On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:18:05 -0700, Matty F wrote:

On Oct 2, 7:06 am, "michael adams" wrote:
Nowadays I work mainly in metric. I'm right handed. Using a steel tape
measure on a board or similar I'll hook the tape over the left hand edge
and pull it across to the right.

I'm right handed. When I want to use a circular saw to chop lots of
short pieces off a long bit of timber I hang the timber off to the
right of a bench and I hook the tape over the right hand end. The tape
markings are therefore upside down. I just read it upside down, but
it's easy to confuse a 6 with a 9. I don't suppose I can buy a tape
that is marked the other way up?

You need a tape covered in that smart paper, and some sort of GPS
doohickey - the tape could detect where you are in relation to it, and
print the scale the correct way up for you. And if we all have RFID tags
implanted in our necks the tape would even know who was using it and could
show the scale in the user's preferred units.

;-)