Let's Go Metric Now!

Does the expense of maintaining two sets of all your measuring devices get to you?
Do you get frustrated when you have to do conversions?
Wonder why we use different measuring systems or names with different values depending on what you're measuring?
Is your business suffering because you build using a measurement system the rest of the world has discarded?
Ever had a project set back because one person used a measuring system different from everyone else?

Customary measures (also called imperial or English measures) are an expensive drain on our economy and inhibit trade and information flow between us and the rest of the world (and often internally within our borders as well). It's time to finally rid ourselves of these out dated measures and finish going metric and the best way to do that is together. It's a job that's been started several times, now it's time to finish it!

By talking to local influential companies and our local, state and federal representatives (and sharing the feedback here), we can help to convince our politicians that we really need to complete metrication rather than letting it weigh down the next few generations.

Got something to say about your metrication efforts? Join us and post about it.

Blog

NPR Feedback

A letter to NPR on the Sarkozy carbon tax story:

While listening to Sarkozy Wants To Tax France's Carbon Footprint I noticed that the figure 24 cents per gallon was quoted. Given that no European country uses gallons for fuel (let alone US gallons which are different from UK gallons), I checked to see what people who weren't converting the figure were … continue reading

Applications for Monitoring Health

I've been trying to lose weight over the last few months and as such have had reason to review several tools for tracking diet and exercise on the iPhone. The first one I took a look at (because it is free) was Lose It. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the first screen as it's all US Customary units (no option for metric at all and lots of complaints in the feedback that seem to … continue reading

Metric Day

It's Metric Day. Please take a few minutes today to mail your senators and congress folk requesting they use metric exclusively when writing laws.

The best form for this is a story telling them of some way you've been ripped off or severely inconvenienced by customary measurements or our mixed use of systems.

Sally Mitchell gave a continue reading

Health Care Reform

Q: How is health care reform like metrication?
A: We're still stuck in the dark ages while the rest of the world has moved on to better, cheaper, ways of doing things.

Extended Answer:
Moving to state run health care similar to the UKs continue reading

Bay Area Meeting

The first SF Bay Area USMA meeting will be held at Genentech on July 16 at 16:00 Pacific thanks to James Scott Hudnall This aims to be a bi-weekly meeting of those interested in … continue reading

Open Government

The Obama administration has an open government dialogue initiative. This is currently being run via Idea Scale.

The site is taking submissions until the end of today. Here are the current metric submissions:

NASA Puts Astronauts At Unnecessary Risk With Measurement Policy Bungle

Dear NASA, in case you'd missed it, President Obama's slogan for the last election was "Change we need" not "Going back to the dark ages". The last time measurement was mentioned in terms of NASA, it was when you were explaining to congress why you'd just blown $327.6 million of public funds and who knows how much in lost research … continue reading

White House Open For Questions

NB: Voting stops at 09:30 Eastern (06:30 Pacific) _Thursday_.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions/ Search for metric and vote.

Sorry for the short notice, I only found out about it tonight.

Stimulus Package Reconciliation

Currently, the stimulus package is being reconciled by a committee appointed from the House and Senate.

This committee is made up of 10 members and in order to get metric into the package we need to contact them before the bill is reintroduced into the house.

The best way to do this is a personal phone call followed by a fax or email. Please do this as soon as you can and pass this note … continue reading

Letter To Congress

I haven't had a chance to call them yet, but here's the letter I sent to Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Anna Eshoo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elaine Alquist and Paul Fong.

The economic disaster brings us fresh opportunity to think about the things that aren't working and make fixing those things part of our economic stimulus. A great example of this is … continue reading

Campaigns

The Campaigns area is for sharing information to help run targeted campaigns.

If you're running a campaign, check here for tools and processes you can use to make it easier. Or, if you develop tools or processes, post them here so others can make use of them.

Current Campaigns

Change

This campaign focuses on making ourselves heard in the various change related sites and with the incoming Obama administration.

Community

The best way to actually achieve metrication is through community groups and outreach. This is the place to go if you're interested in starting or joining a local group.

Medicine

Medical mistakes due to multiple measurement mistakes are common and completely unnecessary (not to mention potentially fatal).

Education

Our students already have enough to deal with without forcing them to struggle with an outdated and complex measurement system.

Labeling and Packaging

Sick of having to deal with (or produce) long, convoluted and often incorrectly converted measurement specifications for labels such as "4 L, 1.06 gallons (135 fl. oz.)"? Let's get congress to help clean up this mess.