One of the reasons the metric system was adopted was not just for uniformity in science calculations, but to make business easier by adopting international standards for weights and measures. If a country did not convert, they would have a rough time dealing with all the others who did. Most converted, the U.S. did not.
The problem with converting to metric now is that the U.S. has enough economic power that businesses in other countries are perfectly willing to bend over backwards and make the non-metric conversions in order to do business with us. The U.S. will only convert to the metric system if and when an economic disaster reduces our economy to nothing, while leaving most of the rest of the worlds' in a relatively unscathed state, and therefore able to renegotiate contracts with different terms. (Of course, the global nature of the economy makes that exceedingly unlikely to happen, which is about how likely it is that the U.S. will convert to metric in the foreseeable future).
And after reading some other comments, I remembered that the minutes cost the same no matter what time of day, what time of week, or where you're calling to. It's been so long since I've had to worry about long distance and night/weekend minutes that I just kind of take it for granted.
Another vote for Virgin Mobile. $20 every 90 days maximum, the minutes never expire, and the phones themselves can be had for as cheap as ~$30 (their 'Oyster' model). The phones themselves aren't nearly as advanced as what you can get with a plan, but I'm more concerned with using my phone for phone calls than listening to mp3s, downloading games, or julienning fries.
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One of the reasons the metric system was adopted was not just for uniformity in science calculations, but to make business easier by adopting international standards for weights and measures. If a country did not convert, they would have a rough time dealing with all the others who did. Most converted, the U.S. did not.
The problem with converting to metric now is that the U.S. has enough economic power that businesses in other countries are perfectly willing to bend over backwards and make the non-metric conversions in order to do business with us. The U.S. will only convert to the metric system if and when an economic disaster reduces our economy to nothing, while leaving most of the rest of the worlds' in a relatively unscathed state, and therefore able to renegotiate contracts with different terms. (Of course, the global nature of the economy makes that exceedingly unlikely to happen, which is about how likely it is that the U.S. will convert to metric in the foreseeable future).
And after reading some other comments, I remembered that the minutes cost the same no matter what time of day, what time of week, or where you're calling to. It's been so long since I've had to worry about long distance and night/weekend minutes that I just kind of take it for granted.
Another vote for Virgin Mobile. $20 every 90 days maximum, the minutes never expire, and the phones themselves can be had for as cheap as ~$30 (their 'Oyster' model). The phones themselves aren't nearly as advanced as what you can get with a plan, but I'm more concerned with using my phone for phone calls than listening to mp3s, downloading games, or julienning fries.