Any other Americans that use the metric system?

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In this video the guy pretty much sums up metric. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCxDEB2t5Hc
As you will notice the metric system is based on 10s, which makes it very simple, unlike the severely primitive and inefficient English imperial system. If I have something that is about 1.2 meters long, that 12 decimeters, 120 centimeters, 1,200 millimeters, .12 dekameters, .012 hectometers, .0012 kilometers. Lets compare this to 1.2 feet. 1.2 feet is 14.4 inches, .4 yards, .000227273 miles. DUMB. This is why all countries use metric, besides the USA, Burma and Liberia.

The metric system is used in varying degrees depending on the country. I've lived in Canada and Ireland and while both countries use the metric system for distances and most weights, most of us still measure our own weight in pounds and our own height in feet and inches.

I wish it would become standard to use metric, don't see it happening anytime soon.

Not that often. I do estimating for a construction company and it's mostly feet and inches but a lot of times I do come across material that is sold/measured in metric (like recently, a hotel that had real high end european made wallpaper). Is a pain converting and figuring out how many meters of wallpaper are needed for square feet measured walls =P.

It's actually not so much that the metric system is better, it's just that the metric system is in multiples of 10, and we count using a base-10 number system. I read an article a while ago that actually made a convincing arguement that it's much more logical to count and have a measuring system based off an odd number system like base-13. Cant remember the article, will have to look it up, think it was a scientific american.

I sometimes use it in professional settings.

If you've got a base-13 number system and measuring system, converting would still just be a matter of moving the decimal. It's the same thing. The problem with the american way is that it's measured in a base-12 system while we count in a base-10 (and that the measuring is standardized between volume/weight/distances)

They taught us metric growing up, because they said they were going to get rid of imperial...of course, it never happened, and now I don't know how to convert anything in imperial =)

Converting from metric to imperial and back isn't very hard, unless it has to be precise. My approach suffices for most everyday, non-engineering purposes.. I just remember that 1 inch is about 2.5 cm. It helps to be good at mental arithmetic though. Diving by 2.5 is easy. Just divide by 10 first, then multiply by 4. Multiplying by 2.5 is the other way round: multiply by 10, divide by 4.

Example: convert 5 feet 6 inches to metric.

5 feet = 5 x 12 inches = 60 inches;
5 feet 6 inches = 66 inches;
66 x 2.5 = (66 x 10) : 4 = 660 : 4 = 330 : 2 = 165 cm.

Example: convert 1.9 m to imperial.

1.9 m = 190 cm;
(190 / 10) x 4 = 19 x 4 = 76 inches = 72 inches + 4 inches =
6 feet 4 inches.

It's just a rule of thumb, I know, but it puts you in the ball park, as they say.

They started teaching us the metric system in Canada when I was in grade 8 (1970). While it has been the official system of measurement there for nearly 40 years, I know that there are thousands and thousands of people who still, when they hear the weather forecast, multiply the temperature by two and add 32 to get a rough idea of what it is in Fahrenheit. Because to them, 26 degrees is parka weather, not T-shirt and shorts weather.

I remember that when products started to be sold in metric units, folks were incensed because now they had to pay more for less: 5 pounds of sugar was no longer 5 pounds, and the price of everything went up to cover the cost of the new metric machinery every company had to buy, and all the re-labelling of everything. And we wonder why we were taught all the intricacies of metric, because there are units of measurement that nobody will ever use in the course of everyday life. For instance, you can't buy a decaliter of Coke, or a centigram of flour, and I don't think that runners compete in the 1 hectometer race. (I just had to look these terms up, because I've never used them - well, since Grade 8 homework.)

Isn't it odd that just about the only things any Americans buy in metric are two-liters of soda pop, and, well, street drugs?

Some Americans at NASA use metric and some use imperial.

Oops!

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

I use metric all the time! It's so much easier to understand than imperial... back in elementary school I could never understand why we were learning something based on the number 12 when there was already another system that used 10 and was so much nicer

Interstate 19 in Arizona uses the metric system for all signage between Tucson and the Mexican border.

It is the only interstate in the U.S. to do so.

Way back in younger days, was interested in military history, tanks in particular, and learned pretty quick the 76.2mm gun = 3in. The 152mm howitzer = 6in. The .50cal machine gun = 12.5mm. And so forth.
1/76 scale models and gaming miniatures are 4mm=1ft scale (don't ask me how that mish-mash came to be!)

Also got into equivalents with the railroad interest. Standard Gauge = 4ft 8.5in = 56.5in = 1435mm. 30inch narrow gauge = 760mm gauge. And so forth.

HO scale models = 1/87 scale = 3.5mm/foot models on 16.5mm gauge track (another don't ask me how that mish-mash came to be!)

1/25 scale which is used for some car models and some RR modeling in Gn15 is roughly 1mm=1inch scale. (yet another don't ask me how that mish-mash came to be!)

That all got me used to thinking in both systems and to running comparisons.
And flipping measuring scales from side to side to side.