Metric Time

[filburt1]

It was done on The Simpsons as a joke (when Lisa joined MENSA), but is it really a good idea? I personally find the 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days, 365/366 days, 52 weeks thing retarded.

[nullus]

well you're not exactly gonna be able to change the number of days in a year but it does seem more sensible to have like 100 minutes in an hour, 10 hours in a day or something. i think i once worked out that the second would have to change to be like 0.8 current seconds (i was bored ) to do this. or something

[Bonker Gudd]

I reckon that we should remove all turtles from their shells to make a giant sail. This will be attached to the North Pole to slow down the Earth's rotation around the sun until there are exactly 1000 days in a year. At this moment George W Bush will be sent to the North Pole with an explosive device on his back, the explosion will mark "New World One Thousand Day" and everyone will drink Green Chateaus and eat Haddock.

[simonm]

Well, I think metric for hours, minutes and seconds would be a good idea but you can't change the number of days in a year. That's how many times the earth rotates in one orbit of the sun. What can you do about that?

As for seven days a week, I think it would be a good idea to change it to 10 days a week with a 3 day weekend! The religous minded amoung us might have something to say about it though, what will they do with their sabath?

[parksie]

They can take it and shove it right up **** *** ****** ***** :Eek:

[simonm]

Who's "they", Parksie?

[parksie]

The religious minded

[filburt1]

Originally posted by Bonker Gudd
I reckon that we should remove all turtles from their shells to make a giant sail.

Well, I'm human in real life, so I guess that's okay.

[filburt1]

Originally posted by nullus
well you're not exactly gonna be able to change the number of days in a year

True. Stupid solar system.

[NotLKH]

Well, we could help anybody out who wants a metric year
by making them live underground, cut off from the surface.
After a while, they'll forget they're orbiting the sun, forget about seasons and days, and THEN the can have their metric time system.


-Lou

[filburt1]

Of course, we'll be sure to slowly deprive them of oxygen, so they learn to adapt to the hostile environment.

[filburt1]

Originally posted by filburt1
It was done on The Simpsons as a joke (when Lisa joined MENSA), but is it really a good idea? I personally find the 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days, 365/366 days, 52 weeks thing retarded.

And don't get me started on the English system of measurements (does Britian only use Metric now?). Us Americans are stupid (ssh!) in that we STILL use that dumbass non-metric measurement system.

[InvisibleDuncan]

Originally posted by filburt1
And don't get me started on the English system of measurements (does Britian only use Metric now?).

Do you mean feet and inches, that kind of thing? We call that the Imperial system, and yes, we still mostly use it.

There's a furore at the moment because we've adopted EC legislation that says we must use the metric system in shops, and people are going a bit bonkers and saying that it's un-British. Well, so's decimal coinage, and we seem to have coped with that OK.

[NotLKH]

Hmm,

Well, when it comes to the measurement of Temperature,
I like Fahrenheit. Just think of it. He out of his way to
relate degrees of heat with the degrees used to measure
angles.

Heres why I say that.

32 degrees F is the temp water freezes and ice melts.
212 degrees F is the temp steam condensis and water evaporates.

going thru the whole cycle,

ice {melts} -> Water {Evaporates} = 180 degrees
and then
Steam {condenses} -> Water {Freezes} = 180 degrees

The total to go full circle = 360 degrees.

I like it!

And its nice to have things different from each other.
I'd hate it if the answer to everything was 1, 10, or 100!
BORING!

-Lou

[NotLKH]

One more thing!

Its great that the number of days in a month can be expressed
within the range of 1 to 2^5 - 1.

Very Binary!
Yaa, thats it, lets have systems of measurement based on powers of 2!

That'd be great!

-Lou

[parksie]

Originally posted by filburt1
And don't get me started on the English system of measurements (does Britian only use Metric now?). Us Americans are stupid (ssh!) in that we STILL use that dumbass non-metric measurement system.

We still use miles, but they prosecuted someone for selling groceries using ounces (bastards). I still prefer stone and miles, but centimetres and things like that.

It depends what you're used to - imperial for large amounts, metric for small.

PS: NotLKH - I heard something about 0 farenheit being the freezing point of saturated salt water...is this true?

[filburt1]

About the salt water thing: http://www.school-for-champions.com/...emperature.htm

[NotLKH]

Hmm,
I'm not sure if its true that you heard it.
Perhaps you did!


But as to if saturated salt water freezes at that temp,
Again, I don't know, and I have no Idea where to look that up.

But, if I had all the knowledge that I had in 11th grade, I could
propably figure it out.

For some reason, 28 degrees is sticking in my mind.
Of course, thats it.

Thats the freezing temperature of water when you have a water-
alcohol solution!

Take a gallon of vodka, put it in a metal basin,
place in a fridge at 27 or 28 degrees or colder, wait until it cools
down about 6 hours, drop an ice cube in it, all the water then
extracts itself from the vodka and freezes on the ice cube.

Nifty way to bump up the alcohol content of vodka to just about
100%


I'd rather research that instead of salt-water.

-Lou

[filburt1]

Originally posted by NotLKH
Take a gallon of vodka, put it in a metal basin,
place in a fridge at 27 or 28 degrees or colder, wait until it cools
down about 6 hours, drop an ice cube in it, all the water then
extracts itself from the vodka and freezes on the ice cube.

Nifty way to bump up the alcohol content of vodka to just about
100%

You do this often, Lou?

[CiberTHuG]

A friend and I went over this to find a way to change the calendar. We were looking for something that was not only accurate, but socially acceptable. I wanted something that borrowed from nature as much as possible so it could be recreated.

There are a couple of problems. The solar year is not an even number of solar days. The lunar month is also not an even number of solar days.

We did atleast figure out this much.

The year will have four seasons. The first season, just out of habit, it winter in the northern hemisphere. The calendar will start on the winter solstice (currently Dec 22). This is actually fixing the calendar, since when it was instituted Jan 1 was the winter solstice. Now we have the procession of the equinoxes, but no one bothered to update the calendar.

Each season will be 90 days long. There will be three months of 30 days in each season. That gives you 360 days. You have five more. Four of these days are holidays built on to the end of each season as the eve of the next season. They don't belong to a month, they are labeled with their function.

So you have:

Winter First Month (30 days): you can call this January if you want
Winter Second Month (30 days): Feburary?
Winter Third Month (30 days): March?
Spring Eve (1 day): This is the eve of the Spring Equinox
Spring First Month (30 days): April?

This continues for the whole year. You have one last day and your every-four-years leap day. I say you put them at the first day of Winter and the first day of Summer. And as we need to push the calendar up a day to keep up with the stellar procession, we drop one of those days.

What sucks about this calendar is we have 7 day weeks in 30 day months. You can have 3 10 day weeks or 5 6 day weeks, but no one wants to make that change. Also, the word month is derived from the same word for moon, but a 30 day month is in no way related to a nearly 28 day moon.

Anyway... I think our calendar is broke, but I can't come up with a good way to fix it.

[NotLKH]

filburt1,
Actually, Never have!

Been meaning to though!
Extract out the alcohol, mix with jello, mmmmm.

Jello Shots AnyBody?

BTW,

Fahrenheit used his body temperature as 100 degrees and the freezing temperature of saturated salt water as 0 degrees. He marked those levels on his thermometer and divided the scale into 100 parts for each degree.

Isn't that TOO coincidental to end up with the 360 degree
relationship that I pointed out?

Think he mislead somebody just to have a larf?

What does everybody think?
-Lou

[filburt1]

I think you run 12 firewalls at home you're so paranoid.

[parksie]

Hehe. Even I only run one

[filburt1]

I have one in my router. It is fun seeing all of the losers trying to scan my ports. @Home tends to do a lot of port scanning . Most of them are from 24.x.x.x, which is all @Home.

[CiberTHuG]

Originally posted by filburt1
I have one in my router. It is fun seeing all of the losers trying to scan my ports. @Home tends to do a lot of port scanning . Most of them are from 24.x.x.x, which is all @Home.

Is @Home doing the scanning, or other @Home users? In the last week I've seen a change in my cable MODEM's (RoadRunner) activity light, but no change in my connections. I imagine there is a lot of port-scanning with Code Red and the ilk.

[filburt1]

@Home is doing it. Either way, I don't really care, the firewall is blocking it and I have a virus checker with the latest definitions on each computer.

[aknisely]

In Canada we changed from Imperial to Metric in the 70's I believe. Thanks Mr. Trudeau. It's going to cost billions to get everyone educated about metric system, and companies to change all their labels and everything, but the whole world is doing it so we'll save money in the long run, right? Our biggest trading partner is the US. The metric system is the biggest curse ever to hit our country (well, second to communist health care and gun control). You people make me sick.

[filburt1]

The only problem you're saying is the CHANGE. If you (or anyone else, no offense) had started with metric in the first place, this wouldn't be a problem.

[siyan]

Don't mess with what works...it'll take a miracle to institude an entirely new time system. We might as well put up with what we have and insert an extra day every 2 millenia to get rid of the deficiencies in the current system...

-C

[Guv]

There have been intersting proposals for calendar reform whihc never got anywhere.

They all take advantage of 364 being evenly divisible by 7.

One proposal that did not have a chance suggested 13 months at 28 days each, resulting in 364 days.

A good proposal is 4 quarters at 91 days, giving 364 days. Each quarter would have 2 months with 30 days and one with 31 days.

Both of the above calendars have a world day as day 365. World day would not be given a day of the week like Monday, Tuesday, et cetera. It would simply be called World Day. For leap years, there would be an extra day called Leap Day (6 months after World Day), which would also not be considered a day of the week.

This allows each year (even Leap years) to start on a Monday and end on a Sunday. Every date of the year would fall on the same day of the week. With a little juggling, every holiday could be a Monday or a Friday. BTW: Each quarter would atart on a Monday and end on a Sunday.

The idea had a lot of merit. Religious groups lobbied against the idea. If it occurred even seven days, The Sabbath could not fall on the same day of the week due to World Day & Leap Day not being a day of the week. The first year, the Jewish Sabbath would fall on Friday nights & Saturdays, while the Christian Sabbath would be Sundays. The second year, the Christian Sabbath would be on Saturdays and the Jewish Sabbath would be Thursday nights and Fridays.

[InvisibleDuncan]

But who would want their birthday to be on the same day of the week every year? Fine if it's a Friday or Saturday, but Monday or Tuesday? No thanks.

[simonm]

Parksie

We still use miles, but they prosecuted someone for selling groceries using ounces (bastards).

All he had to do was label everything in metric as well as imperial and he would have been alright.

Guv

One proposal that did not have a chance suggested 13 months at 28 days each, resulting in 364 days.

Didn't the Vikings have 13 months?

[beachbum]

Didn't the Vikings have 13 months?

Eric the Red and Harold the Accountant have something in common??? Now that is a strange thought.

[nullus]

Originally posted by parksie
We still use miles, but they prosecuted someone for selling groceries using ounces (bastards). I still prefer stone and miles, but centimetres and things like that.

but do you actually fully understand things like stones? i mean, people in the UK haven't been taught imperial crap for about 20 years, so most young people's understanding of things like stones are that they know roughly what a person weighing 10 stones would look like. but if i were to give you a box with a bunch of weights in it, would you be able to tell me how many stones it is? or would you, like most other young people, measure that in kilograms?

the only imperial unit i have a good understanding of is the mile. i have a very basic understanding of feet and inches, but i can only picture distances given in those units up to quite small distances like 10 feet or 12 inches (length of a 30cm ruler, as well as a certain apendage on my person ). things like 75 feet or 60 inches lose me.

[HarryW]

The metric system is the biggest curse ever to hit our country (well, second to communist health care and gun control). You people make me sick.

Thank you for reminding me why I am glad I live in the UK.

I'm a (relatively) young person, and I don't have much problem with Imperial measurements. Feet and inches are fine, miles are okay (I know them better than Km), stones, pounds and ounces are fine, the only things I have problems with are gallons and fluid ounces. I have no idea what a fluid ounce is like. I just guess gallons based on there being 4.546 litres in an Imperial gallon, but I prefer litres.

For general use I don't have any problem with either system. For scientific purposes, though, metric has to be the preferred standard.

[NotLKH]

Yep.
Science definetely needs a universal standard of measurement,
since scientific research builds off of each other worldwide, and sharing
a common reference facilitates understanding and implimentation.

But world-wide society doesn't need a single method of measurement, {well, perhaps there should be a world-wide industrial standard}
Each country that has used a system of measurement for a long
period of time has encountered problems when they decide to switch it.
People aren't used to the new system is one problem. Of course they'll get used to it, many proponents of the new system would say.

I say, Why should they be forced to do so? What advantage to
an individual is there to change?

ALL systems of measurements are relative, there is no "BETTER"
system, {only more consistent, ie.. the metric, with everything
measured in tenths and tens}.
All systems of measurements are based on "The Wild Assignment"
method, where someone says, "Hmmm, The world seems to
be a good thing to base a system of measurement on. Lets make
a system where the width of the world = 1 m.w.u. {mega world unit} and base everything on w.u.'s. It certainly is one wayto do things, but is it better than doing a wild assigment using a light second?

My point is, as filburt1 pointed out, problems arise when one group forces their system as a standard, replaceing an old one with a new. If a car company is building cars that are 12.57 feet long, and the system of measurement changes, their cars are not going to change in length. BUT they are going to have to spend billions of dollars adapting their machines to the new system of measurement, $$$ changing all documents with the new system,
$$$ dealing with all the gripes their employees are going to have dealing with this pointless changeover, $$$ in loss of production, and so on.

IMHO, Why Change if what you have works?
-Lou

[beachbum]

IMHO, Why Change if what you have works?

Hence my Vic 20 purring along here...oops colour fade on the TV monitor... will have to finish this post later

[simonm]

Why Change if what you have works

Well, you may have a point. Especially for people who don't travel much. But, if you go abroad, not only is there a language barrier but also a unit of measurement barrier. If signs are in kilometres, weights are in kilos etc. then to an englishman abroard (or an American), it is an additional barrier to communication and understanding. At least we have a vague understanding of metric measurement (in the UK) but imaging what it must be like for a european comming to the UK. Total confusion, that's what.

I even think there is a good case for changing the side of the road we drive on here (not applicable to America I know but Australia?) so that we are the same as most of the rest of the world. Production lines that make cars have to be adjusted to cope with making cars for British roads which itself is an extra cost.

I think we should just have everything labelled in metric and imperial so that eventually, with time, imperial can be phased out as the older generations (who only understand imperial) won't have to adapt.

[NotLKH]

Hmm,

especially if you don't travel much

So, your point is to force change over time to prevent confusion
in the very few who DO travel alot internationally.
Changeing something for 100% of a group of people to benefit
less than a tenth of a percent of that groups population who
traval, is not logical.

Is there any benefit to changing a system of measurement that you can cite that would apply to more than .1 % of a population?

-Lou

BTW, since the topic is metric TIME, which in the last couple of posts I've ignored, There's this:

The system that is used to track days, months, years, IS the most accepted system of measurement ever established. EVERYBODY uses it. And those who don't, won't change what they do use to a new method anyway.
If we all effectively use ONE calander, imagine the confusion if EVERYBODY has to change to a different "metric calander"!
Again, what is the advantage, especially when there is no difference right now between a "Tuesday, August 7th, 2001" in the states, england, germany, japan, australia, mozambique, puru, antarctica, paraguay, mexico, canada, france, austria,
and so on.

-Lou

[nullus]

NotLKH, in the UK we have to use metric units for trading within the EU. therefore, products have to be measured/weighed in metric units (although you can still put imperial units on it too). it doesn't make sense to use 2 totally different measuring systems alongside eachother forever. firstly, it causes confusion (i doubt many people here fully understand either system because the two have been used alongside eachother for decades now). secondly, it costs too much for companies to use both systems (it's also been proven that using metric has saved businesses money).