Nice upvote for completely ignoring the meat of my argument.

Making things easier to calculate only makes them easier to calculate, not better and a base 10 doesn't always make calculating easier. This is especially true when talking about temperature, because Fahrenheit allows for a higher degree of accuracy without including a decimal place.
Good arguments have been made here that converting to metric has actually increased costs.
Standards are nice, but not necessarily useful in to or applicable to daily life.

Newer does not make something better, and age does not make something obsolete. Animal hides (cow, sheep, alligator, bear and more) are still used extensively today, particularly in clothing, because it's still relevant and useful. Knives made from obsidian (a stone) are highly prized and are even used today in certain kinds of delicate surgery. So animal skins and stone knives ARE, not were, useful.

Furthermore, Fahrenheit was developed in 1724, and Celcius was developed in 1743. Relatively speaking, they're the same age.

This assertion always drives me nuts. Let's talk about comfort. If you set your air conditioner to a comfortable temperature, what do you set it at? Probably different temperatures in the winter and summer. For me in the winter, 22c feels too cold when i'm not active but 23c feels too hot and I can't set my thermostat at a more comfortable 22.5 degrees. Fahrenheit has a finer scale where it matters to the human body, so I have about three steps in Fahrenheit to your 1 step in Celsius and this is pretty huge because the human body can easily sense a temperature change of 1 degree Fahrenheit. So there is good reason for the 0-degrees-is-dangerously-cold and 100-degrees-is-dangerously-hot scale.

Yes, the Celsius scale is good and useful. But the same is true for Fahrenheit. And neither are very useful when you step outside because there are a huge number of variables like wind, humidity, and air pressure that make the same temperature feel colder or hotter which is why many meteorologists are including a "feel" scale like wind chill and heat index to relate that information to the public.

And with that, you've hit the reason for the lack of complete conversion in almost any country that uses the metric system. France, the leader of the metric revolution, still produces wine in "standard" bottles which are 750ml rather than a liter. Japan still measures (and taxes) land size, room size, and many other things with traditional measurements. England uses a baffling conglomeration of metric and imperial units (pints at the bar, miles on the motorway, litre at the petrol stand).

The reach of an industry (in terms of breadth and duration) affects the feasibility of conversion. So do other things like tradition, public safety, entrenched standards, and money, all of which are often more important than some idealistic notion of the metric system's A Good Thing (tm). That's why, if you think about it, you'll find that traditional measurements often trump metric measurements in certain areas in all countries. Yes, the metric system has benefits but it's also not without problems as many people here have already pointed out. Sometimes traditional measurements are simply better, but the reality is that sometimes there's really no reason to switch to metric in some industries.

In case you're curious, socket drives in Japan are also sold in inch drive sizes.

That was already addressed way back here: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2379032&cid=37088242

Essentially, you and every other car on the road takes up the space of 4 people. Other cars (the ones next to you and the ones in the opposing lane) are keeping you from going around the bicycle, not the bicycle.

As to the airlifting, you're more likely to get airlifted as a result of an auto collision than a bicycle collision.

From TFA

Right. Because running a cable will work perfectly well for "iPods/iPads, Android tablets, and a variety of Wi-Fi enabled cell phones".

First, the total weight of the vehicle is only 450 pounds (204 kg).

Secondly, the "windmills" are indeed sails which are (considering the total weight of the vehicle) fairly lightweight and have trivial kinetic mass (ie. not massive). Also relevant is that for a flywheel to be efficient, the mass should be as far from the axle as possible.

So in this case no, rotating sails =/= flywheels and the spinning mass of the sails is a "trivial force", especially considering the weight of the vehicle against the weight of a driver, since the driver would most likely counteract any intentionally or unintentionally placed flywheel of a mass relative to the total weight of the vehicle.

Yeah. Obviously you only find brown color schemes in old outdated videos, because back then the more modern primary colors hadn't been invented yet.

Watch the video again. Clearly there is MORE contrast between the background and the black guy than with the white woman because the background in that video is the light colored ceiling

It's not about contrast between the face and the background. Its about contrast within the face itself. The facial recognition feature is programmed to triangulate differences in contrast on the face itself. This way, the software can tell the difference between a face and something else that just happens to be around or near the camera.

You can't create more contrast on a dark face. So unfortunately, this means that the software cannot recognize a dark skinned face from something that just happens to be around or near the camera.

http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/product/foma/prime/n06a/index.html
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/product/foma/prime/f09a/spec.html


Actually, almost any phone here
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/product/foma/prime/index.html

But, TFA indicates that the difference in games were found when switching from XP to Ubuntu, not from Vista to Ubuntu. So, really it doesn't matter if Vista games are different or even better than Ubuntu.

I miss pinball too.

I also use google. Very handy.

IF that's not a cultural predisposition to imported goods, then what is?

I can't believe you got modded up for this. You're putting humans on the same value level as a purchasable object? Please. Wanting, or not wanting our stuff has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they want or don't want us personally.

Seriously, I just don't get it. It's like they're adding pixel count because they can without stopping to consider whether they should.... Above about 3 MP, a cell camera makes no sense given the lens size, quality, and mounting tolerances. Maybe 5 MP. Maybe.

Actually, the phone I was referencing was mostly a camera, and only partly a phone. It had great optical zoom, and a good sized lens. It was as good if not better than many dedicated pocket digital cameras. A bit bulky, but worth it because you don't have to carry around a phone AND a camera.

LOL! yeah i know watching TV in ur phone is pretty sweet but if u want to update ur phone u will have to replace it with a new one! get new apps on those phones ITS IMPOSIBLE!! I left japan in Oct 14/08 but seriously! those phones are outdated everymonth so its like using toilet paper for 300bucks. tell me the best cellphone its out there and put it vs the iphone. will do hardware and software fight. i can control my fucking pc by using my IPHONE vnc from the other side of the earth!!! IM SORRRRY that U dont own a iphone u would now what im talking about.

I have plenty of addon apps for my phone. Including an ssh shell where I can indeed get CLI access to my home server, I can also pull up my music server, and play my music. I don't use it often, because it's a pain to enter commands, but in emergencies, it's been handy. There's even a java development kit available for it, which means that if I knew Java (I don't), I could write, and upload, whatever program I wanted.

I suppose you could call it "IMPOSSIBLE!!" if you can't read Japanese, so perhaps you didn't know about addon apps for your phone because you couldn't navigate the docomo imode site and find them? I only ask because you're making claims that are just false.