Hey Barry,
Look: The metric system is what at least 96% of this planet’s population agreed on. You cannot ignore this. The problem is, when you see a number in a unit you are not familiar with, you do not have an impression of what size that is. Nearly nobody in the world at the first reading knows what 153" are, but at least 96% immediately have an impression of size when you write 3.86 m. Because they are used to a meter and not to an inch. The difference is, the first is what nearly the entire world agreed on, while the latter is something which nearly the entire world agreed to abandon it, so you can’t blame them for that. And you can’t compare. It is not the one or the other, it’s what the world agreed on, and the other is what world agreed on to abandon.
So when I tried to find out what CNC machine I should buy, I found the Onefinity and read that it has a 32″ × 32″ workarea, and I had to calculate what size that could be in order to be able to compare it with other CNC machines. So when I realized that the Onefinity Woodworker is a CNC machine with 80 × 80 cm workarea, and later the Journeyman came out with 120 × 80 cm, I found that great. The strange thing is, nearly nothing on this machine is imperial or U.S. customary. As it is made from parts from international market (mainly china), all bolts, ball screws etc. are metric. The Onefinity manufacturer has to first translate it to U.S. customary because they target the market in the specific single country on the world where ordinary people are not willing to do what 96% of the world population (or approx. 7 billion of people) already did in the past: To abandon their units system in favor of an agreement that (nearly the entire) world agreed on.
No problem:
Largest economies in the world by GDP (nominal) in USD trillions in 2023
according to International Monetary Fund estimates[n 1][1]
By the way, the European Union with 448 387 872 inhabitants has these values:
| GDP (PPP) | 2023 estimate |
|---|---|
| • Total | $25.399 trillion |
| • Per capita | $56 928 |
| GDP (nominal) | 2023 estimate |
| • Total | $17.818 trillion |
| • Per capita | $39 940 |
That is the case in no country of the world (except one). This is the one that on CNN rarely shows what happens in the world. Especially not on the first headline. Usually on the first headline they show only a man that was not taught how to make his hair. By the way, the UK had such a man too, nobody donated him a hairbrush, not even for the Queen’s funeral.
By the way, the topic belongs to this thread. Please further discuss the topic there.