Robatoy wrote:

.... snip
IMHO metric is simply a different distance but no easier.

That's pretty much how I see it too. The 'metric' generation can't
make change at a cash register without a calculator, and that money
has been metric forever.

My daughters are all totally metric, as I once was. But still, when
they were talking about a 1 metre high hedge, I had to convert to
about 3 feet before I had a concept of the heigth of that hedge.
3 Feet is about 'that' high...one metre?? WTF?

On a business trip a couple of weeks ago, we finished our meeting early
and got to spend some time touring a local attraction. One of the younger
guys in the group pointed to one of the exhibits and asked, "how many
meters high to you think that is?" My answer was, "I don't know, but in
real people units, it looks to be about 120 feet or so" (turned out to be
117 feet) when we found the appropriate plaque.

As others have said, the imperial system is geared more toward human
dimensions. A foot is pretty close to an average person's foot length, a
yard one step of one's stride, and the human body can pretty well sense 1
degree F temperature changes (are thermostats controlled by 1/2 degree C
increments on digital thermostats?). One of the early criticisms levied by
the metric crowd was the ridiculous units used as bases of measure in
imperial (3 barleycorns to an inch). The metric system was no more
rational for its basis measure; the meter being based upon the division
such that 1000 km reached from equator to North Pole. It was later
discovered that the original computation was incorrect. The meter is now
defined as a certain number of Krypton wavelengths of light -- but that is
not a whole number, nor divisible by 10.



--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough