I strongly think believe that to get from one place to another you will go
through a transition.
To think that Americans, the American media etc would say "He drove at over
100mph" one day and "He drove at 160km/h (or whatever it is)" the next is
pretty proposterous.
And there's no need to use Australia, etc as the old example as I am unable
to believe that newpapers, TV, common folk talking etc would have switched
over over-night in the same way as state controlled things can be.
Heck, in Australia they still use imperial notation for quite a few things
now yet the sight of imperial "officially" does not exist.
If the USMA policy is to change the whole of the USA overnight, state,
people, newspapers, TV, to metric then that would be a first. It would also
be a miracle.
From: "Philip S Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:35021] Re: The pitfalls of double conversion.
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 19:30:22 +0100
I want to see full metrication in the UK, the USMA wan't to see full
metrication of America. Neither of us are campaigninmg for a half-way
house.
Savvy?
Phil Hall
----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Humphreys"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 3:34 PM
Subject: [USMA:35019] Re: The pitfalls of double conversion.
You know that I will disagree with you because I prefer dual measures -
but you miss out my key point.
I was talking about the US. and that *at least* move to dual notation
*then* campaing to get the imperial bit abolished.
as i said I cannot agree with that point of view but I can make an
observation.
It's interesting that I would like to see Americans see metric as well as
imperial, whereas you want me to be unable to see imperial alongside
metric. I've never got my head around that.
From: "Philip S Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:35018] Re: The pitfalls of double conversion.
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:34:22 +0100
But it is because of dual measures that this sort of muddle arises in the
first place.
There is no virtue in campaigning to keep it that way.
Phil Hall
----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Humphreys"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 10:01 AM
Subject: [USMA:35017] Re: The pitfalls of double conversion.
Make your mind up Daniel. You've been going on about the UK being
totally metric and the BBC being the same but recently that's all
changed (a few times actually).
Also, it's worth pointing out that Daniel believes that the BBC vets
people phoning in on live radio debates to make sure that the caller
speaks in imperial only and not metric. I won't enclose a link to the
page that says this unless anyone wants to take this offline.
The simple fact is - without conspiracy - the info was most probably
originally in metric. It was then converted to imperial - then, on this
"history news" item, the imperial figures were used and the BBC
"bi-lingualled" it back again. At the end of the day the accuracy is
such that I suspect it matters very little either way. I would
suggest that a move forward here (for metric) would be to suggest that
US news sources use both notations rather than just convert to imperial
all the time.
From: "Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:35013] Re: The pitfalls of double conversion.
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 18:16:35 -0400
300,000 miles (483,000 km)
185 miles (298 km)
60 miles (96.5 km)
What you are saying is that the use of imperial caused a corruption in
the metric values from 480 000, or possibly 500 000 to 483 000, from
300 km to 298 km, and from 100 km to 96.5 km. I
This was obviously done on purpose to give the impression that the
Russians, and everyone else for that matter thought in imperial, thus
the use of rounded imperial numbers, and metric was just added to show
how it produces silly, un-rounded numbers. Thus if anyone ever tries
to tell us that going metric would make numbers simpler, then all we
need do is show them something like this to prove it is imperial that
is simpler and metric is difficult.
The BBC needs to re-edit the article, remove the corrupted units, and
replace the metric values with the original.
Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: Remek Kocz
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Wednesday, 2005-10-26 17:27
Subject: [USMA:35012] The pitfalls of double conversion.
The BBC website has a neat feature where they post news items from
decades past. Today, the article
on the Soviet probe seding back the first pictures of the dark side
of the moon. The article cites
imperial dimensions followed by metric ones in parentheses. From
the metric equivalents given, it's pretty clear that BBC just
converted the measurements from the original news story to metric
without realizing that they were metric in the first place,
the data coming from metric Soviets and all.
I'm enclosing the link, just to show how inetesting the results can
be when a double conversion takes place. From metric to
imperial and then back to metric again. It's like that game kids
play in school where a phrase is whispered from child to child, to see
how the phrase will change by the time it reaches the last child.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/26/newsid_4045000/4045913.stm
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