OT: SI vs Imperial [was re: daylight saving time algorithm changing]

[A. Michael Salim]

Hi,

> I for one don't like my recipes sounding like chemistry experiments.
> Having dated someone from an SI-speaking country, I have first-hand
> experience.  Somehow "250mL dry sherry" makes me think of pouring stuff
> in graduated cylinders(*), not creating delicious food...  In the same
> vein though, the SI-speaker just goes to show it's completely a matter
> of perception.  'Round here, SI means chemistry class.  Over there, it's
> just the way it's done.

It's all well and good to say "SI means nothing, Imperial you can put your
arms around bacse it feels right".  Over "there" (wherever that is),
understand that lbs and ounces and inches means diddly, and everyone knows
what a kilo and a litre feels like.  So it's all relative, and no need to
look down on someone else's units of measure.

When I was growing up, time was measured in fortnights, distance was
measured in furlongs, land was measured in kanals not acres hectares,
numbers were measured in lakhs and crores not thousands (a lakh being 100
thousands and a crore being 100 lakhs), groceries were measured in seers
not pounds or kilos, money was measured in "annas" (6 pies to the anna, 16
annas to the rupee) and it all seemed very natural at the time.  Then when
I lived in the UK I lived through the transition from shillings and
farthings to decimal currency, and lbs and oz to kilos and litres
everything was just fine, it didnt hurt that much :-)  There are actually
a lot of other units of measure other than SI and Imperial out there in
daily use round the world.

Not advocating we abandon Imperial and jump to SI, just don't want to be
part of disparaging someone else's units of measure.  Plus it can be
positively harmful to live on the fence between the two (like we do in the
USA because we just cannot make up our minds), remember the Mars NASA
fiasco with a mistake in units of measure?  That cost a few crores of
dollars :-)  The smaller the world gets the more important it becomes to
have a common sets of units of measure.

Best regards
Mike

> (*) - What about the poor cylinders that couldn't quite cut it?  Do we
> have dropout cylinders?  Perhaps GED cylinders?  Maybe it's time for a
> Federal No Cylinder Left Behind Act...
>
>
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