> Why do you say they're better all around? Because they're "based off things in real life?" Try this some time. Put your foot on a foot-long ruler and find out exactly how long *your* foot is. I have pretty darn big feet, and my foot isn't even a foot long. A 'foot' is a lot bigger than most people's feet are. Someone once told me that an ounce of water was "about a sip". Huh? How much is a sip?? Anybody who's seen me drink knows I'm more of a guzzler anyway--where's the unit of measurement based on the Dave-guzzle? A cup of water is about how much you can hold in your cupped hand--bull. Ever tried holding a measuring cup's worth of water in your hand? Whoever designed this measurement must have had a pretty darn big hand. (Maybe the measurement is based on both hands cupped together--that'd be closer. But still, I have pretty big hands, and my sister has much smaller hands--who's hands do we use?)

Those aren't really what the units are based on. The only units I'm familiar with the origins of offhand are distance units - inch, foot, mile. The inch is the width of three barleycorns placed end to end - and, yes, the barleycorn *is* uniform in size. Any three barleycorns will give you more or less and inch. The foot is thirty-six barleycorns. The mile, on the other hand, was arrived at more arbitrarily. The mile is the Roman mile (five thousand feet) plus the British furlong (280 feet).

> I was at the DMV last week getting my Colorado license, and this hispanic girl next to me was having problems figuring out how tall she was. She knew exactly how many meters/centimeters tall she was, but had no idea how that equated to feet/inches (I guessed in my head that she was 5'2", and when she and the teller finally got it figured out, she was 5'3" -- familiarity strikes again ;-) Same thing with her weight. She knew what it was in kilograms, but had no clue how that equated to pounds.

Erm... your argument seems to be about the same as the argument for putting road signs up in Spanish and English - namely, that foreign immigrants can't manage under our system. Well, that's their problem, really. They have two choices - learn the system being used in this country (be it the English language or the imperial measurement system) or don't exepct to be able to get along in this country. It sounds harsh, but it makes zero sense to do anything else.

> I guess I sort of agree with both sides of the argument. It's silly to say that it's "better" to measure your weight in kilos rather than pounds.

Except that kilos aren't a measure of weight. ;-}

> And this whole "taking away my Heritage and my Culture" argument is so bogus. Cultures change. It's *right* that they change. It's *good* that they change. It's *neccesary* that they change.

You're right, cultures do change. But it's an evolutionary process that happens *slowly.* If the government steps in and demands that the culture change *immediately,* more often than not, that leads to revolution. Not that I'm saying it's necessarily right or wrong - just that people don't like having cultural changes dictated to them and will probably respond unpleasantly to any such attempt. This has to be thought about in terms of public relations - the government can't force the people to change their culture, simply because culture is a stronger force than government, and will likely prevail.