"J. Clarke" wrote in message

They are your health care providers for starters.

So you're saying that we now live in a doctorocracy where "health care
providers" get to tell us how to live our lives?


No, you are saying that. I"m saying many people work with metric as their
standard for thier industry. It is not t he strange and scary unit that
some people are afraid to use.


Metric users are becoming the majority.

Fine. When they do then they'll vote to change the system and it will get
changed. Meanwhile, get a life or take some Ritalin or do whatever you
need
to do in order to obtain some _PATIENCE_.


Why would I want to take drugs when I can just push your buttons?


Forward looking companies are
making their products with metric hardware so they can export them.
Too often, people lose sight of the world economy and the
requirements of some countries with standards. They don't want inches
any more than we wanted metric imported cars. That has been a
sticking point with exporting in the automobile industry for many
years.

Yeah, like people walk into a car showroom and the first thing the do is
pull a fastener and check the threads to see if it's metric.


Evidently, people in other countries used that as one of the reason they did
not want to import US build cars. Univerality (and the associated money
savings) allows for the ease of use of the same component for a car build in
Detroit, Tokyo, or Berlin.



When our company started buying Austrian made machines, it was a
little learning curve. Like others I was a bit apprehensive about
learning a new system. Once I did, I found it easier to work with, as
have all of our supervisors, maintenance people, and so forth. Some
are just afraid of change, afraid of having to learn a new different
system.

You had to learn a new system in order to use Austrian made machines?
What
system was that, or didn't you already know metric?

I had little exposure to metric. It was not taught in schoold in the 50's
and 60's and I never had reason to use it on a regular basis. With new
machines, I had to use it every day. Pressure gauges in bars, linear mesure
in mm, etc.



Please be aware that I've been USING metric for going on 40 years. I just
don't find it this totally wonderful life-improving convenience that its
advocates claim it to be.

Some of our industry tooling suppliers resisted the change and
started to lose a lot of business.

What change did they resist? Did the simply not make tooling for
machinery
that was becoming popular? If so that's stupidity having nothing to do
with
a measurement system.

They did not want to work with metric. Aluminum plate has to be 10mm thick
so you either buy it or machine down the outer perimeter, an extra step.
It meant u sing metric fasteners, and the resulting extra inventory. Their
loss.



"Adapt" all you want to. JUST DON'T GO AROUND PASSING LAWS THAT TELL
OTHER
PEOPLE THAT THEY HAVE TO.

I'm not in favor of passing laws. I'm in favor of using a system that allows
me to deal effectively in WORLD markets. Just smart business.