LOL! That was great! I had to do a measurement unit last year in math, and even though I'm in Canada we had to convert imperial -> metric and the other way round. The imperial system really is showing its age

I remember the "Big" push we were having when I was in grade school here in the States to go metric, I loved it, made sense and plus anything I read in science normally used metric. Don't know what ever happened to that big push. Wish we would have just went on with it.
Love the comic though.
-D²

LOL. I wish it was a little more appropriate so I could show it to my class...

I bought into the whole "America is switcing to Metric any day now!" and never bothered learning the Imperial system. By the time I was in my late teens, I realized I had been duped and needed a translator to talk to my friends and family about anything involving units of measure. So I had to learn the Imperial system. But I still can't *visualize* it, how big is a cup again? For some reason, I seem to know exactly how much a pint is...

And now my girls are learning the metric system in school, and are lost in the kitchen with all of our Imperial measuring cups and spoons...

I'm opposite. I learned both metric and imperial, and while have no problems calculating with both, I can't "feel" metric.

Maybe it's just because I learned to cook in imperial, but metric just feels souless when I try to use it for anything outside of engineering calculations.

NZ changed from imperial to metric when I was young and I'm so glad they did. Not only would most of my school science lessons been full of unnecessary adjustment factors, but doing an engineering degree in Imperial would have been a nightmare. That and when I was in the US, the Imperial system seemed so archaic. The savings in errors and mistakes alone is worth the change.

There's just one bit of imperial that has stuck with everyone I know (except my kid's generation) and that is people's height. Feet and inches are a much more convenient way to describe that zone from 5'4" to 6'4" (there's something about 6' that makes it a much better threshold that 183cm).

Heh, I had a teacher who felt that the Metric system hadn't gone far enough - that it would have been better in base 12. More widely divisible that way, and works much better with geometry.

The single advantage that Imperial has over Metric is that it is more convenient to measure with the body - first knuckle of thumb - inch, foot - foot, nose to thumb - yard, 1,000 strides - mile....

The Auld Grump, rods, roods, hands, cubits, aams, arpets, centner, hide, ell, stone, league, fathom, grain, hogshead, pint, gill, firkin, hobbet, quoin...

Why do you guys keep using the word 'Imperial' to describe US measurements. They are quite different from everyone else's 'Imperial'. Pray you aren't on a American plane taking off from London. You may find the difference between Imperial Gallons and US Gallons, quite disturbing. (... Right about the same spot the Titanic sank.)




Interestingly, on the job the issue of dealing with the US market is cropping up more and more. You see the US economy has been steadily shrinking for 60 years. (50% of the world's wealth at the end of WWII, and now 20% of the world's wealth.) Increasingly, this means that its harder and harder to consider targeting such a small market.

For example, Do I build equipment that uses US units for wrenches, screws, and spare parts (20% of the market)? Or do I use metric targeting the rest of the world (80% of the market)? Don't get me wrong... the guys who look after this equipment aren't any better in one place or another. But give them a little complication, and they fall short. That's why this is a concern for us.

In the future, I expect to see Americans with hat in hand asking for support for more advanced technology available elsewhere.

YAYYYYYY!!!

Today i went to a games workshop shop (lol) and found something that solves some problems!^^