Upon further reflection I think the reason I'm more comfortable with centimeters is that 25cm is somehow related to an inch measure in that there are no zero's usually. Now if one measures someething in inches there's a strong possibility there was a fraction in there somewhere that got dropped but I'm used to thinking in five inches ten inches etc. No third number so using millimeters and inserting a zero there still throws me a bit. And yes I know I shouldn't be thinking of SI in terms of USC but old habits die hard. I know also that technically it shouldn't be labelled as .5L but I couldn't think of another way to illustrate my point.
Now on the flipside I did have a customer ask me to convert 300 candelas per square meter (a measurement of brightness on an LCD or laptop display) into the inch equivalent. Needless to say I didn't but it was fun trying to explain to him why exactly it wouldn't work. The gentleman also wondered if it was possible for me to convert the gigahertz of the processor and gigabytes of the harddrive into something "less metric". I explained the prefixes and he was slightly happier although he did give me a nice five minute pitch on the evils of metric :). Fortunately he's one of the very few I've had that experience with. In fact, the vast majority of customers I deal with actually seem to appreciate having the metric measures given to them. The response usually goes something like "Yeah that makes more sense we should have switched years ago" or some variation on it. We do have a national lab out here full of engineers so maybe that contributes to the familiarity with SI.
At least I'm not hearing the old 1/8th of an inch jack used very much anymore. I like my 3.5mm or 2.5mm jacks :).
Two thoughts.
- The "20 oz" Coke bottles could probably hold 600 mL without any change. Some years ago when I was in Canada I bought 600 mL bottles. The last time I bought one (Victoria, 2003) it was a 591 mL bottle.
- Costco recently got new milk bottles. They are rectangular and probably allow more on a pallet, with better ability to hold up layers piled on top. The milk spills more easily, but there's also a fair bit of air space at the top of the bottle. I don't know if they are actually 4 L bottles or not.
Carleton
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Mike Millet
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 13:35
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:37405] Re: Losing the battle by inches | Chicago Tribune
I would also liike to see the Coke bottles in 600mL packages. Somehow that 591mL number bothers me. The one thing I think might be a little weird is that Americans are used to buying milk by the gallon and if you rounded it up to a four liter bottle it wouldnt fit in my fridge so I wonder if they'd just keep that as 3.785L.
I did just see a package of dental floss that had a 50 meter length on it but no US equivalent measure so I've now seen one product officially. This was given to me by my dentist and not sold in a store though so maybe that changes it somehow.
The only other thing that really bothers me is when metric labels use commas instead of periods. .5L I'm okay with but ,5L just bugs me for some reason. Makes me feel like there was some phrase before the measurement and I lost half a sentence somewhere :). The period on the other hand to me is a natural stop point so if I see 3.785L it just makes more sense.
I also have to convert millimeteres to centimeters every time I see them because I'm so used to thinking of an inch as 2.54cm. Case in point being the other day there were some Rubbermaid plastic containers that were 25cmx30cmx25cm and for fun I mentally switched them to millimeters. Somehow I lost all sense of how big the box actually was. If it hadn't been right there in front of me I might have had to go find a ruler and remeasure it in centimeters so I got my bearings back.
I''m sure many other people from metric countries have the same feeling whenever they come to the US.
On 10/21/06, Paul Trusten, R.Ph. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I haven't seen U.S. metric-only labeling (it is not legal yet), but I have certainly seen metric-only advertising. Store marquees and shelf tags hawk liter-sized beverages. I even saw a convenience store marquee that was thinking decimal metric when it said "Ozarka Spring Water 0.5 LITER." While we are supposed to follow the rule of 1000 in the U.S. (a unit of less than one gets stated in its submultiple, e.g., 500 mL instead of 0.5 L), I saw liters expressed in decimal submultiples on Coca Cola and other bottled beverages in Germany. I kinda liked that, even though it wasn't very instructional (didn't let people use SI prefixes).
Mike,I am certain that if the FPLA amendment went into effect now, and Coca Cola removed the non-metric labeling from its liter-sized bottles, no American, save the anti-metric fanatics (there are some) would notice or complain. I think I can say that, as far as the people of the U.S. are concerned, the liter is the psychological standard of measurement for carbonated beverages, and removing the non-metric statement would not at all be unfair to U.S. consumers. That is why that, during National Metric Week, I wrote to a Coca Cola official urging his company to round the vending machine bottles from 591 mL to 600 mL, so they'd be labeled "600 mL (20.3 fl.oz.)."
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Millet
Sent: 06 Oct 21,Saturday 10:11
Subject: [USMA:37402] Re: Losing the battle by inches | Chicago Tribune
Interesting article. Thanks for posting it . I haven't seen any packages being sold with solely metric units on them though from what I can recall of my trips to various stores. I've seen packages with the metric label first like dishwasher soap book tape and several other items, but never metric only. At Best Buy where I work we do have several price signs that mistakenly got printed that were SI only (3m network cables for example). No customers have complained, nor do they complain when I give them ranges on things like wireless in meters either so maybe it's not as unknown in the US as people would have us believe.
Anyone else seen metric only package labels in their travels?
MikeOn 10/21/06, Nat Hager III < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Chicago Tribune...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-0610140259oct15,0,6507234.story?col
l=chi-travel-hed
Nat
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"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
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"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
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"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
