Here There and Everywhere

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1. Living in two cities, New York and Paris, having to learn the metric system to shop for furniture, renovate, etc., has been a huge challenge. Another language to master. They started to teach us when we were kids, and just when I was getting the hang, they abandoned it. We are so third world sometimes.

   Comment by Lisa Anselmo | February 15, 2014 | Reply

   • I knew a lot of the world was all metric, but until I saw this map, I had no idea that we are just about the only holdout. It’s hard to believe, and it’s an embarrassment!

     Comment by intlxpatr | February 15, 2014 | Reply

     • word!

       Comment by Lisa Anselmo | February 15, 2014

2. Intlxpatr :
   This what bogged down the USA when facing conversion to the Metric system ,
   As the Worlds biggest economy and Manufacturer , Its too much invested in the equipment and assests to change to the metric system ,as it will be prohibitive cost wise . The” English” measurement Foot , Pounds , Ounces , Fahrenheit is now referred to as the “American” measurement system ,since as the map shows , it is the only country that uses it, that matters .

   I think its is a cause of American manufacturers Quality issues because with tolerances in goods that made in Inch and fractions of it , is much harder to control than tolerances in Millimeters .Case in point American Made cars quality issues ,if you have more tolerances you have a bigger fit problems . I wonder if Aircrafts made in the States like Boeing are made using the SI (metric ) system ???

   There are some benefits to using the American system , Like the mile , for instances can you imagine driving cross country if the signs are in Kilometers , that’s like adding more than Sixty percent to the distances on the sign boards ???

   Another benefit ,it sounds much more impressive when they announce that the plane is flying at 35000 Ft , versus We are flying Now at height of 10.6 Km , and in Landing it more accurate to do it in Feet

   Comment by daggero | February 17, 2014 | Reply

3. You make a great point, Daggero (LOL, the Dagger makes a point) and I also think that when the rest of the world moves on, it might be a really good thing for us to move with it. Like in cars – we always had to have separate sets of wrenches and socket wrenches for our European cars and our American cars. Why not just start tooling cars on the metric system; we change models often enough. Furniture and things like that might not matter so much, but things that we are sending on to the rest of the world, food containers – I think maybe food containers already have metric readings as well as US readings –

   You are right, it sounds more impressive to be at 35000 feet, but . . . all in all, I think when the world moves on, we don’t want to be holding out. Other manufacturers – hmmm, say China – might have a cheaper and adequate product, and if ours bring extra complications – well, the cheaper adequate less problematic product wins out.

   Comment by intlxpatr | February 18, 2014 | Reply

4. The top one could (almost be) Countries that have been to the moon, and countries that have not

   Comment by joe | May 23, 2015 | Reply

5. LOL, Joe, no, it could not.

   Comment by Intlxpatr | May 24, 2015 | Reply

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