[speaker002:] okay the topic was uh should the United States adopt the metric system and if so should uh oh
[speaker001:] how should they do it why didn't it work last time
[speaker002:] and why didn't it work last time well yeah well I'm
[speaker001:] well I'm all for it
[speaker002:] I I am too I wish uh it had started a long time ago is the the problem because we're so wound up in the in the system that we've got that you know trying to convert over
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and I guess what'd they try they tried what'd the call it soft conversion and hard conversion one of them is where you just take whatever's already standard and you give it some sort of a weird
[speaker001:] yeah they tried to
[speaker002:] metric number like uh six point two eight seven instead of six millimeter something like that
[speaker001:] yeah yeah direct conversion
[speaker002:] yeah and uh I I don't know uh
[speaker001:] I think they just ought to you know start uh just go all all the way you know new products introduced or whatever you know start your packaging go to liters instead of quarts and you know people if they have to are going to learn to think that way
[speaker002:] yeah well don't most of them doesn't just about everything now have uh both
[speaker001:] but if you start
[speaker002:] uh metric and English
[speaker001:] they do but things are generally packaged in the English sized packages you know you buy a quart of milk and sure it has has the metric equivalent written on there but it still a quart so if they started putting it in liters liter of oil and
[speaker002:] oh yeah yeah um-hum
[speaker001:] you know liters of gasoline people are going to learn to think in metric as long as you can still buy a product in the English units that's how you're going to think of it
[speaker002:] yeah I kind of remember back when gas prices started up uh you know pretty dramatically when they started getting toward a dollar a gallon range somebody had uh I believe it was Exxon
[speaker001:] figures
[speaker002:] we we were living in uh Lubbock at the time they started marketing it in in liters and it was only like you know twenty nine and thirty cents a liter so they could put this sign out front that said you know thirty nine cents a liter and nobody had any idea what a liter was so
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] uh
[speaker001:] yeah that's that's the problem
[speaker002:] when you finally figured out that liters what about a quart there's about four liters in a gallon you know so you can figure out what you're actually paying for it
[speaker001:] right it's kind of hard for me to believe that this this day and age I don't know when I was growing up we were taught the metric system in school I mean not not at first but by the time I was in fifth or sixth grade anyway
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah oh I've never
[speaker001:] it's I would expect people with any kind of buying power over the age of or you know under the age of thirty or so to have some idea what it is anyway a liter's about a quart
[speaker002:] yeah I yeah the uh I think maybe there's where the the problem came in you know we uh tried to instead of learning it's kind of like learning a language you know when you learn one from the other yeah you always end up in this conversion thing all the time so it's you it's almost like uh course this country isn't a dictatorship but you know it's like somebody said okay as of such and such a date
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know anybody caught talking in the English metric you know in the will be shot or something like that you know but uh uh
[speaker001:] well thing is it's a global global market place these days and you know we're one of like what two backwards clo countries in the world as far as
[speaker002:] yeah I read that what Uganda and uh
[speaker001:] uh something I don't remember what the other one is but
[speaker002:] uh there's one or two others that just
[speaker001:] it's it's just time I think for for us to go over because all you end up doing is if you're in business or you're in any kind of international
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] I don't you know I don't know I uh I work for TI we're all around the world you have to perform this conversion anyway
[speaker002:] yeah well I I yeah I I do too and uh one of the things that we've run run into a a problem of course you're familiar with the TI drawing well with any drawing system you end up with uh you end up with things in inches
[speaker001:] and right mils and microns right
[speaker002:] in parts of inches you know fourth half fourth you know this sort of thing and then you end up with a decimal
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] where you start getting into mils and that sort of thing and then some of them are are done in uh you know purely metric
[speaker001:] right yeah I remember how big stink came around in the design area a few years back when it was all overseas designs were in microns and ours were in mils
[speaker002:] and it um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] and it got to you know somewhere down the line they went standardized they went microns but uh you just you know you end up with all kinds of problems with converting your designs
[speaker002:] yeah oh I can imagine
[speaker001:] and so
[speaker002:] the uh the one that uh uh have you ever lived in a country where they use metric
[speaker001:] no
[speaker002:] or I was with TI in in El Salvador for a while
[speaker001:] no
[speaker002:] and uh I had to get used to you know purely metric system down there and because they they didn't understand anything else you know if you start talking about miles they'd look at you like what you know
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so uh I had a little bit of experience with it and also I noticed in Canada they uh you drop a a quarter fifty cents whatever in a Coke machine up there and you get this funny looking Coke you know it's in a can that's uh that's taller but not as big around you know I guess that's some
[speaker001:] yeah about a half a liter or something
[speaker002:] it's not it's not a liter it's like a half a liter or something like that it's a strange looking can
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but my daughter-in-law's from Panama and she has they have uh had Americans down there for so long you know that they're they're kind of into both systems but uh she gets real confused on distances and temperature is the big thing is the the Centigrade for which she says Celsius
[speaker001:] yeah I would have more problem with more problem with the temperature except that you know working in engineering we do everything in Centigrade or Celsius
[speaker002:] well I had kind of gotten used to uh centigrade temperature you know if it's between zero and ten it's cold and if it's between ten and twenty it's not too bad if it's between twenty and thirty it's pretty warm and if it's more than thirty it's just hotter than all get out so
[speaker001:] yeah getting warm right
[speaker002:] but uh the big problem is not having the uh uh the resolution between temperature you know between a hundred and if you're talking about a hundred degrees or what thirty zero you know thirty four degrees whatever that is you know you you don't get all the little
[speaker001:] yeah well it's about
[speaker002:] the differences you know the differences between seventy and seventy two or seventy five degrees isn't much but the difference between thirty and thirty five degrees is is quite a bit yeah
[speaker001:] yeah it's about twice as much yeah what it works out to
[speaker002:] yeah five well I
[speaker001:] one point one point eight times as many
[speaker002:] yeah something like that yeah
[speaker001:] points yeah so I don't know I think as long as people have a choice they're going to stick with the American way
[speaker002:] I um-hum
[speaker001:] and until we have to have to learn to think that way we we won't
[speaker002:] yeah I know we keep calling it the English system but I'm I'm not sure what they do in England now they're they're on metric aren't they
[speaker001:] yeah for the most part I think so
[speaker002:] yeah except they've got a now okay there we ran into some problems once I remember uh they've got a a nut and bolts system called Wentworth and uh this thing was was even different than you know SAE standards and stuff so
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] uh uh this this came okay my my dad bought uh one of these little Nash Metropolitans here a few years back you know quite a few years back and the thing had uh uh an Austin Heeley type uh engine you know it was Austin motors engine and running gear
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and the body was built by Nash or who you know American it wasn't that was even before American Motors but Nash essentially in the US somewhere and that thing had the darndest combination of metric and Wentworth and uh SAE he ended up with about three sets of tools in order to work on that fool thing because uh
[speaker001:] he just get one more
[speaker002:] I think the Wentworth and the SAE bolt sizes were the same but the threads were different and uh it was it was it was a it was a total mess
[speaker001:] oh that would be a mess
[speaker002:] and I know on my Chevy van that's a couple of years old uh part of it's built in Canada matter of fact the thing is I always say it's built off shore you know because it was assembled in Canada the only thing that was in it was built in the US was the uh differential and it was built in Buffalo New York but it's got the darndest combination of uh of metric and most of the body parts seem to be metric and most of the engine parts seem to be SAE so it's
[speaker001:] well I guess it just gets bad down to you got to you got to have one and not mix them up because you're never going to get to one one system if you still still got a got a mix
[speaker002:] it's just crazy yeah um-hum
[speaker001:] and of course here that that would involve changing road signs all across the country you know miles per hour to kilometers per hour and the whole whole nine yards
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah
[speaker001:] it's kind of hard to do gradually
[speaker002:] I thought maybe they would convert to uh metric back when they went to the fifty five mile an hour speed limit because what is it fifty six or fifty seven's a hundred
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] uh uh or a hundred kilometers and uh you know a hundred a hundred yeah you'd have a hundreds on the sign looks lot better than fifty five but you'd have people going you're right a hundred miles an hour yeah
[speaker001:] oh hell you'd have people doing a hundred miles an hour yeah
[speaker002:] and so I don't know I'd kind of and the other thing too is you know between here and El Paso's what five hundred miles but it's it's almost eight hundred kilometers you know that'd sure seems like a long way
[speaker001:] yeah but they'd need they'd seem to be ticking off faster too
[speaker002:] yeah I guess that's it
[speaker001:] every road sign you come to is like well I didn't know I went that far I don't know
[speaker002:] well they converted all the road signs to fifty five miles an hour you know they could of converted it to metric just about as easy
[speaker001:] yeah I think they you got the problem with all your cars are still yeah you still got cars on the road that don't have both
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] at that time anyway the that was still when things were the metric system was still not
[speaker002:] yeah not all that common
[speaker001:] yeah you know now cars they have both
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] sooner or later they'll start putting the miles on the inside and the kilometers in big numbers so people start thinking that way
[speaker002:] I was yeah I know the only other place that I was ever at where they really had it mixed was was in Panama where's a lot of the road signs and everything are in uh in miles per hour and some are in uh in kilometers and you you got to know where you are because anything that was the old canal zone is going to be miles per hour but any
[speaker001:] yeah