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You realize that your entire justification for using your existing units is because you are used to them right? Believe me when I tell you that metric units seem completely reasonable for the kinds of everyday things that people encounter when you are used to using them. We even have weather maps, beers, and shoes!

At least try to internalize the fact that you aren't being remotely objective.

Terrible examples. I have drank "pints" (not liters) of beers all over the world. That's how they were sold.
Shoe sizes have at least 6 different standards, not including the US or counting women's sizing standards.

This bluetooth fabric keyboard works fine on my HTC TYTNII and rolls up into a pocket-sized carry bag:
  http://marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com/storefrontprofiles/DeluxeSFItemDetail.aspx?sid=1&sfid=92714&c=534159&i=234996544

Originally around 80GBP, the keyboards are now being sold for around 30GBP as 'old stock' because the manufacturer (Eleksen) had financial problems and was bought out by another company (Peratech)

Grab em while you can (if in the UK!?)

Here's my setup for when I need to do remote support while on the move:

HTC Kaiser (also sold as HTC P4550, TyTN II & AT&T Tilt 8925)

The phone has a slide-out keyboard which is quite useable and a 240 x 320-pixel, 2.8-inch display. Bluetooth and wifi (802.11g). The TyTN II is a quad-band handset with 3G and HSDPA and it also has GPS + Tomtom satnav!

PockeTTY

VNC

WM6 Remote Desktop (RDP)- can be downloaded from here if not pre-installed.

Roll-up fabric bluetooth keyboard

More phone info in the user forums and wiki:
http://www.htcforums.com/kaiser-tilt-tytn-p4550-f13/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=377
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=HTC_Kaiser

I can get a Dell Axim x5 for about the same price, which has faster screen updates and can be used away from the wall socket. I can also get a refurb of a BlackBerry 8700 or a new open box Navman PiN 570 PDA with built-in GPS. If you include specials that are running right now, Geeks.com has a refurbished Axim x51 for $180 or a refurbished Jornada 728 for a few dollars more.

I'm all for the open source angle, the soft shell, and the whole underdog thing, but usefulness is important.

In the 1990s I worked for a packaging design firm that had Intel as a client. The company's assignment was to design packaging and in-store displays for the latest Intel processor, the Pentium II, now with MMX. So Intel shipped us all the latest logos associated with the chip.

I don't know if you remember that logo, but it looked pretty much like this. Blue Intel logo, purple and black Pentium II logo down below, and an ugly little purple-red-yellow rainbow gradient thing in the corner that said "MMX."

So the designers did their designs, they conferred with Intel, final designs were agreed upon, and the designers delivered their comps to Intel. Somebody gets a call:

Intel: We're looking at the final designs and everything seems in order. Except the logo seems all messed up.

(Our designers didn't do anything to the logo, so far as we knew, so this was a little surprising.) Us: What's wrong?

Intel: Well, this doesn't really look like Pentium Purple, and this logo definitely is not Intel Blue.

Us: Ah. Well... yes, I see what you mean. Not to worry. This is pretty normal when dealing with four-color process. We'll have one of our production people on-site at the printer's to make sure it matches your sample as closely as possible.

Intel: As closely as possible doesn't cut it. I need this to be Intel Blue and this absolutely must be Pentium Purple. And now that you mention it, the rainbow gradient doesn't really look like it goes from Intel Red to Intel Purple to Intel Yellow, either. Did you get our Pantone swatches?

Us: Well, yes. But since this is a four-color job, you realize that you can't really get all those colors into the job. They don't all fit into the four-color gamut. We assumed that you wanted the closest approximation for each (and I think they match pretty well, but we can do better).

Intel: Not acceptable. We NEED this to be Intel Blue. This MUST be Pentium Purple.

Us: The only way to do that is to use custom spot colors. We'd have to run an additional pass through the printer for each color.

Intel: Then that's what you have to do.

Us: OK, so just to confirm. For every single piece of advertising we produce for you -- every box, every poster, every five-foot-high cardboard cutout, every display -- in addition to the four-color process for all the photographs and box art, you want us to run four additional spot colors. And you're willing to incur the additional charges that this entails. And this is just to print the Intel Pentium II logo, which on this box I have here is exactly 1.2cm tall on the lower righthand corner of the box.

Intel: That is correct. Spare no expense.

The lesson learned: Don't expect rational decisionmaking from the internal marketing department of a behemoth corporation.

I'd like to add a couple -

as a kid I really enjoyed the 'Cosmos' TV series by Carl Sagan. It's available on DVD -
http://stores.channeladvisor.com/Movie-Mars/items/ item.aspx?itemid=2805613

and I found "In Code: a young woman's mathematical journey" by Sarah Flannery to be a great read about how a young girl became a math wiz and develops her own cryptographic algorithm for a pan-european science project. It's written in the first person, and gives a great picture of what it's like to live a life that includes math. I'm not all the way through - I wanted to wait until I had access to the software so I could follow along with the examples in the book, but I was really inspired by what I've read so far.
more info: http://plus.maths.org/issue14/reviews/book2/index. html

Best of luck inspiring young minds to take on these challenges when there are so many other flashier distractions.

There is a place close to me, called erecycler, that resells a bunch of things - mostly used computers from businesses and schools. This is a really good way to cut down on the waste. (Yes eventually it does wearout but this gives it a longer life.) I've bought stuff from them with good luck.

ebay has got to be the posterchild for "first mover advantage." Not only is the site ugly, but the user interface is one of the worst I have ever seen in my life. Yet they are one of the most sucessful websites ever!!

There is a whole dot-com economy around making ebay easier to use. See ChannelAdvisor for example.

There are spelling and grammer errors throughout the history document located here. (linked to on the ebay action page fro the car.)