really interesting, thx and how about area sizes? given in m� or ft�? ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 1:17 AM Subject: [USMA:22146] RE: Some interesting things in a recent UK movie: Ali G.
>Wizard of OS >I don't want to make any comment on the movie itself >but only some metric facts I noticed. >1. He was talking about washing temperatures in �C >2. A police officer showed him confiscated marijuana >and stated "30 kilos" and "15 kilos" >thus makes me really thinking, what's >going on with UK Metric progress?? I would summarise the UK situation as 'in the latter stages of transition' in terms of actual implementation and in terms of public acceptance/use. Distances/speeds on roads remain in UK imperial units, as does draught beer (but not bottled beer). Milk is a complicated topic but it is usually labelled with dual units. Almost everything else is metric-only. Note that for short distances on roads the UK tends to use yards whereas the US tends to use feet. So despite both countries having non-metric road signs, US and UK drivers will still have trouble with familiarity. However, a benefit of using yards for the UK is that the mental and physical transition to metres is very simple. This is because, to drivers, 200 yards is nearly the same as 200 metres. Only slight position adjustment will be necessary (sign faces must be rounded to the nearest 10 yards anyway). The signs are positioned by traffic engineers according to regulations in metre distances. This sometimes gives them 'soft conversion' numbers e.g. '110 yards' which will look much better when they get switched to metric. Dual metric/imperial signs are now appearing for bridge height and road width. The government claims that this is to avoid damage caused by foreign drivers from metric countries. However, some pro and anti metric people think that this is an easy first step for them to get metric signs visible on the roads. You can see the signs in the official UK driver's handbook called the 'Highway Code': http://www.roads.dft.gov.uk/roadsafety/hc/signs04.shtml For the UK metric association, see: http://www.usma.demon.co.uk/index.htm UK washing machines have used Celsius for years. They are the same as those used throughout the EU. EU clothes and machines have care labels indicating temperature in Celsius. The following web site has the symbols (hold your mouse over the symbol to find out what it means). http://www.fairynonbio.co.uk/laundry/cl_allsymbols.shtml I was under the impression that the drugs trade was 100% metric in all countries including the US and the UK.
