Re: [NTLK] Exact Measurement of Newton 2000 Screen

On Apr 30, 2008, at 7:12 AM, matthiasm wrote:

>
> On 30.04.2008, at 12:23, Steve Scotten wrote:
>> I'm not saying it's right, but it's hardly news. The 1.5" x 3.5" has
>> been the standard for almost fifty years and the 1.75" x 3.75" for
>> over a decade before that. At this point in the game, no one should
>> be
>> alarmed by this discovery. If they are alarmed, like Matthias was,
>> they should be assured that it's all right. The sky is not falling,
>> the sky fell a long time ago.
>>
>> That's all I intended.
>
>
> But, but, but..., but I am German, and while this fact is hardly
> puzzeling for an American, for a young immigrating German, the world
> almost stops rotating and the universe collapses, if something that is
> called "53mm by 106mm", we *will* have planned our project to that
> precission and expect acuracy ;-).

This Englishman finds it utterly bizarre also. And I am sadly old
enough to remember buying lumber in Britain sized in imperial units.
If we could match the reported size and the actual size, I don't
understand why the US can't either.

I'm sure you can imagine the frustration I felt after carefully
designing an elaborate octagonal treehouse for my daughter, only to
discover that I'd spent hundreds of dollars on wood that was not the
size I had expected it to be. It was exactly as Matthias wrote. I
first assumed I had bought the wrong size, then seeing that I hadn't,
begun to doubt my sanity...

And why on earth are these called English units ? The US units of
volume are certainly not English, and to my knowledge they never have
been !

Bah.

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Received on Wed Apr 30 21:40:56 2008