Friends:
I have a question for Mr. Seymour? How much is a one-third?
May be the debate can then be of some meaning!
One-third of a kilometer, for example, can be rounded to 333.33 >meters,
but that's not precise. A third of a mile, however, is exactly >1,760 feet.
And a third of an inch is 0.333333 inches. So what does that prove?
>Dividing a kilometre into thirds is rarely done. Why doesn't Mr.
>Seymour pick a more practical example to "prove his point"? Maybe
>because there aren't any? I'm sure anyone who takes the time can find
>a lot more fault with the American units then can find with metric
>units.
The metric system has no problem with decimal divisions. American >units
do.
Brij Bhushan Vij <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Aa Nau Bhadra Kritvo Yantu Vishwatah -Rg Veda.
*****The New Calendar Rhyme*****
Thirty days in July, September:
April, June, November, December;
All the rest have thirty-one; accepting February alone:
Which hath but twenty-nine, to be (in) fine;
Till leap year gives the whole week READY:
Is it not time to MODIFY or change to make it perennial, Oh Daddy!
And make the calendar work with Leap Week Rule!
***** ***** ***** *****
From: "Norman & Nancy Werling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [USMA:25503] Re: San Antonio Express-News Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003
11:29:48 -0400
I don't recall you including a definition of the term Fred Flintstone Units
before using FFU. Would it be easier to simply call them USC? Also
although I wish the U.S. convention planned to use "metres" rather than
"meters" but sadly I don't think this is in the American plan so he may
think you are a Canadian or some other English-speaking foreigner.
I wonder if after the early reference to 'courage' you may want to include
something of what I put in there within square brackets.
I found only one instance in which you used the word "an" but meant to use
"and" when answering the conformity issue. I was surprised that my
computer used red when I inserted the word "And". Yet even I am not
certain if the word begins a new sentence requiring an upper case "And" or
is it is a continuation of the sentence which includes a questionmark and
thus qualifies to use a lower case "and".
I also added the words "or the British Imperial system" after your
statement that Europe never used the American system as possible addition
if you wish.
Norm
----- Original Message -----
From: kilopascal
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 11:14 PM
Subject: [USMA:25502] Re: San Antonio Express-News
2003-04-11
This is pure yellow journalism.
I just wish someone would write an article that was more balanced. It
really appears that the author either interviewed Valerie and Lorelle or
took something they said numerous times in the past then took it to this
Seymour guy to criticise. I didn't see anything that indicated that
Valerie and Lorelle were give the opportunity to counter Seymour's
comments. This was definitely designed t mock metrication.
In defence of metrication and fairness, I really feel that since Valerie
and Lorelle's names were mentioned in the article they should contact the
author and DEMAND equal time. They have the right to counter every
statement of non-sense made by this Seymour idiot. It is yellow journalism
like this that is impeding metrication from becoming more than a trickle.
I have interspersed some comments in RED. I plan on forwarding this to
the email address at the end, but, I need some one to help me by
proof-reading my comments. Once I edit it with other's comments, I will
forward it on.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nat Hager III" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, 2003-04-10 15:53
Subject: [USMA:25488] San Antonio Express-News
> San Antonio Express-News
> San Antonio Express-News (Texas)
>
> March 15, 2003, Saturday , METRO
>
> SECTION: BUSINESS EXPRESS; Pg. 6H
>
> LENGTH: 843 words
>
> HEADLINE: industry ; The meter isn't running ; America still resists
the
> change to the metric system.
>
> BYLINE: Roy Bragg
>
> BODY: America - home of the brave, land of the free and a place where
> courage is still measured in feet, not meters. [Here would be a good
place to mention that our soldiers and marines in Iraq use meters and
kilometers per hour (km/h) as repeated by embedded reporters before TV
anchor-persons changed it to feet and miles.)
>
> More than 28 years after Americans were told their country would adopt
> the international measuring standard, we remain one of three nations -
> the others are Liberia and Myanmar - that doesn't use the
decimal-based
> metric system of weights and measures.
Visitors to Liberia and Myanmar (Burma) have reported advanced use of
the metric system in both countries. The governments of these countries
never made an official announcement of metrication or metricated by
stealth, but metrication took place anyway. These countries depend on
trade from neighbouring metric countries and can not afford to be
non-metric in a metric world.
>
> Proponents of metrication are concerned yet hopeful.
>
> "We can't afford to use two measurement systems," said Valerie
Antoine,
> executive director of the United States Metric Association. "U.S.
> companies that export have to keep two sets of records, one for
domestic
> products and one for exported products. It costs more for them to
> manufacture goods, therefore it costs American people more to buy
them."
Actually, we have exported so much of many of our manufacturing base to
metric countries, that we are a major importer. Since we import from the
metric world, it is metric products we are importing. Some of those
countries fool us by labelling the products in FFU, but the actual design
and manufacture is metric.
>
>
> It's still 200 miles from San Antonio to Houston, not 322 kilometers.
A
> scorcher of a summer day is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, not 37.7 degrees
> Celsius. And San Antonio Spurs legend David Robinson is still a
> seven-footer, not a 2.13-meterer.
You mean to tell me that if I got in a car with the trip odometer
sitting at zero and parked exactly in the centre of San Antonio and drove
to the centre of Houston, the odometer would read exactly 200 miles, not a
tenth of a mile more or less. I went to mapquest and set up a trip from
San Antonio to Houston and the resultant distance was 197.07 miles, not a
rounded 200 miles as the article reported. This is 317 km. It would be
just as accurate to state the distance as a more rounded 320 km, or even
just 300 km. Since travellers going between the two cities don't always go
between downtown and downtown, there is no reason to be so exact.
http://www.mapquest.com/rtp/routeoverview.adp?rtpid=3e97723d%2d00006%2d0045b%2d400c2526
A scorcher of a day could just as well be a nice 40�C. Nobody needs to
express temperatures to tenths of a degree. It isn't done in Fahrenheit
and it doesn't have to be done in degrees Celsius only.
By the same token I'm sure I can find a guy who is exactly 2 m tall and
set him up as an example of a person whose height comes out to a nice round
number in metres.
>
> That's OK for Peter Seymour of Americans for Customary Weight and
> Measure, a group opposed to metrication, which is the correct term to
> describe the non-existent conversion.
>
> They say European countries haven't totally abandoned the American
> system - hours, after all, are 60 minutes in length, not 100. The
French
> railroad system uses the "miles" system for its tracks.
The Europeans never used the American system [or the British Imperial
system]. Before metrication, they had their own version of prehistoric
units. None were equal in value to the units Americans use, even those
with similar names. Some of these units have been given exact metric
values, such as a "pound" being 500 g instead of the American 454 g. This
difference actually adds confusion and inaccuracy to the understanding of
such units.
Can someone "prove" what system of units are used by the French
Railroads? Since all other European countries use kilometres it would be
silly if the French used miles.
>
> "(Conversion) is a scam to benefit other countries," says Seymour.
"The
> metric system is inferior. They think conformity is a good thing. It's
> not."
Really? And exactly how do they benefit? It seems from our trade
record, we have benefited them more by exporting most of our manufacturing
jobs to them and importing their metric products.
In what way is metric inferior? If it is so inferior, why does 96 % of
the people of the world use it? Why is it used by scientists everywhere?
Why does 40 % of American industry use it? an ---And---most important, why
are the American units defined by it? An inch is defined as 0.0254 m.
Doesn't that make the US units inferior too if they are defined by metric
units?
And how is conformity not a good thing? In matters of measurements and
standards, conformity is good. Conformity helps eliminate confusion,
errors and reduce costs. Not conforming is costing the US jobs and
business. Metric countries are net exporters of manufactured goods and
services. The US is a net importer. The US non-conformity is what is a
bad thing.
>
> The metric-customary impasse could be a metaphor for the state of
> U.S.-world relations, but it's not. America tried to go metric in
1975,
> when then-President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act,
> calling for a nationwide changeover.
>
> Enter the hype. Highway signs and baseball fences were repainted to
> include kilometers. Bank display signs began flashing the temperature
in
> Fahrenheit and Celsius. High school track meet races were reconfigured
> from yards to meters.
>
> Then someone read the fine print and discovered an interesting
loophole:
> the law didn't make the metric changeover mandatory. It was voluntary.
>
> Quicker than you could say "green hectares," America bailed.
Metrication
> was dead in its tracks, still miles - not kilometers - from its
> destination.
And what has this proven? It shows the US doesn't follow through on
things it starts. This is not something to be proud of.
>
> These days, beyond bicycles, food packaging and some industrial uses,
> the metric system hasn't caught on with Americans, creating a
> measurement gap between the world's dominant economy and the rest of
the
> world.
>
> Here's how bad the gulf is: The $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter
> crashed on the surface of the red planet in 1999 because the
> spacecraft's builder submitted acceleration data in English units of
> pounds of force instead of metric units called newtons.
>
> NASA Mission Control, remotely steering the craft via data
transmission,
> assumed all measurements were in newtons.
As mentioned above, this is one reason to conform. How much money and
materials have been lost over the years by hanging somewhere in-between?
Who pays for these errors?
>
> Metrication backers point to the toothless law as the problem.
>
> "That was a law that didn't have a deadline," said Lorelle Young,
USMA's
> president. "It just said the U.S. would use the metric system as its
> primary measurement system. Some industries changed over. Others
didn't.
> There was a big outcry from people who didn't know if it was a good
idea
> or not."
>
> Young and Antoine, both in Southern California, say they were drawn to
> the metric system because of its simplicity and elan. Learn multiples
of
> 10, they say, and anyone can master metric. Making it mandatory, they
> argue, would help American kids compete with the children of other
> countries in math skills.
>
> Seymour disagrees, saying that learning multiples of 10 and nothing
else
> would dumb down the American school system because kids would learn
less
> math.
Run this one by me again? That is one of the dumbest comments I've ever
heard. It appears Mr. Seymour is already dumbed down. Exactly how would
learning the structure of the metric system dumb down the school system?
This comment seems to lack both proof and basic logic.
>
> A related point Seymour makes is that metric measurements aren't easy
to
> calculate just because they're based on multiples of 10.
Maybe, maybe not? But, at least the common day to day math would be
much simpler and that is all that counts.
>
> One-third of a kilometer, for example, can be rounded to 333.33
meters,
> but that's not precise. A third of a mile, however, is exactly 1,760
> feet.
And a third of an inch is 0.333333 inches. So what does that prove?
Dividing a kilometre into thirds is rarely done. Why doesn't Mr. Seymour
pick a more practical example to "prove his point"? Maybe because there
aren't any? I'm sure anyone who takes the time can find a lot more fault
with the American units then can find with metric units.
The metric system has no problem with decimal divisions. American units
do.
>
> He also says metrication is just putting new labels on existing
> measurements. Thirty-five millimeter film, for example, was invented
as
> 13/8 inch - it was relabeled by manufacturers to make it a global
> standard.
It may have been invented as 1-3/8 film, but once the Germans and
Japanese started mass producing it, they made it 35 mm and that is the way
it has been ever since.
>
> All agree, however, that metrication is occurring.
>
> A federal law requires metric equivalents on all food packaging. Every
> day, more companies offer more metric-sized products for U.S.
consumers.
>
>
> Seymour says it's insidious.
>
> "It's little, incremental things," he says, "nibbling away, because
the
> public won't stand for a complete conversion."
>
> Young and Antoine have a different interpretation.
>
> "It's a stealth conversion," Young said. "If it isn't hurting anyone
and
> no one's complaining and it's making things better, it means Americans
> are going metric and they're OK with it."
>
> Adds Antoine, a retired engineer active in the movement since the
'60s:
> "It won't come fast enough for me."
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> GRAPHIC: PHOTO: ROBERT MCLEROY/STAFF ; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT
> MCLEROY/STAFF : In the United States, food packaging commonly has both
> customary and metric measures. ; No tool kit is complete without a set
> of metric wrenches, though you'd be wise to keep the other set handy
> too.
>
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