>
>10 By the way, it's OK to pay for lunch with a credit card. Credit cards
>have been around long enough to have the old measurements of 3 3/8 inches by
>2 1/8 in recognised by most 'hole-in-the-wall' money machines.
>
>11 Back at work after lunch, you are probably restricted to working in
>finance, journalism, or politics. These three are areas where the
>participants are never quite sure about what's happening in their own
>community, in their own nation, or in the rest of the world. As an example,
>think of the USA financial world's change from 'pieces-of-eight' to decimal
>currency in early 2001. The rest of the world began its inevitable
>conversion to decimal currency when the USA changed in 1793 and the world
>completed the change, approximately, in the 1960s. Most of the world's
>citizens changed to decimal currency in about a month � it took the New York
>Stock Exchange 208 years � and many (most) journalists and politicians are
>still wondering how to react to the USA financiers' ill-considered haste.
>When I think about it, your expertise and experience might be in one of
>these three fields already. If you work in finance, journalism, or politics
>make sure that you avoid things like 1 mm ballpoint pens or pencils with
>0.5 mm or 0.7 mm leads.
>
>12 At the end of the day, you had better not visit the gym. There, they
>are inclined to measure skin folds in millimetres and to calculate your body
>mass index using your mass in kilograms and your height in metres.
>
>13 After work, drinks are out. You need to steer away from all kinds of
>soft drinks, bottled waters, wines, and hard (spirituous) liquors as these
>come in metric sizes. Even beer might be hidden metric as the calculations
>used to make beer are so easy to do in metric, and so difficult to do with
>old-fashioned units.
>
>14 If you decide on a holiday, be careful if you are planning to use
>aircraft or ships. Remember that navigation was all the rage from the 1760s
>to the 1790s when the international metric system was first set up. So the
>first metric developers based their ideas on the size of the world as a
>support for navigators, and now the International Civil Aviation
>Organization (ICAO) regulations are all metric and have to be dumbed down
>for the old-fashioned pilots who fly us about today. Both aircraft and ships
>use the satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) to find out where
>they are around the Earth. Unfortunately for your travel plans, the GPS is
>metric.
>
>Pilots, in both air and water, have to go to a great deal of trouble to hide
>the metric measures they use � even from themselves. They convert the GPS
>metric measures to old-style units so they can misinform their passengers.
>Personally, I worry about pilots fiddling with conversions on their
>calculators when they should be flying their plane past a mountain that
>might be either 29 012 somethings or 8 848 somethings (where's that
>calculator?), but this won't worry you if you never use ships or planes
>again. By the way, just a little south-east of this mountain, near Delhi, a
>Russian plane (flying in metres) almost collided with a British plane
>(flying in old measures); as I said, I worry.
>
>15 If you do get away for your (walking or cycling) holiday, don't take a
>still camera or video equipment as these, too, have been totally metric
>products since the Kodak company, in the USA, made their decision to use B&W
>16 mm film for amateurs in 1910 and their 16 mm color movie film in 1929.
>
>16 If you become ill, stay well away from doctors, hospitals, pharmacies
>and any type of medicines, vitamins, and other supplements. Medicine is all
>metric, and medications are often dosed in grams per kilogram of body mass.
>
>17 At home, if you have to do any renovations, be watchful for hidden
>metric measures. Consider this story:
>
>'A few months ago, a friend of mine (in the USA) went to buy some vinyl
>floor covering. He was shown some imported material that was about 6 ft 6
>3/4 in wide (My friend reckoned that they were actually 2 metres wide, but
>the shop person didn't know that).
>
>'As my friend needed a little under 2.5 metres he asked for 8 ft 2 1/2 in.
>
>'When he asked the price, he found that the assistant had to work it out to
>figure a price in square yards. Now let's see: 8' 2 1/2" x 6' 6 3/4" � 9 = ?
>
>'My friend says the assistant was there, battling with his calculator, for a
>long, long, time!
>
>'In the meantime, my friend multiplied 2 x 2.5 to get 5 square metres (5 m2)
>
>As I said, be watchful and avoid hidden metric � do the hard yards!
>
>18 Of course television and video are out because they use megahertz,
>another international unit (and you are avoiding electricity, remember). In
>addition, 120 mm CDs and DVDs are out, and vinyl records are in.
>
>19 And so to bed, after you measure it to make sure that it's not really
>two metres long. Be cautious here, as the contraceptive pill has all of its
>ingredients measured in micrograms and milligrams, and the quality of
>condoms is assessed using ultra-sound waves measured in hertz, with the
>thickness measured in micrometres.
>
>20 Given the constraints mentioned in item 19, you will need to consider
>where you will educate your children, as all schools, in all parts of the
>world, teach SI, the International System of Units, which is also known as
>the modern metric system.
>
>It will be best if you don't measure anything at all. Keep in mind that all
>the old inch-foot-pound measures are all hidden metric. Even the USA has
>defined all of their measures in metric terms since the Mendenhall Order of
>1893, and the rest of the English-speaking world has used metric measures to
>underpin their old units since an agreement made between them in 1959. This
>means that inches are hidden metric; pounds are hidden metric; tons are
>hidden metric; and fortnights are hidden metric, too.
>
>After all this, you might find it easier to recognise that we all live in a
>metric world: not because someone arbitrarily decided it; not because it was
>mandated by governments; but because, over the last two centuries, metric
>measurements have proved simple in concept and easy to use. So far, this
>simplicity and ease of use have convinced most individuals, most groups,
>most companies, most organisations, and all of the nations in the world �
>except the USA � that metric units are the way to go. Even in the USA,
>however, it seems that some citizens have trouble recognising the progress
>that they have already made toward metric and keep wanting to change things
>back � that's how the Mars Climate Orbiter crashed at a cost of 125 M$ (a
>'Sudden Planetary Latitudinal Accident Thingy (SPLAT))' but, as you know,
>that's another story.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Pat Naughtin
>48 Roberts Road
>BELMONT 3216
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>2002-08-27
