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  seatkiwitle

  16 years ago

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  But what puzzles me is that the US can make the broadcast system go all digital by 2009, but can't go metric after how many years?!

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  Dollar Soup

  17 years ago

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  The US refusal to go to metric is a lot more about tooling than teaching. You can get people to use any system, but Americans built a huge manufacturing base on English measurements, and that legacy of existing industrial tooling (especially among entrenched aerospace interests) is hard to displace.

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  Rob

  17 years ago

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  But you can multiply a millimetre by 10 and get a centimetre. Multiply a centimetre by 10 and get a decimetre. Multiply a decimetre by 10 and get a metre. Multiply a metre by 10 and get a dekametre. Multiply a dekametre by 10 and get 1 hectometre. Multiply a hectometre by 10 and get a kilometre.
  
  1 litre of water weighs one kilogram (1 kg = 2.2 pounds). The volume of a litre of water is one cubic decimetre (1 dm3). That�s a 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm cube.

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  Geoffrey Smith

  17 years ago

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  I still like the fact that you can divide a foot by 3 or 4 and still come up with a nice round number. Not possible the with metric system. But yeah, I can appreciate the advantage of a one-world system.

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  david

  17 years ago

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  yeah, that's not really fair...there are exceptions. In the US, a big bottle of Coke is 2 liters, not a gallon. And if you're buying a BMW in Germany, you determine the size of your wheels in inches, not centimeters. And in the UK, you weigh so-and-so stone, drink a pint of beer, and then measure the temperature in celcius...

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  Propaganda Minister

  17 years ago

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  I think the UK should be added to the red countries as they still use miles and stones. :-)
  Plus the USA while indeed some folks have heard of the metric system, you barely ever see any public references to the metric system.
  
  Another nice map would be Celsius versus Fahrenheit.

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  Tour Guy

  17 years ago

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  I've seen inches in photo shops all throughout Asia, miles in the UK and lots of other minor imperial usages throughout the world.
  
  There should be light shades of pink on that map...

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  electro^plankton

  17 years ago

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  Technically that map is wrong. The United States officially supports the metric system. I think that was passed in the 70's or 80's. Unfortunately it's up to each individual state to enforce it and most prefer the imperial system since the education system relies on too much legacy from teacher and books who aren't experienced at metric.

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  Matt

  17 years ago

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  I'm in the UK. I weigh 71 kilos. But I guess I'm just special.

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  nick gogerty

  17 years ago

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  kind of over the top. Ask someone their weight in the UK and they will reply in Stones not kilos. but it does make a good point.

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  Squid Quimby

  17 years ago

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  I live for maps like this. Thanks!

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  jomy

  17 years ago

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  I would love to see a major presidential candidate get behind this issue. So many of the issues that dominate the political landscape have little or no effect on us and offer as much potential savings and benefits as switching to metric.

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  kris

  17 years ago

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  a little lonely on the block eh.

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