On Mon, 03 Apr 2017 12:30:30 +0000, alister wrote:

> On Mon, 03 Apr 2017 11:05:23 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>
>> Not used here, except by scientists, until forced by the EEC. A vast
>> improvement over the geriatric FPS system, which should have died at
>> least a century before it did. $DEITY knows why the Yanks still persist
>> in using it.
>
> for the same reason that you still measure distances in miles & prefer
> to by your beer in pints (& I suspect you know you're height in Feet &
> Inches & your weight in stone)
>
Nope - I wouldn't have a clue about my weight and height in Imperial
units, but then NZ went metric before the UK did - and did it faster,
cheaper and with a lot less hassle than happened here. It was quite a
shock to arrive here and have go back to using outdated Imperial units.

Small side note: actually, I do use some of the old units due to the
pervasive ICAO influence on aviation. As a glider pilot I measure speed
and rate of climb in knots, altitude in both feet and meters and distance
in km (because the Silver, Gold and Diamond badges measure distance in km
and height in meters).

> 12 inches in much nicer than 0.3m or even 300mm (30cm is not to bad if
> you want to use a non iso subdivision)
>
I disagree about FPS being nicer, but mainly because IMO the hodgepodge
of conversions it makes necessary are such a PITA and heavily outweigh
the effect of using some human-sized units.  Besides meters and kg are
both human scaled in that they give sensible values when measuring people.


--
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |

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