Re: [GZG] [FT] Cancon 2006 Random Observations

Allan Goodall wrote:

>On 2/1/06, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
><gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>  
>
>>Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:10:46 -0500
>>From: Jerry Han <jhan@warpfish.com>
>>Subject: Re: [GZG] [FT] Cancon 2006 Random Observations
>>To: gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
>>
>>You know, this brings to mind a curiousity question -- what nations
are
>>left that would still have reasonable facility with Imperial?  Canada
>>switched over to Metric almost thirty years ago now, but, because our
>>trade is so tied in to the United States, we still have to know
Imperial
>>distance measurement pretty well.
>>    
>>
>
>Most Canadians can function relatively well without having to know
>miles versus kilometers. Speedometers on Canadian and American
>vehicles are marked both ways, and some of the higher end vehicles
>even let you change temperature gauges and odometers from imperial (or
>"english", as is usually displayed in American vehicles; Americans
>don't like to call it "imperial") to metric. While on the highway, a
>rough "one mile per minute" conversion is close enough, while on
>Canadian highways (particularly the 401 in Ontario, where speeding
>seems to be mandatory) a "two kilometres per minute" conversion works.
>
>The building trades in Canada are still almost exclusively imperial. A
>lot of dyed-in-the-wool carpenters stuck with the imperial system. It
>also meant that Canadian lumber mills could manufacture products in
>the same size as for the U.S., thus eliminating the need for two sets
>of inventory. Go into a Home Depot in Canada and you'll see wood,
>drywall, etc. sold in imperial measurements. Furniture is typically
>sold in imperial, with metric conversions listed (the main exception
>is furniture bought from Ikea). Canadian and American garage mechanics
>have both imperial and metric tool sets, but that's mostly because of
>those silly foreign cars that use metric.
>
>Canadian tape measures typically have both imperial and metric. My
>dad, who was a master carpenter, preferred imperial. He could make
>things to higher tolerances. A millimeter is bigger than 1/32 of an
>inch, which almost all tape measures display, and often tape measures
>get down to 1/64 of an inch. You could go down to a 10th of a
>millimeter, but that's too small to use. I never saw tape measures
>graded in half-millimeters. Besides, he -- and most of his colleagues
>-- were "old school" and would never have converted to metric, so the
>new guys didn't convert either.
>
>The answer, for metric confusion issues at the gaming table, is to buy
>Canadian tape measures!
>
>(As an aside, for fix-it projects I don't mind too much that Americans
>don't use the metric system. It _really_ bugs me that they never
>embraced that wonderful invention known as the Robertson screw!
>Phillips and slot-head screws are simply inferior. There, I've said
>it, and I'm glad!)
>
>Allan
>--
>Allan Goodall		  http://www.hyperbear.com
>agoodall@hyperbear.com
>awgoodall@gmail.com
>
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>
>  
>
http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/robertson_screws.htm
Sounds like the Robertson screw is the betamax of screws. Technically 
superior, but defeated in the marketplace.

I'd like to see them here too, but it's not going to happen.

-Clambo

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