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The most recent candidate under the DNC banner is Lincoln Chafee who interestingly, besides being the lone Republican (he switched parties) to vote against the Iraq war, is vehemently pro-metric system. I remember when I was a kid, the freeway signs for distance and speed were printed in both English and metric. Converting all those signs from miles to km (again) would cost money, but then, using the English measurement system costs money too, forever -- according to a random guy I googled up without putting any real effort into it because I'm not that interested in proving myself wrong (Paul Naughtin), somewhere between six billion and a trillion. There are without a doubt, critics who might call that somewhat of a wide margin but as one witty commenter noted: "It is probably impossible to give an upper bound on that, however I can give you a lower bound: 500 Million Dollars for the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter by NASA".
Now, I'm neither a firm GOP nor DNC voter... but I'm tempted.
takyon: Former Governor of Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee joins a number of other candidates seeking a 2016 U.S. presidential nomination.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday June 06 2015, @03:57PM
Here's the problem though: In the US, there was a significant move towards dual systems in the 1970's and 1980's, with the intent of following that exact plan. Growing up in approximately that era, I was taught to measure things in both metres and feet, and could recognize km/h versus mph fairly easily. Conservatives in the US didn't like that, for the reasons I laid out above, and so now kids are no longer taught to measure things in metric.
That's not to say we don't have a few things measured in both systems though: Our standard sizes for carbonated beverages are 8 fl. oz., 12 fl. oz., 20 fl. oz., 1 litre, 2 litres. And a lot of people don't bat an eye at any of that, but if you were to sell gasoline by the litre there would be an uproar.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 06 2015, @04:15PM
Just do the same as you did with the imperial units: Use the same name, but change the amount it describes. Then you can sell gasoline by the U.S. litre and feel patriotic. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2015, @01:11AM
Don't laugh, this is exactly what the Chinese govt did.
For example, the very common Chinese traditional weight unit of "jin" (斤), the Chinese govt redefined it as 500 grams, which is still close to the original weight, yet now works well with the metric kilograms.
The US govt could just define a "Patriot Pound" as 500 grams, "Patriot Yard" as 1m, etc, then require all government purchases and official documents to use those units. Within 20 years, the whole country would have switched to metric.