Left-handed rulers?

The news had a short piece about the new products out in the stationary stores right now -- it is the start of the school year here in Japan, so the stationary stores have a lot of new stuff. One item caught my attention, mostly because I had never thought about it. It's a left-handed ruler, with the numbers running from right to left rather than the normal left to right. The guy who was explaining it showed us that a left-handed user holding it flat on the paper with the numbers at the top can easily start at his right and draw the pencil across to the desired length. He also showed us that the normal ruler makes left-handed kids have to either push the pencil, which doesn't work well, or start at the high numbers and subtract, which can be difficult for a youngster to get right. I never realized that the direction of the numbers on a ruler were biased towards right handed users, but when he explained it, it is obvious. Interesting.

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