rickman wrote on 9/9/2017 6:05 PM:
Sjouke Burry wrote on 9/9/2017 4:09 PM:
On 9-9-2017 21:23, rickman wrote:
~misfit~ wrote on 9/9/2017 2:51 AM:
Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:
~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 7:33 AM:
Once upon a time on usenet Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 22:36:09 -0400, rickman
wrote:
I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't
recall much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at
other levels.
Yep. At the time (about 1975), I was working for a company that
tried to switch to metric. This was aided by having the drafting
manager and mechanical designer also serving on the metric
conversion council (or whatever it was called). At one point, we
started sending metric fabrication drawings to various vendors. They
were immediately returned. The problem wasn't understanding
the new metric way of doing things, it was that they would need to
replace all their English lead screws, measurement instruments,
gauges blocks, programming, etc before they could cut metal. They
also claimed that they needed considerable staff training to handle
the change (because someone tried to simultaneously switch to true
position dimentioning). We would need to wait until the shops
converted before we could orders parts in metric.
So, we went back to English units and waited for the "inevitable"
conversion that never happened. It seems that most of the other
customers followed the same pattern. They tried metric, failed, and
went back to English.
Ok second guy in this thread to use the term "English units". Am I
to assume it's an Americanism then? In England, Australia and New
Zealand (the countries I've lived in) non-metric units are reffered
to as "imperial".
Imperial units are not quite the same. An imperial gallon is larger
than the gallon used in the US.
In the rest of the world is 4.54 litres. Only in the US is 'gallon'
different (approximately 3.75 litres?).
I don't know if there are other
differences, I'm pretty sure the inch, foot and yard are the same. I'm not
sure if a fortnight is the same on both sides of the
Atlantic... 
We use the term "English units" because like many of our customs,
laws and general ways of life, they came to us by way of England.
Likewise in Australia and New Zealand we owe a lot of our heritage to
England - however we don't call the units "English". It just seemed odd to
me shrug
Really? If that is the oddest thing you find about the US then I am very
happy.
I've explained how some of our units are *not* Imperial. What would you
have us call them?
Silly?
Ok, the US uses Silly units which we mostly inherited from the English.
Actually there are times when the US gallon is the same as an English gallon.
http://www.metric-conversions.org/vo...uk-gallons.htm
The US gallon is the result of the British taxes on the US. They overly
taxed us without allowing us any representation in the government so we
rebelled. At that time the gallon was defined by the weight of what was
being measured. There was a corn gallon, a wheat gallon, a beer gallon ect.
In 1820 England decided to abandon the many gallon approach and go with a
single gallon defined by the volume of 10 pounds of water at 62 °F in air.
Good thing we didn't adopt the Imperial gallon, it keeps changing. It was
changed as late as 1985. What good is a standard that changes?
--
Rick C
Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998