On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 21:22:41 +0800, Stealth Pilot
wrote:

:blame the bloody yanks.

Everybody always does, why stop now?

:all the rest of the world went metric years
:ago

For which we should blame the French.

:and so did I.
:then I got into aviation and had to regress to an abortionate imperial
:system. actually worse than that in australia, aviation here is a mix
f imperial and metric. (footric and metric as one of my mates calls
:it) a nightmare tribute to the US dominance in aviation.

We'd prefer cash.

:a cubit is actually a handy measurement. It is the length of your arm
:from elbow to tip of longest finger. use it all the time for
:guestimating things. =18"
:Stealth Pilot

Footric is much more logical than metric. 10 is a completely
irrational number to base a system on, the French only chose it
because we have that many fingers. How do you divide a meter in 3?
In footric it's easy. It's why eggs come in a dozen - it's easy to
split them up evenly.

Fortunately, metric is dying and slowly being replaced by a more
rational system. (ok, pun intended)
http://www.metricsucks.com/metric_land.html