🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9001220213.aa05139@blackbox.gore.com> jacob@BLACKBOX.GORE.COM (Jacob Gore) writes:
>/comp.lang.postscript/ifarqhar@mqccsunc.mqcc.mq.OZ (Ian Farquhar)/Jan 21, 1990/
>> I am just amazed by the above argument.  It basically says that the
>> metric system is unintuitive because it is impossible to express four
>> whatsits in a integer number of millimeters!
>
>Well, that is so.  That's why you buy your milk and gasoline by the liter
>and not cubic meter.

Actually, milk is mostly water and at 4 degrees centigrade a cubic
centimeter is a milliliter and weights one gram.  Do that in imperial!

>> I was never taught imperial,
>> but have picked up a bit over the years.  I fail to see that the system
>> has even one single virtue.  How can sensible people cling to a measure
>> such an an acre that was originally defined as the area that one man and
>> an ox could plough in one day?
>
>How many square meters is a hectare?

10000 square meters.  Not much thought required there.

>You use whatever you are accustomed to.  I was brought up on metric and
>didn't encounter the English system until I moved to the U.S.  And guess
>what: you do get used to 32 degrees being freezing, 95 being too hot, and
>72 being just right.  And you remember that it's about 1,000 miles from
>Chicago to Denver, and you know that they can be driven through at roughly
>1 mile a minute.  And you even start remembering things like "5280 feet in
>1 mile" (especially if you live in Denver, the "Mile High City", and every
>town's greeting sign in the state lists its elevation, as do signs on all
>mountain passes).

Fine.  If you like it, you use it.  Just don't make ME use it!  Do you
hear me, Adobe?

>You remember units that you use.  Just like you remember the units of time:
>60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in
>a week, a variable number around 30 of days in a month, 12 months in a
>year, sometimes 365 and sometimes 366 days in a year... hardly a system
>resembling metric, huh?

Metric time is a contentious issue.  There is as yet no standard, and I
am unaware of any serious discussion concerning it.  A couple of weeks
I had to implement a series of time and date routines in C.  What a
pain!

The problem is that such would really have to be a worldwide decision,
and would almost certainly be blocked by the US, one of the three
countries who are still not committed to metric!

This discussion has got way out of hand!  It has now diverted from being
a discussion on the periphery of Postscript, to being totally outside
the realms of computers!  I have no objection to continuing this
discussion via e-mail, but comp.lang.postscript should not remain its
forum!

Apologies to all who sent me e-mail about this subject.  The volume has
been considerable, and I am trying to answer all.  However, Macquarie
University actually wants me to fit in a little work between mailing...

All hail Saint Fubar, parton saint of computer programmers.

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