12 is actually a very good candidate for a construction standard: it has 2, 3, and 4 as factors. The 3 is the killer one: you can precisely space two objects along a distance fairly simply, which isn't something you can do with a tape in centimeters.
The modern belief that everything should be base-10 is falls apart when you consider that the single most utilized unit is a bizarro mess of base ten mixed with to levels of base sixty mixed with two 12s (or, if you're in a marginally saner part of the world, a single 24). Swatch introduced "internet time," a decimal time standard, in 1998. You can see how well it's caught on ;^)
In any case, arguing about units is like arguing about numeric bases or languages, in my view. Sure, America should get in line with the rest of the world, but, quite frankly, there's a reason the British still use feet when doing construction: they're damned handy units.
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Date: 2005-04-28 06:24 am (UTC)The modern belief that everything should be base-10 is falls apart when you consider that the single most utilized unit is a bizarro mess of base ten mixed with to levels of base sixty mixed with two 12s (or, if you're in a marginally saner part of the world, a single 24). Swatch introduced "internet time," a decimal time standard, in 1998. You can see how well it's caught on ;^)
In any case, arguing about units is like arguing about numeric bases or languages, in my view. Sure, America should get in line with the rest of the world, but, quite frankly, there's a reason the British still use feet when doing construction: they're damned handy units.