Brer alexander koryagin wrote to Brer Roy Witt about Re: 3xHa!:

 ak> From: alexander koryagin <koryagin@erec.ru>

 RW>> They also don't use decimals the same as we do.  When they quote  a
 RW>> Euro or Dollar amount,  they use a comma  in  place  of  a  decimal
 RW>> point.  i.e.  $5,00 is actually $5.00 in American decimal language.
 RW>> Not to mention that  they  write  dates  backwards.  11-12-2013  is
 RW>> actually December 11,  2013  in  Euro  speak,  while  it  would  be
 RW>> November 12,  2013 in American.  They also don't  use  the  decimal
 RW>> equivalent of the same speak in English.  i.e.  $12 million dollars
 RW>> is referred to as $12 milliard in  Euro  English.

 ak> To be more exact - 12 American billions are equal to 12 European
 ak> milliards.

That's what they say.

 RW>> Then  they  brag
 RW>> about being heads up 'metric' over us,  who still  use  the  King's
 RW>> English measure as a rule, but are taught in two different systems,
 RW>> Metric and English measure. Who has the upper hand, again?

 ak> Suppose that some President can say to the Americans - we need to go
 ak> the metric system because we have difficulties in selling our goods.
 ak> Our spare parts are incompatible with ones from the metric world,
 ak> even a puny screw. So, we have two possibilities: to close our car
 ak> production and fire workers, or to accept the metric system and sell
 ak> more goods in the metric world.

He'd be blowing hot air in the wind. We already manufacture in metrics and
most blueprints have dimensions in metric and SAE (not just one, but two
ways of measuring the same dimensions). Our currency, which first appeared
in the early 19th century is an example of the forward thinking of our
country's founders. One dollar consists of 100 cents (.01), or one dime
(.10 dollar), but  you can also have .05 and .25 of a dollar. Either way,
the dollar is an example of how our currency was devised way back when.

Whereas, the British method of pounds and shillings is still used
today, although it came from the dark ages when the King's nose gave
them inches and their currency composed of how many 'pounds' the
King weighed. All other countries in Europe were built on the same idea,
until miraculously, someone came up with a decimal system equivelant of
the dollar and called it a Euro!

 ak> BTW, a funny story happened in the USSR in 1930s. The famous aircraft
 ak> designer Tupolev (do you remember his TU-104, TU-144?) was given a
 ak> lot of money and sent to the US to buy full licenses to produce some
 ak> American aircrafts in the USSR. He indeed had bought some crafts with
 ak> the complete documentation, but it had appeared that the USSR cannot
 ak> produce them -- everything was different! We had plants to produce
 ak> alluminum sheets, bars etc, but we could do it in the metric system
 ak> only. It meant, that the crafts should have been completely
 ak> redesigned, or they would have been out of balance. It cost so much,
 ak> that Tupolev was declared a saboteur and put in prison. It was one of
 ak> the first victims of the American system in the USSR. ;=)

LOL! All Tupolev had to do was mulitiply any inch dimension by 25.4 and
he'd have the equivalant dimension in metric. He could then make himself a
chart of conversion and would have been a hero instead of a saboteur. As
it was, he was a victim of his own ignorance and should have had that all
worked out before he left America, where he could have had some help in
doing the conversions. I was taught the difference in the 1940s as a
child, so those conversions aren't rocket science.


         R\%/itt - K5RXT

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