To Metric or not Metric

[Hondo]

Maybe something wasn't clear.

[Rollo]

Aah but a bottle of beer beer (as in ale) is 568ml, so that doesn't really count as metric that's actually a pint.

An American pint is a pitiful 473mL. Even un demi is 500mL.

I also think it's funny that we still talk of a 24 hour day made up of 60 minutes and 60 seconds. Maybe we should have gone to a 10 hour day of 100 minutes and 100 seconds like the 1928 film Metropolis, and redefined what an hour, minute and second are.

[schmenke]

...I also think it's funny that we still talk of a 24 hour day made up of 60 minutes and 60 seconds. Maybe we should have gone to a 10 hour day of 100 minutes and 100 seconds like the 1928 film Metropolis, and redefined what an hour, minute and second are.

Not a bad idea. Give me a minute to think about it.

[Eki]

How about the Swatch Internet Time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

[BleAivano]

in Sweden metric is widely dominating, however units like feet and acres and tablespoons do occur as well and of course nautical miles.

Feets are used to describe both lengths. like how big boat do you have? i have a 28 "feet'er". acres are used when it comes to describing the size of larger properties like forests and etc.
tea/tablespoon etc are still used in cooking and nautical miles are used within maritime navigation.

[race aficionado]

That map is quite misleading since the UK isn't listed, as it should be as a 'halfway house' type of arrangement.

We use imperial exclusively on the roads, with feet / miles and miles per hour. Fuel is sold by the litre but economy figures are quoted in miles per UK gallon.

In pubs you by beer by the pint when it's served draft but bottles are sold by the millilitre.

Sizes of televisions are still quoted in inches. Weights of people are in stones and pounds, heights of people are in feet and inches, whereas weights of products sold in the shops are in metric, unless you are a market stall trader when for some reason you insist on selling everything by the pound.

Temperatures are quoted in degrees C most of the time, except when there's a heat wave and the media will always quote it in Fahrenheit because it sounds bigger.

In short: it's a mess!

According to other responses it looks like that is the case in many other countries.

It is a mess.

I wonder who is actually metric 100%.

[Mark]

France is probably the most as they were the pioneers in the system. However a pound (livre) is still known there and generally regarded as 500g.

[BleAivano]

forgot to say that obviously Sweden uses Celsius as a temperature measure unit since its scale was invented by Swedish scientist Anders Celsius and later modified by Carl von Linné.

[ioan]

Maybe something wasn't clear.

Right, it was the part about having 95% of Earth's population bow down to the selfishness of the remaining 5%.

[Rollo]

Not a bad idea. Give me a minute to think about it.

If you can do it without hesitation, repetition or deviation from the subject, your time starts now