[Leica] Was Today is 8/9/10 Now Metric

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

Unfortunately, because we live next to the elephant, the elephant 
dictates a lot of our dance moves.

A lot of things in Canada are metric. Speeds on roads, temperatures, 
and amount of gas we buy for our car. But because of the elephant 
factor, we buy things in 473ml sizes, and generally talk about car 
'mileage' in mpg instead of l/100km.

The construction industry tried hard to go metric in the 80's, and I 
did a number of jobs, particularly big ones in metric. The 
authorities also dictated that larger projects be submitted in SI 
units. But there were always issues, such as when the ceiling grid 
was metric as specified (1500mm spacing) and the light fixtures 
ordered turned out to be imperial (5' or 1524mm). Lots of headaches. 
Small contractors never went metric. Wood dimensions never went 
metric. We use 2x4's, which are actually 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" and while 
they are sometimes referred to as 38x89mm, they are still based on 
imperial sizes. So it goes for door sizes, sheathing material sizes 
and everything else. Even the Building By-Laws, which are in metric, 
use converted imperial measurements rather than SI units. Sometimes 
they're rounded off, sometimes not.

In any case all jobs are now done in imperial measurements, the 
authorities accept drawings in imperial measurements for all types of 
work and we have to do conversions constantly.




At 8:39 AM -0700 8/9/10, Aram Langhans wrote:
>Ah, to be metric.  I sure remember the ill-fated attempt in this 
>country to "Go Metric".  I had just started teaching in this little 
>town in Washington, Odessa.  I was teaching 6-8th grade science. 
>The law gave all kinds of money and materials to schools to teach 
>the kids metric.  The school looked around at the staff and classes 
>they had and asked, "Hmm.  Who should we give this task to.  I know. 
>Science teachers.  They use metric anyway."  So the task was mine. 
>But they also looked at all the materials that were send and saw 
>that there was a "lot" of math involved, so the said the math 
>teachers could assist the science teachers.  Let the fun begin.  The 
>materials, or at least the ones that I got, were all conversion 
>based.  Lets teach our kids how to convert from the English system 
>to the Metric (or should I say SI) system.  I looked at that and 
>said, forget that.  They will never learn it that way.  So, the math 
>teacher and I devised an immersion curriculum.  For 15 minutes each 
>day (at the start.  It expanded as time went on), we started talking 
>in just "metric".  We would hold up objects and ask what length, 
>volume, mass, etc. they were.  Just "Think Metric".  We went on 
>metric field trips around town, walking about and asking how far 
>that was, sizes, masses, etc.  The kids were really learning the 
>metric system.  Of course, after they left our classes, they were 
>back in the English world again.  It didn't take many years and the 
>school district said stop.  Too bad.  I felt we were really making 
>progress and the students were bilingual in measurement.
>This country has always been afraid of change.  From things as 
>benign as metric to civil rights.  If I remember correctly, when 
>Canada changed, they just said this is the way it will be and did 
>not teach how to convert. As Nike says, Just Do It.  Change all the 
>signs, order forms, product labels, etc.  Just Do It.  Mass 
>confusion for a bit, but if you have to, you will. Of course, any 
>politician who votes for something like that would not be reelected.
>So, as a scientist and science teacher, I just plug along an in my 
>class, we Just Do It until it is second nature.
>
>Aram
>
>Aram Langhans
>Semi-retired (retarded?) Science Teacher
>& Unemployed photographer
>
>"The Human Genome Project has proved Darwin more right than Darwin 
>himself would ever have dared dream."   James D. Watson
>
>>  Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:07:57 -0400
>>  From: Rei Shinozuka <shino at panix.com>
>>  Subject: Re: [Leica] Today is  8/9/10
>>  To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>>  Message-ID: <4C5FEF9D.40406 at panix.com>
>>  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>>
>>  On 08/09/2010 03:34 AM, Jeff Moore wrote:
>>>  While I don't want the world to be boringly culturally homogeneous,
>>>  there are some things we should all just get with the program on:
>>>
>>>
>>>     - Use the metric system, dammit.
>>>
>>>
>>  Metric?  We might as well dissolve the NFL and watch guys in shorts
>>  maneuvering black and white Archimedean Buckyballs using only their feet.
>>
>>  :-)
>>
>>  But any American born in the 1960s should remember this:
>>
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metric_Marvels
>>
>>  The article closes:
>>
>>  "Ultimately, /The Metric Marvels/ failed to convince Americans to
>>  convert to the metric system. ... Americans largely ignored governmental
>>  attempts to push them in the direction of metrication, and the USMB [
>>  (U.S. Metric Board <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Metric_Board>) ]
>>  was eventually disbanded in 1982 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982>."
>>
>>  -rei
>>  (the ugly american, whose favorite lens is the 1.97 inch noctilux)
>>
>>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Leica Users Group.
>See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information

-- 

    *            Henning J. Wulff
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