President's Day (GHWB)

A bunch of stories, including why we don't have the metric system in the USA. Also, 7 other things worth knowing today.

Quick note: A few people didn’t love Friday’s subject line. (“Why haven’t you responded?”) It was intended to be a joke about the guilt that people feel about not replying quickly to emails and texts and the like—but it might have fallen flat.

Some readers thought for a moment that I was adopting the hard-sell techniques of telemarketers and political f…