| General > General Technical Chat |
| why is the US not Metric |
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| Cubdriver:
I know that km stands for 'kilometer'. What is Km? Shame they couldn't have used the CORRECT metric prefix... -Pat |
| CatalinaWOW:
There are many fine wines made in California, Oregon and other states of the US. Virtually all of it is sold in 750 ml bottles. Except for those that are sold in 375 ml bottles or 1.5 liter bottles, or horror of horrors, multi-liter bags in a box. Some of those wines have won best in the world awards. Too bad bfees cannot enjoy any of them since they will travel on mile marked roads on their way out of the country. |
| SkyMaster:
--- Quote from: gabinetex on December 24, 2019, 12:05:21 am ---... Now, seriously, I confess that I don't really care why (or why not) the US is not metric... what really worries me, what keeps me awake at night, is why US ringbinders have 3 holes... I mean.. Why? Why? What in the hell is wrong with you people!! --- End quote --- Canada became officially 100% metric in 1978. Our ring binders have 3 rings. Standard paper sheet is 8.5 inches x 11 inches. I had a job where I had to travel the world and get LARGE documents printed in Canada and shipped to the customer, while I was at the customer place. It seems that only United States and Canada use the proper 3 rings binder and the correct 8.5 inches x 11 inches paper sheet. Everybody else is using 4 rings binder and paper that is not wide enough and too long. Why? What in the hell is wrong with you people!! ;) :) |
| SkyMaster:
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 20, 2019, 06:23:53 pm ---... But do you find it curious that French Canada is mostly metric-only? But english-speaking Canada still largely uses imperial in daily life to this day? At least this is what internet research suggests. Admittedly, I haven't been to Canada in many years. ... I haven't been in Canada in a couple decades. My personal experience with watching Youtube: AvE, Matthias Wandel are two of the only Canadians I "know." They both use inches to describe and communicate distances. Quite unapologetically, I would say. Neil from Pask Makes is Australian, and he usually states things in metric and imperial conversion. But he will also sometimes use just imperial. "3/4" plywood," for instance. It's probably just easier to say. There are tons more examples. John Heisz is another Candian that could care less about centimeters. I have never seen english speaking canadian use metric, casually... Matthias was one of my inspirations and teachers in learning to build (complex machines with moving parts and requiring high accuracy) with my own hands. As previously stated, I tried both sides of the tape measure before I settled on inches, and I am sure he and others influenced this decision. Now, I didn't take shop classes. I took science classes. I had learned only metric in school. So you could say I learned inches from a Canadian. >:D ... --- End quote --- In Canada, the usage of some imperial unit is not limited to English speaking Canadians. I live in the province of Quebec, my first tongue is French, and inches and pound are still casually being used in Quebec. People height and weight are often expressed using imperial units. I do woodworking using exclusively imperial units. Wood comes in 8 foot length (and 10, 12 etc), plywood sheets are 4 x 8, etc. Canada is officially all metric, but grocery store still display the price in $ per pound, in large characters, but at the counter the price is charged per kilograms. The fact that it makes the price appears lower is probably influencing this practice, but still, anybody who is 41 years old, or less, was officially only exposed to metric units all is life. :) |
| bsfeechannel:
--- Quote from: Cubdriver on January 02, 2020, 03:45:32 am ---I know that km stands for 'kilometer'. What is Km? Shame they couldn't have used the CORRECT metric prefix... -Pat --- End quote --- It is not 0 km. It is Km. 0. In metricated countries like Uruguay they use the word kilómetro to mean what in imperial countries would be the function of a milepost. So it is the abbreviation of the Spanish word kilómetro, not the symbol km. Kilómetro cero (kilometer zero), km. 0, is the first, uh, "milepost" placed at the origin and, by extension, all the stretch until kilómetro uno (kilometer one), km. 1, which is the "milepost", or "milestone" placed at the end of the first kilometer and so on and so forth. |
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