Obama and metrication
Markus Kuhn
administration metrication issues (FPLA, etc.) are. Their
campaign slogans of change and an end unilateralism certainly
are setting a very promising tone.
On
http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision
the president-elect of the United States now asks his fellow citizens
for their visions of where he should lead the country.
Sounds like an opportunity for U.S. citizens to express
their hopes and aspirations on the units-of-measurement front!
Markus
Zipplewrath
Of all the things we have to spend money upon, this is probably
going to be WAY down the list. And we don't have the cash for
everything we need to pay for, never mind the things we want.
Alex Bailey
I seem to recall it was either General Motors or Chrysler who when they
went metric actually found it saved them money, the real trick would be
to get that message across to the electorate.
The same problem exists here in the UK of course... and trying to
convince the press and the polititians is the first step in this. Good
luck with that!
--
Alex Bailey
Euric
>
> - Show quoted text -
I don't think we should mention GM, Ford or Chrysler. All three of
these companies are in bad economic shape and may go out of business
in the next 6~12 months. Metrication was suppose to happen in the
'70s and was pushed by the major industries. The American people
didn't want it and industry didn't want to push it on them or have to
deal with uncooperative employees. With the help of Ronald Regan,
metrication was ended at the same time the trade rules were relaxed
allowing American companies to close American factories and move the
work outside the US. This way products could be made in metric with
no cost as the foreign population was already metric educated and
there would be no money wasted educating Americans who would refuse to
learn.
Any American company that needs to produce metric products can easily
do so by manufacturing outside the US and if need be can re-import it
back into the US and that is what they do
Zipplewrath
It's a cash flow thingy. All of the military specs are basically
still in
American units. The short term costs of converting them all would be
huge. Long term one could probably make a case that there would be
savings. But we don't have alot of excess cash right now. The
industries
that would most likely benefit have already changed. Liquor is sold
in liters.
cars are sold in liters of displacement. Soft drinks are sold in
liters.
(partially anyway). The industries that haven't changed are the ones
that
probably would benefit the least.
Dr J R Stockton
2000prg.googlegroups.com>, Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:51:34, Zipplewrath
<zippl...@gmail.com> posted:
>> the president-elect of the United States now asks his fellow citizens
>> for their visions of where he should lead the country.
>> Sounds like an opportunity for U.S. citizens to express
>> their hopes and aspirations on the units-of-measurement front!
>
>
> Of all the things we have to spend money upon, this is probably
>going to be WAY down the list. And we don't have the cash for
>everything we need to pay for, never mind the things we want.
The first move should be to ask the US media, including PR staff, that
when they receive information in metric, to publish it in metric with
the Imperial equivalent following parenthetically, rather than the other
way round. That should only cost a paragraph of a Presidential speech.
It should be binding on Federal organisations.
He could also say that he asks the more intelligent and forward-looking
State Governors to ask likewise within their areas.
Has any previous President received any significant part of his early
school-level education in a Metric environment?
--
(c) John Stockton, near London. *@merlyn.demon.co.uk/?.?.Stockton@physics.org
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
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Stan
I'm a UK citizen who has never visited America but my impression of PE
Obama is that he is a very reasonable man.
If long term interest arguments could reach his ears maybe he will be
prepared to review the situation. The best opportunity for this will
be during the early term of his office where he is more likely to
entertain a degree of innovation.
Whatever happens, my best wishes to the people of America whom I'm
sure have made the best choice for their new President.
Stan
Erik Max Francis
> I'm a UK citizen who has never visited America but my impression of PE
> Obama is that he is a very reasonable man.
>
> If long term interest arguments could reach his ears maybe he will be
> prepared to review the situation. The best opportunity for this will
> be during the early term of his office where he is more likely to
> entertain a degree of innovation.
Whatever Obama may or may not do, metrication is so far down on the list
as it is utterly implausible that he would do anything about it. The
issue has been dead politically for over 20 years here in the States,
and it's never been mentioned or even hinted at during the campaign.
It's true that the best opportunity for any new President to get things
done is in the first 100 days of his administration, but Obama has
already talked about numerous other things that he wishes to do (whether
he can/will do them or not is another question), and for him to squander
it on something so far from the electorate's minds as metrication is
inconceivable.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.
-- Ionesco
Dave Brown
reputation abroad. One of the best things he could do would be to
demonstrate an end to America’s contempt for internationalism that is
so practically demonstrated by it’s shunning of the international
measurement system.
As for the costs, I believe he’s talking about a “fiscal stimulus
package”. Metrication would certainly keep American road-sign makers
and their suppliers in jobs till the crisis passes.
Dave Brown
Dr J R Stockton
y.net>, Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:39:23, Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com>
posted:
>Stan wrote:
>
>> I'm a UK citizen who has never visited America but my impression of PE
>> Obama is that he is a very reasonable man.
>> If long term interest arguments could reach his ears maybe he will
>>be
>> prepared to review the situation. The best opportunity for this will
>> be during the early term of his office where he is more likely to
>> entertain a degree of innovation.
>
>Whatever Obama may or may not do, metrication is so far down on the
>list as it is utterly implausible that he would do anything about it.
>The issue has been dead politically for over 20 years here in the
>States, and it's never been mentioned or even hinted at during the
>campaign. It's true that the best opportunity for any new President to
>get things done is in the first 100 days of his administration, but
>Obama has already talked about numerous other things that he wishes to
>do (whether he can/will do them or not is another question), and for
>him to squander it on something so far from the electorate's minds as
>metrication is inconceivable.
For America to do it off its own bat, the need is for a president to
decide to push it at the beginning of his second term - four years of
power left, and no hope of being re-elected.
The most effective route to full world metrication would be for the
countries who are already fully metric to decline to trade externally in
units other than correctly-spelt SI ones in any way at all - by size or
by description. Want a mileometer in your new car? get one made in the
USA. Want some oil? buy it in litres, cubic metres, or tonnes. Want to
fly abroad? do it in metres and kilometres. Want to buy a case of meter
rules? Out of the question - order a case of metre riles instead.
But for us it's probably economically sounder to nag the USA so that it
self-handicaps by maintaining its customary obstinacy.
--
(c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
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Euric
>
> Whatever Obama may or may not do, metrication is so far down on the list
> as it is utterly implausible that he would do anything about it. The
> issue has been dead politically for over 20 years here in the States,
> and it's never been mentioned or even hinted at during the campaign.
> It's true that the best opportunity for any new President to get things
> done is in the first 100 days of his administration, but Obama has
> already talked about numerous other things that he wishes to do (whether
> he can/will do them or not is another question), and for him to squander
> it on something so far from the electorate's minds as metrication is
> inconceivable.
>
> --
> Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com &&http://www.alcyone.com/max/
> San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
> Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.
> -- Ionesco
It may not be an issue at the bottom. The metric issue started by
Bill Potts is #8 on the list. If a Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
recommends such and idea to Obama there is no telling what could
happen.
[USMA:41937] Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation's first CTO.
What are the top priorities?
Bill Potts
Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:01:02 -0800
Please, everybody, go to http://obamacto.org, sign up and vote for the
priority I've put on the list. You can set your vote value at 1, 2 or
3.
Obviously you should set it to 3. You'll have 7 votes left over to
vote on
the other issues already listed.
So far, mine has garnered 15 votes and currently holds the position of
22nd
on the list (votes, not the position on the page). With your help it
could
be close to the top.
My entry says the following:
Complete the job on metrication that Ronald Reagan defunded
<http://obamacto.uservoice.com/pages/general/suggestions/69174>
The government has failed to take the lead on completing the task of
moving
the country completely to the SI metric system. George H.W. Bush tried
to do
something about it, but gave the bureaucrats an easy out. Failure to
follow
the same measurement standards as the rest of the world is costing US
industry something like $1 trillion per year.
To get to it, you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the first page,
then
click on Show more. Then scroll down to the above entry (or do a page
search
on metrication). Remember, you can give it three votes.
Spread the word.
The originator of the Web site, by the way, is Axel Schultze, a
brilliant
entrepreneur now living in the SF Bay Area. I first met him in 1987,
when he
was running Computer 2000 in Munich, Germany. He founded Computer 2000
and
built it up to being Novell's biggest distributor (although he
initially
distributed 3Com products). If your profile is on LinkedIn, you may
recognize his name and may already have seen his notice of the
creation of
the Obama CTO site.
Bill
Zipplewrath
[snip]
> The first move should be to ask the US media, including PR staff, that
> when they receive information in metric, to publish it in metric with
> the Imperial equivalent following parenthetically, rather than the other
> way round.
The US media doesn't listen much to outside organizations telling
them how to print stuff. This is even more so when it is someone
from the government.
>That should only cost a paragraph of a Presidential speech.
> It should be binding on Federal organisations.
In essence it was for some time. When I first started working in
aerospace,
the frustration was working on government programs for the military or
NASA. They insisted on all documentation being in metric. All
nonmetric
units were to be publish parenthetically. The problem was that much
of
the industry standards and military requirements documents were still
in
US standard units (much of them still are). So you'd have to take US
government data, work with it, then convert it to metric for all
reports. It
cost a fortune. Somewhere in the '80s the government dropped the
requirement
for metric in order to reduce costs. It's how the infamous Mars probe
problem
happened. NASA didn't require metric reporting so the product got
delivered in
US customary, but NASA just assumed it was metric and so they were
doing
metric calculations of Newtons and issuing thrust commands to
software
expecting pounds force.
> He could also say that he asks the more intelligent and forward-looking
> State Governors to ask likewise within their areas.
Govenors have virtually no powers in these areas. The states
long ago
ceded all authority over road signage and markings to the federal
government.
> Has any previous President received any significant part of his early
> school-level education in a Metric environment?
Probably Bush Jr. Hard to say for sure. Metric was the most
commonly
taught measurement system after some early point in the '60s. Bush
would have been somewhere around when it was changing. I was taught
metric
basically exclusively until college and I'm Obama's age. Most
children these
days "learn" the US customary system through exposure basically.
Which means
of course they don't really learn a "system" at all but just some
scattered units.