Jim,
It seems that your teachers had no imagination. Decimals could have been
introduced gently $0.99 for example. I had no such luck at school - I was
brought up using £sd (12d = 1s; 20s = £1) and it was only when I 12 that
South Africa converted to rands and cents.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of James R. Frysinger
Sent: 05 June 2011 02:55
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:50556] Re: Microsoft Word 2010 Home and Student
I wonder could you share with us some of the successful examples of
economical, smooth, and fast metrication transitions -- using centimetres --
that you used to make your decision: "I'm now going to change things back to
centimeters!"
Nope. I'm going back to a centimeter setting for my word processing
programs based on personal preference, not on historical experiences
metricating a country. Centimeters are just friendly. They're about
popcorn-sized and thus easy to handle -- singly or by the handful (0.174 L).
And, as I noted, my word processors seem to be fond of labeling
every
third or sixth millimeter on the rulers when set to use millimeters.
That's not convenient for me.
I was once scared by decimals when I was a child. When I was in the
fourth grade a buddy in the sixth grade moaned about how difficult
decimals were, which he was just then learning at that grade level. I
asked him what "decimals" were and he said it was arithmetic done with a
bunch of dots and if you got them in the wrong spot the answer you
turned in would be marked "wrong". At the time I knew a blind girl and
was starting to learn how to read and write Braille. She was also
teaching me how to do arithmetic on a Braille tablet that used little
cubes for the digits; they fitted down into an array of square holes,
checkerboard fashion. (In Braille, all the digits can be written using
just six dot patterns; rotate a 2 to the right by 90 degrees and you
have a 3.) Well, I thought that perhaps I had an edge here, with my
Braille experience. At the end of my sixth grade year the teacher asked
if there were any lingering questions as she and we anxiously awaited
the last bell of the year. Thinking back, I could not recall us doing
arithmetic in Braille and so I stood (as kids did back then to speak in
class) and asked her why she had not taught us anything to do with
decimals. She gave me a mixed look of utter dispair and disdain as she
said that we had indeed covered decimals. She reminded me of the period
we learned to place appropriately in numbers and said, "Those were
decimals and you did very well with them." Fortunately the bell rang
just then, relieving me of a long period of embarrassment. But at least
my dread of having to do arithmetic in Braille when using decimals was
dispelled and I have been friends with decimals ever since. And today I
know that a silly millimeter is simply 0.1 cm.
Jim
On 2011-06-04 1949, Pat Naughtin wrote:
On 2011/05/29, at 05:31 , James R. Frysinger wrote:
Nope. I thought of that. And I expected this reply. So, as I promised
myself, I grinned when I saw your response.
Just for grins, I opened an OpenOffice document and changed the
settings from centimeters to millimeters. The rulers on the 100 %
sized view showed markings and numbers every 6 mm. At 200 % they
occurred every 3 mm. At 400 % they showed every 2 mm. But I normally
use the 100 % view and I don't think that markings every 6 mm would be
very useful. That of course is a problem with OpenOffice, not a
problem with your argument favoring millimeters over centimeters. I'm
now going to change things back to centimeters!
Jim
Dear Jim,
I note your decision, "/I'm now going to change things back to
centimeters!/"
You might be interested in this quote from Dorothy Rowe in her book,
"/Why we Lie/":
/The car industry is a global industry. For instance, in the motor
industry in 2009, Fiat provide diesel engines to Mercedes for use in
commercial vehicles. GM built Fiat diesel engines under licence for use
in Vauxhall, Opel and Saab cars. Peugeot Citroen provided diesel engines
for Ford vehicles and used BMW petrol engines in its Citroen and Peugeot
cars, while running Joint Venture programmes for shared small cars with
Toyota and commercial vehicles with Fiat./
As you know the world car industry achieved massive economies of scale
when they adopted the 'world car concept' very rapidly in the mid-1970s
*using millimetres* (and micrometres and more recently nanometres). In
many cases these savings of, I guess, about 10 % of turnover, actually
saved some of these companies from bankruptcy at that time and on
several occasions since as these savings are annual. Their savings were
not only from engines but also from all other parts: brakes, electrical
and electronic parts are other examples; remember the effect that the
loss of small car parts factories due to the Japanese tsunami affected
the car industry in the USA.
As you know, like the world car (and tractor, truck, and motorbike)
industry, Australia has been largely and rapidly successful when we used
millimetres for our metrication upgrade. This success with millimetres
represents about 85 % of our arts, crafts, and professions. Wherever
centimetres were used we are still struggling -- no struggling is the
wrong word -- we are failing and failing dismally in the another group
of activities where centimetres are still being tried for a metrication
transition. Sadly this second group includes school teachers where
confusion reigns between centimetres and inches and the medical
community where it leads to multiple unnecessary deaths. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/centimetresORmillimetres.pdf
(search for aircraft) for a list of the successful metrication upgrades
in Australia (using millimetres) -- and the unsuccessful attempted
transitions (using centimetres).
I wonder could you share with us some of the successful examples of
economical, smooth, and fast metrication transitions -- using
centimetres -- that you used to make your decision: "/I'm now going to
change things back to centimeters!/"
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Geelong, Australia
On 2011-05-28 1418, Pat Naughtin wrote:
Dear Jim,
Thanks for this information. You probably won't like me saying this
but you have given me another arrow to my bow in criticising the use
of centimetres instead of millimetres. I really must assemble my
arguments favouring millimetres over centimetre more carefully. I
will mull some more.
Cheers and thanks for your prompt response.
Pat Naughtin
Geelong Australia
On 2011/05/29, at 04:08 , James R. Frysinger wrote:
Bear with me here, Pat. I'm still trying to find my way around this
blasted "menu ribbon" that MS Office uses now. (The startup guide
acknowledged that many people would find it difficult at first to
use the menu ribbon. Downloadable tutorials are provided for each
Office component. Also provided is a link to a video explaining "Why
we made this change" -- the video file did not run.)
Opening the Word component, I see an empty page. Selecting the Page
Layout ribbon, I see settings for indents given in centimeters. The
Margins tab provides several options (as well as a chance to
customize the settings) and one of those is "boxed"; I thus assume
that this is the current setting: top, bottom, and both sides = 25.4
cm. One choice is for Office 2003 Default settings: top and bottom =
25.4 cm, sides = 3.18 cm.
I will change these to my personal preferences of 2.00 cm all around
(or 2.5 cm on recto pages and 1.5 cm on verso pages to allow for
punching or binding). For those who are up on typography...yes, this
provides a line that is generally considered as being "too long"
when 12 point type is used on U.S. Letter paper. I will try once
again, now that I have a new computer not cluttered with personal
stuff, to build a nice LaTeX suite; I miss that from my Linux days.
Sigh.
When I stumbled across the "preferences" menu yesterday, I saw that
the program was already set up in centimeters (capitalized), but
that I had the option to change that to inches, millimeters, or
picas (all capitalized).
I was able to figure out how to make vertical and horizontal rulers
visible and did so. They obviously are marked in centimeters but
with subdivisions for 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 cm. (Unfortunately,
OpenOffice 3.3.0 does the same thing.)
Jim
On 2011-05-27 2246, Pat Naughtin wrote:
On 2011/05/27, at 11:32 , James R. Frysinger wrote:
I'm in the process of setting up a new computer for my business
and discovered something surprising. While setting options in the
subject-named program on this Windows 7 OS, I discovered that
"centimeter" is the default value under "Display" for "Show
measurements in units of:".
That's the first office program I've seen that defaults to metric!
I cannot think of anything I set in the Windows 7 preferences that
would have caused that.
Jim
Dear Jim,
What are the default settings on your new computer for page margins?
I use the latest (2011) version of Microsoft Word for Mac and it's
default settings all came in inches. After I set my preferred
length setting for millimetres, MS Word changed the page margin
defaults to 25.4 mm top and bottom and 31.8 mm for right and left
margins.
You may recall that I have written a short article about this issue
previously at
http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/PageBordersInchesORmillimetres.pdf
By the way, does your new MS Word allow you to set your own default
in millimetres? Or are you stuck with a choice between inches or
centimetres?
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that
they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or
selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources
for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial,
industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and
in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government,
Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK,
and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more
metrication information, contact Pat at
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> or to get the free
'Metrication matters' newsletter go to:
http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information,
contact Pat at [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> or to get the free
'Metrication matters' newsletter go to:
http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(C) 931.212.0267
(H) 931.657.3107
(F) 931.657.3108
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped
thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern
metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save
thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their
businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different
trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and
government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's
clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the
metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information,
contact Pat at [email protected] or to get the free
'Metrication matters' newsletter go to:
http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
