Conference back40::soapbox

    It's about time you yanks converted and made way for the new world
    order!
    
    Glenn

    If I keep studying real hard and keep my grades up, I may
    metriculate this year! :-)
    
    -b

    Gee, maybe that's why the XSITE system here in SoCal went metric last
    year.  For those not in the know, XSITE provides environmental
    information, like power requirements, heat loads, foot print, etc.,
    plus weights and measures for most Digital equipment.  I use it heavily
    in getting quotes from transit companies to move customer equipment.  
    
    I, of course, found this metric conversion on XSITE most annoying,
    since all of my movers are like me - backward colonials who use inches,
    feet and lbs.!
    
    Metrics are nice.  Metrics are good.  I wouldn't mind re-learning and
    using metrics, if only *Everyone* in the US were doing so...
    
    M.
    

    	We should have done this YEARS ago.
    
    	We tried as a society some time ago, but it was a miserable
    	failure, at least as demonstrated by our lack of success in
    	achieving it.
    
    	In reality I think it was a lack of ability of the common citizen
    	to handle it, and I think it reflects most on the educational
    	system we have.
    
    	At the very least we should be able to teach each future generation
    	in the metric system, and within a few generations we will have
    	phased it in without much pain.

    Canada made the switch almost overnight. I guess we're smarter than
    yous. 8^)

    The difference is, our government was committed to the change. It's an
    easier system to learn really. People can count to ten if they put
    their minds to it.

Well, I hope we follow England's lead and _don't_ change road distances
and speed limits.

/john

    John, I'm surprised at you.
    
    What is it about distance that doesn't klick for you?

    Metrication will make you go blind.

    
    Burn all 2-by-4's ?  Toss all 3/8" bolts ?
    
      bb

You don't have to toss all the old stuff. Just stop making machines that use
the old-fashioned parts. You have to keep making repair parts but eventually
the old machines wear out. You can go metric where it's easy right now,
like in food packaging. Already they sell liquor in metric sizes.

It's costing Americans money to stay old-fashioned, we better change
over or our balance of trade will just get worse.

					-K-

    Kerry is wise.

    Have the British abandoned the practice of measuring human weight in
    stones?

    Or a horse's height in hands...

	Or computing in VUPS.......??

    Does the law referenced in .0 mean that Coca-Cola, which supplies US
    Armed Forces all over the world, will abandon the 12 fl. oz. can (which
    is 355 ml) -- or is provision of metric equivalent information on the
    can (as they do now) enough?
                                          

    Canada has 355ml cans. We drink in metric.

    Our beer bottles are 341ml.

    As a point of interest, the 2 liter plastic pop bottle is now quite
    common is the U.S.

    Glenn

    
    Forgive my impertinence, but I think 341 is a really strange number to 
    choose for beer bottles.  Why 341? 

	Maybe 666ml would be better.........%^)

    10 fluid ounces.

    
    Well then!  All you've done is rewritten the, er, documentation; you
    haven't changed the amount of beer from a normal number (altho a 10oz
    beer is kinda small).
    
    Why don't you have 350ml bottles?  Wouldn't that make more sense?  

    Well, fact is, the reason for our weird measurements is, the soft drink
    and beer companies in Canada are in bed with the American producers. It
    would cost too much for Canada to have it's own size of bottle, it's
    cheaper to adhere to one standard size. That goes for cans too.

    We have 12 oz. bottles and cans unless of course we are drinking
    Fosters then they are 25 oz.  
    
    Brian

    Well then, I stand corrected as far as the bottles go. Guess the
    Canadian brewers stuck to their own size based on the English
    measurement.

    If you buy beer in cans though, it 12oz, 355ml.

    
    341 ml == 12 oz. imperial
    355 ml == 12 oz. US
    
    fwiw
    

     I haven't bought Canadian beer in awhile...
    
    Is the stuff they send here 10 oz. or 12?
    

    I would imagine it's brewed for you so probably 12oz.

>    
>    341 ml == 12 oz. imperial
>    355 ml == 12 oz. US
>    
>    fwiw

Interesting that the Imperial Ounce is smaller than the U.S. Ounce but the
Imperial Pint is larger than the U.S. Pint!

/john

>    Why don't you have 350ml bottles?  Wouldn't that make more sense?  

In Germany I've seen 333 ml cans.

/john

.9>    Burn all 2-by-4's ?  Toss all 3/8" bolts ?
    
    	When was the last time they made a real 2x4?  Aren't they all
    	1 3/4 x 3 1/2 or some silly dimension like that?  So just call
    	them 44x88's (millimeters) and they'll be about the same size.
    	Or 50x100's and they'll really be closer to 2x4 than "real"
    	2x4's are today.
    
    	And haven't we already gone metric with mecahnical parts like
    	nuts and bolts?  Doesn't every socket wrench set already come
    	with a set of inches-sockets as well as metric ones?  We just
    	have to learn to call the metric measurements "standard" instead
    	of the "inches" ones.

    
    Metricate all left-handed monkey wrenches!!!!!!
    

    
    I have a metric adjustable wrench.   ;^)
    

    
    1 U.S. pint == 473 ml
    1 imp. pint == 568 ml
    
    ...I'll take the British pint!  :^)
    

    Well, I bottle my own beer in 500ml bottles. more than a pint, less
    than a pint.

    How many fathoms in a gallon?

    How many stones in my kidneys?

    >How many stones in my kidneys?
    
    If you drink enough beer, none!  :^)
    

    
    To those of you blokes who favor us falling in line with metrification:
    
    Here in the USA, we measure in inches, not millimeters like you
    Euro-peons.
    
    ;^PPPPPPPP

           aMAzing how well he types using only the one hand, innit!

RE: 248.35

It's metrication, not metrIFication. There's no IF about it. We have to
do it or we'll lose in the world marketplace.

					-K-

    Re .4:
    
    .4> We should have done this YEARS ago.
    
    .0> Public Law 94-168 . . .
    
    94*2 + 1788 = 1976.
               
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    	Surely you don't believe that just because it is law we do it.

    Metrification is also a nifty way to increase costs...
    
    
    Gasoline up here varies as much as 5 cents a litre...approx. 20 cents a
    gallon from season to season, city to city, station to station, planet
    to planet.  Canadians got used to metrication, and don't seem to mind
    the wild fluctuation.  If gas went up by 20 cents a gallon overnight in
    the US, betcha someone would say somethin'.  Generally however it's
    real good! When I want to hide what I'm talking about to any kids
    present, I switch to Imperial....just confuses the Heck out of them. 
    It's been around here long enough now, that high school kids just sort
    of look at you weird like when you talk metric...or is that
    English!...No it was when I was trying to explain to them to move
    so the car doesn't run them over.  I'm not sure if the car was built
    completely metric or not.
    
    
    

    .5 You're probably correct, ya'll could be smarter.  I haven't been
    impressed with our education system's ability to teach kids how to
    add/subject etc. now.  I can just see the mayhem if we switch to
    metric (not too sure all the teachers would be able to keep up,
    either)!!
    
    

    What lots of folks fail to under stand about metrics is that we have
    been making the conversion since the early 70's. It has been costly and
    I think it has been abated as a gov program to make the conversion.
    
    But, there are more than 1 meteric standard.... Ask the folks in
    France, in Canada, in India, in all the countries that use it.... Just
    like Unix... of which there is only one but.... 7 differnt versions!! 
    

    
    We Canajuns have a good metric story...let's see if I can remember this
    correctly...
    
    There was this Air Canada 737 flying from somewhere easterly (Toronto,
    Montreal, something like that) to a westerly point (Calgary, Vancouver,
    something like that).  Anyway, the ground crew filling the fuel tanks
    of the aircraft goofed in their conversion between gallons and litres,
    and the result was that the aircraft just plain ran out of fuel over
    Manitoba.  The pilot literally had to glide the aircraft down to a 
    landing on an abandoned airstrip in Gimli that had been converted into
    an automobile raceway.
    
    If I recall correctly, his glider skills earned him some kind of
    honourary shuttle-pilot certificate from NASA.
    

    You heard it here first! The metric system can make a hero out of you!

    ...or make you a dead rider!!! FAA Found Another Arm...

    Metric aside, I still order my Wobbly-Pops by the pint, and the local
    pub figures that's just fine.  Now I'm not sure how many liters in a
    bladder but it just might be worth checking out!