Today’s xkcd presents a humorous Guide to Converting to metric — which is a very useful, although slightly impractical, way to educate our metrically-unenlightened American cousins:
At most times, I wonder if it’s simply arrogance that prevents USA from converting to the metric system. After all, USA is the only country besides Myanmar and Liberia that doesn’t use it as their primary system.
One of the first lessons you learn as engineers is the importance of standards, and our class were presented with numbers of cases where disaster struck just because engineers confuse metric and American units, with the most famous case being the Mars Climate Orbiter fuck-up.
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Meanwhile, Penelope in Questionable Content is spotted wearing a tee that says “Fuck Twilight”.
Go read it, now.
[…] actually can be useful. And be it only for the sake of intercultural communication. After all (as obviously has to be pointed out) the USA is one of only three nations in the world which doesn’t use […]