On Mon, 02 Jun 2003 17:15:03 Jim Elwell wrote: >Two interesting views: > >At 2 June 2003, 12:26 PM, Carl Sorenson wrote: >>Count me with the optimists. I am often pleased by the positive attitudes >>toward the metric system that I hear from my friends and acquaintances. > >At 2 June 2003, 9:07 AM, Marcus Berger wrote: >>I'm always amazed at the level of optimism that our colleague, Jim, >>expresses here time and again, despite evidence to the contrary... >>Anyhow, I'll be long dead till I see *in public use throughout the US* any >>appreciable amount of REAL metric data. In the meantime the clock is still >>ticking (we have ~6-7 years left on our bet, Jim!... > Indeed! And I'd recognize that they both have merits!...
>Carl and I live in the USA, whereas Marcus does not. Could the difference >in what we see be due to that fact that Marcus is so surrounded by metric >and he notices everything that isn't, whereas Carl and I are largely >surrounded by colloquial measures, so we notice everything that is metric? > However, I'm not sure the above would be entirely accurate. My example of that silly painting was only to highlight that this could indeed be a matter of perception! Like the good old classical example of whether a cup is half empty of half full!... However, what I really wanted us to do is to evaluate this from a *scientific perspective* and leave such... 'perceptions' aside! Since in the end what really matters to me is *what you see, HARD EVIDENCE*. So, percentagewise, I'd like to have tangible data indicating that progress IS unequivocally been made. In this case, 'drops of water' are DEFINITELY *NOT* tangible 'proof' simply because these are TOO SMALL or few to prove anything. It is like grabbing a bucket of sand to pour it on a beach and claim that we are now having more sand there than before, if you know what I mean!... In aggregate, if we pay attention we may find just as many cases of backsliding as these "pseudonew" ones. >And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I see metric a lot more >now than even 5 years ago. I'm not saying that we don't have a long ways to >go (we do), but I believe it is an accelerating process. > Hmm... Well... Since you pointed out, correctly, that I don't live in your environment I'd not be able to challenge you on that. However, I do challenge you on this one. Please present and/or evaluate TANGIBLE *industry* trends or something to make your case. The food industry is ENORMOUS in terms of number of different products and whatnot. Therefore, seeing a "new" 1.5 L package here and there, for example, etc, is quite frankly NOTHING deserving excitement! Show me, for instance, say, orange juice moving from hideous 1.89 L, ALL, to 1.75 L or 1.5 L, whatever, and THEN you've got my attention! >As to our bet, Marcus, I haven't forgotten it! >... He, he... Good! We've already talked about this in private. Hopefully I'll still be alive by then... Cheers, Marcus ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
