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Subject: If I'm honest...


Author:
Ed Harris (London)
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Date Posted: 16:58:13 11/14/04 Sun
In reply to: Dave (UK) 's message, "Metric" on 15:38:13 11/14/04 Sun

To be completely honest (something which causes me some spasms), my real problem with the metric/imperial situation in Britain is that we try to use both simultaneously. For example, all cars are quoted as performing to a certain number of miles per gallon when we buy them; so, we pay our money, and take them off the the petrol station to fill them up, and can only buy petrol in litres. So, we have to do the most absurd mental arithmetic whilst standing at the pumps... e.g., I have to go 100 miles and my car does 35 miles per gallon, so how many litres do I need? You need a calculator and a conversion table for that!

Another example... whenever we buy a pair of bathroom scales they it measures stones and pounds and ounces; and when we buy any clothes we have to know our height, chest, inside leg etc. in inches; but then when we register with a doctor we have to fill out a form with our physical details with grammes for weight and metres for height, which of course we don't know off the top of our heads because we never use the 'new' system, so we have to (a) work it out by dividing six by 2.234723897, or (b) getting re-measured by the doctor, which wastes time.

I would be truly happy if we just chose one or the other bloody system. I would prefer the imperial simply because it comes naturally to me, but even the metric, I acknowledge, would be better than our idiotic and self-defeating attempt to try to use two completely incompatible systems at once. Just decide, people! and let me know which you've all chosen!

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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: The science community, inc doctors, will never go back to Imperial


Author:
Roberdin
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Date Posted: 18:57:07 11/14/04 Sun


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[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Apart from NASA, who used both and caused the failure of a Mars probe...


Author:
Dave (UK)
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Date Posted: 19:10:16 11/14/04 Sun


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