Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by oneplane on Friday January 31, 2020 @04:01PM
(#22205671)
I think that's what they did in Canada and it worked out great as far as I can tell (except that they had a silly clock based on 10 hours instead of 12 IIRC which had little to do with metric units and nobody wanted it nor was it compatible with the rest of the world).
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I once tried to imagine a metric time system, with a deciday of 14.4 minutes. I realized that it would never catch on, because a half-hour TV show would have to be cut to 28.8 minutes losing at least 2 commercials.
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by jonas21 on Friday January 31, 2020 @10:33PM
(#22208460)
They actually tried this, during the French Revolution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar
It didn't catch on then either.
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by zokier on Saturday February 01, 2020 @06:31AM
(#22209987)
And again in the 90s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by zokier on Saturday February 01, 2020 @06:31AM
(#22209983)
14.4 minutes is a centiday btw. For decimal time I think milliday is the most reasonable unit, being very close to conventional minute.
In practice Mars might be the best opportunity for enacting decimal time, because Earth based units would be bit awkward on Mars.
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by mark-r on Saturday February 01, 2020 @12:14PM
(#22211630)
Thanks for the correction.
I suppose it depends on what your goals are; despite being officially metric, my Canadian and British friends still seem to exhibit a melange of imperial and metric in everyday life.
I notice sometimes when watching British television that stones are commonly used as a unit of weight, which is interesting because it's imperial, not metric, but I've seen never it used in American contexts.
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by Someone on Saturday February 01, 2020 @03:38AM
(#22209482)
“1 stone equals 14 pounds” is (also) British. It dates back to Edward III (1350). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(unit)#England.
The idea to use physical stones as reference weights is way older.
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by moron4hire on Friday January 31, 2020 @06:46PM
(#22207188)
That's because we don't use the Imperial system. The system we use is called "US Customary".
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by thrower123 on Friday January 31, 2020 @07:18PM
(#22207406)
Some metric units work well, and are scaled to human everyday measurements, and some are not.
Re:Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
by beerandt on Friday January 31, 2020 @09:30PM
(#22208186)
But the time thing goes to show the absurdity of people's frame of reference. The same people that judgingly ask why the US hasn't gone full metric will say how absurd the idea of base 10 time is.