Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by BuyMyBitcoins 1034 days ago
The early US came tragically close to adopting the metric system, and on more than one occasion.

I invite you to watch this amusing and relatively short video by History Maters on the subject: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BtKbq_zAr-A&pp=ygUWaGlzdG9yeSBtY...

As an American I will say this, almost nobody genuinely thinks that our measurement system is superior. I suspect the majority of us know it’s a janky system but it’s so difficult to change.

That being said, I switched over to Kilometers on my iPhone because of Pokémon Go. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I think of walking distance in metric more readily than in fractions of a mile, so metrification is making progress in unexpected and exciting ways!