Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None - darkness will become the new standard.
Is this not another way of expressing Remek's comments? _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Pat Naughtin Sent: 25 March 2011 20:55 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:50193] Re: iPhone & Fahrenheit On 2011/03/25, at 23:15 , John Frewen-Lord wrote: Sadly, the comment that Remek makes, "Why adjust our product to the world--let's make the world adjust to it." is the American way. I come cross it so often. Take Windows - those of us in other countries have to spend quite some time adjusting our settings to measurement and date formats from the default US way (which virtually no-one else in the world uses). Dear John, It is worse than just weather default settings. In the Optimal School document at http://metricationmatters.com/docs/OptimalSchool.pdf I wrote as part of a mythical report: ## Another insight I gained from a seventh grade teacher is that she will not use the "Pages" program from the Apple computer company because they divide centimetres into quarters and not into decimal fractions or into millimetres. She says: In fact, the Apple Company will not even let us choose millimetres to layout our pages. Children might be doing an assignment on the history of the metric system and, according to Apple, when they want to layout their pages they have to work either in inches and fractions of inches, or in centimetres divided into halves and quarters. Then she added: . and the Microsoft Company is no better - all of their defaults in Microsoft Word are in inches and fractions of inches. To be fully metric, all students in all schools have to fight daily against these two major software companies and their backward looking attitude to modern measurement. Their attitude is pre Simon Stevin, so they are pre 1585! ## Cheers, Pat Naughtin Geelong, Australia On 2011/03/25, at 23:15 , John Frewen-Lord wrote: Sadly, the comment that Remek makes, "Why adjust our product to the world--let's make the world adjust to it." is the American way. I come cross it so often. Take Windows - those of us in other countries have to spend quite some time adjusting our settings to measurement and date formats from the default US way (which virtually no-one else in the world uses). And it can work for the US. On my last trip to Canada, I noticed a provincial document that used the US MM-DD-YYYY date format. I was visiting a friend who still works for the Province, and over our 2nd or 3rd beer asked him why that document appeared like that, when the official way in Canada was the international YYYY-MM-DD format (it used to be DD-MM-YYYY format, which is what my kids were taught in school in Ontario in the 1970s). He replied that so many computers were now operated by the province which came with the default US MM-DD-YYYY format, that there was wholesale confusion over dates, and that far too few people changed their format to the international one. So the province took the easy option, and now uses the default US one. I have to say that annoys me, but only because I think the US date format is illogical and stupid. John F-L ----- Original Message ----- From: Remek Kocz <mailto:[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 11:55 AM Subject: [USMA:50188] iPhone & Fahrenheit I find it quite amazing that in their infinite wisdom, Apple markets the iPhone/iPod with that weather app pictured with a sunny day and 73 degrees (unidentified, but we know which scale). From a cursory glance at sites outside the US, it looks like they're marketing it like this to the rest of the world. This really flips the software development concept of internationalization on its head. Why adjust our product to the world--let's make the world adjust to it. I know that the app can be switched to Celsius, but Fahrenheit by default, that's just hard to believe. Remek Pat Naughtin LCAMS Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY 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 <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.
