Yearly review

[davidn]

On this day last year I was very surprised that the day had come around again so quickly already, which makes it even more shocking this time as it seems to have arrived even faster.

Today I'm alone, because Whitney is away in California. Previously this wouldn't really matter because I would have little to celebrate on this day apart from the way that some people left Britain a few hundred years ago and gave the rest of us some more room, but this is the first time I've been a Lawful Good US Resident of the country when the date has come round. So with that new title, I hope you won't mind if I offer some outsider's suggestions to make my adoptive country even better.

• It's the 21st century - it really is time to adopt the metric system. We got fed up with Imperial quite a while ago and have done our best to get rid of it, and everyone else in the world but Burma and Liberia know what metric is now. You can tell me it's 'unnatural' when you grow two extra fingers and six more toes.


• Change the way that you write dates - the one you use just now just makes no sense and is all out of sequence. If you want to really leap ahead, look to the Japanese and Scandinavians and use YYYY-MM-DD - you can sort it naturally numerically and everything.


• Speaking of the Scandinavians, stop bleating so much about socialism. A bit of it does you good.


• Chow fun and sushi are both lovely, even if they sometimes kill me a little - top marks for adopting these from their respective countries.


• I've actually got used to having denominations as low as $1 get a banknote to themselves, but you could do with varying their look a little because they take ages to sort through. I'm not saying they should become the Skittles-like rainbow explosion of the Euro notes, but a bit more of a difference would be nice. (And not just changing the $10 to orange. This doesn't help me.)


• You finally sorted your President situation. It's about time - well done.


• Start pronouncing the "h" at the start of "herbs". Honestly.


• While I'm on the subject, the same goes for the "l" in "solder".


• I like the size of your wall sockets, but they could do with an on/off switch (see diagram)


• Come up with some new television. Do you really need more than one programme about people with slightly large families, or about choosing a decent chef/fashion designer by process of elimination? Keeping this format and applying it to a slightly different profession like hairdressing does not count.


• The above suggestion of not filling the airwaves with entirely interchangeable garbage might result in the number of TV channels having to be reduced - to prevent adding to the already decently sized unemployment pile, train everyone involved up as medical assistants instead of plucking those off the streets with the irritating career adverts that the defunct channels used to run. That should sort out that shortage at the same time.


• Related to both the last two points, please stop talking proudly about your prescription medicine for your bladder/herpes/fungification in your adverts. I really can't describe how little I want to know about it.


• Consult with a British-Indian about the recipe for korma. Yours is very haphazard just now.


• Pizza delivery is good, keep it up.


• You've actually made some things that might even be called improvements to the language with things like altering the unwieldy and unspellable "manoeuvre", but I really can't accept discarding the noun forms of "practice" and "licence". Not after it took me so long to remember which way round the endings went.


• Also, make your mind up about whether it should be "centre" or "center".


• There's a type of cereal that you really might want to consider starting importing. See me for details.

Comments

[rachel-anne.livejournal.com]

I keep looking for the 'Like' button in livejournal.

Rachel likes this.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

Turning right on red is one thing that Clarkson mentioned that they got right.

Also they should not cancel intelligent quality programmes based solely on ratings as we all know a crowd is stupid no matter how many intelligent people they have in the bunch.

[davidn]

Yes! I'd forgotten about that - "America's only contribution to civilized society", according to him (which given the source is really pretty generous).

[(Anonymous)]

That's the way he said it. He is good with that sort of thing...you know....words.

Must remember the next episode is on on Sunday night.

re: metric and money

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

You can actually count to twelve on your fingers, or even twenty-four if you use both hands. Instead of using individual fingers to stand for one, you use your thumb to count along the three segments of your other four fingers, giving you space to count up to twelve (I saw Johnny Ball explain this on tv years ago, and it just kind of stuck). However, metric is far more sensible, so perhaps you should explain that the imperial system derives from the old custom of basing weights and measures on various parts of the ruling monarch's body, making the whole thing undemocratic, and thus un-American.

I understand that the business with the notes is actually a bit controversial. Having every note the same size, shape, colour and texture means that it is impossible for the visually impaired to tell them apart, so the entire currency is in breach of disability discrimination laws. Incidentally, I always find it amusing to hear Americans over here complaining about how confusing it is to have money that comes in different colours. I can see why it might take tourists a couple of days to get their heads round blue=£5 brown=£10 purple=£20, but it shouldn't be something that still causes distress to people who've been in the country for 3 or 4 years.

Re: metric and money

[davidn]

That's... counting visually in base three! Why would we teach something like that? Nevertheless, this is the biggest counting revelation to me since learning the finger method for working out the days in a month.

American money does have different texture per denomination, I think - at least, I've heard something about that but I've never really paid attention to them enough to know the difference. (I heard it described at first as "so that people couldn't give the wrong change to a blind person". If you give the wrong change to a blind person, then the problem doesn't lie with the money!) And it's not as if colour actually hinders telling notes apart - if you don't know the difference, then the numbers are still there...

Re: metric and money

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

I would have to disagree with you on whether or not the problem lies with the money. Yes, it's a problem if someone takes advantage of a blind person (or an old person, or just someone who has lost their glasses) by giving them the wrong change, but if you were that blind person, you wouldn't have been able to tell how much money you handed over in the first place without relying on someone else to tell you.

What's the finger method for working out the days in a month? I'm trying to figure it out, but can't see any way of relating it to the number of letters.

Re: metric and money

[davidn]

Hold out your hands in front of you, palms up. Ignoring the thumbs (so starting with the tip of the left index finger) count along to the right, counting each fingertip and each valley between fingers as a space. If a month's number falls on a fingertip, it has 31 days - if it's in a valley, it has 30 (or fewer).

I found this much easier to remember growing up than the (non-)rhyme.

Re: metric and money

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

But March and April both have the same number of letters and a different number of days...

Re: metric and money

[davidn]

It's the number of the month within the year, not the number of letters in its name! (And I still usually have to count out the months to get the number anyway - I've somehow never been able to remember their positions in the year offhand...)

Here's a diagram that explains it much better than me.

Re: metric and money

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, the US Supreme Court also disagrees (http://moneyfortheblind.com/) with you. They've been supposed to be changing it for quite a while. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7412051.stm)

Which should be good.

Re: metric and money

[davidn]

That first link sounds like a decent idea, though - especially as he points out that it's easy to modify notes like that yourself - I'd wonder how effective it would be on notes that may be damaged in other ways.

How many times have you had trouble seeing what bill you have in a dark place?

What are you doing handing money over to people in the dark...?

Re: metric and money

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Haven't you heard the old binary way of counting to 1023 on your fingers?

Re: metric and money

[davidn]

As it happens I have a note of each denomination just now, so I tested the textures. They are:

$1: Bit scratchy
$5: Bit scratchy
$10: Bit scratchy
$20: Bit scratchy

Perhaps I just made it up... or the difference might be more apparent to someone with a more developed sense of touch.

Re: metric and money

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

I think there have been complaints that there isn't enough differentiation in the textures, so it's very difficult to tell them apart even if you're used to relying more on your sense of touch. Considering that the texture of the notes changes with use anyway, it's not the most efficient way of making them less samey.

Maybe I'm still bitter that during my one visit to the States, I was short-changed by a whole $10 on the first day (I was 16 and that represented about 2 1/2 hours wages from my summer job) because I couldn't tell the notes apart quickly enough to realise that I'd been charged too much for an ice cream. During said summer job, I'd actually met American tourists who had been so confused by our money that they had to hold out a handful of it and ask me to take the right amount, so I was annoyed that their country didn't reciprocate my honesty.

[whinknee.livejournal.com]

It might be a little more respectful of your adoptive country if you made these suggestions on a day other than the 4th of July.

[davidn]

I think you're very well aware of the amount of respect I have for the country.

[the-twilighted.livejournal.com]

I don't know why but "I like the size of your wall sockets" reads like it should be said in a Southern accent. Southern US, I mean.

[davidn]

When isolated like that, it jumps out to me as the dullest sentence I've ever written. But it still probably isn't anything compared to the post I'm about to put up today.

[(Anonymous)]

I've actually got used to having denominations as low as $1 get a banknote to themselves, but you could do with varying their look a little because they take ages to sort through. I'm not saying they should become the Skittles-like rainbow explosion of the Euro notes, but a bit more of a difference would be nice. (And not just changing the $10 to orange. This doesn't help me.)

I'd like to remind you that the country you abandoned also had a note for £1, which is the right size :P.

[marcobiagi.livejournal.com]

This was on C4 today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Fish,_Two_Fish,_Blowfish,_Blue_Fish

It made me think of you.