[AT] Spam> Re: metric system

[charliehill]

Ralph you summed up the problem very well.   It's going to take all of us 
boomers dying off and the kids that came up learning  metric in school to 
ever make the change complete and even then it's hard to change things like 
old buildings and road layouts.   The two systems just don't convert easily.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ralph Goff" <alfg at sasktel.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Spam> Re: metric system


>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "charliehill" <charliehill at embarqmail.com>
> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" 
> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 6:16 AM
> Subject: Re: [AT] Spam> Re: Spam> bearing cross-reference
>
>
> Mattias, the reason folks here are so resistant to metric is that 
> everything
> we have is in the english system and the coversions are hard to do.  Once
> you start to work in Metric it is much easier to use and gets 
> exponentially
> easier once you get into things like physics and have to deal with mass
> units and that pesky little fellow called gravity.
>
> Charlie we in Canada have had to deal with the metric system for something
> like 40 years now and I think we have developed a sort of combined system 
> on
> the farm. The biggest obstacle in my opinion is that all our land was
> surveyed in the 1800s using the imperial (english) system. A section of 
> land
> was one mile square and contained 640 acres. I'm not going to get out my
> calculator to see how many kilometres around or how many hectares are in a
> section. Roads are a mile apart east and west, 2 miles apart going north 
> and
> south and I don't see that changing any time soon as it hard enough to
> maintain the roads we have without tearing them down and relocating them .
> Grain prices are given in both bushels and tonnes and I'd say bushels are
> still the most used measure. We buy our fuel and chemical in litres but 
> know
> that there are 4.54 of them in a gallon. I guess a dollar per litre 
> doesn't
> sound quite as bad as $4.54 per gallon for gas. We end up spraying
> herbicides in litres per acre, a combination of two systems that we have
> adapted to.
> I think most of us still relate more to how many miles per gallon our
> vehicle gets rather than how many kilometres per litre.
> I still swear every time I encounter a metric bolt or fitting and have to
> pick up a metric wrench to deal with it. I think possibly when our 
> "boomer"
> generation disappears maybe the metric system will become more 
> predomiinant.
> Until then I'll keep looking at the farenheit side of my thermometer so I
> can brag to you guys down south just how cold it is here. :-)
>
> Ralph in Sask.
>
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