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

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1236976	2011-10-12 03:33:00	Don't want no steenking silimeters here. I'm doing just fine with feet, inches and gallons. Happy National Metric Week — now, Americans, brush up on the metric system --- if you care. How Many Gills In A Cubic Dekameter? (www.npr.org) October 9, 2011 It's National Metric Week – always celebrated in the week that contains Oct. 10, because that's the 10th day of the 10th month. Metric folks love the number 10. The International System of Units — that's the official name of the metric system — is a decimal system of weights and measures based on the meter and the kilogram. Abbreviated SI, for Système international d'unités, the metric system was first suggested as early as the 16th century. It's now used almost universally throughout the world, though a few places still use some non-metric measurements (known as English or Imperial standards). You can still order a pint in a British or Irish pub, for example. Although its use has been sanctioned in America since 1866, the U.S. has stuck to ye old English system of feet and ounces. Only three countries — Burma (also known as Myanmar), Liberia and the United States — have not adopted it. As the CIA World Factbook says, "The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not mainly use the metric system in its commercial and standards activities, but there is increasing acceptance in science, medicine, government, and many sectors of industry." Good on 'em! Keep them sillimeters out of my way!	SurferJoe46 (51)
1236977	2011-10-12 03:38:00	I'm quite happy to use both and mostly if doing stuff for myself use Imperial but when working use metric	gary67 (56)
1236978	2011-10-12 03:39:00	^ Nah, things don't work right in metric. ;)	R2x1 (4628)
1236979	2011-10-12 03:52:00	I'd never heard of either a sillimeter - or silimeter until now ... Only in the USA would one have a perceived need for a sillimeter - a meter to measure silliness :D More correct is the spelling of metre being a unit of measurement. However let's not get too pedantic :lol:	WalOne (4202)
1236980	2011-10-12 08:20:00	When New Zealand adopted the metric system cars had to have metric speedometers Someone at my workplace worked out that if you chose which metric units to use, the existing imperial speedos were OK as they were Something like femtoparsecs per fortnight	BBCmicro (15761)
1236981	2011-10-12 08:34:00	"Only three countries — Burma (also known as Myanmar), Liberia and the United States — have not adopted it." You don't keep very good company do you.:D:D	mikebartnz (21)
1236982	2011-10-12 09:56:00	Farmers here suffered horribly in the switchover. Pounds became Dollars and everything cost twice as much. Acres became Hectares, and the b****y farm shrank horribly. Miles became KM, and suddenly they had to look after 40% more fence for this smaller farm, AND it was a bunch further to town. Butterfat and wool went from pounds to KG and the yield went below 50% overnight. Tax doubled with these $ things, and it took 4-1/2 times as much gas to fill the tractor. The only thing to stave off total ruin was the chooks (chickens for Joe) which steadily kept laying in dozens while needing under half as much feed.	R2x1 (4628)
1236983	2011-10-12 13:54:00	Hay! I know what a 'chook' is . We have backwards people here too, although as a tourist, you won't be allowed to meet any of them . Psssst! They send them to Rubidoux, California ( . wikipedia . org/wiki/Rubidoux,_CA" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org) - kind of a Devil's Island for them .	SurferJoe46 (51)
1236984	2011-10-13 01:01:00	America has always been a law unto itself. America is that arrogant that they care not what the rest of the world is doing. As far as the majority of Americans are concerned, they are the world. So if they are the biggest manufacturing country in the world (but now they are being seriously challenged by Europe) then they can do what the hell they like - and they do. Unfortunately, for such a great country, humility and sanity are not two of their virtues. Sad, really.	Roscoe (6288)
1236985	2011-10-13 01:12:00	Roscoe - changeover to metric in the US would be so costly and prohibitively more so in this bad economy, that it isn't even debatable . Never was as far as I can see . The resistance to metrification is so wide-spread that every time it has been tried the whole thing just collapses under it's own weight . All the US manufacturers and packagers and builders and installer have done very well on The King's Nose so why change it now? All my kids went through the do-gooder phase where the schools taught nothing but metric, and guess what - my kids also dropped it right after their finals and never looked back . It just won't work here and it's not like shoving something unwanted down your throat anyway .	SurferJoe46 (51)
1 2 3 4 5