Max-- i think one reason cell phone were so slow to take off in US, was we had a huge infrastructure of land lines. and a 5 day wait for a new line was a long wait! In NYC, our crappy telephone company could often get 48 service installing a new line.
We had lots of phones, and lots of public phones, and beepers, and cell phones were just another layer of technology. even very remote places (biker mom has stopped in lately, and she live in a very remote part of country) had access (not always assets to pay for , but plenty of access to) phone lines.
As for $1 coins, i use them sometime, but i have about $5 in singles now, and they are weightless. 5 golden dollars weigh more!
and as for metric, it is used all the time, but no one thinking has changed. many cars are foriegn manufacture, and are metricly tooled, soda and liquor is sold in metric sizes (i buy 2 liter bottle of soda, not 64 oz.) offically we still don't use the metric system, but its creaping in everywhere!
