on 2003-09-04 02.59, Terry Simpson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: <snip>
> I wonder why there is no demand for yard/meter sticks here? Perhaps it is > one of those things that you don't realise is useful unless you have it. Metre sticks are available in Australia and most schools have class sets of them. These are usually wooden, and of lowish quality. Better quality, steel and stainless, are available and these are often used used in wood working and metal working workshops, where they are used as straight edges. I have also seen a two metre ruler. Sadly, these one metre and two metre rulers, like most rulers and tapes in Australia, are dual sided. This has been a continuous and continuing impediment to metrication in Australia. > A quick online search shows that spirit levels on offer in the UK are > commonly in pseudo foot lengths e.g. 600 mm. But you can get rational metric > lengths. These might not be 'pseudo foot lengths', but legths designed to suit a dimensional co-ordination regime. See 'New Metric Handbook' edited by Patricia Tutt and David Adler, Chapter 4 � Dimensional Co-ordination. In this Tutt and Adler describe 'controlling dimensions', which increase from 100�mm for small measures, to 300�mm for mid-size measures, and then to 600�mm for large building measures. There are also other practical reasons for ruler selection; 300�mm is the smallest you can use to rule a line the length of an A4 page, and 600�mm does the same for an A3 page. By the way, isn't it strange that we still call them 'rulers' and not 'measurers'? Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by sending an email containing the words subscribe Metrication matters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
