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The Metric Store
North American chain store that sells metric hardware, office supplies, etc. | |
In North America it's darned near
impossible to find, say, A4 paper to use in
place of our brain-dead "Letter Size" stuff.
If you visit a hardware store, they'll
sometimes have a few metric bolts, nuts
and washers relegated to a tiny ghetto
with far less selection than the "standard"
stuff.
Metric pipes, fittings and wire are
essentially unavailable.
While Canada officially subscribes to the
metric system, the situation there is
basically the same: You can buy a 4-liter
"gallon" of milk, but The Home Depot still
sells eight-foot two-by-fours and half-
inch pipe.
In the spirit of the Leftorium, someone
ought to open a chain of stores in North
America that sell only metric items: A4
paper, meter sticks, M6x1.0 stainless
socket-head shoulder bolts, and 250ml
measuring cups. And all the other stuff
you currently have to go to Europe to find.
Origin of the Metre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre
Hmmmm .... [8th of 7, Jul 25 2008]
Info on the Nautical Mile
http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Nautical_mile
6000 ft? 6080 ft? whatever... [csea, Jul 25 2008]
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Annotation:
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Yes, by all means let's get them to wise up. It's been years since Napoleon. |
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/you currently have to go to Europe to find/ |
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Ah yes, Europe + North America = whole world. Still, this is a vast improvement on UK + USA = whole world, as is the norm. Kudos. |
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As for the idea, you would have to be fairly selective in product lines. Fastening hardware is a store in itself, then you've got groceries, office supplies, clothing, technical literature, exercise equipment, paint, timber, wire, sheet metal, etc, etc. |
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"In North America it's darned near impossible to find, say, A4 paper to use in place of our brain-dead "Letter Size" stuff."
Which is odd, since we sell so many A4 printers here... |
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This idea is miles ahead of anything else
I've seen here for a while. |
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//Thankfully here in the good ole UK we exclusively use metric// really? I buy my bananas etc by the inch. |
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//This idea is miles ahead of anything else I've seen here
for a while// - are these the metric miles mentioned by
Spike Milligan in the opening lines of Puckoon? |
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Well anyway, I'd like the exact opposite i.e. a place in the
UK that sells NOTHING in metric, a system of measuring
devised by insects, that I refuse to use, and never will. Give
me horse power, furlongs, quarts, ounces, the gunter's
chain, the rood, the nautical mile, and the hundred weight
etc any day. |
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//a system of measuring devised by insects//
I thought frogs were amphibians?
//that I refuse to use//
Of course, the good ol' Imperial inch is defined as 0.0254 metres. |
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I built my shed out of lumber that my
nephew cut on a portable mill. I used
centimeters instead of inches. The
measurements were so much easier. |
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"I'd like a package of A4 paper, two meter sticks, 10 M6x1.0 stainless socket-head shoulder bolts, and a 250ml measuring cup" |
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"No problem, that will be 7/8 of a dollar and 1/16 cents." |
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The Nautical Mile is a "pragmatic" measurement, derived from the physical dimensions of your planet; one second of arc subtends a distance of one nautical mile on the equator. On other planets, the Nautical mile is different. |
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The metre is also allegedly derived from a measurement on a line passing through Paris; but since it was the French that did it, they got the values spectacularly wrong. |
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