On 2008/06/13, at 4:06 PM, Mike Millet wrote:
Today while I was visiting the gym I noticed that the eliptical
machines now had color touchscreen panels on them. The first thing I
noticed was it had an iPod dock so I could control my playlists by
tapping the screen and setting the song I wanted and listening
through a headphone jack. But as I was using it I noticed that the
distance units could be set to kilometers and the speed to
kilometers per hour. I was originally confused because on the screen
it shows an imaginary track oval and you as a little dot running
along towards the finish line, but the finish line seemed to make no
sense in miles until I switched it to meters and discovered that the
"track" was a standard 400m oval marked off every 100m.
Needless to say I was happy to have at least part of my workout
fully metric :). The second instance I noticed was Fox news was
interviewing the Boy Scouts who survived a tornado striking their
camp earlier this week and when one of the news anchors asked one of
the boys how far away he thought the tornado was from his position
the boy replied that he thought it was about 500 meters, and seemed
quite comfortable using meters to describe distance.
It's nice to see a couple more instances of the USA's slow but
inevitable transition towards the SI.
Mike
Dear Mike,
Thanks for these examples of progress toward the completion of
metrication in the USA.
On the issue of the little spot on the running track could you share
with us some thoughts about your speed.
I know that I walk slowly at about 80 metres per minute.
I can march at 90 metres per minute, and
I walk quite briskly at 100 metres per minute.
Given that there metre markers on your screen are 100 metres apart,
what are the relative values for you, when you jog, and when you run?
By the way, when Michael Johnson broke the world record for 400 metres
in 1999, he was running at the equivalent of a bit over 555 metres per
minute.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter/
to subscribe.
