[Elecraft] stranger than real life

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

"mc" wrote:
>would it not be easier to keep everything in metric

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I've been a technical and scientific writer since the early 1960's. In all
that time I've worked in metric right here in the USA. It's what most of the
engineering/scientific community lives by. 

The simple fact is the STANDARD AMERICAN system of weights and measures is
METRIC! It has been so since the middle 1800's when our Congress adopted the
metric system as our official system. What they did not do was to make it
illegal to continue to use the clumsy, crazy "American/English" system. (40
lashes for each of 'em with a wet noodle!)  So, stubborn Yanks that we are,
we still measure by the King's thumb, etc. 

>From time to time some numbskull tries to mix the two. The most famous case
is when someone got confused between the two while they were configuring the
main mirror for the Hubble telescope and produced a billion dollar blunder
that was only solved much later by some equally expensive correction optics.
It didn't help that QA missed the error too. 

My XYL is Dutch, so we live and cook and work in Metric here in Oregon
country, and it's great.  

Still, I am reminded of just how powerful early training can be. For
example, I know exactly what I'm doing when I set my soldering iron at 400C
and what to expect if I touch something that's 50C, but I still have to stop
and think about whether I'll need a jacket if it's 15C out. I was raised
perceiving the weather in Fahrenheit, and after all these years I still have
to stop and think for a moment. That's a clue about just how powerful early
training can be. 

Ron AC7AC