On Wed, 26 Mar 2003 15:25:00
James Wentworth wrote:
>...My only objection is against those who want to push
>decimal-based multiples of the second ("metric minutes," "metric hours,"
>etc.). The 24 hour clock, like the 360 degree unit circle, is too
>universally ingrained to be seriously challenged.
? With all due respect, Jim, I'm sorry, but what sort of logic is that? If we were
to follow your rationale then forget about metricating the US because I'd bet that the
overwhelming majority of Americans would agree that ifp is 'too ingrained (in our
society) to be seriously challenged'!!!
> Besides, the "metric
>time" alternatives aren't enough of an improvement to be worth the trouble
>of trying to implement them. -- Jason
>
? Again, I beg your pardon? By this rationale then why should we abandon the
12-3-1760 ifp construct??? Alas, this is basically the same logic behind defending
this hideous 60-60-24 construct, just the numbers are different! Or are you saying
that as long as "conversion factors" are "friendly" numbers that it would be ok to
forget about decimalization? I sincerely hope not!
But it would suffice for one to start using a truly decimal time construct (ANY
construct) to see how many benefits it would emerge from its use! Just like mm, cm,
m, km etc are a huge improvement over in, ft, yd and mile.
I've been experimenting with my percentime "watch", for example, and I must confess, I
LOVE IT! No more navigating from stupid minutes to hours and back... What a breeze!
And associating and getting familiar with percentime chunks of time throughout the day
is another refreshing and quite easy experience!
My next move will be to get Swatch to perhaps offer me a variation of their "beat"
watch for me (all they'd have to do is move a decimal point in my case. This should
be an extremely easy and simple thing for their engineers to do for me! ;-) ).
Marcus
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Bill Potts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 3:07 PM
>Subject: [USMA:25332] RE: Battlestar Galactica (Re: metric clocks)
>
>
>> As I've pointed out here before, we already have SI (metric) time. It's
>> called the second. It is the only SI unit approved for that purpose.
>> Minutes, hours and days are non-SI units, approved for use with SI.
>>
>> For scientific purposes, we can use the unit symbol "s" with any of the
>> approved prefixes. (Even non-scientists are familiar with ms, 5s and ns.)
>> For keeping appointments and checking schedules, minutes, hours, months
>and
>> years are not really a burden. There's not a whole lot we can do about
>> months and years, anyway, as they're based on phenomena over which we have
>> no control. We don't control days either, but at least they're really
>close
>> to being uniform in length.
>>
>> Bill Potts, CMS
>> Roseville, CA
>> http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
>>
>>
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >Behalf Of James Wentworth
>> >Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 15:34
>> >To: U.S. Metric Association
>> >Subject: [USMA:25329] Battlestar Galactica (Re: metric clocks)
>> >
>> >
>> >I respectfully suggest that those who are interested in metric
>> >clocks should
>> >restrict their postings on the subject to Battlestar Galactica enthusiast
>> >newsgroups. (For those who may be unfamiliar with Battlestar Galactica,
>it
>> >was a late-1970s science fiction television show in which
>> >decimal-based time
>> >units [centons, microns, etc.] were used.)
>> >
>> >Metric time is a nice idea, but it has about as much of a chance of being
>> >adopted as Esperanto does of becoming the world language. T'ain't gonna
>> >happen. When I receive such posts, they are instantly deleted unread.
>> >Let's stick to SI, folks! -- Jason
>>
>
>
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