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Thread ID: 121113	2011-10-12 03:33:00	National Sillimeter Month - Hah!	SurferJoe46 (51)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1236996	2011-10-13 04:33:00	Joe: The reasons you put forward as to why America has not changed to metric - cost, prohibitive in a bad economy, resistance to metrification, the fact that imperial mesurements have worked so well in the past - are all reasons that were put forward when New Zealand (and Australia) were contemplating changing to metric, in 1969 and completed by 1977, as I recall. The main advantage of the metric system is that the decimal system it uses is much simpler, and, of course, the fact that the vast majority of the world uses that system. It means that we can import or export anything from anywhere, except America and a few countries under the influence of America, and know that our measurements on our products can be easily understood and need no conversion. Besides, it makes sense to be in step with the rest of the world when you want to sell your produce. Many countries cannot be choosy when they look for buyers of their produce and if those buyers require that your measurements be metric then that is what you do to keep your customers. America, as I said before, is so damn arrogant that they don't care what their customers require. Their attitude is that, "we are a very rich and powerful country with little competition and if you don't like the way we do it, go somewhere else." These days America is getting competion from the European economy, but it seems that America does not want to admit it. I think that because of the competive European market, the Americans are going to have to adopt the metric system eventually. How long that will take is unknown. Tony: The Americans do not use the Imperial measurements, they use American measurements, which makes the retention of such an archaic system even more ludicrous. Read what SP8 has to say about that.	Roscoe (6288)
1236997	2011-10-13 09:12:00	Tony: The Americans do not use the Imperial measurements, they use American measurements, which makes the retention of such an archaic system even more ludicrous. Read what SP8 has to say about that.Aha! Someone else with an irony deficiency. Of course it is American, but is descended from Imperial. I've never let mere facts stand in the way of a good dig at the Yanks.	Tony (4941)
1236998	2011-10-14 02:08:00	I think everyone should use Y/M/D. Makes it easier for sorting in my view. Agree I changed to YMD (without the slashes) at the start of the millennium. Today is 111014	BBCmicro (15761)
1236999	2011-10-14 06:28:00	I changed to YMD (without the slashes) at the start of the millennium. Today is 111014Of course if you really want ease of sorting you will use yyddd as in11287 for 14 Oct 2011.	Tony (4941)
1237000	2011-10-14 06:40:00	Aviation industry except for Fahrenheit as a temperature and excluding the ******* french, is imperial and long may be it be so.	prefect (6291)
1237001	2011-10-14 06:57:00	:confused: One of the nightmares I encountered in the 70's was an evaulation I made concerning 40 passenger turbotrop aircaft. The Fokker F27 was an ideal aircraft at the time but it turned out to be a complicated exercise. Although NAC and Ansett had a few in mothballs, and the price was right, engineering was the end of that idea. In the USA, the FH227 to all intents and purposes was identical, and local operators (Hughes Airwest) would come to the party with contract maintenance and parts. It soon became apparent the idea just wouldn't work. The Fokker aircraft were built to metric specifications, but the same aircraft (the Fairchild Hiller 227) was built under licence to US specs. The long and the short of it, was the US built aircaft was about 9 inches wider and about 14 inches longer than its European counterpart. The extra dimensions came about because of the need to build the US aircraft to imperial rather than metric specs - starting at the rivets. :waughh:	WalOne (4202)
1237002	2011-10-14 11:20:00	I was down south in a shearing gang in 78 and the boss was building a new house in Kelso. Anyway the dick head of a builder converted the plans to imperial but totally screwed it up and they had to smash the concrete which had underfloor heating. The backwards bastard created several days work for nothing and several years later because of flooding Kelso ceased to be.	mikebartnz (21)
1237003	2011-10-14 13:26:00	I was down south in a shearing gang in 78 and the boss was building a new house in Kelso. Anyway the dick head of a builder converted the plans to imperial but totally screwed it up and they had to smash the concrete which had underfloor heating. The backwards bastard created several days work for nothing and several years later because of flooding Kelso ceased to be. Is there not a message in there ---- somewhere?	SurferJoe46 (51)
1237004	2011-10-14 18:26:00	Is there not a message in there ---- somewhere? If not there, then here ... I remember (pre Metric era) in Wellington having a bespoke suit made for me. The tailor was a new European immigrant, whose English was not the best (like Americans :D ), but who otherwise was highly recommended. Said tailor duly measured me up, and a week or so later his assistant phoned to ask me in for a fitting. So far so good. Except when I came to try the suit on, it seemed, well very voluminous. Turned out the tailor had measured in his customary metrics, but when his Kiwi cutting staff came to do their thing, they had applied the wrong conversion factors to arrive at the imperial measurements they were more used to work in. Consequently my then 88cm waist measurement morphed into around 107cm (closer to what I am now) :lol:	WalOne (4202)
1237005	2011-10-14 18:50:00	If not there, then here ... I remember (pre Metric era) in Wellington having a bespoke suit made for me. The tailor was a new European immigrant, whose English was not the best (like Americans :D ), but who otherwise was highly recommended. Said tailor duly measured me up, and a week or so later his assistant phoned to ask me in for a fitting. So far so good. Except when I came to try the suit on, it seemed, well very voluminous. Turned out the tailor had measured in his customary metrics, but when his Kiwi cutting staff came to do their thing, they had applied the wrong conversion factors to arrive at the imperial measurements they were more used to work in. Consequently my then 88cm waist measurement morphed into around 107cm (closer to what I am now) :lol: So-o-o- NOW it fits OK?	SurferJoe46 (51)
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