I miss it too! Gave up Fahrenheit back in 1999, but in shopping we’re still forced to use ounces, grams, quarts, and the like. Playing rugby helps keep the meter fresh in mind, and it’s always good to know your body weight in kg.
But yes, we need to go metric already. If I met the President, I’d encourage him to come out for metric, if only to force his opposition to come up with rational arguments against it. They all boil down to “but we’re used to this other thing.” which is ridiculous.
I don’t miss it because I never had the opportunity to use it for long enough because I was born and raised in the U.S. Every time I start a print project I long for the metric system. I really can’t stand fractions, but I love millimeters. Sometimes I design whole projects in the metric system and then convert them for the printer. It’s just better.
Born in Europe, I’ve used the metric system for most of my life. I can manage ounces and pounds if I try, but usually it gets really confusing. Decimal system, where ten is the base, simply seems more logical. Grams, kilograms, millimeters and kilometers for me, please!
I’m so nerdy I follow the US Metric Association. If you check out their website (http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/), it’s interesting to see how much money and resources our country would save if we converted.
In Canada we’ve been using the metric system since the 70s. All road sizes are in km as well as car speedometers. And all our weather is reported in Celsius. It probably depends on whether you were born before of after the 60s – I was a flower child so I’m more familiar with Celsius but when I was growing up our thermostat at home was in Fahrenheit.
But you still see imperial measure being used every day. When I go to the grocery store, signage still tends to be price per pound first, then it might have price per kg written somewhere small – probably because it looks cheaper that way! And I would still hazard to guess that most people are more familiar with visualizing things in feet rather that meters, like the square footage of an apartment. Again, maybe it just sounds bigger that way. And all our stationery products follow imperial sizes. The ISO system for stationery is amazing but when I had to do an international stationery program a few years ago I found that every country had its own version of an envelope that tried to do the job of a No.10 but none of them were the same.
When I design I still like to use imperial measure. I just find it more versatile, whether I’m using inches or points. I almost never use metric.
Swissmiss is an online garden Tina Roth Eisenberg started in 2005 and has lovingly tended to ever since.
Besides swissmiss, Tina founded and runs TeuxDeux, CreativeMornings and her Brooklyn based co-working community Friends Work Here. (She also started Tattly which was recently adopted by BIC)
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I miss it too! Gave up Fahrenheit back in 1999, but in shopping we’re still forced to use ounces, grams, quarts, and the like. Playing rugby helps keep the meter fresh in mind, and it’s always good to know your body weight in kg.
But yes, we need to go metric already. If I met the President, I’d encourage him to come out for metric, if only to force his opposition to come up with rational arguments against it. They all boil down to “but we’re used to this other thing.” which is ridiculous.
Oct 12th, 2011 / 10:50 am
I don’t miss it because I never had the opportunity to use it for long enough because I was born and raised in the U.S. Every time I start a print project I long for the metric system. I really can’t stand fractions, but I love millimeters. Sometimes I design whole projects in the metric system and then convert them for the printer. It’s just better.
Oct 12th, 2011 / 10:59 am
Born in Europe, I’ve used the metric system for most of my life. I can manage ounces and pounds if I try, but usually it gets really confusing. Decimal system, where ten is the base, simply seems more logical. Grams, kilograms, millimeters and kilometers for me, please!
Oct 12th, 2011 / 11:59 am
I’m so nerdy I follow the US Metric Association. If you check out their website (http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/), it’s interesting to see how much money and resources our country would save if we converted.
Oct 12th, 2011 / 3:24 pm
In Canada we’ve been using the metric system since the 70s. All road sizes are in km as well as car speedometers. And all our weather is reported in Celsius. It probably depends on whether you were born before of after the 60s – I was a flower child so I’m more familiar with Celsius but when I was growing up our thermostat at home was in Fahrenheit.
But you still see imperial measure being used every day. When I go to the grocery store, signage still tends to be price per pound first, then it might have price per kg written somewhere small – probably because it looks cheaper that way! And I would still hazard to guess that most people are more familiar with visualizing things in feet rather that meters, like the square footage of an apartment. Again, maybe it just sounds bigger that way. And all our stationery products follow imperial sizes. The ISO system for stationery is amazing but when I had to do an international stationery program a few years ago I found that every country had its own version of an envelope that tried to do the job of a No.10 but none of them were the same.
When I design I still like to use imperial measure. I just find it more versatile, whether I’m using inches or points. I almost never use metric.
Oct 12th, 2011 / 3:32 pm
I’m so glad I was born and raised in the UK – the imperial system seems so illogical!
Oct 12th, 2011 / 5:29 pm
I’ve always used the metric system. Had to change to pounds, inches and all that weird stuff while going to college in the US. What a headache!
Oct 12th, 2011 / 9:17 pm
born and raised metric! love it ♥ !
Oct 12th, 2011 / 11:05 pm
In behalf of my country, I apologize. I’ve lived in Europe now for 3 years and am dreading going back… The metric system is SO much easier.
Oct 21st, 2011 / 1:33 pm