But, Remek, the announcer said that the 10-kilometer-high building was built to 
withstand wind speeds of 180 MILES per hour.  Oops!

Seems that futurists from countries still struggling with metrication even have 
difficulty (or is it reluctance?) predicting a fully metric future. I suppose 
it's all in the sexiness of the story, which apparently excludes the work 
required to think metric. It is easy for the BBC to predict the banning of meat 
sales, the first off-earth human birth, and the disappearance of Mandarin, but, 
darn it,  [snaps fingers] they just can't find their way to omit the 
measurement system that should also have gone the way of meat and prisons in 
their thinking. They are literally unable to measure their predictions. 

Paul Trusten, Reg. Pharmacist
Vice President
U.S. Metric Association, Inc.
Midland, Texas USA
www.metric.org 
+1(432)528-7724
[email protected]


On Apr 16, 2013, at 10:32, Remek Kocz <[email protected]> wrote:

> BBC has an occasional news segment entitled News 2050.  This one caught my 
> eye, as the headline was metric:
>  
> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130327-news-2050-10000m-tower-opens
>  
> Indeed, they do a nice job with the 10,000 meter height, no feet equivalents 
> and an appropriate comparison to Mt. Everest is made.  Shortly after, though, 
> they drop the ball an state that the tower can witstand winds of 180mph 
> velocity.  Oh well.
>  
> Remek

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