Re: Different Formats for Different Countries -- Variable Density

> Nope. It's the engineers and machinists that are slowing down the
> whole show. They would rather use what is loosely a base 8 system than
> a more natural and precise base 10 system.

I don't see any basis for saying that the US system of measures is
"loosely a base 8" system, any more than it's a base 4 system or base 16 
system.

I can only agree that measures based on things like the size of kernel 
of corn
(however one happens to define corn), the width of somebody's finger, etc
is pretty arbitrary.

OTOH, the distance from the equator to the pole seems like a pretty 
arbitrary
way to define a meter.  (or is that "urban" legend?)

Anyway, while counting and dividing and multiplying things by 10 seems 
natural
(unless, of course, you happen to be one of those people with a 
different number
of "fingers" (in which definition we arbitrarily include thumbs, for 
some reason)),
I would think that multiplying and dividing and ... yes ... counting by 
2 is natural, too.
Most people I know are reasonably adept at cutting a piece of paper (or 
wood) in half.
I don't know many people, though, who are very successful
at cutting a piece of paper (or wood) into 5 equal parts.

While we're at it, what's with this thing with 60 seconds per minute,
60 minutes per hour, and 24 hours o'clock?
Why not divide the day into 10 hours of 10 minutes apiece, each 10 
seconds long, etc?
Oh, but then again, that's pretty arbitrary too ...
Maybe we should divide the *year* into a hundred (or maybe 1000?) equal 
days.
Oh, except our planet doesn't turn around 100 or 1000 times
in the time it takes it to go around our star --
oh, dear, how *arbitrary* of the them not to behave in a metric fa****on.

This started out as a question about the size of paper used by photo labs
in different parts of the world, or something like that, did it not? 
<O_o>