[USMA:34559] Re: Upgrade to metric

[Remek Kocz]

Working in the computer industry myself, I know exactly what you mean.  I also noticed the parallels between an upgrade of an operating system on thousands of workstations and moving the US over to the metric system.  Network administrators don't really have much of a choice when Microsoft releases a new operating system.  The product lifecycle policy dictates that the OS will become obsolete in a few years, and nilly-willy we have to upgrade everything unless we want the computers to become vulnerable to the ever-present onslaught of viruses, worms, and hacks.  Such upgrades are usually short-term projects that are carefully planned.  With proper plan in hand, their execution is swift, seamless, and, for the most part, non-disruptive.   The biggest roadblocks to such migrations are money, personnel, and communication.  Microsoft (or Cisco, or any other manufacturer) essentially provides the "will" to drive these upgrades with their lifecycle policy. 

Back to upgrading to metric, we could have a campaign slogan of "Upgrade Your Measuring System" combined with a nationwide consumer education campaign presenting SI as the measuring system of the future, as the facilitator of job creation, deficit reduction, and worker efficiency, as a standard that will make the US more competitive in the global markets, etc.  And instead of inundating the citizenry with cartloads of overly precise conversion factors, just show metric on its own terms. 

Remek

On 9/18/05, Scott Hudnall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I think Americans are comfortable with what we call "updates", "upgrades" and "migrations" in the software industry. When new software releases come out, there is a push to migrate existing and legacy systems to newer systems. These terms are currently very much in use in in American businesses and don't seem to have the negative connotations that the words "convert" or "conversion" seem to have. "Migration" tends to imply moving on to an upgraded system at the end of a useful life-cycle, whereas "conversion" seem to imply throwing away equipment in the middle of its lifecycle. Perhaps if we frame the metrication debate in terms of "updates", "upgrades" and "migrations", we can make greater strides in getting this country upgraded to the metric system.

Here was an article I found interesting.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/17/HOGOSENH5L1.DTL

The article uses both metric and imperial units, but does not use dual-units. At one point it defines the BTU in terms of customary units. The air-quality standards listed in the article are listed in metric only...because the environmental industry upgraded to metric standards years ago.


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Scott Hudnall