I dunno how accurate this is, but it's amusing:
No more monologuing, or I'll Swiss-cheese you on principle.
-The Middleman
Metric system use in the world
I think England should also be indicated in pink too. Though they might have been forced to transition due to their proxemity to EU.
And the map should mention that it's talking about the general public. USA's scientific community uses the metric system.
Ah, this is one of those "I can''t pay you, but I''ll put your name in the credits" movies.--Crow T. Robot
Yes, USA's scientists typically use metric, except when NASA commissions Mars landers and can't decide between metric and nonmetric.
And yes, the graph was more a joke than an honest map, I'm sure.
No more monologuing, or I'll Swiss-cheese you on principle.
-The Middleman
Rubisco
I think England should also be indicated in pink too. Though they might have been forced to transition due to their proxemity to EU.
And the map should mention that it's talking about the general public. USA's scientific community uses the metric system.
All EU countries including the UK use the metric systems at least officially. Our UK rep was telling me that starting a few years ago they started fining merchants in the UK if they sold products in pounds. If I remember correctly she said it was a big deal for the green grocers because people wanted to buy in pouinds or ounces since that is what they know. I think in non-regulated areas of the UK you probably still see some imperial measurement. I saw someone on Top Gear (BBC) refer to his weight in stones recently and that is one of those measurements I can never remember. That and a score (20 years). I may start refering to my weight in stones 14 1/2 stones sounds better than 205 pounds and with the lack of precision I lose a couple of pounds and if I just drag it out to "a little over 14 stones" I loose almost 10 pounds.
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge
--Flogging Molly
May the devil be the judge
--Flogging Molly
Yeah, I don't see Top Gear's folks going full metric.
Honestly, I wish the US would go metric. While I don't have an instinctive grasp of metric units, converting between various degrees within metric is so much easier than trying to remember how many #$%#@ ounces in a pint and pints to the gallon or feet/yards to a mile. To damn many conversions to manage.
Now, if we could just get a metric clock!! ;) 1 day = 10 decidays = 100 centidays = 1000 millidays.... And of course the day wouldn't be a true metric measure, I guess. It would all have to come back to time it takes light to travel X distance or time for X radioactive particle to decay or something.
No more monologuing, or I'll Swiss-cheese you on principle.
-The Middleman
We use the metric system in the US for at last two thing.
Softdrinks - I am told that Coke/Pepsi move to the 1/2 liter bottle everywhere except the south a long time ago. Aparently they got a lot of letters from sotherners when they moved away from the 20 oz.
Hard Drugs
Maybe we can use the example of these two great groups to move the US into line with the rest of hte world.
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge
--Flogging Molly
May the devil be the judge
--Flogging Molly
And the US has had 2-liter and 3-liter coke / pepsi products for a long time....
I wonder if illegal drugs moving in kilos has something to do with them being imported from metric-using countries and/or because high-accuracy scales used to measure the drugs are typically metric, since they're bought/stolen from the scientific community?
(Last edit: 2/12/2010 06:45)
No more monologuing, or I'll Swiss-cheese you on principle.
-The Middleman