2002-10-14 I have a few thoughts too.!
Read the interspersed comments below: ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Owen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, 2002-10-14 13:18 Subject: [USMA:22709] Re: carpentry > A few thoughts (I wrote the review of Alder's book in The New Yorker): > > 1. In a pretty interesting book called "A Matter of Degrees: What > Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and > Universe," the author (a physicist at Penn named Gino Segre) quotes someone > else explaining why a 2000 international conference on global warming ended > "with bitterness on all sides": "When something like this is killed, it is > killed by an alliance of those who want too much with those who don't want > anything." There are more than a few members of this list server who should > take that remark to heart -- if their goal is to speed up adoption of the > metric system in the United States. In any American conversion to the > metric system, there will be a very long period during which feet and pounds > will be used, inconsistently, alongside metres and kilograms. Get over it, > and focus on areas in which using metric units would generate tangible > benefits for those who convert. I agree that FFU unit names will persist for sometime after almost everything else has changed. That is not a problem as long as those unit names take on new values. I see no reason why an inch can not be 25 mm, a foot equal to 300 mm, a yard equal to a metre, a pound equal to 500 g, etc. These old units would not be legal for trade and would not appear on any product, but if people use them in speech that is fine. But, with rounded values, it would make it easier for me and others who use metric to understand or get a better idea from what is spoken. Otherwise what someone may say will go in one ear and out the other. (Companies that manufacture products sold > outside the United States are far more likely to gain initially than > ordinary American consumers, I would bet.) The big multinational companies as well as heavy machinery are already metric and have been so for the last 30 years. In fact, about 30-40 % of American products are already metric. Some are relabelled in FFU for purposes of marketing. This makes the user feel he/she is buying a non-metric product. Most don't find out until they go to service it themselves. Small "Ma & Pa" shops that do very little exporting are not going to gain much by changing if all they do is change just what they export. Many will attempt to sell what they produce and may gain some customers overseas without metricating their products. The overseas customer not aware that the product he is buying contains non-standard parts in his market may purchase the non-metric American product. This gives the American company a false impression that he can sell a non-metric part in the metric world. But, when that customer goes to repair that part and finds even the simplest of replacement parts that the product needs are not available in his home market, he will never buy American again. Imagine the cost in time and money when a simple part like a screw has to be specially imported and may take weeks to arrive. Back in the early '90s, I visited Southern Steel near Panang, Malaysia. One of the foremen was very disgusted with the fact that our equipment did not contain what he thought should be standard parts. These were fuses, lights, fasteners, etc. He showed me rows of machines from all over the world and informed me they were all made to the same standards. They have never had a problem replacing something simple when it failed. His words still ring in my ears: "What you do in your own country is your business. But, this is not America! This is Asia" We never got another order from that company again. But, as a result of that trip, I began redesigning our product line to use metric hardware. And continue to do so to this day. And never once got a complaint from an American customer. That is because metric hardware is readily available here. > 2. There is a big difference between animosity toward the metric system and > apathy about the metric system. I think there is much less animosity toward > (or defensive "envy" of) the metric system in the United States than some > USMA members seem to think. Most people simply don't care -- and they don't > need to care, since most average Americans' lives would not be noticeably > improved, even in the long run, if they stopped measuring things the way > they measure them now. Most people are apathetic towards metric as long as they don't confront it. But, as soon as you answer a question with a metric answer, you see the fur fly. "This is America, asshole, we use feet and inches here". "Speak to me in fuckin' 'merican". If this isn't animosity, then what is? > 3. The British pay a big price for driving on the left, but that doesn't > mean that individual Britons are stupid for continuing to drive on the left, > and it doesn't mean that Britain is stupid for not converting to the system > used by the rest of the world. Converting would have a huge cost, too, > including, undoubtedly, a cost in lives. What about the costs of not converting? The cost of dual inventories, the cost of lost orders, the cost of carrying a dual set of tools in your tool box. The cost of buying the wrong part and then having to return it. And so on and so on? And speaking of lives, what about the loss of life when a hospital miscalculates a drug dosage because people are always weighed in pounds and drug dosages are always calculated in milligrams (or micrograms or millilitres) per kilogram body mass. Ok. the hospital get sued and has to pay a penalty, but lets face it, they pass that cost on to the next patient to walk in the door. But, the bottom line is, someones loved one is dead. And if it is a child, someones progenity is lost. How do you explain to someone who lost a loved one that their loved one was lost because someone made an error when converting from English to metric units? Let's just hope someone close to you isn't a victim of this type of error. Even though the UK might gain in > the long run by joining the rest of the world, the country's leaders could > perfectly rationally decide that the immediate cost of changing would be too > great. > 4. I am old enough to need reading glasses, and I find a millimeter scale > very hard to read at arm's length. That's just a fact. It doesn't make me > an idiot or a Luddite. OK! Could you please explain to me how a carpenter in 96 % of the world that uses only millimetre scales does it? I recently asked some of our Australian friends on this list how Australia was able to adopt. I think this would be interesting to hear. If others say they were able to adapt without a hitch, then what does that say about your capabilities if you say you can't? I'm not speaking of people who live in countries that went metric a century or so ago, I speaking of countries that went metric in our life time. They changed quickly and did it almost problem free. We have the example of others to follow as to what methods work and what methods don't. We also have the aid of computers whose use was not wide-spread 30 years ago as they are not now. That should make the conversion simpler and less costly. But, when we come up with excuses, it really does make us look like luddites and idiots. Nor does it mean that I think millimeters aren't > BETTER for measuring other things. To me, it makes perfect sense for > scientists all over the world (for example) to use the metric system; but I > also know that converting my home woodworking and carpentry to metric > measurements would make my life worse, not better. It is entirely possible > for me to hold those two ideas in my mind at the same time. > 5. There is nothing necessarily bad or difficult about living with multiple > standards. Except that working in two standards always increases the chance of errors and thus the costs. As long as we are willing to pay the cost, I guess we have no choice. I prefer not to pay the cost. My computer computes in base two, while I compute in base ten. > Converting either of us to the other's methodology for the sake of > uniformity would be a disaster. And as a practical matter, the difference > between our ways of doing arithmetic is irrelevant, because the computer > itself was designed to invisibly mediate between it and me. > 6. Bitterly focusing on British pub pints is an utterly self-defeating > strategy, if the goal is universal acceptance of the metric system. What > does it possibly matter to the metric system if British beer drinkers prefer > to drink beer 568.26 millilitres at a time? The message from British beer > drinkers is "Don't mess with the size of my beer." Pick a different issue > to get agitated about. David Owen Do you think the British would really get upset if the governemnt relaxed the law and allowed beer to be sold in 500 mL or even 1 L amounts. Australia and others went to 600 mL amounts and Germany and others have their litre steins. From an article recently posted to this listserver over an Austrian woman who was serving a litre of beer at her bierkeller, a trading standards officier said: "However we have to enforce the law. If we make an exception in this case it would set a precedent and we would have pubs up and down the country demanding the right to be able to serve their drinks in half-litres and litres." It isn't the metricators messing with the size of the beer glass, it is the law. Without the law, the pubs would have switched to litres long ago. John
