I happen to know that raw plastic starts out as small beads that are shipped by mass. They are placed into an injection mold machine and heated to be become soft and then extruded into the shape desired.
The record is pressed while still soft, then trimmed to the desired size of either 175 mm, 250 mm or 300 mm. The record is cured to make it hard. Labels and packaging come later. I'm sure your BBC report was dumbed down from 35 cm. You obviously have never been in a record factory or you would know that it is metric inside. We do have 80 cm TV sold in the US as both 31 and 32 inches, depending on the brand and store. We also have 100 cm TVs sold as either 39 or 40 inches. Two different inch descriptions, one true metric size. Like you record player that had metric markings on it, check out your projection screen and you will see it is a true 3 m. Marketers don't care if the inch descriptions don't equal the true size as long as they can fool the consumer into buying the TV. Jerry ________________________________ From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 6:07:30 PM Subject: [USMA:44548] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US) Although the vinyl might be supplied to the factory in kg packs could you tell me how you know? It might be bought in lengths (squares). The initial record starts of as a 14" disc - as you saw in the BBC report. Obviously the final product is inch based as an ex-colleague (who actually worked for a record company) told me - it's cut down that way. 31 1/2 inch is not a 'standard' panel size for TV's. It's also rather small. Most living room TV's are 40-plus. To keep it on topic - projection systems measure slightly different to TVs - TV's are diagonal whereas Projector screens are measured across the width (I have a 10ft one - insert your own gag). It'll be interesting to hear your odd take on how how these screens are made. ________________________________ Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:00:36 -0700 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [USMA:44535] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US) To: [email protected]; [email protected] The vinyl used to make the records is bought by the record company in rounded kilogram packages. Thus the raw data is still metric. They heat the material using degrees Celsius and press it with metric sized dies and then trim it to a nice round metric size. Nothing about record production is inch based. I don't know what the marketing practice is in these countries or why they chose to use numbers the general population does not relate to unless it is a typical marketing gimmick to use what is not known in an attempt to fool the public into getting something more then what they really are. If they don't supply the centimetre data along with the trade size (Most do even if you pretend not to see it )then they do it so that the buying public would not realize the size is smaller then what they imagined even though the centimetres would produce bigger numbers. A person who sees a 31.5 inch TV may not a know right away that the size is 80 cm. They may think it is larger. Only when they see the true 80 cm size do they know what they are truly getting. I can see inch trade sizing being used on the majority of people who don't know what an inch is in order to cheat them. It only shows that inches are a dishonest unit. Jerry ________________________________ From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 1:28:21 PM Subject: [USMA:44535] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US) Vinyl Records are based on inch-based raw (original) data. however - It's quite possible that televisions are manufactured in metric and *then* sold via inch based descriptions. One thing to note - whereas old CRT sets could be made to look bigger (viewing size versus actual size) the plasma and LCD screens are a "WYSIWYG" format - thus only needing one size. I think the original quandary is - lets assume that TV's are manufactured in metric to millimeter tolerances - then why do "very" metric countries like Spain and Germany advertise and sell them using inches? Furthermore - the use of 'cm' could actually 'big-up' the screen size so no-one's even exploiting metric for this purpose. It seems odd that this has happened with TV's that's all - don't you think? I'm not sure if it goes further - like in the UK - eg office fans and the like (mainly because I tend not to visit office stores when I'm abroad!!) ________________________________ Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:29:05 -0700 From: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:44530] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US) To: [email protected] CC: [email protected] I'm glad you mentioned TVs. I think that video imaging devices are another technology that has lost its metric roots and even by die-hard metric supporters is believed to have originated with pre-metric units. But lie vinyl records, now proved to have originated as a metric product, imaging devices are the same. My post from 18 Jan 2009 questioned the sizes given in inches. They are the most strange set of fractions, including fractions with decimal components in the denominator. A fraction that is an imperial extremists nightmare. They are as far from being rounded in imperial as you can get. Yet when you translate them back to the original millimetre numbers, they turn out to be rounded numbers. Just from the numbers chosen one can deduce what the original designer was thinking. (I'm hoping that John S can explain from an engineering viewpoint what logical reason there would be in designing a product in inches with stange fractions that turned out to be rational metric numbers in disguise if the metric numbers were not intended to be the true dimensions.) Excerpt from my original post: I came across a wikipedia article recently on image sensor format and it had something there that confused me. Towards the end of the article is a TABLE OF SENSOR SIZES. In the first row of the table is the type. It is called out by a size in fractional inches. Except for the 1/4", 1/2" and 1", the rest of these inches I never heard of. I didn't even know some of the fractions stated were possible. I was always taught that inches in fractions followed a pattern where the denominator could only be numbers like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64. However, this table has the following fractional inches shown: 1/4", 1/3.6", 1/3.2", 1/3", 1/2.7", 1/2.5", 1/2", 1/1.8", 1/1.7 ", 2/3", 1" and 4/3" What kind of inch sizes are these and why are they stated in strange fractions like these? How do you even say such numbers? I noticed the rest of the article used millimeters to describe the sensor dimensions. So I was wondering if these strange fractions were meant to be inch conversions of millimeters. Does anyone know if this is the case? If you convert all of the inch fractions to millimeters, you get: 6.5, 7.0, 8.0, 8.5, 9.5, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 25, and 34. Of course none of the numbers came out exactly as the numbers I show. I rounded them to the nearest 0.5mm. To see if my rounding was biased, I reverse converted the millimeter numbers and rounded the numbers properly to one decimal place and was able to get the same fractional numbers shown above. This lead me to believe that the image sensors were conceived in millimeter units and later changed to fractional inches. Why would someone produce a series of fractional numbers that the average man can't comprehend when a simpler whole number metric series exists and would seem to be more functional? Some of these sensors were based on older model vacuum tubes, such as the 4/3". But was the 4/3" really a 34 mm size? Does anyone know who invented these tubes and why they chose such strange sizes? Why not a sensible fraction like 1-5/16"? This strange set of fractional numbers for the sensor types just seems too strange, so I hoping that someone can provide a logical reason why it was done that way. Jerry ________________________________ From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 8:03:44 PM Subject: [USMA:44459] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US) There's the odd exception - eg TV's. Also - isn't Spanish plumbing based on inches for some historical reason? ________________________________ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:28:59 -0700 Subject: [USMA:44449] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US) From: [email protected] CC: [email protected] To: [email protected] The Spanish word for inch is "pulgada." Like most words for inch, it is similar to word for "thumb," which in this case is "pulgar." Of course no Spanish-speaking country uses inches or feet. Naturally the original pulgada, pre-metrication, was not equal to 25.4 mm or the barley-based system you mention. But the word "pulgada" now refers to the 25.4 mm international inch. Similarly the word "pie" means "foot," in both the measurement and anatomy. Stephen Mangum On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Jeremiah MacGregor <[email protected]> wrote: Martin, I agree that the duim is a body part that some people used it to measure things with in the past like the foot. I don't agree that it is the same as the inch. The inch was defined as three barley corns round and dry. Can you tell me the original official definition of the duim? I would suspect that it was not related to barley corns. Thus my point is, the two are not the same. No disrespect was intended. I'm sure we can find a list of units that were used in various countries that have no equivalent to English units. Jerry ________________________________ From: Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2009 3:53:03 PM Subject: RE: [USMA:44374] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US) Jerry, Two things: 1) Please do Han the courtesy of assuming that is command of Dutch is better than yours – the “.nl” at the end of his e-mail address suggests to me that Dutch is probably his mother tongue.. 2) I can vouch for the fact that the word “duim” means both “thumb” and “inch” in both Dutch and Afrikaans (I speak both languages). In English, the word “foot” can either be part of the human anatomy or it can be a unit of measure. In Dutch and in Afrikaans, both the words “voet” and “duim” are units of measure and are also parts of the human anatomy. ________________________________ From:[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeremiah MacGregor Sent: 05 April 2009 14:28 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:44374] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US ) … snip Doesn't the word "Duimstok" literally mean "thumb stick"? A thumb and an inch are not really they same thing, even if they are close. … snip Jerry ________________________________ From:Han Maenen < [email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2009 5:54:11 AM Subject: [USMA:44369] RE: Reasoable Language (was Metrication US ) I agree with Bll Potts. Leave expressions like 'inch by inch' or 'not an inch' alone. Those opposed to metric would love it if we wanted to change such things. In the Netherlands a folding measuring stick is called a 'duimstok', which is 'inch stick' in English. I have a wooden duimstok or inch stick with centimetres only on it. I just avoid measuring instruments with dual units like the plague. Just west of of Dublin is the suburb Inchicore, how lunatic it would be to change that to 2.54cmcore, or Sixmilebridge near Limerick to '9.6 km-Bridge'. Of course, the distance to Sixmilebridge is always given in km on road signs: 'Sixmilebridge 10 km'. There is a small place in Ireland called Inch. And people in metric countries should never give an inch to Imperial and/or U.S. Customary in their own environment. That would be very beneficial to metrication. Han ----- Original Message ----- From:Bill Potts To:U.S. Metric Association Sent:Monday, 2009, March 30 22:30 Subject:[USMA:44234] RE: Reasonable Language (was Metrication US ) Pat and John: For years, some of us on this list have tried to be reassuring to the metrication-averse and to also counter some of the stranger statements made by the more virulent opponents of metrication. <snip> -- Stephen ________________________________ Share your photos with Windows Live Photos – Free. Try it Now! ________________________________ Windows Live Messenger just got better. Find out more! ________________________________ " Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 Optimised for MSN. " Download Now
