I have a couple of cars here in the US with km/h speedos. I mentally convert with no problem...
I've mostly set my car temp readings to C. Same thing. Took some getting used to, but wasn't long. Now it's fine. > On Mar 23, 2020, at 15:50, Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The biggest hindrance to a metric changeover is to give the > imperial/customary equivalent for every measure. By all means, have some > standard conversion charts – for example for temperature show the Fahrenheit > equivalents of 40°C, 30°C, 20°C, 10°C, 0°C and -10°C. Thus, if somebody > wanted to know the Fahrenheit equivalent of say of 25°C, they would have to > look at the chart and see that it would be midway between 68°F and 84°F. The > important thing is that the Celsius figure would pass through their mind. > > South Africa converted to km/h shortly after I started driving. The fuel > crisis came a year later and there were draconian speed limits. I had an old > jalopy with an mph speedo, but I very quickly learned all the km/h > conversions – it would have been very expensive not to do so. > > Here, in the UK, thanks to “social distancing” and the coronavirus everybody > is rapidly learning what “two metres” is. > > From: USMA [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brian White > Sent: 23 March 2020 13:14 > To: Peter Goodyear > Cc: USMA List > Subject: [USMA 1331] Re: U.S. metrication is eminently doable! > > Yep. The Associated Press needs to change that ONE little thing and it would > go a long way. > > They seem to bend over backwards to change anything metric to US Customary. > Where if they'd just leave it metric or even prefer metric (and lose the > stupid football field reference) we'd make great progress. > > > On Mar 23, 2020, at 03:38, Peter Goodyear <[email protected]> wrote: > > It helps if the public is immersed in a metric environment as much as > possible so that there is no need for conversions. Putting metric > measurements on food packaging was not found to be a major source of > information for the Australian public. People just pick up a can of stew or > packet of pasta that looks “big enough”. > > What happened here was that the media reported news and sports in metric > measures. For example, the Melbourne Cup was run over 3200 metres instead of > two miles (16 furlongs/two miles). I remember a sports commentator being > criticised for describing “a two-thirds of a metre putt” when covering a golf > match. Hobbyist magazines wrote articles in metric terms. Wide-circulation > magazines such as Readers Digest and Women’s Day wrote articles, news and > recipes in metric measures. The weather was reported in Celsius temperatures, > millimetres of rain and wind speeds in km/h. > > To do this you will need to get the mainstream media actively supporting > metrication. Good luck with that! > > Best wishes, > > Peter, > > Melbourne, Australia > e-mail: [email protected] > > > > > > > > > > On 23 Mar 2020, at 14:56, Milos Paripovic <[email protected]> wrote: > > It is doable but common person has to be considered. Take a few adults with > only a high-school (or even elementary school) from any random Metric-only > country and make a survey which units they are using and which prefixes. For > example, I spent first 30 years of my life in several metric-only countries > and I have almost never heard anyone using deci-, deca-, hecto-, etc, and > many don't know what these are. 2 years after high-school most people will > forget what is micro and mega, not to mention the rest. From reading this > mailing list and reddit/r/Metric I see that many go into too much detail, for > example forcing usage of mm instead of cm, but a common person growing up in > metric country, millimeter is less convenient, and by the same logic, also > less convenient for anyone trying to convert. Then, there are the ones that > try to make people do everything right from the start, for example, imposing > rules on how the prefixes should be used to avoid decimal points, and that > just complicate things unnecessarily. That makes sense only with certain > professions after everyone has fully adopted basic units and is able to think > without converting. Most common people will error +-50% or more when > estimating 10 cm, 1 kilogram, 1 kilometer, and any other. We might as well > say yard is meter, quart is a liter, as for a common person without a > measuring tape even that is precise enough, but is much simpler. There is no > point in considering engineers, scientists and other highly educated people > that are dealing with measurements every day for the initial efforts, and > until we have a person at deli understanding metric and being able to sell > you half a kilogram of meat, there will be no change. > Milos > > On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 5:24 PM Paul Trusten <[email protected]> wrote: > I personally went Celsius in 2003. True, America did not,but my cell phone > and my car always talk to me in Celsius only. The result is that I can talk > to anyone in Celsius only. During my 2013 visit to England, I noticed that my > English friend set the thermostat in his car to 17 on a chilly day. I usually > set mine to 21. The temperature in my apartment is 20 to 21. I have dropped > the “C” from my discourse. Metrication SHALL work! I totally agree with > Martin. We made the change with carbonated beverages (1 L, 2 L, 3 L). We CAN > do it with milk. We can do it with anything! > > > On Mar 22, 2020, at 12:23, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Al Lawrence's point is well taken in my opinion: arithemetical > > conversions just turn people off. The best way to go metric is just to use > > it in daily life - no conversions. Set your digital thermometer to degrees > > Celsius; set your digital scale to kilograms - it's simple. Pretty soon > > you'll have to think hard to interpret Fahrenheit and pounds! > > > > Kaimbridge's point is valid to a certain extent, e.g., with quarts and > > liters, but nobody uses cmHg, as far as I know. > > > > Martin Morrison > > > > ============ > >> On Sun, 22 Mar 2020, Al Lawrence wrote: > >> > >> Most people hate math and will avoid it at all costs. Most people don't > >> even bother trying to figure out if buying two quarts of ice cream is > >> cheaper than buying a half gallon, and many couldn't do it if they tried. > >> They buy by visual size and assume the bigger size is cheaper per unit. > >> They buy two liter bottles of soda, half liter bottles of water and other > >> metric packaging without hesitation, simply by visually looking at the > >> size without even looking at the net contents. ANY and ALL conversion > >> tables (that look like math) or any other attempts to educate them, will > >> turn people off and are counterproductive. > >> Al Lawrence > > _______________________________________________ > > USMA mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma > > _______________________________________________ > USMA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
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