Virtually the entire world measures aircraft altitude in feet. There are two notable exceptions, Russia and I believe China who both use Metres to measure altitude.
There is absolutely no suggestion that the Aviation industry should move to the metric standard - it would cause a lot of confusion both with mis-understandings between pilots and controllers, or even pilots or controllers mis-reading what their displays are telling them.
I suppose news sources could convert them into metric equivilents, but that wouldn't really mean much. If you are really lost, Concorde typically cruises supersonically at around 66,000 feet and is about the highest flying commerical aircraft.
Most aircraft travelling across the Atlantic cruise between 33,000 and 38,000 feet.
I remember driving a car that had the indicator control on the right stick, where the windscreen wipers usually are. That required you to push down for right and up for left. Funnily enough it felt completely natural.. of course, once you remembered which stick was which.
Familarity with something similar comes very quickly.. virtually all cars with manual gearboxes are slightly different... yet, most people can drive them, after a very short amount of time, you get adjusted to where the biting point is on the clutch, when to shift, etc.. and yet it doesn't provide any less rewarding experience. (ok, some cars just don't drive as well - but thats not neccessarily a fault of the control interface)
I can't recall how Microsoft delt with the redical shift from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Did they worry about the fact users would be lost for a little while? I do not think it was a factor as the 95 interface was probably adpoted by almost all of them - they could see the advantages to using 95 over 3.1.
The differences between GNOME and 95 are probably smaller than those between 95 and 3.1 in a lot of respects (underlying concepts are similar) For a user to shift, they are not going to be put off by a slightly alien environment they have to learn to use. What will convince them, is that there is an advantage in learning it -ie, they get a return on the investment of their time.
Witness Autocad, Adobe's products, to name but a few - they are not easy to learn to use - but they are worth learning for the results they can give you.
I certainly do not really remember cutting myself on the parts. I am sure I cut myself when the screwdriver slipped a few times, but, I would not exactly call it tramatising... nothing a parent really need worry about.
I remember at school being amazed at how kids didn't know how two gears meshing together would work, why they would turn in different direction, why they would turn at different speeds if they weren't the same size. Why a "worm" could not be turned by a sprocket. How kids didn't know which why to turn a screwdriver to tighten or loosen a bolt.
Meccano's biggest folly I think is that it is hard to make "cute" looking things out of it. Lego is very good at doing that with minimal effort. The latest set designs brought about by a change of ownership to a Japanise toy manufacturer has caused parts to be introduced to make those cute models you can with Lego.
Meccano is certainly a lot more tedious, but then again, perhaps its a better metaphor for life because of it?
I remember my disapointment with lego was that you could build something, say a crane, it would then creak and bend as soon as you tried to pick something up with it... if I built a similar model with my Meccano it would actually work as I had invisioned.
Lego is poor in that its all to easy to break the peices if they get trodden on accidentally.
Both are excelent toys however, I can see the person's point that Meccano teaches more about "Engineering" - certainly all the engineers I know think that Meccano is a far better toy to teach engineering with than Lego ever was to them.
Linking that to a failing infrastructure is a little tenuous though. That is as others have said perhaps more politically induced.
Re:Street Performer Protocol would be appropriate
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Shadowmarch Launched
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I spoke to Tad, at a small gathering of the British Fantasy Society, in April about Shadowmarch. He has commited himself to funding the project for a year out of his own pocket.
He would like to see a break-even or even a modest profit on the project. He is not really doing it for the money, he himself points out he could make far more money devoting the time to writing another conventional novel. He claims he is doing it because it is something he wants to do and it should be fun.
I believe Tad thinks highly of his fans and doesn't think they are going to disapoint him or betray his trust.. I suppose we shall see how it all works out in 12 months time.
I did a full year of co-op type work during my degree. For the most part the work was very dull and repeatative. I am not so sure the fact I had a years work in the commerical world stood much ground when it came to getting a real job later.
If you are doing a crappy job, the fact you stuck with it despite of that is a very good thing, as it shows you are not about to give up one a task, just because you do not like it very much. As others have mentioned, jobs are full of less desirable tasks. That fact helped my far more than any experience I gained on the tasks I was doing in the company at the time.
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Virtually the entire world measures aircraft altitude in feet. There are two notable exceptions, Russia and I believe China who both use Metres to measure altitude.
There is absolutely no suggestion that the Aviation industry should move to the metric standard - it would cause a lot of confusion both with mis-understandings between pilots and controllers, or even pilots or controllers mis-reading what their displays are telling them.
I suppose news sources could convert them into metric equivilents, but that wouldn't really mean much. If you are really lost, Concorde typically cruises supersonically at around 66,000 feet and is about the highest flying commerical aircraft.
Most aircraft travelling across the Atlantic cruise between 33,000 and 38,000 feet.
I remember driving a car that had the indicator control on the right stick, where the windscreen wipers usually are. That required you to push down for right and up for left. Funnily enough it felt completely natural.. of course, once you remembered which stick was which.
Familarity with something similar comes very quickly.. virtually all cars with manual gearboxes are slightly different... yet, most people can drive them, after a very short amount of time, you get adjusted to where the biting point is on the clutch, when to shift, etc.. and yet it doesn't provide any less rewarding experience. (ok, some cars just don't drive as well - but thats not neccessarily a fault of the control interface)
I can't recall how Microsoft delt with the redical shift from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Did they worry about the fact users would be lost for a little while? I do not think it was a factor as the 95 interface was probably adpoted by almost all of them - they could see the advantages to using 95 over 3.1.
The differences between GNOME and 95 are probably smaller than those between 95 and 3.1 in a lot of respects (underlying concepts are similar) For a user to shift, they are not going to be put off by a slightly alien environment they have to learn to use. What will convince them, is that there is an advantage in learning it -ie, they get a return on the investment of their time.
Witness Autocad, Adobe's products, to name but a few - they are not easy to learn to use - but they are worth learning for the results they can give you.
I certainly do not really remember cutting myself on the parts. I am sure I cut myself when the screwdriver slipped a few times, but, I would not exactly call it tramatising... nothing a parent really need worry about.
I remember at school being amazed at how kids didn't know how two gears meshing together would work, why they would turn in different direction, why they would turn at different speeds if they weren't the same size. Why a "worm" could not be turned by a sprocket. How kids didn't know which why to turn a screwdriver to tighten or loosen a bolt.
Meccano's biggest folly I think is that it is hard to make "cute" looking things out of it. Lego is very good at doing that with minimal effort. The latest set designs brought about by a change of ownership to a Japanise toy manufacturer has caused parts to be introduced to make those cute models you can with Lego.
Meccano is certainly a lot more tedious, but then again, perhaps its a better metaphor for life because of it?
I remember my disapointment with lego was that you could build something, say a crane, it would then creak and bend as soon as you tried to pick something up with it... if I built a similar model with my Meccano it would actually work as I had invisioned.
Lego is poor in that its all to easy to break the peices if they get trodden on accidentally.
Both are excelent toys however, I can see the person's point that Meccano teaches more about "Engineering" - certainly all the engineers I know think that Meccano is a far better toy to teach engineering with than Lego ever was to them.
Linking that to a failing infrastructure is a little tenuous though. That is as others have said perhaps more politically induced.
I spoke to Tad, at a small gathering of the British Fantasy Society, in April about Shadowmarch. He has commited himself to funding the project for a year out of his own pocket.
He would like to see a break-even or even a modest profit on the project. He is not really doing it for the money, he himself points out he could make far more money devoting the time to writing another conventional novel. He claims he is doing it because it is something he wants to do and it should be fun.
I believe Tad thinks highly of his fans and doesn't think they are going to disapoint him or betray his trust.. I suppose we shall see how it all works out in 12 months time.
I did a full year of co-op type work during my degree. For the most part the work was very dull and repeatative. I am not so sure the fact I had a years work in the commerical world stood much ground when it came to getting a real job later.
If you are doing a crappy job, the fact you stuck with it despite of that is a very good thing, as it shows you are not about to give up one a task, just because you do not like it very much. As others have mentioned, jobs are full of less desirable tasks. That fact helped my far more than any experience I gained on the tasks I was doing in the company at the time.