Going Metric

[DanL]

http://www.metricsucks.com/metric_land.html

(just to stir up controversy)


Seriously though, the site does bring up advantages of the imperial system that I never realized before, one of the best examples being the description of the Fahrenheit scale and how easy it was to create a thermometer back then:

And for thermometers, it seems that is precisely what Fahrenheit was
up to. Fahrenheit was playing around and playing around and finally
set ice water at 32, and body temperature at 96, so that there were
64 divisions between the two. That way, no matter where you are in
the world, you can re-generate his thermometer. You stick the
thermometer in ice water, and mark it there. Then you stick it
under your tounge, and mark it there. Then you get a string, and
fold it in half 6 times, and you have the 64 divisions between 32
and 96!

Note: Body temperature was corrected to 98.6 after Fahrenheit had died