On 2011-11-14 14:16:48 -0600, Jean said:


in Britain they willingly create confusion (pounds, feets, oz, driving
at the left),


I think driving on the left is really great. I'm right-handed, and I
can use right-hand to steer but shift with my left. And as I love
scenic-driving in Britain and Ireland, it is incredibly helpful to
point my camera out the window with the right hand (my camera of the
style that is meant to be held and 80% operated with the right hand).
I just wish Norway hadn't gone over to driving on the right for my
drive up the fjordlands to the Nordkapp a couple years back. Now THAT
is the world's most scenic drive! (driving on the right in New Zealand
was helpful, too, btw)

I also like the round-abouts. The fly-ways on American interstate
highways are far superior than the mega-roundabouts on the British
four-lane carriageways, but, for the other 98% of traffic control, they
are better than stop signs and traffic lights. And they're a hoot to
drive in that they are like a chicane. Taking a roundabout fast in a
Porsche would be awesome.

And in general, the English measures make more sense than metric,
anyway. Everybody knows this. True, the metric system is better for
modern engineering and such, but for workaday purposes people intuit
the English measures, they're easier to manipulate in one's head, they
have a connection usually with something in everyday life (inch, foot,
yard, gallon, etc.), and all the tooling already invested-in are all in
English / Imperial measures. These are the same arguments made in the
first Transactions of the ASME one hundred years ago, and they're
largely true today. I daresay the biggest problem with the English /
Imperial units, is when people want to force-in metric units on an
already-existing Imperial system, and unit conversion problems occur as
a result -- FOR NO REASON.
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)