Got a few things to put down here, so there's bound to
be a bit of reading - I could never say anything in a short fashion, only a
long-winded one...I'm not sure whether that was to the delight or horror of my
English teachers at school lol!
I have noticed some arguments on the web against metric
seem to be based on its flaws. YES you don't get a nice even number when you
divide 10 by three (or 100 for that matter). YES you can put the bloody
decimal point in the wrong spot. In fact despite the strong pro-metric stance
I have, I am willing to concede that when properly pointed out, it does have
its flaws. No doubt about it.
But if you really think about it, I mean REALLY think
about it, anything designed by, invented by, of thought up by humans is flawed
- or should I say IMPERFECT? Because let's face it, we ourselves are
imperfect. So the idea is not to say "OH you can't do thirds in Metric!" and
flush it down the S-bend! At the end of the day (at least in my mind) the way
to pick the better system is to choose the one with the least flaws, critical
errors, stuffups - whatever you fancy calling them. And as I see it, there are
far less things wrong with metric (in reality, less than a lot of people
apparently will admit) then the Imperial system.
On a slightly different note, another argument against
was based on the account of an American woman's trip to Europe, where she
encountered people being slack and using fractions rather than decimals - so
writing Kilometres an hour as KPH rather than the correct km/h isn't slack? -
and in the pub she found people still called their glasses of beer
"pints"...SO WHAT?
In Australia we call them pints, pots, schooners...And
then for the smaller glasses there's middies and even more...The whole idea of
calling it a bloody pint is that despite the measurement system changing,
people still prefer a little tradition, thought not enough to prevent them
from adopting Metric in the first place.
And FYI, the pint glass HAS a
metric value - 568mL.
Now for those of you who think its just too dam hard to
change the system of measurement...Well I can't speak from experience because
like I say I came into the world after Australia changed over. But one thing I
can say is since 1972, practically and culturally most things are thought of
in metric terms. There are only a few examples of Imperial prevailaing, and
then a lot of the time that has to do with US influence. The best example is
with vehicle tyres - diameters in inches, and pressures for everyday use in
PSI rather than the metric kPa, but that's also because in this case PSI is a
simpler way of doing things. And for timber we still have the old faithful 4x2
(2x4 to the US, "four-be-two" in Australian lingo) basically because it is a
cultural thing more then anything else, even though the timber is sold in
metric values.
The funny thing is older people will still say "It's
about 18 inches wide" or "2 foot deep"...But these things take a few
generations to completely change. I mean Europe has had hundeds of years and
they're more metric than us, but they still have "pints" LOL.
My father is like this, a surveyor by trade, he was a
draftsman with a shire council during the transition, and although he is
trained and thinks in numerial/decimal/ultimately metric terms, he will still
bloody say "it's 18 inches long!"
And as for the traditional element in Australia? Well a
lot of us love our fishing, and the first thing you see when you buy gear
imported from the US is primarily its figures in imperial THEN metric (i.e.
yards of line, poundage rating) and at the end of the day, most gear made in
australia and sold here will also have imperial values...I guess at the end of
the day people prefer to say they have a "7-foot baitcaster combo, with
12-pound line, (and the relevant rig) with a 2-ounce sinker"...Put simply some
things will never change, but at least there's no real confusion here because
at the end of the day we're just trying to catch a bloody fish, which we will
weigh in kilograms anyway lol.
But out of this the real bummer is getting a product
(whatever is is) from the US and having it say something like "this part
50mm", then buying a 50mm bracket to fit - sorry 5cm :P - and having it NOT
fit, and then realising the bloody thing is 2-inches, and so is 50.8mm wide!
NO CRAPPY SOFT CONVERSIONS ON THE BOX! USE EXACT FIGURES PLEASE!
One more point in this long-winded posting covers
temperature. Someone made the point that Fahrenheit enables you to think "high
90s - getting hot" and "low 30s - BRASS MONKEY WEATHER!" and you couldn't do
this with Celsius (CELSIUS NOT CENTIGRADE!) because of the smaller temperature
range for "ambient temperature" - oooo big words. Ok lets look at it this way
: 32F/0C 122F/50C 212F/100C So your everyday temperatures are going to fall
between 0C and 45C. Instead of having to remember a shitload of ranges, you
think 0-10 cold, 11-20 warming, 20-30 warm, 30-35 hot, and after 35 it's
bloody hot. Trust me it's easier for you to learn that then it is for me to
think "shit it's 67F in New York City - WTF?!!"
In mentioning that, let me say that when considering
American visitors/tourists, many Australian info sites will put the
temperature ranges for Australian cities and town in both scales. But sadly
you don't often seem to afford the same courtesy to us and the rest of the
world. Apparently people other than just myself must have brought this to the
attention of weather.com because you can now display figures INCLUDING
temperature in metric - you get the marks for that guys!
And now you're crying, wishing you'd never embarked
upon the journey from the top to the bottom of this page, let me close by
pointing out something peculiar. Desipite the US being anti-metric, it is
quite common to see US measurements for lengths or depths (e.g. snow)
displayed in inches with decimals...WTF?!! I mean 10.63-inches...Ok give me
0.63 of an inch...What's that you say? You can't?...Or is it something like
1/536870912 inches (not the correct answer)?? horrible minute little
fractions...Let's face if you divide an inch into 8 parts, condemn base-10
measurements, then try to marry the 2...Ummm I think that's just crap and
maybe a touch hypocritical. At least if you get 10.63cm, you know 0.63 cm is
actually 6.3mm.
